I know where the feather came from, Bob. I used to have down & feather pillows that shed like a long-haired cat and there are feathers everywhere in my house, stuck in the carpet, woven into blankets, floating out from behind things when the furnace turns on. They are everywhere! I try to vacuum them up and pluck them out of things but they're insidious. Thanks for the fun evening, Jenny. Bob's right, it has been too long since we just laughed at ourselves and the crazy stuff we wrote. Sure lightens the spirits. Thanks. I have high hopes for our "month of editing" too. Taking off the pressure to produce fresh writing let me write what's written below this morning. Funny how that works. Is it cheating if I pull Horizon out from under the bed and make a start tomorrow? I'm assuming it isn't so I"m doing it.
Every one of them watched the same sunset. Every one alone. Mona and Sharon stood on patios less than one hundred yards apart, each woman holding a drink and staring at the fiery ball sinking behind the small low island smeared on the horizon, each one listening intently for a car to stop on the gravel out front. Maria sat on the top step of her small front porch watching the sunset colors tint the windows of the houses across the street, the soft sound of Emilia singing in the living room behind her covering the noise from the main road down the block. Bunny sat with his back against a tree in the front yard of his ramshackle house behind the big supermarket slapping at the occasional mosquito brave or foolish enough to fly through the cloud of herb smoke, listening to Bob Marley wail, and nodding his head at Brother Bob's words. Diego held down the end bar stool at the beach bar of the windsurf place on Lac Cai. He had been there all day, getting quieter and quieter as the day passed. He jerked upright as the setting sun slid into the gap between the thatched roof over his head and the line of stunted trees and tall cactus across the parking lot. The slanting rays pinned him like a spotlight making him look at himself reflected in the door of the cooler behind the bar. He drained his beer, slid a hundred guilder note under the empty bottle, picked up his nearly empty cigarette pack and lighter, and swiveled off the stool to walk to his rental truck. Jack sat in the mouth of the cave he had spent the day in. He had been sure that morning that he was in the perfect spot to catch Manning pulling a fast one salting the submerged wreck just off shore, but he had been wrong. He stood, stretched, and watched the bottom of the sun's disc touch the horizon. As it did there was a rustling behind him and suddenly a huge stream of bats flew out of the cave, swirling like smoke around him. Santiago sat on the deck of the Santa Marta, a cigarette in one hand and a Polar beer in the other. The rest of the Venezuelans who came over with produce to sell were either on the dock or the stinkpot diesel trawler Abierto his boat was rafted to. They were all laughing and calling out to the women walking down the waterfront to the restaurants further into town. Santiago was quiet and watchful. Manning stood among the raucous tourists celebrating sunset in the bar cantilevered out over the ocean at Sand Dollar resort, his eyes darting like lasers. He made it a habit to cruise the resort bars once a week to keep a lookout for his next pigeon and he thought he had found a live one to replace Jack Swallow who was getting all too suspicious and would have to be cut loose. This one was fat, pink, and balding wearing a sickly yellow aloha shirt printed with mutant flowers and worn unbuttoned enough to display the gold doubloon necklace that told Manning that the wearer imagined himself a pirate. He downed the rest of his beer and got ready to move in.
I like it. More writing this afternoon, less structured, more free. This earns a quiet yippee. Nothing too loud to scare away the tiny spark of creativity that Jenny's game lit.
--Barbara
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