Jules Just Write

3. Detective.

Jake ponders the back yard.

Brian watches him with an odd frown, puffing away on a smoke. “Easy Jake,” Brian says. “She’ll turn up.”

Brian, their older brother, home on leave, had shown up two bright and sunny days ago, tossing a duffel bag Jake’s way. Jake figures for someone with army skills he should be able to sniff out their little sister. But one look at Brian tells Jake he’s unconcerned.

Brian’s always unconcerned.

“Mom’s gonna kill me,” Jake says, cupping his hands. “Sally! Hide and Seek’s over.”

“Get your ass out here!” That’s Brian.

Bored, Sally had asked multiple friends and her brothers if they had wanted to play hide and seek. Apparently, many had nodded yes, none had meant it. She hid, no one searched. An hour later, Jake finally got wise.

Jake surveys the yard, wondering where his sister could have gone when the house next door catches his eye. The neighbor’s yard resembles a junk store: a busted truck on the front lawn, a stove, a refrigerator, a banana seat bicycle—

Jake squints at the refrigerator and then takes off for the yard. He doesn’t know why but something tells him Sally’s crawled inside. Brian follows, striding languidly, and Jake rips the door open. Sally tumbles out, her cheeks flushed.

“Hell! I’m a regular Sherlock Holmes,” Jake crows, pulling Sally to her feet.

“You found me!” Sally croaks with happiness, oblivious to her predicament.

Brian waltzes up. “Sal,” he says. “Before you go crawling into tight spaces, make sure you can get out.”

2. Travel Planner.

Despite his own messy home life, compared to his best friend Bobby, Jake’s family could be the subject of a Norman Rockwell painting. Jake listens to Bobby explain his recent black eye. Bobby’s leg bounces a mile a minute, his long fingers intertwined.

“So you ran into a door, Bobby?” Jake muses when Bobby’s out of excuses. “Don’t think I’ve heard that one before.”

Bobby sighs and Jake pats his leg.

“You can crash at my place. Only payment is eatin my ma’s cookin which is a sacrifice in and of its self.”

“That’s okay, Jake. I oughta go home anyways.”

“I hear Alaska’s nice this time of year.”

Bobby just smiles at Jake with those sad black eyes.

1. Sentry.

“If you’re gonna leave just do it already,” 15-year-old Jake tells his pa. He holds an arm out and his sister Sally runs to him, shielding her face against his side. Jake thinks it’s one of the most serious days in his life and he hates it.

“Oh, Jake, don’t say that,” his ma cries, watching her husband, Kevin, stuff his remaining few belongings in a shoddy suitcase. Not that their pa really needs the suitcase; he’s been coming and going for so long it doesn’t matter. The suitcase’s just for show. A final goodbye.

Kevin gives Jake a long look before turning to his wife. “I’ll call you.” Then he walks out the door, leaving his family to watch it slam.

“Now, why’d you have to go and say that?” ma asks, her face tired, arms propped against her side.

“I didn’t make him leave,” Jake says. “And neither did you.”

I claim nothing other than I love to write.

I may not be good, I may not be bad, but words mean many things to me. And while I’ve always loved to tell stories (hello, eight-year-old-self), I find that putting stories in words, in writing, makes me very happy. Perhaps even giddy.

And while I toil away (lovingly) trying to publish something (and not for monetary means, just sheer knowledge that it’s happened) I am taking words into my own hands and thus, forcing upon you, dear readers, anything that I can type, scribble or conjure.

With that said, the first bits of a short story, albeit haphazardly and not very professionally, will be posted.