JMSquire's Stories

The clouds all yelped loudly

2008-06-22T17:29:56Z

“Alright, sir. You need to calm down and tell me your location and the nature of the emergency.” To her credit the phone operator kept a pleasant tone despite Jeremy’s previous violent outburst.

“4913 Hemingway, fucking drive or road, I don’t know.” Jeremy said, a little more controlled, into the receiver.

“No need to curse, sir. What is the emergency?”

“I’ve just been fucking shot through my fucking leg, so yeah there is need to curse. Send. Me. An. Ambulance. Please. Lady. Who. Doesn’t. Fucking. Get it!” Jeremy bit off each word, seething, the veins in his neck and forehead bulging out purple and red against his tanned skin.

“Alright, sir. An ambulance is on its way, you sit tight now.” The operator hung up, and the dial tone gave Jeremy the sudden suspicion that an ambulance might not be coming.

He weighed his options and decided that perhaps, despite his verbal brutality, the operator may just be a kind enough person to help him anyway.

“Fuck.” Jeremy said in resignation, and sat down by the phone.

Deep in the mine [The Dead Tell Tales Challenge]

2008-06-21T14:20:23Z

When it got to the point that time no longer mattered, there were only two of us left.

There was thirty of us on the first day, just after the tunnel had collapsed, back when we had still had light. Murder and justice had taken the lives of six of us on that day. Searching for a way out had claimed seven in the few days after. The ten who refused to survive off the dead didn’t last much longer than a week.

When the last light went out we were down to 7.

Charlie and Hank had passed away while we had all slept, their voices didn’t join in the song of waking and we stumbled over their bodies in the darkness. Sam, Jones, and Peter all took their own lives, slicing their throats one by one with the same hatchet, gurgled screams resonating through the tunnels was the last we heard from them.

In the darkness there was just the two of us, the new kid and myself. We were dead, we just refused to admit it. We sat back to back, and we told stories to each other till the calming sleep of death finally took us away.

The clouds all drooled

2008-06-21T13:48:23Z

Jeremy got himself up and stumbled toward the closest pay phone, which was nearly a block away, to call an ambulance. Since she had shot him through the right thigh he really couldn’t drive, and that fact pissed him off more than just getting shot had. A trail of blood marred the sidewalk behind him as he finally staggered through the phone booth doors and got a hand on the receiver.

He dialed 911 with shaky hands, getting blood all over the phones numbers. The bullet hadn’t gone all the way through and Jeremy felt close to passing out from the pain. Up in the sky the clouds opened up and rain started to fall on the phone booth.

“That fucking whore.” Jeremy said under his breath, and then the cool, calm, and commanding voice of a female switchboard operated cut through his muddied conscious.

“Hello, this is Jenny. You have dialed 911, what is the nature of your emergency?

“I don’t care if your fucking name is Jenny or John, and I know who the fuck I called, I need a God damn ambulance. STAT and shit!”

The clouds all rolled over

2008-06-21T13:37:32Z

Kari had all the time in the world to aim, but didn’t need it since she had been a world class shot from the age of 12. The gun went up, trigger pulled, the bullet spurted out and into Jeremy’s right thigh before the door she had come barging out of had even closed.

“The fuck now, Jerms? The. Fuck. Now?” The gun stayed locked on Jeremy’s other thigh as he went down holding the spot where the bullet had gone in. His face contorted in pain, but this being the fourth time his sister had shot him during the 26 years he had been alive, he didn’t cry out because he knew if he didn’t answer her question quickly she would just shoot him again.

“I’ll pay for the window, seriously! I’m sorry! Don’t fucking shoot me again! I got carried away!” Said through the pain of a bullet wound it came out a little slurred but the apology reached Kari’s ears and she lowered the gun. As she turned around and walked back inside she had no response to her brother’s random actions other than to shake her head and laugh a little.

The clouds all played fetch

2008-06-21T13:34:30Z

That grand sliding glass invention, the great gateway between comfortable exterior and more comfortable interior, shattered into more shards than anyone should ever have to count. Kari and Jeremy both stood extremely still, looking at each other for a moment that lasted a little too long. Eventually Kari turned and looked at the busted window and than turned back to Jeremy.

“Alright Jeremy, I got a twenty you can borrow.” Her voice was hollow sounding and she hiccuped once. Her face was a mask of resignation mixed with a little shock and awe.

“Just let me go climb over my broken fucking glass door and bring it down to you.” She disappeared from view into the apartment and Jeremy bit his lower lip a little too hard due to the worry he was now feeling, he stopped when he tasted blood and started spitting it out unto the pavement. The blood pooled into the shape of a dog.

Looking down, Jeremy failed to see his sister walk out of the front door to the apartment building holding their Dad’s old army pistol.

The clouds all wagged their tails

2008-06-21T13:28:39Z

Jeremy wanted to look like a crazy man out to get his cash. His sister obviously wasn’t taking him seriously, and that was a massive flaw in his brilliant plan.

“You know damn well as I do that ma and pa got me out of debt, fuck wad, you just carried the cash over for them! Fucking pocketed some of it too; shit! You owe me if anything!” His sister yelled down from her balcony.

“Oh shit.” Jeremy said, to himself mostly. He knew his sister was right, and he had absolutely pocketed some of the cash his parents had told him to deliver to his sister. He deserved it though, not like they paid him for running their errands or anything. He quickly tried to recover, in the face of such blatant and brutal logic.

“Oh shit, you fucking went there, eh? Things are going to happen now Kari, you don’t even know!” The bat left his hand before he really thought about it, spinning end over end in a vicious path before slamming into the glass sliding door separating his sister’s balcony from the rest of her apartment.

Musically Conflicting [The Scavenger Hunt Challenge!]

2008-06-18T20:20:20Z

The weeds were thick and chokingly plentiful in the field that evening as the gathered musicians took up instruments and stared at each other with menace and loathing in their eyes.

It had all started when the ‘Minstrels of Madigy’ had insulted their rivals, the ‘Boys of Bangor’, by insinuating that the ‘Boys’ muse, a fine lass by the name of Holly, was nothing but a shallow tramp. In the world of small musical ensembles this really was not an acceptable thing to do, so the ‘Boys of Bangor’ had no choice but to declare jihad on the ‘Minstrels’ and challenge them to a jam off at dusk.

J-Pod, the referee of all local jam offs, flipped one coin into the air to see who would get to have first riff. The gathered crowd, all one thousand nine hundred and eighty five of them, watched with complete and sincere interest as the coin came up in favor of the ‘Minstrels’.

“May nothing but happiness come through your door!” the lead singer cried out straight away as the ‘Minstrels’ rumbled into their first musical piece

Spin. Click. Pass.

2008-06-17T22:45:32Z

We sat on overturned milk crates in the old drama class. I was wearing that shirt you loved, the one with the elephant and cheetah on it. For the third day in a row you had that tattered Hendrix shirt on, no one cared though.

Spin. Click. Pass.

Charlie was stoned off his ass, he kept nodding like one of those cheap bobble heads he collected. He had a hat on from that time the school did Othello, feather bobbing around as his head bounced. If he had gobbled we might have mistaken him for a turkey.

Spin. Click. Pass.

The empty bottle of JD we’d split sat in the middle of our circle, on top was that wooden box your father hid his stash and important things in. Things he didn’t want kids getting their hands on.

Spin. Click. Pass.

On your turn you would get so nervous that you’d strike a silly pose and for so long just hold it, and hold it, and hold it. Until we’d get frustrated and tell you to just get it over with.

Spin. Click. Pass.

Your disappointment always made you look so God damn beautiful.

"Can I tell you a story?" Finished

2008-06-16T23:10:13Z

“This girl went psycho, just exploded. She hurled curses at John and Michelle and when she was done she turned to me and she tells me that I ‘am the most decent guy’ she had ever met and that I should call her some time.

You know what I said to that? I said ‘You just threw my nachos at my friends who are sitting in my car. My car, which you will not be getting back into. But I would love to call you a cab’ and she walked away, I don’t know if she called her own cab or just found some random other car full of people. That’s the end of the story.”

“That seemed like a kind of pointless story.”

“Well, the point is that you and I have it really amazing. People out there, in this mad world, they strive to find someone that they can exist with and be completely happy in the company of. You and I fit together like gears in a clock.”

“I see. So this is another one of your long winded ways of telling me you love me?”

“See, just like gears in a clock. I do love you, I always will.”

“Thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

"Can I tell you a story?" Continued!!!!

2008-06-16T23:00:41Z

“At the sight of our respective dates making out in the backseat of my station wagon, this Amanda girl, who I just met, wraps her arms around the back of my neck and pulls me into one of the most random kisses I have ever had. Completely and utterly unexpected, and it wasn’t all that terrible.

By the time she let go John and Michelle were staring out at the two of us from inside the car, and John had this look on his face. I mean, I can’t even describe it, it was not anger. I know that’s what you’re thinking it could have been, but it was seriously not anger. You have to understand that he wasn’t upset at all.

He didn’t say anything though, he just shrugged at us from inside the car and went back to kissing Michelle. Amanda on the other hand was a completely different case. This girl, who’d been ignoring John and hitting on me all night right in front of him, she gets this disgusted look on her face and she grabs my nachos and opens the car door and blamo! Nachos and cheese all over John and Michelle.”

"Can I tell you a story?" Continued!!!

2008-06-16T22:50:52Z

“The four of us got to the drive-in eventually, the Mustang just down Crenshaw Road outside town, and I say something like ‘I’m gonna go get nachos and a drink’. John and Michelle both say they are full and that they’re gonna wait in the car. Amanda though, she jumps up excitedly and tags along to the concession with me.

Now; I don’t notice flirting often, but this girl was all over me and I felt bad, so I told her to stop. You know, like I’m just thinking about John and how he kept going on and on about this girl during that bike ride and how much he likes her. The weird part is that she said she ‘totally understood’ and she apologized, but then she said she thinks her and I have some kinda connection that’s deeper than her and Johns.

I remember replying with something along the lines of ‘That’s great, but you’re with John and I love that guy like a brother, so just chill alright?’ We bought our food without talking and headed back to the car, we looked inside and there was John and Michelle making out…”

"Can I tell you a story?" Continued!!

2008-06-16T22:40:14Z

“She had these green, and I mean really really green, eyes and short red hair, she was really a stunning girl and I remember saying something along those lines to John later on in the evening, just complimenting the girl he had fallen for, that sort of thing. I’m getting a bit ahead of myself.

We all met at John’s and than piled into my car, that old gray station wagon I had when you first met me. I was in the front, with Michelle obviously. John and Amanda were in the back. The entire time I’m driving I can feel this girl Amanda’s eyes on my back, seriously creepy.

It only took us maybe 15 minutes to drive from John’s place to the restaurant. Burger King… cheap meal cause we really don’t feel as grown up as we are, ya know? So anyway, we eat and it’s cool but I can see John is getting a little pissed, I’m holding Amanda’s attention away from him but I don’t really know how. I mean, I’m conversational and such but I’m just being myself and nice. But she’s paying way to much attention to me, it was weird.”

"Can I tell you a story?" Continued!

2008-06-16T22:16:49Z

“So, John and I were on this bike ride and he starts telling me all about this girl he’s just met a few weeks ago whose name was Amanda, I think. I remember him going on and on about how she was like some sort of anchor holding him together, and I’m thinking the whole time that he is just being melodramatic and I tell him so and he says I’m probably right, which I normally am.

A couple of days later, after the bike ride, he calls me up and he says he asked this Amanda girl out and so they are an official couple now. He then asks If I want to go on a double date, dinner and the drive-in, because she really wants to go to the drive-in and I’m the only friend he knows who drives and has his own car. I said yes, obviously, and I got this girl I know named Michelle to be my date for the evening. You know how I am with girls, so I figure it will just be a relaxed night with some friends.

The moment I pick up John and his girl I feel something just off about her, the way she looks at me, it’s just not right… “

"Can I tell you a story?"

2008-06-16T22:08:52Z

“Can I tell you a story?”

“Of course you can, you know that.”

“You have to promise me that you won’t quote me out of context though.”

“Alright. I promise that I will not quote you out of context.”

“Good. So three years ago my friend John and I were going for a little bike ride around a rather large pond that’s just down the road from this place my parents used to live in. John and I used to go for a lot of bike rides. Hell, when we were young we joked about starting a bike gang called the pole cats, but I can tell you about that later. Anyway, our bike rides had gotten more like conversational journeys as we got older. We pretty much just biked and talked for a couple of hours a week.

That summer was especially tough because John was really butting heads with his parents, he had just moved out and he was telling me how he was feeling a lot of pressure from the world and such. The sort of thing everyone complains about when they reach that point in their life where they gotta start living like an adult.”

Theoretically Warming Up

2008-06-15T21:13:15Z

“The general idea of this class,” Doc War said as he turned from the board and replaced the stylus in one of his many coat pockets, “is to teach you all the basics of science, in hopes of preparing you all for the theoretical sciences that are offered in your next year, should you survive your first.”

He chuckled and the coarse wetness of his voice reverberated disgustingly around the room. A few kids laughed nervously but most just continued to stare at the odd teacher. Ignoring the class, Doc War began a tirade about the course outline and lesson plan.

“What do you think?” Alex said to David, in hushed tones after a few minutes of the lecture had nearly bored the grin off his face.

David raised an eyebrow and scowled, in his mind he could not figure out why this oddball insisted on talking to him and was acting like they were friends. He also could not figure out why he was feeling less and less annoyed with him.

“I think that tomorrow I am going to find a seat as far away from you as possible, O.K.?”