I will have my Macbook Air, my notebooks, and not much else.  I will write and write until my little fingers fall off.  Then I will sit in the hot tub.  Then I will write more.

When I underwent this challenge in 2009, I used a fantastic network of support to encourage my writing.  If I didn't meet a daily goal, I received a "punishment" from these friends.  

As I set myself a new task this year, I ask for similar support.  If you are up for being a cheerleader, giver-of-punishments, or just general rubber-necker, please let me know.  I would love to add you to my team!

Coming Apart
by Aerin Rose

The trailer’s lit up like special effects from an old UFO movie, shining lasers through the trees, onto the barn, into the chickens’ pen. The truck’s gone, leaving a flattened circle of mud. I float into the kitchen.

“Hey, Sam. I told Ms. Winston today that extraterrestrials are vegetarians.” The alien’s eyes chime, missing nothing as he skins dinner for the men. Sam points a greenish finger at my arms.

“Don’t worry, it’s just marker.” I pull Sharpies from my backpack. “Ink. See?” The lines on my pink skin are black with silver stitches, reinforced, holding everything together. “Ms. Winston”—fourth social worker since mom left, the only one who’s made me swear to tell her the truth—“said I looked like a Tim Burton character. She might be a keeper.”

The metallic echo of those words zooms around my brain, a lost ship trying to find port. Something that happened . . . couple of years ago? Yeah. The kitchen. Breakfast. Uncle Jasper and my father. “Not like her whore mother.” “No, she’s a keeper.” Oh. After the first night.

I study Sam as he finishes with the blade. His shiny skin has turned dull like snot: we both hate the cutting, the oozing, the fluids. His eyes sing, sounding like a unicorn or church bells. The knife glows, a redneck light saber. I hear the chickens screech and the truck wheels in the gravel.

The truth I will tell Ms. Winston tomorrow is that aliens don’t burst at the seams. They shatter.

The Fire Blessing
by Aerin Rose

Shadows of the fire wards shimmered gold and crimson in the flames of Lillith’s hair. Firebird, salamander, dragon - we’d bonded during the infinite expanses of time I’d spent tangled in bed with Lillith. Now they peered out, one by one, in silent goodbyes. I avoided looking at her as I worked my earthen features into the shapes Yahweh suggested.

"I guess it could have been Undine.” Lillith’s voice was lukewarm. 

“The water elemental as mother of humanity?”

“I guess not. Nor Sylph, either.”

“We’ve been through this, Lil. I’m going. Help me with my torso.” 

She slid her hands beneath my arms and lifted. Although I’d melted into her heat countless times, that lava skin now felt acidic against mine. As my waist lengthened, ribs grew to support my new frame.

“You shouldn’t have to change for this animal.”

“Adam. His name is Adam. What do you want me to do? Who should go instead?”

The words kindled between us; we both knew Yahweh had asked for the fire elemental. For her. She was the first to turn away.

“I’ve already received the blessings of air and water,” I said. “Now the fire blessing.”

The incandescent salamander appeared in a burst of sparks on my hand. His bright tail gripped as he bit my finger, flint to touchstone, fire scorching my blood. 

“I will always love you.” I raised my eyes to hers a final time. “But I can’t forgive you.”

My lover whispered, “Eve,” and I was gone.


(Aerin Rose: With thanks to Fritz.)

Heirloom
by Aerin Rose

“Audrey.”

“No, it’s me, Kate.” She pulled the lavender nightgown over the old woman’s head.

“You’re leaving.”

“Yes, remember? That I’m going back to college?”

“What about my violets?”

“Don’t you worry, I wrote everything down. I marked the watering can at just the right amount.”

“The garden?”

“A walk in the gardens at 2PM, the new girl knows that, too.”

“The blinds?”

“Yes, I’ll tell her to close the blinds at bedtime.”

“Audrey. The necklace.”

“No, ma’am, I’m Kate.” She ran a brush gently through the sparse hair. “Which necklace?”

“I wore white to the ball, of course. Debutantes. Virginal my ass. But to Casino Night, I wore emerald silk, cut low. I had the bosoms for it then. A dyed ostrich feather in my hair. Daddy wanted a deal with the Carruthers. Bought me a 23 carat green tourmaline surrounded with diamonds. Believe you me, Jack Carruthers noticed. I’m pretty sure your mother was conceived that night. She had Jack’s eyes.”

Kate said quietly, “I’m not Audrey.” 

“Your mother burns through money like marijuana.”

“She’s not my—What’s this?” Kate frowned at the little envelope that the older woman pushed into her hand.

“The key. For the safe deposit box. I put the necklace away, oh, years ago. Figure it’s worth ninety, a hundred thousand.”

“Mrs. Carruthers, I’m not…”

“She stuck me in this nursing home. Where they don’t even serve Rocky Road. Sell the necklace, dear. To pay for school.”

WARNING:  While everything else on this site is as family-friendly as Mr. Snuffleupagus, 
this entry is not.

I have woefully neglected the Co-Dictators of the Universe, so to appease them, I offer this (hastily written, once-edited) entry to their Story Sharing awesomeness.  It shocks even me.

The door sticks, so I jam it hard with my hip, and it opens onto the alley with a light rain of pale green plaster. The usually comforting smell of burned cigarettes and urine is tinged with a sour, acrid tang. Vomit, just in front of the dumpster, which is on my left, the south end of the library. On the north end is access to the street, so I move that way to escape the smell of someone else’s puke.

“Assholes,” I mutter, lighting up. I can’t smoke on the front steps: “it’s bad for the patrons” and Williams nearly pissed herself trying to stay all sweet apple pie while she explained, my first day, that I couldn’t smoke in the stacks. Shit, I have a library degree, does the woman fucking think I’d endanger the only extant copy of 聖教初学要理 in America? She seriously needs to get laid.

(Oh, and for those of you who don’t read Japanese, that title is: A fundamental Catechism of Christian Doctrine. Did I mention it’s the only copy in America? I mean, the volume is a wood-block print made up of Japanese paper with Japanese binding, printed at Nagasaki. I might vomit just thinking about anything happening to it.)

That’s the problem - not people not reading Japanese, or needing to be laid, but people thinking that librarians are all cardigans and bobby socks and don’t smoke. Like, if you’re intelligent enough to read, you’re supposed to think smoking is a cardinal sin, a crime, a waste of your goddamn youthful health. Bullshit.

Librarians aren’t supposed to have tattoos, either, I think, looking fondly at the newest ink, a flower-bedecked swastika. Its vibrancy stands out against the rest of the ink covering my right arm, varying degrees of darkness depending on their age. 

Fucking stereotypes.

It’s my dinner break so I have 20 more minutes than when I sneak a usual cigarette break. And anyway, I’m not hungry lately, not for food. I light up again, concentrating on the sky changing colors so I can pretend I’m meditating instead of just being lazy. I name the kaleidoscope hues: mauve (from Latin, the color of the mallow), amber (from Arabic ʼanbar, ambergris), violet (from Latin viola, a violet, not the musical instrument, whose origins are Old Provençal, from viula).

What a crappy week. Leaving my diamond nose stud at Carl’s and knowing that he’ll hock it because he hocks everything to pay for his disgusting habit and it doesn’t even matter how many times I deep throated him. Bastard. 

The sky’s going from mauve to indigo, and I’m getting skeeved by these deep shadows that look like they’re vomiting black on the graffiti.

And the dissertation committee asked the most inane questions about my theories on 3D imaging and rare manuscripts. What will it cost? Who the fuck cares? Those cocksuckers have no imagination. This is why God made rich patrons who want their name on a library building even though they use books to wipe their asses.

As I pull out my third cigarette (and last, I swear silently to my mother, but I am skipping dinner and I need satisfaction somehow), I notice a little pile of grey lint. No, not lint, some kind of finch. Bombycillidae, maybe? Unlucky guy is dead, his eyes squeezed like someone’s popping a zit. Which reminds me of my dead Uncle Ernie, God rest his soul, the giant zit in the powder blue suit. I close my eyes and cross myself.

After my 10-second memorial for Uncle Ernie, I reach for my cell phone to call and check in on Gooney, my little sister. That’s when I notice another pile of grey lint, two inches north, with its eyes oozing pus. Puzzled, I look around for a cat, or raccoon, or some natural predator of finches. (This is why I’m a vegan.)

Checking again, I realize there’s another finch, nestled up next to the second one. Maybe I missed it, but I don’t think so. Where the hell are they coming from? The roof? I jump up, bouncing on the balls of my feet to try to see a shadow, an arm, or something.

“Okay, whoever you are, that’s just sick. What’s your problem, you son of a bitch?”

When I stop bobbing, I notice a fourth finch, several inches from the others, with blood smeared on its stomach. I reach for the mace that I keep in my bra (cleverly hidden since both the canister and my underwire are black). It’s there, but I still pull the chain from my waist, and move toward the door.

I hear a muffled sound, like someone trying to pretend they’re not throwing away a tampon wrapper in the bathroom. Another bird is in line with the others, only this one seems to be slightly alive, choking a quiet death croak, begging to be put out of its misery.

Shit, why is the door shaking, I think, as I try to fit the key into the door, and I realize it’s my hands shaking. Shit, shit, shit. Another bird thuds against the ground, but this time I don’t even look, don’t even breathe, just turn the key in the lock and pull, pull.

The door sticks.

<b>Presage</b><br />
<b>by Aerin Rose</b><i></i><br />
<i><br />
</i><br />
Twenty-two hours from San Francisco to Kathmandu. Four hours until the layover in Hong Kong. Caelin will have finished grading papers by then. She arches her back, stretching, then wiggles her toes, and catches the eye of the flight attendant.<br />
<br />
“More, please.” She indicates the travel-sized wineglass. The remaining ruby droplets glisten in the spotlight of her reading lamp. The attendant nods from the galley.<br />
<br />
“You realize that’s basically grape juice?” Chloe peers around the headrest as her business class bed reverts to its upright position.<br />
<br />
“It’s a second growth Bordeaux and you know it, O Queen Food Critic,” Caelin retorts.  “How’d you sleep?”<br />
<br />
“Not well.  Looks like fourteen bottles of questionable Bordeaux didn’t help you sleep, either.” <br />
<br />
“Excited?” <br />
<br />
“And nervous.  What if she hates us?”<br />
<br />
“Sweetheart.” Caelin strokes her wife’s cheek as Chloe unfolds the passport she’s been clutching. A little girl with dark eyes and copper skin gazes at them, unsmiling and unafraid. “She liked us well enough before. Any kid will hate her parents at some point. Let’s just focus on getting her home.” <br />
<br />
The flight attendant materializes with the bottle of Château Cos-d'Estournel 1989, which streams like scarlet silk into the stemware.<br />
<br />
“Like the orphanage is going to let her come home when you show up drunk,” Chloe teases, leaning close. Caelin smiles into her spouse’s black curls. Points of light play on the surface of her wine, casting images against the back of the seat in a rosy haze.&nbsp; <i><br />
</i>

The White House Wine Cellar
by Aerin Rose

The train back to DC glided quickly like a light shiraz.  The sunset threw dark rose tones through the window as Samuel thought back over the past 48 hours.   He had been asleep two nights ago when a steam pipe exploded on the ground floor of the White House Residence.  The damage it had done was exact, almost artistic.  The entire wine closet had been demolished, blasted with hot water and rubble from the closet walls.  The kitchen had a layer of wet grimy dirt, but nothing had been really harmed.  The only other losses were some portraits in the subbasement storage below the wine closet, as well as the sole extant copy of a sci-fi novel written by Teddy Roosevelt.

Samuel rubbed his thumb against his index and middle fingers.  The subtle gesture was all he had allowed himself in the way of fidgeting for the past twenty years.  With the President’s formal birthday dinner so near, Samuel, as assistant usher in charge of wine and food, didn’t think it tenable to miss the lunch and tasting in New York, not even the day after the explosion.  Over a hundred California wines would be available.  He knew the President had been looking forward to the new crop of Sauvignon Blanc.   

He studied the 2007 Etude pinot noir rose that he’d carried onto the train with him.  He’d enjoyed this buoyant newcomer.  The aroma went beyond the glass, a bigger wine than its taste, a good candidate for the Senior Staff luncheon in a few weeks.  Samuel berated himself.  He should have taken some of the bottles home.  A few months ago, he noticed the humidity of the wine closet had dropped severely.  He’d briefly considered, then, just tucking a few into his briefcase, and putting them in his own private cellar, for safe keeping.

 “We are proud to serve only American wine,” Samuel had said to the lunch companions who jested about Lyndon Johnson’s edict.  His soft words clipped and accentuated the word proud.   He recalled Congressman Deere’s luncheon, at which he’d served the Arcturos Pinot Gris, vintage 2004. The tomato bisque with leek and the Great Lakes Walleye Pike with butternut squash had been an excellent stage for the clean fruit and exuberant structure of the Pinot Gris, a Michigan wine.  Michigan!

David was waiting for him at the Residence.  “Mr. P wants to see you,” he said by way of greeting.  David had been recruited as an usher about 5 years ago and had been the one on duty when the explosion happened.

“Whooshing,” he said, when asked what he heard.  “And then heat and steam, like a sauna.”  Three Secret Service agents had rushed to the Second Floor to secure the First family but David himself had braved the downstairs.  Chefs fleeing past him, he’d been the one to shut off the water main and assess the damage.

Samuel found the President in the Treaty Room, in his red plaid Ralph Lauren sleep pants and a dark thermal shirt, stretched to his full length on the leather couch, with a bottle of red sitting on the floor and a glass in his hand.

“I just finished an entire season of ‘House’,” the President mused.  “What did we do without Tivo?”

For a moment, Samuel wasn’t sure what to say.  The man before him was young, just over 50.  He’d run a charismatic campaign two years earlier and won easily.  His wife was a pediatrician, and had taken her practice part-time to parent their 9-year-old twin boys.  They were as aristocratic a family as you could find in the States: elegant, reserved, and kind.  Even the boys remembered to ask after staff members’ families or wish them a happy birthday.  They were miniature versions of their erudite, mild-mannered father, whose easy charm had wooed more than one international diplomat towards peaceful treaties. 

To see the greatest leader of the United States since JFK reduced to watching Tivo in his pajamas made Samuel speechless.

“Sir,” he finally said.  “how are you?” At any other time, Samuel would have cleared his throat, asked “you wanted to see me?”  However, the particular nature of this recent catastrophe united the two men and lent them informal courtesies.

The President turned slate-blue eyes on Samuel, taking a minute to focus.

“Better today, thanks.  They don’t prepare you for tragedies like these.  9-11, yes, Katrina in New Orleans, but this?”

“I share your sympathies, sir.”

“Which is why I wanted to talk to you about a call I got today.”  The President sat up, shook himself, and straightened his terrycloth robe.  “France called.”

“France?”  Samuel frowned.  It had been nearly a year since French President Jacques Chirac visited.  They’d served Chateau Woltner in Napa Valley and Domaine Drouhin Oregon, both French-owned wineries and both, thought Samuel still, wise choices. 

“It makes sense that the French would be first, but then the Spanish, the Australians, the Chliean president.  Some minor Italian official, which figures…”

“Sir, I’m not following.”

“Samuel, they’re all offering wine.  Their finest wines.  Some of them from their own collections, some from private reserves.” He paused.  “I think we’re going to need an Official White House Wine Cellar.  An international one.”

“Are you certain?” Samuel was stunned.  “Really?  I mean, it’s now, what, a sixty year tradition since President Johnson’s edict.”

“I know.  And I respect Johnson’s choice to only serve American wines.  Even more I know it’s a boost to our own economy.  My thought was to set up a sort of exchange program.  We buy wine at their recommendation, they buy ours.  It would require a solid diplomat, Sam, as well as a sommelier.  That’s why I want you.”  Samuel said nothing, so the President continued.  “Think of it, Sam.  How long has this world been at war?  I’m not saying alcohol is the answer to the world’s problems, but think of the doors it could open, the connections we could forge.

“Does sound like a promising idea,” the usher conceded.  “I’m honored, sir.  I’ll think about it, may I?”  The President nodded and moved back to recline on the couch.

“What are you drinking now, sir?”

“You know, it’s a Malbec, of all things.  Pearmund Cellars, 2007.  Not too bad; nice raspberry aroma.  I’m getting ready to catch up on Season Four of ‘Lost.’  Want to join me?”

“No, thank you.  Good night, Mr. President.”  Samuel left the Residence, confused and elated.  He’d never hoped to imagine that international wines could be available to him as options for White House serving.  And yet, now, he himself could be the one to choose, without limitation, how best to fill a new, perfectly built wine cellar.

“The most noted wine enthusiast to occupy the White House was Thomas Jefferson,” Samuel intoned the next morning at the memorial being held in the Rose Garden.  He’d been asked to give the eulogy for the former wine closet and its contents, while setting the stage for a new era in wine diplomacy.  
He had prepared an overly formal luncheon, because dinner would be a private affair to allow the President and his family time to mourn.  Even as he talked about the history of wine at the White House, Samuel reviewed the lunch in his head: the service of white wine and first course, the serving of red wine and main course, the salad course, and the dessert service.  The 55-minute meal was a dance that he had practiced many times during the past 20 years.

He ended the eulogy with the quip that Ronald Reagan was so enamored of California wines he had to be reminded that he was President of the United States, not President of California.  

“So we too must remember these bottles go ahead of us to pave the way for an even greater celebration of the fruits of the vine.”  He finished with a dryness in his mouth.  The pressure of the choices of the past few days and the somber mood of the gathered dignitaries overwhelmed him.

After reviewing schedules and contracts with the Chief Usher that evening, Samuel went in search of his boss.  He predictably found the President in the Treaty Room, coat thrown to the side, watching an episode of “Gossip Girl” on Tivo.

“It was a good day, Samuel.  Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, sir.  I came to tell you that I would be happy to take the lead on the wine cellar project.”

The President’s eyes slid closed in relief.

“Glad to hear it.”

“Should I contact your secretary to set up a meeting?”

“No, god, no.  Do you have time now?” The President stood and switched off his television.  “Awful stuff.  Who watches those shows?”

Samuel spent the next few months consulting with the President, flying around the world, comparing notes with Kings and Prime Ministers and sommeliers of every nationality, sampling and choosing the brightest and best of all the vintages offered on Earth.  He recommended Canyon Wind Desert Rose from Colorado to his Excellency the President of the Republic of South Africa, and made certain that two full cases of Pio Cesare Barolo Ornato 2004 were purchased for the White House collection.  The gorgeous bottles of reds and whites symbolized the new peace accord in a new world.  

Not everyone was happy in the new way of things.  Serious breweries (“not the kind that make pale piss-water,” David reported) were forced to close or to merge with wineries to stay solvent.  Now and again, Samuel even encountered rioters.  These were demonstrations held by religious extremists, and by those who thought that to eschew the nation’s Puritanical roots was unpatriotic.  (Of course the Puritans had used outhouses, too, Samuel told himself, and no one had boycotted plumbing as unpatriotic.  The religious extremists couldn’t be helped.)  These minor incidences, however, were easily expectorated, cleansing the national palate for a lush finish of optimism and hope brought in by the new exchanges.

Back in D.C., the new wine cellars were built to Samuel’s specifications.  He’d researched Jefferson’s original cellars to minute detail, replicated what he could, and improvised what he couldn’t.  Modern technology allowed the entire space a split cooling system, to maintain a temperature of 55° Fahrenheit and a relative humidity of 61.3%.  Wrought iron sconces hung in the niches of walls, their low lights all on individual dimmers.  The racking was mahogany, framed impressively by stone arches.  Two large tasting rooms had been done in an earthy red, oversized tile, with wine barrel tasting tables and bar stools.  The sheer beauty of the cellars made him feel inebriated.

When the final bottle of the new generation had been set into the perfect cellars, he’d been hailed a hero.  The President had raised his glass and they’d all cheered for him.  Him, Samuel Dansforth, son of two high school teachers in central California, now assistant usher in the White House of the greatest era of the United States history. 

Late in October, he settled into one of the wingback chairs in the room he and Kristin used as their sitting room.  Pictures of his grandchildren perched on the mantle, and late autumn winds swirled around the glass panes of the windows.  Watching the fire brought to Sam’s mind a snappy Chilean he’d chosen a week earlier, for a state dinner honoring His Majesty the king of Morocco.  The power of pairing such odd couples of wines and guests intoxicated him.  The artistry of the dissonance fulfilled his soul as nothing else ever had.    He was pouring himself the first glass of his own decanted bottle when he heard his wife’s purposeful steps.

“Well, the new kitchen sink is installed,” Kristin sighed as she settled into the chair across from him with some Eudora Welty paperback in her hand.  “Oh, and the plumber said he needs his books back.” 

 “Hmm?  Oh, yes,” he feigned memory with a little frown, a practiced lie coming quicky to his lips.  “A bolt needed to be tightened in the ushers’ bathroom.  Small one.  I didn’t want to bother the Chief Plumber.  Been months ago, now.”

“Well, then, that’s good,” she said. “What are you drinking?”

“Oxford Landing Limited Release Viognier 2000.  I chose it for the First Lady’s book club, but I liked it enough that I stopped and picked up a bottle on the way home.”  She reached for the glass, swirled, sniffed, sipped and savored.

“Not bad.  Mind if I get a glass?” She reached for the extra one on the tray.

“Not at all.  K, I’m going to go find those plumbing books to give to Patrick.  I don’t want to forget again.”  He raised his glass with her and carried it with him upstairs.

Samuel knew right where the books were, of course, or at least their replacements.  A year ago, he hadn’t realized that he was making too many pencil notes in the margins to be able to return the books to Patrick.  New copies were sitting in the Amazon box under the spring suit jackets in his closet.  Samuel had been as meticulous in his research as he was in detecting cork taint. Then he’d burned Patrick’s books, burned his own notes, burned the slips of paper with the measurements he’d taken of the subbasement.

“You know, Sam,” Kristin called to him.  “I’m surprised you like this one, as young as it is, and with the melon notes on top.  Those Australians.  Always a shaky start but such a smooth finish.” 

Kristin was the only one who might guess, if he wasn’t careful.  Not that she would blame him.  She appreciated that twenty years of domestic wines would drive any oenophile to desperate acts.  After all, he couldn’t just quit the job of White House usher.  But how many California reds would he have had to endure?  Yes, Kristin would understand why the wine closet had had to go, even if he could never have predicted the tremendous results of its destruction.  Still, he didn’t feel like sharing his secret.  He wanted the knowledge to linger, so that he alone could have the pleasure of savoring it.

Samuel smiled into the fire as he returned to his wife’s side.  

“Yes, quite.  Quite a smooth finish, indeed.”