I've read and enjoyed Glimmer Train from time to time. It's not terribly exclusive, but it does qualify as a lit'ry journal. It can't hurt to submit.

For Teppy's broken glass challenge.

Protective Mode

There's a word for the sensation, or perhaps a phrase. If there isn't, there should be.

She doesn't try to define it. Instead, she stands on the threshold of her back porch, staring immobile at the bits of window that are now all over her floor. The glass in indoors; someone broke it from the outside.

She's walked in through the front door. It's possible she's not alone in the house.

No words, no phrases. She moves quietly to her knife rack, and pulls out the ten-inch Henckel chef's.

"Hey, motherfucker." Her voice is deadly, pitched and dangerous. "Come on out."

I hope GT has a decent rep, cause they have one of my stories right now and I hope they think it's FG.

I hope GT has a decent rep, cause they have one of my stories right now and I hope they think it's FG.

Ploughshares apparently did a survey of some sort, and it's one of the top three literary magazines read among its readers. It looks like it's got a good rep. I hope they think your story is FG, and mine too, when I submit it. Are you doing any of the contests? I figure I might give them a try, especially the never-been-published one, since I hope not to be eligible for that one eventually.

That's the one, babe. The story was betaed by Buffistas, including Nilly, so at least I can be sure I'm at my best to lose my literary virginity.

I tried very hard to get this into the past tense, where it belongs, but I can't. But now the first sentence is stuck in a different tense, and I don't have the heart to bring it current. Call it stylistic idiosyncrasy, if you will. Be kind.

Part of that same "action movie" as the turning point drabble exercise.

***********

It was different this time. Despite the officer's confusion over the phone, Carl is her friend, not her husband. And not dead.

Bruised and battered, though, she sees.

He hears the additional footsteps crunching across the hallway, and looks over slowly.

"Hey, Kit." He smiles. "Sorry about the window. And the bookshelf."

"You okay?" A bruise flowers across his cheek, and she worries.

"Yeah."

"Out of nowhere?"

"Isn't it always the way?"

She shakes her head at him, but keeps silent as the EMTs load him onto the ambulance cot.

It is different this time. But she's still a widow.

December 2001

Her shock was so great that her glass, merlot and all,slipped gently from her hand. It looked like it was going to fly for a minute before landing with a huge crash. Her nervous system, always like a special-ed puppy in a crisis, kicked in belatedly. That’s right, Body, she thinks, way to get my back.
”Ugh, Jesus.” She mopped at the runoff on the table ineffectually.”I’m sorry. Tumor’s just one of those words. Nobody ever says ‘Thank God I got that tumor.”
Always with the dumb jokes and wiseass comments, she thinks. Shut up, dumbass.

“Well, I’d better get it. We don’t want the dogs to cut their pads.” Her mother moved to get a dustpan and pick up the broken glass.

“You should be resting...or something.” It felt like there was a little ugly creature in her mother’s body. Her own impairment felt more like being her own Siamese...conjoined twin.

(She laughs at herself later for being Crip Power enough to censor that thought at such a time. But all the enpowerment doesn’t stop her having it. Cheng-andEng’s mama has...breast cancer. Wonder if the telethon will be before or after the funeral.)

Bargaining on them being distracted by the other four crashes, watching the lights move around the darkened building, she chooses the third window she'd broken.

Sneakers on plate glass make a neat, crunching, but hushed sound. For this quiet she is grateful, pausing at the door to scrape the soles free of the fragments. She can't afford the compromised traction.

Inventorying her weapons with her free hand, she reviews the building's plans in her head.

Should she rush straight to him, or hide until the guards settle down?

Two muffled thuds and a strangled scream from below end her questioning.

This is pretty first draft-y, so I may make changes. But since I hadn't drabbled in a while, here goes....

Shattered

He was a very fast learner -- that's what all his teachers said. They never had to explain anything more than once to him.

But that was school. This was home. When they said it would never happen again, he believed them. Every time. Again and again and again.

He believed Mommy and Daddy when they said they wouldn't fight anymore. No more yelling and throwing things. So he stopped wearing shoes in the house again, loving the feel of the thick carpet under his bare feet; after all, there'd be no silverware or unexpected trinkets lying where they shouldn't anymore. They promised.

Which is how he ended up in the emergency room, after dashing into the kitchen on a hot day, eager for popsicles. The shards of glass on the floor -- remnants of wine glasses -- caught the light, sparkling brilliantly, just before he ran full speed over them, crushing the shards and slicing deeply into the soles of his feet.

That's pretty awesome in a not-done-it-forever drabble, there, Tep.