Story Snippets

I imagine this scene as coming in the middle of a slower romance between these two, or possibly a coming-of-age story about the guy.

"I just don't know what to do," Rose sighed as she entered his room. David took off his headphones and turned from his computer while she flopped down on the twin mattress that was barely large enough for David himself.

"Don't know what to do about what?" he asked, which was probably unnecessary - they've been friends for so long that added context was inevitable.

"Gary," Rose replied, her voice muffled by the pillow she buried her face in. She rocked slightly on David's bed, before turning on her side to face him, drawing her legs up into her arms.

"Is Gary being an asshole?"

"No," she responded without inflection. "That's the thing, Gary's great. He's so funny and cool and just - " a pause. "I mean he's so - goddammit."

David tensed slightly, looked down and away, then back to her. "You think he's real cute, don't you?" Forced smile, not quite to the eyes.

"Yeah," Rose replied, a bit more than a whisper. Then, in a harsher voice - "Me and everyone with eyes."

"Hmm." David turned the chair all the way around to face her. "What's the problem, then?" David asked, wishing with every word that he could stop, slow down, not ask and still feel like he had done his duty as her friend.

"He doesn't know I'm alive."

David opened his mouth to speak, but Rose quickly continued: "Well, he does, but - God - we're friends, but every girl I know is into him."

"He's got his pick of the litter?" David said, suppressing a chuckle.

Rose didn't chuckle.

"Look, if you're not going to listen then -" David reached his hand out, and Rose stopped rising from her spot on the bed.

"Sorry, sorry, I'll be serious." Rose sat up on the edge of the bed.

"So you really like him, huh?"

"Yeah," Rose murmured. "I do."

Her head hung low, her red curls fell like a curtain over her face as her ivory hands twisted and fidgeted in front of her. "God, he's - he's like the sun."

David's eyes shot up from her to his blank wall, a stark contrast to the dynamic wallpapers and abstract, homemade art that covered hers. When David saw Rose, she was like the sun. The passion she felt for painting, the all-encompassing care she shared with everyone. Her grey eyes should have been cold but held in them great fire, and not the uncontrolled blaze of some hellish inferno but the nourishing and restrained warmth of an age-old hearth. He would stare into her eyes, live within her gaze, forever and ever, if only given the chance. But he knew he wouldn't be given that chance.

A thought came to David's mind, and at once a quiet but hardly unfamiliar voice whispered "You don't have to do this." David paid it no mind. "You want my advice on this guy, honestly?"

This surprised Rose - David wasn't generally much to talk to about relationships, he had little experience and not much advice. "I mean, sure - if you want to give any advice."

"Okay." Beat. "What you need to do -" David stopped, and touched his lips with one hand, as he did when thought hard. "Look - you know I wouldn't tell you to do something you weren't comfortable with, right?"

Rose's eyebrows raised. " Where are you going with this, David?"

"Nowhere bad - look," David replied, trying to reassure her. "Best advice I can give, is, like - how do I put this. Don't wait."

"Don't wait on what?"

"Don't wait on what you want. Just go after him, full tilt. Now, I'm not saying do the dance of the seven veils for him, but - fuck it, let me try."

David jumped out of his chair and sat down next to her on the bed, side by side, closer than he would at any other time, under any other circumstance. His heart beat slow but heavy in his chest. "Try this. It's probably never happened to him before."

David turned to face her, realizing now he was far too close to feel comfortable, to feel alive, to feel anything but fear that his face should turn traitor and betray the rest of him, how he felt about her and for how long. Their faces stood not half a foot away.

"You take his hands like this," David started, taking each of her hands in his own as he spoke. "You look him in the eyes" - David looked deep into Rose's grey eyes, wide with expectation. He breathed in to collect himself. "And then you just say this: I think you're really cute - like, the cutest person that I've ever met. I want to get to know you more. How about dinner some time?" His veiled confession complete, David suppressed the urge to wince, to recoil, to hide himself away from those eyes, clinging to his sense by fingernails.

Rose's chest swelled, her breath inwards shaky and labored. Her eyes didn't leave his. David felt hollowed, except for some strange warm shape of hope.

"You think that will work?" She asked.

"It would work on me," he replied. "Even if it doesn't, he'll remember it. Most guys I know don't get asked out by girls often - or ever. He'll remember you. Just get close, be clear, and ask."

Rose sat silently, then her arms sprung up and forward, grabbing him in a tight hug. "You're the best, David."

The story this one would fit into is fairly obvious from the title. I imagine this would fit into a sort of coming-of-age story as well, though this one would probably center on Maria learning to relate to her son, or the two of them both growing in their own way, learning how to relate to each other and the world at large.

"Well, we have to do something," Maria started. "We can't let him go through with it."

"I think we should," Julia replied. "He-s clearly committed to it-"

"He should be committed," Don interrupted. "Making a laughingstock of us and the whole town. How come the sheriff hasn't stopped him already?"

"He said it was up to code and Billy had his permits in order - he's not stupid," Julia replied, cutting back into the conversation. "You know he's not stupid, Mom."

Maria was peeking through the blinds into the backyard past her own, where her son Billy lived - at least somewhat - on his own. It was about identical to her own - same layout, same color, same shutters. Same pine needles clogging the gutters, which Billy's acrophobia would not permit him to fix on his own. The only real difference - and it was a significant one - was the antenna.

It had just recently matched the third floor in height, and after only three weeks as well - due in no small part to Billy's constant efforts. Sometimes Julia would look down from her room and see, late into the night, Billy cutting and re-welding steel with the cheap arc welder he bought. It colored his yard with a strange blue aura, an eerie mirror of Billy himself - at least in the mind of his family. Hanging from the highest point were strings of Christmas lights and a piece of cardboard, with text written on it in big black letters - RADIO KFAX. Somehow he managed to hang that proud emblem on his homemade radio tower.

"I know he's not stupid, Julia - but your brother isn't like everyone else, you know this. He's not able to live on his own, he's certainly not able to build - " Maria caught herself, hearing the increasingly distraught tone of her voice and stopping before emotion overwhelmed her. "He's not able to build a goddamn radio tower in his backyard!"

"Mom, he already has," Julia replied, rolling her eyes.

"I really like his show," Agnes, Maria's mother, chimed in. "My friends and I listen to it every night. The nurses at the hospital love it too. They call in all the time. It's very fun."

No one quite knew how to respond to that.

"If he had a father figure he wouldn't be like this," Don replied, furthering a train of thought no one else was on and no one cared to board.

"Who would he be like then, you?" Julia retorted.

"Julia, don't take that tone with your uncle," Maria sighed, peaking through the blinds again. "There's a truck by his house. I'm going over there to see what's going on."

The family walked around the block, each for their own reasons. As they got close they saw men unloading great steel beams into the backyard - no doubt to expand the tower - and the old family friend Taylor in front of them.

"Taylor!" Maria yelled. "You have to take this all back! I don't care what he paid you, you can't just leave this here."

"Good to see you too Maria," Taylor replied. "This ain't a purchase, it's compensation!" The swarthy, stout manager of the local hardware store bellowed.

"Oh, compensation for what?!" Don scoffed.

"Effective eight o'clock tonight, TK's Hardware is officially the first corporate sponsor of Radio KFAX!"

"You have got to be fucking with me," Don replied with staccato rhythm. "Where's my idiot nephew, we need to speak with him."

"I never had to keep your idiot nephew from cutting off his thumb in a bandsaw, Whitcombe - unlike some people I have known." Taylor poked Don square in his chest. While Don bristled, the front door opened. Billy - the owner, proprietor, host, and foremost star of Radio KFAX - stepped out in a suit some six decades out of style.

"Hiya folks!" he yelled, while stepping down from the porch, watching his feet all the while. His face snapped back upwards as soon as his feet hit solid ground. "Hi-de-ho, Mr. Kentworth! An honor to have our generous sponsor here today!"

"How you doing, Billy?" Taylor's hand went out to Billy but then swooped back to his gray, combed-back hair - Billy didn't much like handshakes, and Taylor liked to be accomodating.

"I'm doing spectacular," Billy answered. "I just about ran out of materials for the tower. Most gracious of you."

"Least I could do," Taylor replied, with a wide snaggletoothed grin. "You know, I hear the A&G Diner might want an ad spot too."

"Donna's called me earlier today, I think we'll iron out a deal soon. Would you or your employees like to come in? I have drinks if you would like."

Taylor laughed. "Hell, can I get a tour of the studio?"

"Naturally!" Billy turned, and shot up the steps onto the porch. "You can all come if you want."

"Ooh!" Agnes exclaimed, and Taylor and Julia helped her up the steps while Maria and Don reluctantly followed.

They stepped first into a dining room, ornate and clean, ruled by an overlarge dining table and 12 matching chairs, polished to shame diamonds. "This is my reception area," Billy started, squeezing between the chairs and the wall. "For wining and dining visitors, endorsers, guests. I typically go with a beef stroganoff paired with a red for them, if they want it."

Maria took note of the box of wine on the hutch. Billy didn't drink, so he probably went with the first thing he saw that said "Wine." "This is the kitchen," Billy continued, pacing down the hall. "It's where I keep the instruments."

One counter, wall to wall, was covered in wires and orange boxes with dials and screens, with great fistfuls of cable passing through the semi-open window.

"This is the instrument panel," Billy explained. "I couldn't afford one, so I took a bunch of voltmeters and ammeters and made it myself. Lets me know everything is okay and transmitting."

"Good to know the semester and a half of electrical engineering didn't go to waste," Don muttered under his breath. Julia hated him for it.

"I plan to get an electrician down to consult on wiring and design," Billy continued, not noticing or not caring about the snide remark.

"I have a great one I can recommend," Taylor replied, beaming.

"You all can follow me to the recording studio," Billy said as he shuffled down a narrow hallway from the kitchen, and the assembled crowd followed, sans Maria and Taylor.

"Why are you doing this, Taylor?" Maria asked. "Surely not doing this just to spite Don and I, are you?"

Taylor's expression soured. "You don't get your boy, do you? What he's doing?"

"Of course I understand William, which is why I know he can't just make a radio station out of his house!"

"Well why the hell not?!"

"He can't drive, he's afraid of heights, he only eats certain foods, he stutters talking to strangers-"

"Not answering the phones he doesn't!"

"He tells stories to himself, out loud!"

"It's a damn radio drama Maria, what do you think he would do?!"

"HOW is everyone so fine with this?"

Taylor looked at her, eyebrows furrowed.

"Your son couldn't talk to everyone else, so he's put all he has into finding a way. And we like the person we're meeting. Whole town does but you. God damn if I know why." Quiet. Taylor started to shuffle down the hallway. "If you don't mind, I'd like to finish my tour."