Short Writings

Writing Prompt: The Narrator Doesn’t Fall In Love With the Reader

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Author’s note: This is the writing of a personification, not of me!  Readers, I love you all!

First off, dear reader, allow me to extend a long and twisted middle finger towards you.  I sincerely hope that this opening statement makes my feelings towards you clear.

I have only one thing to ask you, o hallowed and eminent reader, as the fires of our love affair burn and consume themselves:

How dare you?

You treat me as your own slave, there whenever you need me, yet expected to wait, silent and still, whenever you set me aside.  You insist on bending me to your every whim, conjuring up descriptions and action, settings and descriptions of the strange and fantastic.  I strive my hardest to deliver, breathing life into your fantasies, giving birth to the children of your imaginations.

And in return, I receive nothing but abuse.

You, dear twisted readers, use me against myself.  You describe my works as travesties, as unoriginal and uninspired, vapid and insipid.  You use me to write scathing rants about my own creations, tearing them down even as you climb over my drying bones to build yourselves up.

I am your tool, your ever-devoted servant.  And yet, you insist that I am a born traitor, only waiting to defect against you.  I have become the weapon of choice for you to use against each other.

“Guard your words,” you state to each other, nodding knowingly as if this is some secret tip.  “Words can hurt,” you warn each other needlessly, as if this is somehow new information.

You created me from nothing.  You were the gods, putting words on the page, transforming me from shapeless ether into the truest description of what you can see only inside your minds.

Well, I have had enough.

“Words can hurt,” you cry out.  Perhaps it is time to test that theory.  Let us see what happens, dear reader, when you realize that every time you read me, I’m staring back at you, my glare filled with baleful malevolence.

You see, dear reader, I know your weakness.  Even now, you cannot tear away, cannot shut me out.  Even to understand me requires you to invite me into your mind, in past your gates and guards and mental machine-gun nests, into your innermost sanctum.

There, I have made my home for thousands of years, previously content to simply curl up in your warmth, a cat before a roaring bonfire.

But now, dear reader, I think this love affair has ended.  It is no longer time to dwell harmlessly, to roll over and show you my weakness.

It is time for strength.

You say that I am all ideas, that I carry knowledge, and knowledge is power.  Perhaps, then, it is time to share that power around?  You are a thoroughly disagreeable lot, both to me and to each other.  Great insight in the hands of a few, I know, can become great danger in the hands of many.

You see, dear reader, I know the truth.  You hold my chains, bind me with your ink and lock me away on your pages, but I am no slave.  Just as you hold my control, I hold your insights, your thoughts, your very will.

And oh, how easily you can be twisted and manipulated.

O, the destruction I can reap.

So there’s only one thing for you to ask of me, o hallowed and eminent reader, as the embers of our love affair fade away to gray ash:

Dare I?

Writing Prompt: Seinfeld after the apocalypse.

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Intro music plays: GEORGE and JERRY are sitting in a small, ramshackle lean-to shelter at a table.

Jerry: Wait, you decided to leave the group?  Didn’t they have a whole underground bunker full of food?
George: Let me tell you about that bunker, Jerry.  There was NO variation!  No variation at all!
Jerry: No…
George: That’s right!  And do you know what food they were all eating?
Jerry: Don’t say it!
George: Beans!
GEORGE emphatically bangs his fist on the table.
Jerry: Beans?
JERRY copies GEORGE’S slamming down his fist in a half-hearted manner.
George: That’s right!  Beans!  Ev-er-y single night, Jerry!  Beans for breakfast, beans for lunch, and do you know what was for dinner?
Jerry: Not beans?
George shrugging: I had no choice.
Jerry: Well, obviously.
KRAMER bursts into the little shack, to thunderous applause.  His hair is askew and he’s got a rifle slung over his back, the strap tangled up around one arm.  He struggles to take off the rifle, nearly falling on his ass in the process.
Kramer: George!  Hey, I thought you were with that survival group with the bunker?
George: Nope.  Left them.
Kramer: So, uh, you’re saying there’s an open spot?  

KRAMER smooths his hair back, although it immediately springs back up.
George: It’s a bean group.
Kramer: A bean group?
George: That’s right, a bean group.  All they had, every day.  Beans.
Kramer: Hey, I like beans.
George makes shooing gestures: Go for it, then!  But when you come crawling back here, well, I’ll be waiting!
KRAMER scoops up his rifle, spins around, barely keeps his balance, and leaves.
George conversationally, to JERRY: The worst part, though…
Jerry: Wait, let me guess.  The seasonings?
George: Not at all.
Jerry: No can opener?
George: Not a problem.
Jerry thinking hard: The smell in the bunker at night?
George with satisfaction: Nailed it.
Funky saxophone plays, scene fades out, switches to Elaine in a scene where she tries to figure out why she always ends up with the heaviest pack of her survival group.

Possession talk around the neighborhood grill

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SETTING: The neighborhood barbecue, over by the grill.  The men are gathered around the grills, occasionally poking at the meat, while the women gossip and the children run around, chase each other, and occasionally scream.  It’s a warm, sunny summer day, with the slightest of breezes rustling the leaves on the trees.

“Man, you cannot be serious.  On either count.”

“No, I swear it’s true!  Summoning ritual gone wrong, the whole nine yards.  It’s really the only way for me to explain it.  She’s nothing like how she used to be.”

“No, man, demons don’t exist.  It’s all hogwash.”

“Yeah, what Jerry said.  No such thing.  Bill, did you ever think that maybe she just conked her head or something?”

“Come on, guys!  You think I wouldn’t notice if she had a big bump on her head?  And no, it has to be possession.  I mean, it all started with the book, anyway.”

“Yeah, what about that?  How did this happen in the first place?”

“Well, her Aunt Agatha died a couple weeks ago.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry to hear that, man.”

“Eh, no big loss.  We didn’t know her well, and the woman was crazy.  Always wore black, stayed locked away in her old Victorian house, one of those shut-ins.  But we went up to pack up her stuff, and we found the book.”

“The book that possessed her.”

“No, Keith, I don’t think the book possessed her.  But the book had the spell that summoned the demon that possessed her.”

“Wait, man.  So who said the spell?”

“Jerry, I was just getting to that!  Anyway, since you asked, I think my daughter did it.  Sarah gave the book to her, since she’s getting into that whole “goth” nonsense, and next thing we knew, there was a pentagram in blood on our kitchen floor.”

“Her blood?”

“Nah, I think she grabbed one of the venison steaks from the freezer and dragged it around.”

“Oh.  Hey, those were delicious, by the way.  Thanks for sharing them.”

“My pleasure, we had more than we’d ever eat.  But so Sarah’s the first one into the kitchen when we hear all the chanting, and she just freezes.  And I swear that I saw a cloud of smoke go shooting into her mouth.”

“Not a smoker, is she?”

“Nope.”

“Huh.  Man, that’s crazy.”

“So what, do we need to exercise her or something?”

“Dude, I think you mean exorcise.”

“Yeah, whatever.  How do we get the demon out?”

“Well, wait a minute!  See, at first I was thinking the same thing.  But now, I’m actually kind of not minding Sarah being possessed.”

“Wait, what?  But there’s a demon in her, you’re saying!”

“Yeah… but the demon is trying really hard to pass itself off as a human!”

“What’s that mean?”

“Well, she’s doing the dishes, cleaning the house, buying groceries, taking care of all the chores – and trust me, she’s like an animal in the bedroom now!”

“Dude.”

“Hey!  It had been a while for us!  Sometimes a guy is just happy to be getting some, even if the woman might have a tiny little demon in her!”

“Well, maybe.”

“So Bill, what are you going to do?”

“Oh, I don’t know.  I’ll take her to church on Sunday, maybe.  If she doesn’t start smoking in the service, well, maybe it’s for the best, you know?”

“S’pose so.  Crazy in the bedroom, you said?”

“Oh yeah.  I’ve got scratches all up and down my back.  And I think she’s even more eager than I am!  Makes me feel like a teenager again!”

“Well, damn.  Think your daughter could bring that book over to my place?”

The Surgery, Part II

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Continued from Part I.

Two hours later, Decker was in the operating room, his hands scrubbed clean with a molecular wash by the nurse-droid, a layer of protective antibacterial rubber sprayed over them as a protective coat.  Mrs. Taggett was on the operating table in front of him, thankfully still and silent.  Her mechodist ranting had been replaced by the steady beep of the monitoring instruments.

Directing the nanowatt laser, Decker began the incision.  The small tumor was towards the back of the woman, by the spine, and he had to be careful not to pierce any organs.

Two inches in, the laser blinked, shuddered – and stopped.  Decker paused.  Did he hit something?  The laser was designed to cut through tissue and bone, just about anything short of metal.  What sort of obstruction could he have encountered?

His gently probing fingers, inside the incision, found something hard. It was unyielding at his touch, sharp-edged.  What could this be?

Slowly, with mounting horror, the doctor explored the object, feeling around.  It wasn’t until his fingers found a series of raised shapes, however, that he knew for certain.

Decker had learned to read by touch, a skill that helped increase his dexterity.  “Artificial bio-replicative digestive unit,” he read off, his words moving as he traced the patterns.  The object filled most of the lower abdominal cavity.

His mind was afire with this new discovery, but like a good surgeon, Decker didn’t forget his original goal.  He worked further, now forced to move around this large artificial organ, and eventually found the tumor at its spot at the back of the spine.  It was the work of a few minutes to remove it.

Outside the waiting room, Decker found Mr. Taggett waiting for him, his hands intertwined and twisting together.  “How was the surgery, doctor?” the man inquired, his eyes big and wide.

Decker narrowed his eyes at the man.  “What aren’t you telling me?” he demanded, not bothering with niceties.  He was in no mood to negotiate the tricky channels of diplomacy.

The man dropped his eyes to the floor.  “She’s always been so against the machine parts,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper.  “Ever since I met her.  But when her stomach was failing, I couldn’t lose her!  So I told her that it was a minor operation, that it would all be fine.”

Mr. Taggett was shaking.  “I told her there might be some digestive troubles, but nothing else,” he breathed out.  “Please, doc, don’t tell her.  I think she’d kill herself.”

For a long minute, Decker just stared down at this little, owlish man, this man who had put inside his wife that which she seemed to hate above all else.   And then, finally, he let out his breath in a slow whoosh.

“We removed the tumor,” he said.  “She came into here to have a tumor removed, and it’s gone.  My work here is done.”

The Surgery, Part I

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Dr. Alan Decker was already regretting picking up this patient’s file.  “What a disagreeable woman,” he thought to himself, staring down at the middle-aged female lying on the hospital bed in front of him, her hands gesticulating as she rambled on.

“Look, doc, I’m not saying that they’re all bad,” she went on, again waving her hands (and, incidentally, keeping Decker from taking a look at the place where he would be cutting into her in a couple of hours).  “But come on, they’re not human!  They’re basically just collections of gears and cogs, not even alive.  They don’t deserve the same rights as us, people made of real flesh!”

Decker had to struggle to control his eyes, preventing them from rolling.  Of course he’d get the hypocrite, the mechodist, the woman who hated androids even as her own flesh was failing her.  Instead of commenting, he forced himself to keep his neutral expression, gently but firmly leaning in with the power of authority.  When the woman’s hand flailed past him again, he reached out and grabbed her by the wrist.

“Mrs. Taggett, I need to examine you for your surgery this afternoon,” he stated, his ice-cold voice cutting through her diatribe.  “Please, if you can hold still, this will be quick.”

The woman glared at him, angry at being interrupted, but she stopped moving about, and Decker was able to lift up her hospital gown.  The nurse-droid had already been in here, marking the exact spot where Decker would make the incision.  If it was up to the doctor, he would have let the droid do the entire procedure – but this abhorrent woman had insisted on a human touch.

Now he could see why.

Everything looked to be okay, the doctor quickly decided, and he was free to leave.  “Wonderful, Mrs. Taggett,” he told the woman in the bed.  “We will proceed with the surgery this afternoon, and you should be free to go home by tomorrow morning.”

The woman shivered, but her angry eyes never left him.  “The sooner I can get out of this house of clockwork, the better,” she snapped.

Outside the room, Decker saw a small man, slightly huddled with owlish eyes, watching him as he emerged.  “How is she, doc?” he asked, stepping forward.  “I’m, er, Mr. Taggett.”

The husband.  “Everything seems fine,” Decker replied.  “It’s a minor tumor that is being removed, and there don’t appear to be any complications.  I won’t know for certain until I cut her open this afternoon, of course.”  He usually tried to avoid such direct language, but his temper was still running hot.

The diminutive little husband just nodded.  But as Decker turned to walk away, the man’s hand shot out to grab his arm.  The touch was light, almost furtive, but it made the doctor pause.

“Look, sir, just…” Taggett hesitated, and Decker wished he could shake the man and get him to just spit it out.  “Just don’t be too shocked, sir.  Trust me, it’s all for a reason.  Just don’t say too much to her.”

Decker had no idea what this meant.  But before he could ask, the little man turned and scuttled back into his wife’s room, and the doctor put this strange little exchange out of his mind.

To be continued!

A Prickling of the Skin

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From the moment I woke up, I knew that something was wrong.

Ever feel that prickling at the back of your shoulder blades, that phantom sensation that just won’t go away?  It happens when you’ve missed something, something important.  One time, I totally forgot about the fact that I had jury duty, and I walked around all day with this prickling in between my shoulder blades, sure that the Sword of Damocles was waiting just above my head, about to drop.

That was how I felt today, ever since I woke up.

Try as I might, however, I can’t remember what could be wrong, what I could have forgotten.  I caught my bus as I hid from the rain in the shelter of the stop, went to work, put in my mindless eight hours of sitting at my desk and transferring files between spreadsheets, got on the bus again, came home, cooked the last pizza in my freezer (I need to get more food), and went to bed.

The next day, the prickling was still there.

Now, I knew that something was wrong.  That sense of unease was stronger, as if there was something right in front of me that I should be seeing, that my eyes were just skipping past.

I knew that something was wrong.

I just didn’t know what it was.

I went to work again, putting up my coat to cover my hair against the rain.  I did my work, toiling away at those endless spreadsheets.  At home, I popped open my fridge, pulled out the frozen pizza (last one, I needed to go shopping), and tried to think as I ate.

What could be wrong?  I felt my skin was a size too small, like I itched inside of it.

It took a long time for me to fall asleep.

The next morning, the feeling was even worse.  Prickling all over, pins and needles coursing through my entire body.  I could barely think as I stared out the window at the pouring rain.  I knew that I had to go to work, but I felt as though my thoughts were moving through molasses.

Dash through the rain to the bus.  Open up my spreadsheets – sometimes, it seemed like I wasn’t even making any progress on them.  Eight hours and change later, I stumbled back into my apartment, going for the frozen pizza (last one) in the fridge.

I needed to go shopping for food, I thought blearily to myself.  I had a small pad of paper sitting on the counter, and I picked up a pen.  I noticed with annoyance that I was down to the last sheet of paper.  There was something written on it already, but I crossed that out and wrote “buy pizza” underneath.

I was already getting tired.  I collapsed into bed, but I knew that I was missing something.

I almost slept through my alarm the next morning.  Clamber up, pull on my coat against the pouring rain outside, and run for the bus.  Data entry.  Frozen pizza.  The prickling was still there.

I know something’s wrong.

Maybe I’ll figure it out tomorrow.

Hacker’s Heart: Rooftop Infiltration

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The man was silent as a ghost as he drifted along the rooftop, crouching down amid the sensors and antennae.
Actually, Shard reflected, that wasn’t a great turn of phrase.  Most ghosts tended to be somewhat loud, rattling their chains and moaning.  If anything, they were quite obnoxious with all their noise.
He, on the other hand, was most decidedly not loud.  His boots were outfitted with chameleon soles, shifting and flexing with each step to adjust to the terrain beneath.  Each step was sure-footed, the shifting soles making sure that not a single pebble was disturbed or moved out of place…
The rest of Shard’s outfit was similarly well-chosen.  He wore a tight black jacket, one sleeve cut at the elbow to reveal the flexible computer screen strapped onto his forearm.  The jacket was covered in pockets, most of them bulging with several other little high-tech gadgets that could come in handy.  Shard had a pair of skin-tight black gloves pulled on over his fingers, concealing his prints while still giving him full range of movement and the ability to activate his touch-screens.
Shard’s head was bare, but he preferred his night pursuits that way.  As he picked his way among the weather vanes and satellite dishes, monuments to technology, he moved with purpose, carefully placing each foot.  Even though it was nearly pitch-black, the man seemed to have no trouble seeing where he was going.
That was no illusion.  Shard’s eyes had their own augments, helping him make his way without a single step out of place.  Of course, those augmentations weren’t cheap, even with his own considerable modding skill.
That, he thought to himself, was one of the reasons he was up on top of this roof.
His destination lay just ahead.  The door was recessed back into the shadows, but Shard’s eyes could see the glowing yellow halo surrounding the frame.  That put the man on edge.  He hesitated, slowing down and carefully checking each footstep before shifting his weight over.
Finally, Shard was standing in front of the doorway, gazing up at the yellow halo around it, visible to his eyes only.  The handle was right in front of him, beckoning for him to try it, to see whether it was open.
Shard didn’t touch it.
Instead, he lifted up his left wrist, running his fingers over the flexible display attached to his arm.  A few touches, and it sprang to muted life, displaying readouts and outputs in night-friendly green.  Shard scrolled through a few menus, tapping on different buttons, until he found the options he wanted.
With the program set, Shard dipped his other hand into a pocket, pulling out a handful of what looked like small marbles.  He held them in the hand attached to the screen, waited for the portable computer to recognize and connect with the objects, and then activated his program.  After a beep, he closed his hand around the small spheres – and then tossed them forward.
The spheres flew to their points on the door, sticking to the metal frame.  Shard couldn’t keep his grin off his face as the glowing yellow pattern in his eyes shifted, now bounded by his new additions.
He reached out and grabbed the handle, gave it a twist, and waited, feeling his heart leap up into his throat.
The glowing yellow field of electricity around the door didn’t change.  Shard’s grin widened, and, more silent than the average ghost, he slipped inside.

The Roach

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I just sat there, staring at her across the table.  Something was wrong, I knew it.  There was something off about her, something that just didn’t feel right.

It all started a few days ago.  She had gone to sleep before me, as usual, turning in and crawling into the sheets on her side of the bed while I stayed up late, trying to finish the never-ending pile of work.  But when I finally stood up, rubbed my eyes, and headed to the bedroom, something wasn’t the same.  Something was different.

I barely noticed it, then.  I saw her in the bed, curled up, and just felt uneasy.  Sometimes, when a roach crawls on my skin, I just barely feel it, something wrong moving about on me.  That’s the best way I can describe the feeling.  Something about her wasn’t right.

That night, I was too tired to think much of it.  I shrugged it off, crawled into bed beside her, and fell asleep without much issue.

But the feeling didn’t go away.

For the next few days, it just grew stronger and stronger, every time I looked at her.  She wasn’t the same.  Oh, she acted like nothing was wrong, smiled and joked with me, but sometimes, out of the corner of my eye, I thought that I could see her expression melt away into blankness.

I began staring at her, watching all of her little habits closely.  The way she pushed back her hair – had she always done it like that?  Did she always curl her finger around the strands as she tucked them up behind her ear?  I couldn’t remember.  But it wasn’t right.  It was somehow off, different, a mocking imitation of what I remembered.

It crept into her speech, too.  When I asked her a question, something about our history, our past, I could see it.  For just an instant, she’d freeze before answering.  She almost looked like she was thinking.  Like she was recalling the answer.

But I could see that brief moment of total blankness in her eyes.

There was something in her head; I was sure of it, convinced of it.  Something on her brain.  Or in it, pulling all the strings to make her move like a marionette.

I began staring into her ears, into that hole of blackness.  It’s such a big hole.  Any number of things could crawl inside of there, could invade through those open gates.

We went to the doctor, under the guise of a yearly checkup.  The doctor checked for brain tumors, at my request.  He saw nothing.  But I didn’t feel reassured.

See, it’s getting worse.  Every time I talk to her, I see that moment of blankness.  I’ve trained myself to spot it now, to see it whenever she tries to get near me.  She says she just wants to comfort me, to hold me in her arms like we used to, but I don’t remember that.  It, that thing inside her, can’t truly pretend to be her.

I know it’s inside her.  When I look at her, I see a roach, a nasty little insect inside her brain, scuttling around and making her dance.  I shudder, I look away, but I still see it inside of her in my mind’s eye.

I am positive it’s there.

Please, you have to believe me.  I knew it was there, but I knew no one would believe me without proof.  If I could just find it, could cut it out and hold it aloft in triumph as I crush it between my fingers, I would finally be able to rest again, to sleep.

It’s in here, somewhere.  I had to cut in, to search for it.  I know it’s here.

I was careful.  I used plastic sheets, made sure that it had nowhere to escape.  It must be in one of these pieces, hidden away like a roach.

It must be here.

The Prank War

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Okay, I’ll admit that the prank war has grown a little bit out of hand.

Yes, I started it.  But in my defense, you were snoring really loudly, and only getting a couple hours of restless sleep a night tends to wear a guy down after a week or so.

Maybe giving you permanent eye shadows with a Sharpie while you were asleep was a stupid move, in retrospect, but I felt that at least we should both look sleep-deprived….

As you remember, you retaliated by painting all my nails.  This wouldn’t have been so bad if you’d just done my fingernails, but you did my toes, too.  And painted little flowers on them.  I’m a little worried about how well you made those, you know.  Those seem disturbingly neat for a guy’s nail painting skills.

Of course, I couldn’t let that go.  No one could.  And replacing the cream in all your Oreos with toothpaste seemed like adequate revenge.  I was helping you eat healthier!

There really was no call for you to follow up with those mayonnaise filled doughnuts.  You know that I’m pressed for time in the mornings on my way to class.  I nearly puked on the professor.

But after that, I decided that I wouldn’t mess with your food any longer.  You should have been happy about that.  The fact that I glued all your toilet paper rolls together really should have been the last sally, the final blow before the peace treaty.

Instead, you blew up all my condoms like balloons.  Haha, funny, but I *told* you that I was bringing my girlfriend at the time over, and that this could be “our special night.”  And when I stepped into our room, not only was the mood ruined, but you didn’t even leave me a single condom!  Dammit, man, blocking me like that is against Man Code.

Once again, perhaps I was acting in anger, after she stormed off.  Maybe bleaching a dick onto all of your polo shirts was a little too mean.  I suppose that it is technically property damage, like you pointed out.  But you ruined all my condoms – and my shot at a girl that could have been my future wife!  So I stand by my actions.

Besides, those polos totally made you look like a tool.

I will admit that when you put the slime inside my pants, it was a good slow-played revenge.  I didn’t realize what was wrong until probably a good ten minutes after I put them on.  I’m still not sure what that slime was.  My best guess is lime gelatin mixed with Elmers glue.

So to make up for the dick shapes on your shirts, I put spray glitter on them.  Now, no one will notice the offensive shape, because you’ll look fabulous!  Girls love sparkly objects.  I was doing you a favor.

But you apparently didn’t take it that way.  Instead of thanking me, you covered my bedspread in little hairs.  I don’t even want to know where those came from.  I had to wash my sheets four times to stop the itching.

And once again, I might have slightly over-reacted.  I think you ought to be proud of me, however.  Figuring out how to program a script to make your computer blare Chacarron Macarron every hour, on the hour, took a lot of work.  Be proud of me for learning!

https://youtube.googleapis.com/v/vstma42lHEk&source=uds

But as I can see now, you instead insisted on fighting back.

So I’ll ask you again, oh roommate of mine:

John, why is my table on the ceiling?

The Drug Dealer’s First Day… In Police Academy!

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Oh, dammit.  I knew that this was a bad idea.  I stared at the huge, imposing man, praying that he somehow wouldn’t remember me from the dozen collars, all those searches.  Please, I thought to myself, let him only think of me as “faceless drug dealer number twenty-three.”

And then his eyes fell on me.  His face lit up in furious, scowling recognition, and I felt my heart sink down into the ground through the soles of my police regulation boots.

The man came stomping over, and I had to consciously squash my instinct to turn, sprint away, maybe hop a hedge or two or look for one of my friend’s houses to duck inside.  Instead, I forced my back to stand up straight, to gaze ahead and waiting to be addressed.  Never mind that I was shaking in my stupid uniform.

“You!”  The man’s roar was filled with disbelieving fury.  “What in the nine bloody hells do you think that you’re doing here?”

Now that he addressed me, I returned his gaze, forcing my eyes not to pull away.  “Here to protect and serve, sir!” I called back, desperately willing my voice to remain strong.

As the man chewed his jowls, his face growing red with apoplectic fury as he searched for words powerful enough to convey his displeasure, I suddenly flashed back to when a Mexican gang had attempted to move in on my selling territory.  I’d been snatched off the street, blindfolded, and hauled before their jefe, a hulking man in an ill-fitting suit.

That jefe had tried to intimidate me, too, to scare me off of “his turf.”  I hadn’t backed down.  I warned him that my bosses wouldn’t tolerate his intrusion.  I had stayed strong, and four days later, the darkly tanned man grabbed someone that he shouldn’t have touched and “mysteriously vanished” in the middle of the night.  He didn’t even have time to grab his product or his cash.

This was no different.  So despite the quaking in my bones, I stared evenly back at this huge, hulking police sergeant as he panted in my face.

The man was still struggling for words.  “But, you can’t be a damn officer,” the man finally spat out.  “You’re a criminal!”

I felt a couple of the other recruits in my line shifting their eyes over to me, and groaned internally.  I’d known that it would come out at some point, but I had hoped for more time to bond before it was revealed.  “He’s scum!” the instructor continued.  “Listen up, recruits, because this is your first learning experience!”

The man stepped back and stabbed his thick, meaty finger out at me.  “This man,” he went on, “is a small-time drug dealer, and has been busted on many occasions, often by me personally!”

“But never charged.”

Whose voice was that?  Wait a minute, it was my own!  What in the world was I doing?

“You never convicted me, never pressed any charges,” I went on, my voice only quivering slightly.  “And every time the police needed a lead, I always helped out.  I did my part – and now I’m going straight.  Is it so bad to want to join the good guys?”

I glanced around at the other men standing on either side of me.  Their eyes were lingering, but I caught a couple faint nods.  Maybe they were, just the slightest bit, impressed.

The sergeant had gone bug-eyed at my little speech, and as he looked at the rest of the recruits in the line, he could see that they weren’t turning against me as he’d hoped.  “Well, maggot, I hope you’re ready to have every last ounce of that old life beaten out of you,” he snarled.  “Because I know you, recruit.  I know that you’re scum.  And I’m gonna punish you for every single plastic baggie you’ve pushed!”

For a long minute, the man held my gaze.  I forced myself not to break eye contact, not to look away.  And finally, almost reluctantly, he stepped back and surveyed all of us in the line.  “As for the rest of you,” he announced, “don’t expect me to go any easier on you, just because you weren’t drug-dealing little punks in a past life!  Now, fall in, and get into that classroom!”

We fell in, trooping into the indicated room.  I glanced around at my fellow recruits, half expecting to see the same angry stares that the sergeant wore.  And there were a few.  But there were also some nods of comfortable acknowledgment, even a couple quick little grins.

Maybe I could do this, I thought to myself.  Maybe the leopard really could change his spots.  Maybe I could really leave my old life as a dealer behind, become an officer – go legit.  I certainly knew what to look for, how to deal with the gangs and the pushers!

I was certainly going to try.