Woot, deb!! That is so very cool!

And, here's my very first drabble (been lurking for awhile):

His lips felt soft on her neck. Did he know what that did to her? How her heart thumped and her legs went limp? He pushed her up against the refrigerator with gentle force, pinning her wrists to the door up near her shoulders. Oh dear god.

She could feel his teeth nibbling the skin over her collar bone and his tongue lapping the base of her throat. Her head spun as her breathing grew shallow and her vision blurred. Heat emanated from her chest and radiated outward to the rest of her body.

She tried to say, “Oh my god. Yes. Please,” but speech failed her completely and the only sounds she could make were low guttural syllables. Finally, her knees buckled as she tightened in orgasm. Did he even know what he had done to her? Just by kissing her neck?

Lalala, let's clue in the bookstores.

Because the bookstores is where people browse. And they can't browse and buy what isn't there. And if they're asked, they'll generally order a few copies.

(grabs pompoms)

"Gimme a BEST! (best!) Gimme a SELLER! (seller!) What's that spell?

Place in the Tuscan hills to run away from the NeoCons!

Heh. ChiKat, we both went for the most enjoyable definition of "near death experience"...

I've pre-ordered on Amazon, but I can think of people that enjoy a copy for Christmas.

High places

The trestle is very high. The ravine is tucked in the hills, surrounded by old trees and silence.

I stand in the middle of the trestle as the sun sets and darkness rises. Joe is yelling at me to come back.

You can fly, whispers the voice that can never get high enough to see everything.

No, you can't, says the desperate voice that understands gravity.

The wind comes through the trees, moving my hair, pushing, encouraging. My mind understands gravity, too, but thinks those few moments of flight might just be worth it.

I blink, step back. Vow that the black door in the bottom of my mind needs a better lock.

Vow that the black door in the bottom of my mind needs a better lock.

I love this line, muchly.

She died of cancer. I did not know her, but the article said she died young and beatifically and asked people not to be sad.

Nicole died of cancer too. It was neither beatific nor beautiful, and it wouldn't have mattered if she'd asked anything of those near her.

She was a beautiful girl hollowed by tumours. She left behind a beautiful sister, who watched her die in stop motion. A beautiful brother, who lay down in bed next to her and told his friends to come see him there. A beautiful mother who still feels she failed her child.

October 1997, Stage One

There's tubes in your arm, a mask nearby, people in clean white clothing and sensible shoes. You're waiting for them to finish prepping the OR, set up the tools they need for you, tools you shocked them by demanding to see first. Cancer patients are not usually so - invested.

A nurse comes out and signals, ready, but it's poor timing; your oncologist is still talking in a low voice. As you sink into unconsciousness, the last thing you hear is your doctor, telling your husband that, depending on what they find, he may be taking you home to die.

Wow. This one turned out difficult. I tried this same concept, but with a closer topic, and I couldn't handle it. Turns out I've still got some repressed rage hanging around in there. Guess I'll have to write about that later. Anniversary of my grandma's death is coming up too, so I guess I'm just being morose. But anyway, here you are.

---

Carole

His hand on the bedrail beside her still body. Quiet. No more noise from the ventilator that she hadn’t wanted anyway. She’d shaken her finger at him when she’d realized.

The family with him, the friends and their party recently departed. The quiet in the house wouldn’t be new. She hadn’t been a conversationalist in a year. He would miss the routines, the daily rituals of caregiving, what to do with his hands. But he had already lost her, long ago.

She had been near death for a year. Now he was near death, but not his. He stood up.

Wow, these are some powerful drabbles. Great topic, Teppy!

Two linked ones for me, from the work in progress. Quite by accident, the timetable worked out to have these scenes coincide. (On Annabel's birthday, but that's neither here nor there.) The history behind the first one is here. The second one? I'm--what do they call it in writer school?--writing what I know.

6 April 1812, Badajoz

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead!

Suddenly, pain. Sheer, shattering fire radiating from his left arm. It staggered him, and he fell back upon the bodies, the limp and horridly yielding bodies, silent beneath the torrents of gunfire and cannon, battle cries and explosions. Now he was just another body trodden under by the storming party, and he screamed unheard as a booted foot trampled his bloody arm. Two bodies, then a third and a fourth, fell over him.

No. Not this way. Not suffocation. He refused it. Methodically he began to kick and push his way free.

6 April 1812, Gloucestershire

She stopped pushing. Two days of labor, nearly three, and her strength was long spent. No one could expect her to keep going. It was an impossibility.

“Anna. You didn’t push that time.”

“I know. I can’t anymore.” Surely Lucy and the midwife would understand and let her rest in peace.

“Anna.” Lucy, hard and ruthless, bending over her and forcing her to meet her eyes. “If you don’t push, you will die. You and the child. Both of you. Was that in any of those dreams of yours?”

Well, maybe she’d been dreaming of heaven all this time! But when the next contraction came, she gritted her teeth and rose up to meet it.