Fact or fiction: Violinist in the cemetery

She went to his grave every day. It was like breathing. Automatic. Something she did without thinking. It had become routine. Not in a bad way. Not like when she recited the confession in church, saying the words but not really paying attention to what they meant. But routine in the way that if she didn’t come, her day wouldn't feel quite right. Like drinking a gin and tonic and instead of her usual Tanqueray No. 10 she was stuck with Seagram’s Extra Dry, a piss poor substitute. She could taste the difference, even with extra lime.

Once, she tried not coming. She almost got through the whole day, too. But when she closed her eyes that night, she saw his face. He was beckoning her. Next thing she knew she was on her knees in front of the small granite grave, her nightgown bunched up around her.

She didn’t know she had company. Didn’t see him staring from a few graves away. Normally, he came when the day was closing its eyes. But today was an exception. Today, he was there before the morning could finish its yawn. He had to be at the airport by 8.

He watched her fingers dance across her chest, making the sign of the cross. Her flaming red hair licked her back like a rolling fire. He wondered if she had a temper. Isn’t that what they said about redheads? She didn’t look like the temper type.  She looked more delicate. Maybe it was her pale skin or that a violin case lay open beside her.

It was the music that first drew him near. Her sweet notes drifted like snowflakes and he felt like a boy, wanting to capture them on his tongue and savor forever. When he followed the musical trail, he found her playing a lullaby. Sweet and flowing with a tinge of sadness.


Fact or fiction? Read on to find out.

Fact or Fiction: A boy and a tattoo

 Will stood on a blue plastic stool in front of the bathroom mirror. His chubby fingers clutched the black magic marker as he drew “barbed wire” around 6-year-old bicep. He wanted a tattoo like his dad’s. He missed his dad. He didn’t understand why he left, except that his dad and mom were always fighting. 

 It got worse after the twins were born. Will’s dad stayed away more and more and when he did come home, he smelled like he had been pickled in booze and bar smoke. Will liked it much better when it was just him. He didn’t ask for the twins. And he was pretty sure, from all of the shouting, that his mom and dad hadn't either. 

Is this fact or fiction? Read on to find out.

Fact or fiction: Living a lie

I wasn’t sure what to do. How do you tell someone that you don’t love them anymore. At least not in the way they want you to, not in the way you should or once did. It was easier when there wasn’t so much at stake, when years were mere days. And yet I couldn’t go on living the lie. Not anymore.

How does this happen? How do you spend most of your life with someone only to realize you don’t want to spend the rest of it with them?

I looked into the mirror and saw a stranger staring back at me. Somewhere along the way I’d lost myself. What happened to all the dreams I had? What happened to me?

I miss me  -- all that I was and all that I’d hoped to be. Life is strange, sometimes. You go about living it day by day, not paying too much attention. It’s like breathing. It just happens.

But then one day you struggle for air and you realize that time is running out to do all of the things you wanted to do and be all of the things you’d hoped to be. It whacks you over the head like a falling tree in a forest of sadness.

That’s when you know you have to clear a path and crawl out.  

Is this fact or fiction? Read on to find out.

Fact or fiction: A cancer diagnosis

It’s like waking up to a surprise snowstorm. One day everything’s fine and the next day you’re buried in a foot of white stuff so heavy you can’t move.

You’re not prepared. You thought you had time -- years, not months. But months are what you have.

Suddenly, everything you’ve ever wanted to do becomes more important. Little things mean a lot and big things aren’t so big anymore.

I’ve always marveled at people who can live in the moment. That’s hard for me, especially when life seems to pull me in a million directions at once.

Well, it’s not pulling anymore. The light’s turned red and I’ve skidded to a halt.

I’ve learned I have cancer.

I don’t know how to tell Ella. She’s lost so much already. Her mom, dad. sister. I’m all she has left. Well, me and Maddie. Don’t know where I’d be without Maddie. She’s always been like an aunt to Ella.

Maybe I’ll write Ella notes, a whole year’s worth. One for every day after I’m gone. If I start today, maybe I’ll finish in time. 

Death never waits. 

Fact or fiction? 

Fact or fiction: Yapper in the house

Her mouth flapped faster than the American flag whipping the metal pole in the spring green yard. Just when I thought a period was coming and she’d stop and take a breath the sentence ran on – and on and on and on.

 It was like watching my wheaten cairn terrier eat up the yard looking for that dang brown bunny, the one that teases him from the other side of the glass patio door. I swear that if the bunny don't die the dog will trying to catch it.

Like the cairn, she was on a topic and she wasn't going to let it go until she killed it. Her rubbery lips fast danced and her mouth spewed gossip like it was a volcano that couldn't keep its fiery guts from boiling out.

After awhile, I stopped listening. Like I sometimes do in church when Pastor Greg’s voice slides into a lullaby. You’re looking and nodding but your mind is somewhere else. Maybe you’re thinking about the Moose Tracks ice cream in the freezer and wondering if there’s any left. Maybe you’re thinking you need to clip your nails or shave or… Hell, I don’t know. You’re thinking a million things other than what you should be thinking. And that’s when it happens. She notices your glassy eyes, the way your melon-sized head bobs and your heavy eyelids crawl closed.

“Are you even listening to me?” she spits in your face.

 And you know you’ve been caught mingling with more interesting subject matter – like Moose Tracks ice cream. So the question is do you tell her the truth and admit you played mental hooky (which means she’s going to start over and you’ll be listening to her yap for another hour) or lie.

 I lie. Try to sit still. Keep my eyes focused on her acrobatic lips.

 “I thought you said you were listening to me?”

I twist in my seat like I’ve got to pee. “Sorry. I’m listening. Totally. I promise.”

“As I was saying…”

And all I can think about for the next 30 minutes is how much I want to eat the Moose Tracks ice cream. When she shuts up, er leaves, I leap for the freezer only to find that someone’s beaten me to it.

The Moose Tracks is gone – and so it my sanity.

Is this fact or fiction? Read on to find out. 

Fact or fiction: Scratches left behind

She sits in the back of the church.

Alone.

Empty pews in front of her; empty pews behind.

She turns to face the back of the pew and rubs her veiny hand over the scratches - scratches made from his suspenders.

She imagines him sitting there, shifting in the pew, the metal holding his criss-crossed suspender straps in place digging into the mahogany.    


Decades of sitting.

Decades of digging.

Decades of scratches left behind.. 

Like the wooden scars that mark the place where he sat, mental scars mark the souls he mistreated.

She wonders if anyone else knows about the marks.

All that’s left of a life once lived is the destruction left behind.

Is this fact or fiction. Read on to find out.

Fact or fiction: The pleading eyes

Whenever I closed my eyes, I saw my sister’s. They invaded my dreams like termites, feeding on my peace and leaving sleep-deprived nights in their wake. It got so that I hated to close my eyes because I would see hers – those beautiful cocoa eyes begging me, pleading with me, to take her home.

 But I couldn’t take her home. Death was near and there was no beating Death.

So I sat in her hospital room and watched her die.

Fact or fiction? Read on to find out. 

Fact or fiction: Stranger on the rail trail

The guy was creeping me out. Despite my best efforts to shake him, he was catching up fast. I was too tired to run any faster. My legs hurt, and I was only on mile two. My best bet was to stay on the trail and hope that I’d see someone else soon.

See, I kept reprimanding myself. This is why you don’t run alone on the rail trail. I should have known better. Normally, I run with Erica. But today, she woke up with a major migraine. So, I decided to go it alone, ignoring that little voice inside of me that was warning me not to. 

What could happen this early in the morning? I told myself. No one is as crazy as you to run the rail trail at 6 a.m. Most people wait for a more respectable hour.

Despite The Voice, I laced up my Nikes and tore out the door. And now, as the man dressed in black got closer and closer, I fumbled for my pepper spray. At least I was smart enough to bring that. My heart pounded. It felt like it was going to pop out of my chest.

I didn’t see the pothole in time. I stumbled and tumbled to the ground. The pepper spray rolled out of reach, and the man dressed in black was beside me.

Fact or fiction? Read on to find out. 

Writers: fact or fiction?

A squirrely man, dressed in khaki shorts, a black T-shirt and flip-flops walks up to the door of a convenience store. He stops a few feet short of the door and takes a drag of his cigarette. Before entering, he balances the cigarette on the narrow brick ledge in front of the large window. He walks in, buys whatever (probably more cigarettes) and walks back out. He walks over and picks up the cigarette, which is now almost a stub, and takes one last long drag.

 Fact or fiction? Answer on the jump.