I've been rather busy lately writing my new story. I set myself a deadline of Friday to post a first section of the story. I pushed the deadline back to Sunday when I realized that I would have the entire weekend to write (no traveling, finally). The following is not the complete story. I still have sections that are half written and others than are just ideas on the paper. I wanted to post something so I could meet my self-imposed deadline. I have hopes of getting a full draft out by the end of this week. Here goes:

The Fire-Breathing Termite

Your wait from this point is forty-five minutes.

I stand in line. From the top of the Fire-Breathing Termite, you wouldn’t even notice me. I’d be just one more head among masses of heads, necks, and shoulders all waiting their turn to keep down their lunch. You wouldn’t notice my thinning hair, my bent neck, or my crooked shoulders. You certainly wouldn’t see my face; it’s filled with pimples and exasperation.

The long line creeps along. Except for the heat, I don’t mind the slowness. If anything, I think the line is moving too fast. I’ve had nothing but bad thoughts since late last week. That’s when I learned I would ride the Termite. Kem and I were eating brunch and discussing vegetarianism. Kem was trying to decide if she cared enough about animal rights to stop eating animals. I bit into my half-pound cheeseburger and gestured with it. As I was at my most eloquent, with meat juices dripping down my chin, Kem leaned over, wiped the mess off my face, and put a finger on my lips. “We’re going to Defying Adventures next weekend,” she said. “And you’re going to ride the Termite. It’s all planned. Sam and Thomas will join us. Now, what were you saying about kill or be killed?”

Your wait from this point is forty-three minutes.

“How long is this line?” Sam asks. “I wish it would hurry. It’s been forever since I’ve come here.” I try to ignore her but she continues. “I hope Kem gets back soon. I wouldn’t want her to miss this. She loves the danger.” Sam’s splotchy face gets even redder with her excitement. I take a deep breath and close my eyes searching for a quiet center. I can’t find the center. I can’t even find what that thing is that has the center.

A Fire-breathing Termite car appears at the top of the Termite mound, creeping over the peak. The car is black with flexible antennae attached to the front and six people sitting two by two covering their eyes in the sudden brightness. The car hangs motionless for a moment before gravity yanks it down the track. Sam claps and laughs as it disappears into a hole. I think I’m going to be sick.

Sam repeats her question, “So, the line, freak. How long is it?” Her voice is ordinary. She doesn’t screech or whine, but there is a sense of desperation behind her speech. Sam lives for the danger. I give an exaggerated look at the sign overhead. The sign flashes advertisements along its borders and the digital waiting time updates every minute.

I resist screaming when Sam doesn’t see the sign. We’re at the beginning of the line. The warm bodies surrounding us aren’t overwhelming. Yet, I feel the frustration building inside me. It’s still as far away as an approaching train that appears motionless until it is on top of you. I point to the sign and grit my teeth while answering. “It’s going to be a while, and don’t call me a freak. I’m not the one in clown makeup.”

Sam is Kem’s best friend. They came to university from the same high school in Corning, New York. Sam, like most of Kem’s friends, is strange. She wears too much leather and army boots. She dyes her hair black and coats her lips with thick, red lipstick. Oiled, pointed bangs cover the top of her forehead. Wide rings on her fingers tinkle when she talks.

Sam grunts and stands on her tiptoes to look over the crowd. She bites her lip. “She’s not on the bench anymore. I hoped to catch her frenching Thomas. Kem has a great tongue. I guess if you weren’t so pathetic, you would know that by now.”

I shift the plastic bag holding Faust from my sweaty left hand to my right. He’s still alive and swimming. I wish I had won the goldfish for Kem, but my fishing line wouldn’t catch the plastic fish’s mouth in the game booth. Each try cost five dollars and most players won on their second try. I had tried four times before giving up. I hated to disappoint Kem, but even after changing fishing lines, I couldn’t win. Thomas won the fish for Kem on his first try.

Your wait from this point is thirty-nine minutes.

A black car roars through one of the Termite mound’s side holes. The car twists upside down and turns sharply to return into the mound. A second car explodes from the hole and passes underneath the first. The passengers from the two cars extend their arms toward each other. From this distance, the hands look like centipede legs propelling the cars away from each other.

Sam smiles wickedly and says, “I know what you’re thinking. Don’t worry so much, I’m sure when Kem’s done with Thomas, she’ll be back.”

“I got it the first time, Sam. Very funny. Kem is cheating on me with Thomas. She’s probably in the men’s bathroom now, naked on top of a urinal. You’re wasting your time with your dark paintings. Your real talent is comedy. It’ll work great: you already have the makeup.”

Sam looks at me seriously. “It’s never going to work out in the long run. She’s too good for you. I’m not saying that to be mean. I’m being honest and trying to help. Kem is wonderful but she’ll probably never settle down. At least, not with someone like you.”

“Why don’t you let me worry about it?”

“Suit yourself.”

I try not to think about what Sam said. It’s not like I haven’t thought about it before. I met Kem freshman year. She has large, slightly sloped eyes that dominate her oval face. Her arms and shoulders are droopy and her body looks like it’s about to fall down. Even now, I can close my eyes and smell her. She smells of ripe cherries.

Kem refuses to carry a bag and instead wears pants with many large pockets, usually cargo pants. Her pockets are always full of stuff: candies, letters, pencil sharpeners, anything that’s lying about, it all ends in her pockets. She empties her pockets every evening. By the next afternoon, they’re full again.

I courted her for years before she relented. I studied every hair on her neck and pursued her with knick-knacks, placing tiny flowers, porcelain figurines, bright lipsticks, and penlights where I knew she would be. These items always ended up in her pockets.

Kem is an English Literature major. She reads continuously, usually with a pen in her mouth. I try to read every book she carries in her pockets. I’m not much of a reader, but I force myself to read every night. During the first six months that I knew Kem, she carried a book of Sylvia Plath’s poetry, the pages drawn with five-pointed stars, hearts, and heavy underlines. I peeked over her shoulder and noted her favorite poems.

I walked her back to her dorm freshman year and recited Plath’s “You’re” to her. The night was cool with only pinches of moonlight marking our path. I stopped next to a park bench and recited the poem. At the end, I placed one hand on each of her shoulders and said, “Right, like a well-done sum. / A clean slate, with your own face on.” I’d like to say that she melted, that she grabbed me and kissed me. But instead, she smiled and raised her hand to my face. Her fingers were stained with ink. A pen in one of her pants’ pockets had exploded and blackened her hand. She brought her fingers close to my face but pulled away before touching me. “I don’t want to get ink all of your face,” she said and turned and walked home.

Your wait from this point is thirty-two minutes.

This section of the line has no shade. The heat from the sun smacks my unprotected skin in waves. The line moves forward. As the line turns a corner, two lanes appear separated by a dull orange rope. Sam follows the people in front and steps into the right lane. I peer down the empty left lane. I’m not the only person studying the left lane. A man dressed in jean shorts points at it and says something to his girlfriend.

“Do you think that other lane is a return lane?” I ask.

Both lanes make a sharp right turn ahead. Nobody is coming back along the left lane. “Not sure,” Sam says. People have a tendency to choose the longer line. This is mostly an American phenomenon. In Europe, people fight each other for the shortest path to the front. I think Americans feel that the longer the line, the safer the choice. There’s a group mentality to waiting. If the line is long enough, there must be something good at the end of it. This holds even if all lines lead to the same place.

Before I dated Kem, I would never have given the left lane a second thought. Kem is an alpha female: Her clothes are a season ahead of the fashion. She finds garage bands and listens to their music before they hit big. The room quiets when she talks, everyone eager to listen. Her friends unconsciously dress like her: not one of them carries a bag anymore.

Kem loves to stay up late and discuss everything. She says she’s her most expressive in the late evening hours when the streets empty and the world quiets. I was lying in her bed one evening with her head resting on my chest. I stroked her brown hair, which she streaked with blonde, braided extensions. On her ceiling, she taped glow-in-the-dark stars forming the major winter constellations of the northern hemisphere. Kem is exact in everything she does. Like most of our conversations, the longer we spoke, the more philosophical it turned.

“You have to avoid the herd mentality,” she said. “Many times I do the exact opposite of what people expect. I like to watch their reactions. It’s about manipulating the herd: they’re my own cult. Most times, they don’t even think about what they’re doing. In a group, people aren’t terribly smart.” I commented that individually they aren’t that smart either, but she shushed me. “They’ll follow the easiest path,” she continued. “Even if it isn’t the best or most interesting path. Someone has to rebel and change the status quo.”

“We should go down the left lane,” I say.

“Huh?” Sam peers down the left lane. She bites her lip. The man in the jean shorts and his girlfriend jump the rope divider and head down the empty left lane. The floodgates open behind and a crowd follows. The left line fills up quickly. The lines even out before there’s a break. We lose our chance.

Your wait from this point is twenty-five minutes.

To be continued...