The Long Gap and a Rhyming Story

So it’s been a year and a half.
I began this blog believing whole heartedly that I would keep up with posting regularly. This proved to be ambitious for reasons that I hadn’t anticipated. It wasn’t the amount of time that got in the way, but rather the way my brain works. I began a program to earn my teaching degree and quickly found that much of my writing goes on in the background of my mind when I’m not actually sitting down to peck stories into existence on my keyboard. Connections are made, characters introduce themselves, plots resolve like ancient forgotten buildings dug up from the muddy layers of history. By the time I actually get to the writing portion, it’s usually all laid out for me in the squiggles of my brain. When I began the teaching program I found that I needed to shut all that background machinery down and force it to work on my schoolwork and lesson planning. That included this blog, unfortunately. What is not so unfortunate is the fact that not a soul will have noticed, since I’ve yet to tell anyone about this site. This is still a hypothetical blog of sorts, and I wanted to have a backlog of content before I start to spread it around.

In other good news, I’ve finished my degree and can get back into writing-mode. There is a decent chunk of time until I have a classroom of my own. Teaching on call (being a substitute) means that I don’t have to prep much of anything, which in turn means I can keep the deep brain tubes working on my stories. On that front, I have updates.

Three chapters of the novel I mentioned previously have been written, despite my unfortunate education distraction. They’ve been redrafted a few times, and are likely approaching their final forms. I have about six chapters in various stages of completion, as well as a very detailed plot outline and character arcs for the entire story.

I’ve also advanced onto the second round of the NYC Rhyming Story Challenge. I’ll post the story that got me past the first round. It’s about a man riding the rails and the disturbing discover he makes when he boards a boxcar one day. I loved writing in rhyme and I haven’t had an excuse to do it in some time. From Chaucer to Shakespeare, Poe to Robert Service, rhyming stories have enthralled me for as long as I can remember. Some of the first stories I remember are from Dr. Seuss, The Muppets, and Edward Gorey. The way their rhythm gets into your head and the rhyme binds the stories like threads in clothing still captures me as if I were a child. I prepared for it by reading the aforementioned Poe and Service. “The Cremation of Sam McGee” in particular was helpful in getting my headspace right for my rhyming story. So, here it is:

The Railrunner’s Code

Railrunner’s Code, rule one-oh-four: Take what you need, and never take more.

Rule ninety-one, a favorite of Stu’s, If you’re offered a drink, you must never refuse.

They’re Pokey’s rules it must be said, and Stu missed the old lady, two long years dead.

Stu listed the Code as he awaited the train, keeping black worry away from his brain.

Freighters are dangerous things to rush, he’d seen boarding men killed and crushed.

Upon squealing tracks the train snaked and swerved, hugging close the mountain’s great curves.

One boxcar was open, inviting Stu in, promising a brand-new life to begin.

With practiced steps he leapt through the door, noticing too late he’d broken rule four:

Check a boxcar before you’re inside, for sometimes therein devils reside.

Such a beast there was breathing hard in the dark, his mouth open wide, his eyes gleaming sharp.

“Welcome aboard,” said the man through the gloom, his venomous voice dripping with doom.

In his hand was a blade he held as a threat, it’s glinting edge with dark blood was wet.

He crouched amongst the clatter, poised as if to pounce, and on along the track the freighter turned and bounced.

“This is my car and in it I’m God,” and at something behind Stu he gestured with a nod.

There laying lifeless upon its side was the form of a man who from knife-wounds had died.

An expressionless mask Stu placed on his face, then he drew his own blade from its secreted place.

Pokey’s rule thirteen: Carry a knife. Time and again, it will save your life.

Rule eighty-eight: When danger is near, never let anyone glimpse at your fear.

“There’s one rule above all,” said Stu to this man, “That I must obey if I possibly can.

It’s rule number one in the Railrunner’s Code: Never harm another rider of the railroads.

So tell me now, and you tell me true, what threat did this man pose to you?”

The man in the dark looked from Stu’s face to his steel, then faster than Stu thought could be real

He lashed out his blade and sliced at Stu’s grip, and out of his palm the knife did slip.

At the letting of blood the man let out a chuckle, then he drove into Stu all five of his knuckles.

Before he could blink Stu was knocked down. The man spat upon him as he lay on the ground.

“That corpse,” said he, “didn’t show the respect due to this boxcar’s God, so reflect,

On whether or not you would like to live, for sweet life and cold death are God’s gifts to give.”

He knelt close to Stu, who replied with short breath. “Any coward alive can deal out cold death,

But life, sweet life, is a God’s purview, and the God of the Rails is greater than you.”

Sure, Pokey had taught a young Stu how to fight, but she made damned certain Stu knew it wasn’t might

Or violence that would always prevail, but a faith in the Rules, and the God of the Rails.

“Keeping the Code is the same as a prayer, and that alone has kept me sucking air.”

These words of Pokey’s helped Stu keep his faith as he stared down the advancing wraith

Who raised his knife high with murderous intent, then the train lurched, and the wraith’s balance went.

With a flash of adrenaline Stu gave a wild kick, and out of the boxcar went the mad prick.

His soiled coat flapped, and he let forth a shriek that would haunt Stu’s nightmares for weeks.

Those final shouts stopped short against stone. There was a wet snap – the breaking of bone.

Then stood Stu by himself in the train, clutching his hand and wincing in pain.

To Pokey and the Gods he bowed his shaggy head,

then he searched the man’s victim, still laying there dead.

He obeyed one-oh-four, and rule ninety-one, too,

when he sipped warm whisky

from a flask he’d found

in the corpse’s

left shoe.