this might be harder than i expected?

[pauraque_bk]

We got finished in WoW at about midnight, so I started Nano. I... am really going to have to write a lot faster. I wrote 768 words in 2 hours. Then again, I was writing directly into the computer, which always makes it slow for me, because I spend too much time writing things over. Writing on paper and then copying onto the computer is better for me.

I had an idea for an opening scene before, but I didn't use it at all. I wrote a different one. I do not think it was all that bad, so you can gaze upon it if you like!

Rabbit Season


Grooms is sitting at her desk, closing cases. Old ones, more than a year old, purging them out of the system. She doesn't know why they call it closing, which seems to imply solving.

It is night; there is no one else left in the building. She can hear the low thrumming of the vending machine in the hallway. The light in her office is on, but her window has no shades and the darkness of it seems to seep into the room. She types hunched over the keyboard, squinting into the monitor.

Grooms has the database set to show filenames only, no pictures. She is still weak enough that she doesn't want to look at the girls' faces. It is an automatic movement, alt-F, enter enter, yes. You can't do them all at once, it makes you verify each one. The guy who wrote this software doesn't work here anymore, and no one knows how to change it.

Are you sure? Purging this entry will delete it permanently from the system.

She remembers a few of them, even just from the names, a faint glimmer. Fuoco Alyanna, a mother with thick damp black hair and red-rimmed eyes, she thought the ex-husband took the daughter. She wanted it to be that, wanted so desperately for Grooms to tell her it was true.

Enter enter, yes.

The wind is pushing hard against the billboard outside, she can hear how the metal struts creak when it is quiet like this. Grooms begins to think that this task must be maliciously intended, they wrote the program so that someone would have to delete them one at a time, to concede each defeat.

I give up on you.

Enter enter.

Are you sure?

Yes.

At last she is done, she shuts the computer down. She gets up and stretches, cracking her back with a pained grunt. She did not feel tired when she was sitting down, but now she feels bleary, dry-eyed like after staying up all night. It's only 10 o'clock.

As she wheels her bicycle out and sets the alarm, two security uniforms stroll past the alley. They belong to the restaurant on the next block; Grooms wonders what they're doing this far out, this casual, not chasing anyone. Maybe the thought makes her look suspicious.

"You're working very late, ma'am," says one, stepping too close into the blue flicker of her bicycle headlight.

"Yes," she says. "I work here. I just set the alarm." She tries very hard not to sound sarcastic – idiots, would a burglar know the alarm code?

"I don't think it's a good idea to be out here so late." The men's faces are shadowed under the brims of their hats, and they are standing on either side of her.

Her hands are tight on the bicycle handlebars. "Okay. I just had to get some work done."

"We don't want to have to worry about anyone getting hurt out here, that's all."

"Okay," she repeats. "I want to go now."

There is a pause. The men are still. The billboard creaks in the wind.

"Of course," the man says, and they step back for her.

She breathes, and pushes off onto her bicycle, riding very fast down the sidewalk with her heart already pounding. Wobbly at first, but she straightens out and then goes as hard as she can, working out the adrenaline. In this rush she allows herself to feel the fear, to ride it out – she is free, she is gone, they won't catch her, glory!

The energy runs out quickly, and she coasts down into the empty street. Her path home is through a residential neighborhood, quiet and badly lit. The buzz of the gears seems loud here, and the faint squeaking of her brakes as she turns.

She is able to think when she rides like this, the cold wind burning her ears and her scalp. The impression of speed seems to make things go away. She cannot run; the constant effort is too much, wears her down too quickly. But she can do this, she can pedal in a furious burst fueled by a thought, a sensation, and coast on it after.

She thinks about the man who wrote the software, who worked there before she came. Of course it wasn't malicious. He just never knew.

He never thought there would be so many lost girls.

She pushes hard and crests the hill, and floats down on the buzz of the spokes turning, holds tight, soars on this emotion she cannot have when she is sitting still.