A Dirty Existence
(Quirky Characters)
By Jesse Basler
I watched Mrs. Baker dig a hole with a robot every afternoon. The hole expanded into an enormous pile of dirt. People came to watch because they desired to cure their curiosity about the woman destroying her own yard. She poked the dirt with her shovel and her robot. The robot became nice and dirty from the ground when working in her backyard. He continuously talked to everyone, including me, about gaining his freedom from Mrs. Baker but no one held him back from leaving, including Mrs. Baker, herself. Mrs. Baker baked a lot of food for her bakery but when the bakery fell upon the closing time, she moved outside to cause chaos to her back yard. I guarded over her and came down to talk to her to make sure that she slept every night. My friend, Mrs. Baker, possessed no more family because in her youth, her family couldn’t control the loss of life ravishing through her family, but she never discussed any reasons why this occurred, or why they died, at least to me. I lack her age, nor do I even know her first name, but I felt responsible for her and cared for her very much. She never released that information to anyone including myself. After she came out from her bakery; she sometimes baked cookies for the robot and the hole. The robot never understood and I ended up picking up the cookies from in the hole.
She named the hole Roberto and the mechanical being Chuck. No one ever called the cops, and the cops knew about Mrs. Baker and felt her personality harmless enough for the most part, at least, in my opinion. Some people wanted her to leave because they were afraid of what she could do or was planning. I know Mrs. Baker but she harms no one; she just likes to look up at the stars while being surrounded by dirt. She dreamed of doing that and she is still very crazy. One day, the storm washed in and the rain`s pitter patter destroyed as much of the hole that could be destroyed. She wailed with tears running down her cheeks for her hole friend and I tried to comfort her about the loss of her hole. Chuck helped her bury that hole and it looked as if that house showed signs of people mourning. I tried checking in with her but she never opened the door. A few months past, they began on a new hole in her back yard and she was communicating with me again.
The robot found himself longing, so much for his freedom, that people began rumors that the robot felt like hurting her and making a rampage through the neighborhood. She would either die or she would create more dangerous chaos of some kind. They sometimes felt that they thought she had pulled the rubber band too far back and it was about to snap. The robot craved his freedom more and more each day. The robot helped for years after that flood but I knew he hated the hole and he believed that she thought more of that hole than of him. He desired freedom so much that he would do anything. Though Chuck the robot never told why he wanted to leave Mrs. Baker and she treated him like family in her own special ways. I felt that he wanted something more than being with her or that hole but who knows what that would be? He wanted to make a difference in this world.
Chuck went out when Mrs. Baker slept one night but I gazed at the backyard as the scene unfolded. I checked outside every night in hopes to make sure she went to bed instead of to her fixation on her hole. I observed from the second story of my house in my bedroom, looking down at the backyard of Mrs. Baker. Chuck brought out his lantern along with a bucket of water, a shovel and a suitcase, probably for his final escape. He threw the lantern into the hole and it broke immediately on the soft dirt of the ground. Chuck watched the hole burn when I watched as a squirrel jumped out of the hole and onto Chuck`s face. He panicked, not realizing the squirrel had been in the hole, and was now attaching to his face. The squirrel looked panicked, I guess; the squirrel appeared tiny to me, especially up here, but the flames provided the light necessary to see everything going into the craziness. The squirrel slept in that hole that night and turned out not to be very appreciative of fire being thrown in its face in an unexpected moment.
“What rotten luck for the both of them,” I thought.
It became worse than I thought when I realized that the squirrel had indeed not missed the fire. At last, Chuck reached the non-fire proof squirrel and threw it as it landed into the bucket of water. The fire was out but the fight was not over. The squirrel fought for its life as it tried to have its head above the water. He grappled the squirrel and tossed it to the ground where the squirrel retreated.
He grabbed the water and drenched himself to put the fire out on himself. For one moment, I believe he forgot what he was. He fell to the ground as he short circuited and started shooting off sparks now. I darted and retrieved a bucket of water to jog out to her backyard as the fire spread from the hole. The fire expanded by catching leaves that the squirrel had accidentally dragged along with it, including sticks, and one stick in particular fell between the leaves and to the grass that lead to the house. Chuck had landed on the dirt that was on the opposite side of the hole from Mrs. Baker`s house and the fire managed not to touch him as he was lying on the pile of dirt. I called the fire department as I hurried with the first bucket of water.
I used the buckets of water and went back inside my house for multiple buckets of water to extinguish the fire, all while in my pajamas and slippers that I wore. I, however, forgot a flashlight and the darkness surrounded me again as the fire disappeared. I stumbled to find my house and once inside I clutched the flashlight and headed back out. I froze as I stood searching for anything I could help with and thought of what to do. I stood away from Chuck as his body was still spewing sparks into the air.
The firemen came up and the sirens yelled down the street announcing their presence. I explained to the firemen that I managed to put the fire out but couldn`t stop the robot who exuded danger. They managed somehow to defuse the robot and restore it, alert and functioning. They also pounded on the door to get Mrs. Baker out of her house and to safety while the others tried to stop the robot`s sparks.
Then, when it was all over, they explained the events to the other neighbors who came to see what happened and some of whom were angry for their disturbed sleep as it was two am at that point in time. Mrs. Baker had never come to the door; I guess that she slept through the whole ordeal and had become the single person on our block not awake from the racket of her backyard and the sirens blared from the fire truck. The firemen left and the neighbors went inside their houses since the danger had been averted. I went into my house but I stopped to watch what the robot would do outside my bedroom window. I figured that he was not done and I confirmed that I was right.
Chuck buried the hole in a very violent way. He left the yard and I never saw him there again. I collapsed into my bed knowing I and my neighbors were safe. The next day, Saturday, I talked to her and she knew that the hole had been destroyed and the robot became missing. She missed the fact that the house was burnt next to her backyard. I consoled Mrs. Baker about the hole and the robot. She found herself oblivious of what transpired the night before and she talked to me, wondering why the hole and the robot were gone, multiple times.
“Who would destroy…this magnificent hole? And kidnap Chuck?” She cried.
I did not want to tell her that it was Chuck who did both in the middle of the night. I just held her and allowed her to cry and talk about the “accident” of the hole. She began the next hole the next day and never tried to find Chuck. I asked later why she didn`t wake up during that night now that she realized her house needed repair.
“Who says that I was home?” She said. She smiled but never explained what she meant or where she escaped to before the time that I checked on her. When did she get home? She refused to tell me, like many other things which made me wonder what information that she hid.
The robot departed, never seen by her or me still to this day.
The Lady Bug Love
(Use more vivid verbs for descriptions)
By Jesse Basler
The boy woke up and explained that he was going to be home late and his mother said ok. He found himself walking out the door of his house and shutting it. He headed towards his destination that was a house. The boy cut corners and took the short cut to get there as fast as possible. He had no restrictions and no one knew he decided to show up but he felt like getting there and not take the long route and walk for a long time because he was impatient.
The boy found the steep hill which was impassable unless you felt like going to the hospital. The boy stopped and he crawled through the tunnel as he looked forward to getting to his destination. He knew of that tunnel he entered that was a short cut to his destination and avoided the hill. The boy fit into the small tunnel but to him it was manageable. He investigated this tunnel once on a hot summer day and that is where he discovered the short cut without being in danger. He could never see anything in that tunnel that was devoid of light. He expected that he did not want to know because it was filled with dirt and smelled of sewage water. He avoided the rocks as much as possible but he developed cuts from ones he had missed.
He stood and found that his clothes were always dirty when he exited the small dark tunnel. He swept the dirt off of his clothes and tried to clean the rest up as much as possible and the boy returned to the path to the house. Then, he saw his destination and sped to the house and finally slowed.
The girl crouched on the porch investigating a yellow lady bug. The boy crept around the brink of her house to observe the girl. He peaked at her because she invoked something inside of him. She traced the yellow lady bug pattern into the dirt acknowledging his presence. The girl locked eyes with the boy. The boy bounded away ashamed for staring. They were infatuated with each other.
They conversed sometimes when at her home or school. The boy was intrigued by the girl but they recognized they could not be together. The boy`s best friend happened to be her brother. He resisted his love for her because of his loyalty to her brother. In secret, the boy longed for her presence. The girl wished he would be near her. Her brother was oblivious of these attractions between his friend and his sister. They recognized within each other that they loved each other.
The boy thought “One day, I will have a chance to marry that girl and be accepted still as friends to the brother.”
Anniversary Contest
(50 words, theme: Anniversary)
By Jesse Basler
“Happy Anniversary,” I said. It was that time of year again. She sat browsing our worn photos from years gone by.
She wiped tears from her eyes and whispered, “Happy Anniversary Honey.” Our marriage anniversary was today but I died two days after our last anniversary in a car accident.
Dust Bunny
By Jesse Basler
Originally Published in Mid Rivers Review in May 2017
I believed dust bunnies would attack if I didn`t clean them, and so when I saw a pile under the kitchen table, I knew it needed to be destroyed. I saw two piles today. I swept up the first pile into a dustpan and threw it away, but when I saw the second pile, I noticed it was shaped like a Chihuahua, so I decided to pick it up with my hands. I felt that I couldn`t just sweep it away; it held my heart, reminding me of my dog named Harry because of a white lightning strike fur pattern. Harry was my dog growing up; he always hid under the table for everyone except for my family, Alexis, and me. Harry was so playful and loved to cuddle. So, I named the dust bunny Harry, too.
When I tried collecting it in my hands, the pile growled at me and moved backwards. I jumped away from the dust bunny. Harry started to run away from me and headed toward my bedroom. I left the kitchen to follow it, and I found him under my bed. I chased Harry from under my bed and then around my room and I finally caught Harry. I gripped the dust bunny and kept a good strong hold on it. It didn`t fall apart but it did feel scruffy. I took it back to the kitchen, putting the dust bunny into a cage that I had from other pets in the past.
I sat down, watching this dust bunny in the cage. It sat still at the moment as I thought about what happened while trying to regain my breath. I wondered what to do with this dust bunny.
My friends should see Harry, I thought. I decided to go to Kayla`s house first, carrying the cage with me. The dust bunny did nothing. She didn`t believe me. I went to another friend next, and then the next, but it never did move or anything, and no one believed me; finally, I went to Alexis, the last person that I could think of, to show Harry. I did not think of Alexis because, though we were friends, we were not very close and barely talked to each other unless our mutual friends stood around with us. Alexis understood weirder parts of me that we both shared and we connected in that way. I believed that the same thing would happen but I was determined to try. I showed her.
“Sara, can I pick it up?” Alexis asked. She wanted to pet Harry and play with him. We stood in her kitchen, which lead to the open backyard through the door. She removed the gate from the previous owners of her house to open up her yard. My friends tended to call Alexis and me weirdos for things like poking each other for fun or weird jokes that no one understood except for us. I opened the cage and she went to pick it up. Harry bit at her.
“See!” I yelled. Harry started to sprint towards the doggy door. We weren`t fast enough because Harry ran out into the darkness of the night and was lost to us forever. I went home that night and cried myself to sleep. I connected with Harry twice, and again, that loss overtook me. Later, Alexis and I felt closer because of that incident about the living dust bunny and since then, we`ve been best friends. We still talk about Harry together.
“Here`s the room, Mr. Jones. They will be with you in a little bit. If you need anything, just ask,” the secretary said.
“Thank you.” She nodded and closed the door behind her after I entered the room. I pulled out the papers and started setting up the material necessary for this presentation. I even laid out my clothing products. I finished what I needed to put out and stood there as my hands reached into my pockets. I felt the button in the right pocket of my coat jacket and started to weave it through my fingers in a nervous habit. It was my sister`s button. The clothing button had white flowers painted on the brown wood. I remembered the moment that she told me about her idea and when she showed this button which was her inspiration that started this business.
“So, I have an idea, Jake. I found this button and that got me thinking,” she said. She took the button out and handed it to me and continued. “I`m great with designs and I think I have a great business idea. I already got it started but I`m having trouble and I need your help.”
“What kind of help?” I said, as I leaned against the counter in our apartment and I examined the button that didn`t have the faded flower pattern like it does today.
“I need money and I know that you already support us both but I really want to do this. If this is successful, like I think it will be, it will bring in a lot of money.” She paused and said, “I will pay you back and it can be our thing, you know.” She smiled wildly and swayed a little bit placing her hands together in front of her.
“Stella, how much?” I said, crossing my arms and sighing.
“That’s the hard part. It`s about $100,000,” she said, as she squinted her eyes. We continued the conversation as she shared her idea and her outlook for her business idea, which was called The Playful Button. The more we talked, the more she had a twinkle in her eyes. She was always dreaming of being successful with her own business. I decided to go into The Playful Button with her. I was an accountant so I knew money well and she was the creative force. I owned half of the business at that point in time. I had to quit my job later to help expand our business. It became financially tight but we managed. But I missed moments like that with her.
My reminiscing thoughts were interrupted when the door opened and three executives walked into the room. I pulled my hand out of my pocket, leaving the button, and shook each of their hands one by one. I plastered a smile onto my face and focused on the meeting. It was a clothing business but the shirts and sweaters had buttons placed in particular ways to form a design like a smiley face, which made the clothing unique. It had made a pretty good amount of money but I was negotiating to get my products in the big box stores. I pitched the business which included me pulling out the button and explaining where the business idea started where I told them as well how important this button was to me. They said the products would fit well in their stores but it needed to be beneficial for both parties. Then, we negotiated. It took longer than expected but we finally settled. They selected some of my products to be sold in one store for a trial run.
Later, I entered my apartment to start into the business paperwork and worked for hours until I reached into my coat jacket pocket out of habit. The pocket had developed a hole and the button was gone. I frantically looked all over. The button wasn`t in my clothing anywhere! It wasn`t close by and not around any furniture that I checked. Earlier that day, I had gone other places, which included the meeting, and now, I needed to retrace my steps. I looked at the clock and realized that all the places that I had gone were now officially closed. I didn`t go to sleep because I thought about the lost button and where it could be.
*
The next morning, I had to organize the supplies and coordination to get ready for the store. I had to manage my work schedule that was long with the search for my button. It had been an unsuccessful search. The stores had sweep where I had gone. But I hadn`t gotten a chance to go back to the store where I had the meeting. The Playful Button was successful to expand to other stores but we were having many issues with the manufacturer and the big order since I lost my button. The manufacturer was starting to give up.
The fire changed everything. The phone rang and I picked up. The big box store was wondering when the next order of my product was coming in and I said it should be soon. I left and went to the factory to make sure everything was going well. Once there, I saw items were everywhere and in a mess. The products were scattered around and the people scrambled all over the place.
“What`s going on?!” I screamed. My hands were in the air.
“We can`t handle this product load! We`re extremally behind schedule!” The manager said, panicking. He was trying to stop a machine that was malfunctioning and I went to help.
“Well, can you get it back on schedule?” I said. I pulled off many tops from the assembly line and placed them onto a side table.
“Not for a while,” he said. A fire burst out in another area behind him and a smoke alarm sounded. People sprinted to the fire to help put it out and I tried too. It was one of the machines that had caught fire. I still remember the buttons dispersed on the floor as they all melted away. The buttons were all unattainable because they were close to the middle of the flames. The side of the building was burning and everything in that area was destroyed. The sprinkler started to water the facility. I felt soaked by the time it stopped. Some workers used the sweaters as a way of stamping it out and others used their feet along with the sprinkler which reduced the fire. It took a while but the fire finally stopped but the clothing and buttons were ash and the factory building was partially burnt as well. It would take many things to fix this facility and we were going to lose the big box store soon because of our late arrival already.
“I quit! I can`t take it anymore!” The manager screamed. Some others yelled out a similar sentiment and left, but a few remained. There were not enough employees to run this factory now, especially in this condition. The fire department came and everything was worked out. I had to call the factory owner but he said that they were announcing that they were going out of business and they apologized for the “inconvenience.” The last employees closed the doors with this announcement and went home.
I entered my apartment and frantically called manufactures, as many as I could, to get a deal with. Fast! I didn`t reach many but the ones I did suggested that they would call me back. I called the big box store and made an appointment in their earliest convenience which was in a few days. I took those days to call manufacturers and had a hard time to get through to anyone. A few days later, I talked to the executives. I told them that I needed more time and explained what happened. The executives gave a deadline before the contract would become invalid, based on our agreement. They said they didn`t want to lose us because of the response and requests from so many customers. They would, however, if we couldn`t produce the minimum amount. I would be racing the clock. We shook hands and they turned to leave. However, the top executive turned back to me and pulled something out of his pants pockets.
“I found this on the floor. I believe this is yours,” The top executive said. He held the button in his palm.
“Yes, thank you!” I said, relived.
“I remember you mentioning that this button was important to you. I knew that if I lost my daughter`s bracelet that she made for me, I would want someone to get it back to me,” he said, as he raised his arm that showed a colorful, thread bracelet. He lowered his arm and I pocketed the button in my pants pocket. I again thanked him and he nodded. We said goodbye and left to get back to our separate work. I was so grateful! I exited the building to go to my car when my cell phone rang and I answered. It was another, bigger manufacturer that reviewed The Playful Button`s products and business and thought that we could make a deal together. I made the appointment as soon as possible which happened to be the next day, luckily.
The next day, we conversed about the possibility of them making the clothing. I asked how fast could they make it. The first order would be the minimum amount, which would take a week, but then the next batch would take more time, but more product would result. I barely kept the contract with the big box store and fulfilled the bare minimum for now to keep The Playful Button running. The new manufacture and I shook on it. They started immediately and sent the clothing out into the stores. In weeks to come, the store received more of my product that they had ordered. The Playful Button was not only in the black but it was making a major amount of profit! I could finally breath and I kept the button with me while dealing with everything that I did.
*
A few years down the road, I took a Saturday off and went for a drive. I parked in the grave yard and grabbed the rose on the next seat in my car and I pulled the button out. The button was firmly in my hand as I walked out of my car and up to the chipped grave stone.
It read,
Rest in Peace to a Beloved Sister
Stella A. Jones
March 28, 1986-April 20, 2015
Years ago, she went to have a meeting in another state with a smaller business than the one that I had signed. Stella took a plane and I had said I needed to stay here because I needed to negotiate with the first manufacturing company. I hadn`t known what was going to happen, that Stella`s plane was going to crash, and I still wish she hadn`t gone. We didn`t even get a deal with the smaller business though they sent their condolences.
That Saturday, I placed the rose on the grave and sat onto the grass near it. I unfolded my hand that contained the button and played with it for a while, then I looked up at the stone. I wore the sweater that she first made for me with our names made out of buttons on the front.
“I miss you.” I paused, and fiddled with the single, special button. “I`m succeeding with the business. Thanks for the help, though; I couldn`t do it without you. I don`t think I would have kept going if it wasn`t for this button, and you, or at least my memories of you. I love you so much.” I sat in front of her grave for a while and rested. I thought about the fact that her dream was coming true and I had done all of this because of her. I also did it for me, to keep her close, when she was gone, because, with this business and button, she was always with me, even in death.
My Sister`s Button
By Jesse Basler
Originally Published in Arrow Rock Literary Journal in May 2021