137) Cat and Mouse

A game of Cat & Mouse opened up in front of me as I wrote quietly at a library table.  A bum off the street took a bible from the bookshelf and sat next to me.  He dropped two large bags beneath the table, as far as I could see they were filled with plastic and aluminum garbage, no doubt collected so that he might exchange them for change.  His odor crept across the table like the mist in Stephen King's short story.

A man approached the table and said rather loudly, "Uh-uh!  Not today!"  The man collected the bible from the tabletop and bore his eyes so deeply into the bum that he could do nothing but slink away behind a row of shelves.  I remained seated, bathed in his lingering smell, wondering if the bum will return for his belongings.

The man noticed that I watched the situation with the curiosity of a small child.  It is likely that he thought I watched with a judging eye.  He bore his eyes in my direction, obviously irritated that any part of his job included running a bum out of the public library.  I did not judge.  I feel like I understand the situation perfectly.  One has no place to go, and when it is cold outside any shelter is good shelter.  The other has the integrity of the library to look after.  He is paid to keep this place running so that interested citizens have a place to study and read.

The mouse returned with a book on Christianity.  He read while standing up.  Easier to run away.  The mist closed in once again.  He read, but more accurately he watched.  He watched and waited for the cat who will be coming directly.

136) A New Adventure

Embarking on a new adventure in the form of a new novel project.  I've had a few ideas milling around my imagination for awhile now, but honed in on a specific one and have begun getting pages down.  I plan to share various tidbits from the writing of this new project and will begin by sharing a handful of the ideas that will not get explored.  They are:

• Genie in an Acura - a modern day wishing genie story.  Would be completely sarcastic and dark. The genie would have been an asshole driving around in an Acura, promising things to people and sometimes delivering.  
• Crazy Cat Woman story - a woman lives in a house surrounded by stray cats.  They meow and scurry about her house like she is opening cans of tuna at all hours of the day.  No one comes to visit because she is the crazy cat woman.  And then one day she leaves her house (probably to get more kitty litter) and there are no cats.  She does not know what happened to them.  She is sad.  She does not know what to do with herself.  Because of her new found silence and free time she devotes her life to finding a man and embarking on a new career.  For her, she learns that she has an eccentric and outgoing personality that had been stifled by the presence of too many cats.  She becomes a radio personality or something.  And she falls in love.  Not sure, but I think the ending was going to be something like the man breaks her heart and she slumps back into her house.  The next morning all the cats returned and she is once again the crazy cat lady.  (Sound like a fun read?)  
• Boxing novella - This would follow 3 young UFC fighters training in a small town gym.  To make money they also run hour long classes (like cross fit) where the smallest fighter is the town's favorite instructor.  He makes friends and he trains people to get stronger, but he wants to be a fighter.  Yet, every amateur fight he participates in ends with him getting beat badly.  He is simply too small.  There is more to this story, but i do not want to go into here, because I may one day write this one.  It has potential in ways the catwoman and genie stories do not!
• Union Murder project - When the unions first formed, there were epic struggles between the working class and big business.  This story takes place in a camp formed by thousands of on strike workers who refused to work, but also built camps surrounding the factory to make sure no one else could work either.  It was an extremely hostile environment.  A murder occurs and there is a separate investigation that leads the inspector through the various layers of early american society.  In the end, the murder was over a drunken quarrel involving things said about another man's wife.  

You will just have to wait and see what story trumped all those fabulous ideas!!!