Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Evening Play

There's a chill in the air as the sun sets.
Hidden behind the clouds,
it gives just enough light
for parents to chase their children
across the playground.

Up the netting
down the slides
kick the sand as
they swing higher
ever higher

until darkness starts to creep in.
The wails of "Five more minutes"
don't have the wished for results.

One more time up the monkey bars
jump down and
race to the car.
Homeward bound as the moon takes its place.

Grouchy claims of "I'm not tired"
quickly turn to yawns
and finally sleep.

Goodnight, goodnight.
Until the morning,
goodnight.

© Elizabeth Cordes 2012

Together

A warm breeze crosses her face,
the smell of exhaust is not
completely unpleasant.
The engine is almost too loud to speak over.

They don their helmets
and lower the visors.
She perches on the seat behind him
and leans forward.
Her arms circle his waist.

She can picture the smile on his face
as he turns his head in question.
She gives a nod and an extra squeeze
as answer.

He bounces on the seat once
twice
rolls forward
and then they are off.

Their hearts beat faster
as the trees and fields whiz by
in a blur of greens and tans.

The warmth between them,
her breast pressed against his back,
connects them.
They become one
as they speed down the country roads.

© Elizabeth Cordes 2012

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Digging up Superstition

Ok. Wow, I didn't realize how long it had been since I blogged last. I just kinda lost interest... But since I registered for this most recent Flash Fiction Competition (http://www.nycmidnight.com) I figured I had to at least come back to post my entry.

This is my Round 1 entry, my assignment was:
Genre: Open (boo!)
Place: The 13th floor of an office building
Object: A Toy soldier

I literally sat in front of the computer for 2 days straight trying to come up with something. I started four different stories and scrapped them all about 300 words in.  I finally went back to my second shot and dutifully finished it. I am not pleased with the title AT ALL. I wrote the story and could not for the life of me come up with a title. It stinks. As does the story. I really don't know why I had such a problem with this. I think the open genre threw me off; at least getting a specific genre narrows it down a little more, but when it's left wide open like that, well... ok. Enough complaining. Here is my entry, "Digging up Superstition"


Morris still couldn’t believe his incredible luck.  After months of fruitless searching, his excavation team finally hit something solid.  One more week and the ships would have arrived to take them all back to Greluan 9.  It took a lot of resources to keep a team of his size on Earth for that long, and he was pushing the envelope being there in the first place.
            Catherine ran over to him.  “Let’s get down there, they’ve finally dug down enough to walk inside!” she crooned.  Morris couldn’t stop grinning as he leaned over to put an arm around her slim shoulders and survey the scene before them.  Not too many on their home planet were still publicly interested in Earthen culture and even less were willing to fund expeditions to Earth due to it being outlawed in many provinces.
            “Yes, let’s.  There are still so many artifacts left to be uncovered.  I still can’t believe our luck.”  The sun beat down mercilessly on the dry, ravaged land, pockmarked with six months’ worth of excavation.  Rocks, dirt, and sand were all that was left on the surface of the planet.  Experts surmised that it had been a nuclear wasteland for thousands of years even before the first Greluan explorers had found it.
            Morris followed Catherine into the recently opened cavern, turning on his flashlight before the darkness enveloped them.  Catherine stayed near him, leaning close to speak as if any noise louder than a whisper would bring the whole thing down on their heads.  “It seems that it is nearly completely intact!”
            “Yes,” Morris answered, almost afraid to breathe too hard.  “This is incredible!”  The flashlight lit up enough to see the remnants of a large room with crumpled desks and chairs strewn about across the floor.  Glass crunched under his boots as he crossed the room.  Catherine turned on her light and went in the other direction to pick up something that had caught her eye.
Morris continued forward toward a silver glint on the far wall.  He pulled a large stiff brush from his tool belt and used it to sweep some of the dirt away from the surface.  It seemed to be a door of some type, two halves that slide apart from each other.  They were partly open; Morris shined his light through the crack, but there was nothing but solid ground beyond it.  He turned his attention to the wall to the right of the doors.  He brushed debris from what looked like a small instrument panel.  One button had an arrow pointing up next to it and the button below it was paired with an arrow pointing downward.  Morris couldn’t stop grinning; it seemed they had found one of their primitive lifts.  Using the brush, he started clearing dirt from around the rest of the door and revealed a “13” above the buttons.
“Catherine!  Come here!”  Soon Catherine was beside Morris, gaping at his discovery.
“Thirteen, right?  How amazing, their buildings were taller than anyone had guessed…”
“But we did know,” Morris interrupted her, “we knew they were at least thirteen levels high, because of their superstitions of the number thirteen being unlucky.”
“How could I have forgotten?”  Catherine said through a grin as big as Morris’s.  “Humans certainly were strange creatures.”
Morris nodded in agreement.  “What have you found?”  He reached down and touched Catherine’s fist in which she was holding some small objects.  She opened her hand and revealed three small green plastic figurines of what looked to be men in military uniforms.  “There are many other things across on the other side there…”
Morris suddenly grabbed her wrist and pulled it up towards his face to get a closer look at the objects.  “Catherine… I’ve neglected something important…”
“Morris? What do you mean?”  Catherine was startled by her partner’s strange change in mood.  She heard his breath quicken as he let her hand go to reach into his vest pocket.
“They aren’t just plastic.”  He shone his light on a photo of a small group of humanoids, plastered in dirt as much on their skin as on their mottled green clothing.  It was blurry, but Catherine could tell it was because everyone, including whoever took the photo, looked to be in the middle of some hasty movements.  The humans looked angry and off-kilter, but then she noticed a fellow Greluan behind them.
Catherine cried out.  “What do you mean by this trick, Morris!?”  They both heard yelling from outside the cavern.
“I’m sorry, we should have left here weeks ago, but I couldn’t stop until we found something!”  Morris grabbed her wrist again and pulled her toward the entrance after him.  “Humans survived underground somehow.  That is why they stopped sending ships here.  They were violent, animalistic.. Through my selfishness I had pushed it out of my mind until you showed me those figures.”
“How?”  Catherine faltered behind him and he paused to steady her.  “How did they survive so long?  You knew all along?  We shouldn’t have come!”  Morris pulled her into an apologetic embrace.
“You’re right… it was covered up so as not to alarm anyone.  That is why it was so difficult to get out here.  They survived underground, there are water springs, and myriad fungi that evolved, and…”  Catherine screamed and they both turned to a sudden blinding light pointed at their faces.
“Get out!” a male voice commanded.  When they didn’t move, he shouted again.  “Get out before I kill you both!”  The Greluan pair stumbled into the daylight and saw the rest of their team on the ground not too far away, beaten, but not dead.  Yet.
Our planet.  Got it?” the dirt-encrusted man told them, sticking the muzzle of his rifle into their sides.  “Tell your people to stay off our rock and don’t come back, got it!?”
“I guess they were right,” Catherine mused.
“About what?” Morris asked through clenched teeth.
“The thirteenth floor.  I guess it is bad luck.”

© Elizabeth Cordes, 2011

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Second Day

We ran a mile again this morning and we both did better than yesterday! Woo! Next week we will start going farther, and I think I may run an extra half a block tomorrow.

I also did more push ups and sit ups today. I downloaded this neato little app on my phone, and it's like a training guide to eventually be able to do 100 consecutive sit ups (you can adjust your goal, how many you want to do, I chose 100 for sit ups because it's closest to my goal of 82), and I got the same one for push ups, which I set for 50. It tells you how many to do, then counts down a rest period, then makes a whistle noise when you have to do the next rep. It's super awesome! I did them both today; I had the thought that I maybe should do them on alternating days, but I figured to just go for it. So then I get to rest completely every other day.

I think it will work out.

Monday, June 6, 2011

New Old Goals

Alright. Now that I'm back from annual training, and Caelyn's birthday party went off without a hitch (woohoo!), it's back to the daily grind. During AT I decided (not for the first time, I'm sure I've decided this before, hence the new old goals), that since I am not going to get promoted before my ETS date, I may as well set a [lofty] military goal for myself. I'm going to work my butt off and earn myself a PT patch.

Yes you read that right! I want to be a PT stud before I ETS (March 16, 2013), which, if I actually stick to a work out and actually DO the work outs, shouldn't be too much of a problem. I have to drop my run time by at least 3 minutes to get 90 points on the run, ultimately working for a 15:48 for 100 points. I gotta up my sit-ups by about 30 (82 for 100 points), and 30 more push-ups (50 for 100 points). I'm guesstimating on those numbers (wow, 'guesstimating' is an actual word? Blogger didn't underline it in a red squiggly line!), but they are pretty close.

I've got some work ahead of me, but not impossible work! I've unwittingly recruited a run partner, though admittedly he has much more work to do than I do, but that's ok! We went one mile around the block today, and I left him in the dust :( Oohhh, I also got new running shoes and wow you don't realize how bad your old sneakers are until you run in a new pair. N-I-C-E! My feet definitely love me for that one!

So now hopefully I will be able to update more often on my progress (and other things in between). I feel like my head is clear for the first time in a while. Being in Queens for 12 days made me appreciate where I live. I couldn't wait to drive out of the city and back into the mountains. I'm sure this feeling won't last, but gosh it sure was nice to get home last week!

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Spark 12 Poem

Since I haven't written anything substantial here for quite a while, I figured I'd share my latest Spark creation. The following picture is what was sent to me, and the poem following that was the piece I wrote with the picture as inspiration. Enjoy!



The Forever Kiss

I wish I could kiss you forever
like that day we were on the beach.
I remember the tropical pinks and blues
of the blankets scattered across the sand,
the peach and brown and sunburn
of the bodies laying on orange flowered towels.
And you.

I remember you next to me,
sweat dripping from both our brows,
the sun merciless on our backs
as we lean in close.
Lips touch once, twice,
Continuous.

All afternoon,
covered in hot sand, our blanket askew,
unaware of the other tourists
one by one leaving the beach.

Alone, our lips still pressed together
until the chill of the moon over the ocean
pulls us back into our hotel room
where we kiss again
forever.

© Elizabeth Cordes, May 2011

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

A Really Good Day

I'm gonna keep this short, because I've got other things I should be doing... But I'm having a really good day today!! Number one, got a refund check back from Mountain Medical because they over-billed me on Caelyn's doctor visit last month (yay!).

Then I bid on a metallic rose DS Lite for Caelyn's birthday and WON IT. WOO!

AND, on top of all this, I got a notice from Caelyn's school saying that her artwork has been chosen to represent her school at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts 2011 High Peaks Art Show! WOW! The rest of the letter states, "This art show features a select number of student work from schools around the North Country." The opening reception is this Friday night, so of course we will be there!

Ok and one more thing... FINALLY finished the blocks of crochet-a-long blanket that I had been working on since last summer. All I have left to do now is sew them together and put an edging on it! I'm so stoked, it's almost completely done!!!

Nothing bad happened today. So rare, and so amazing, just had to share. :)