B♭ - Chapter 2

Hello!!!

I made several changes to the first chapter, but I won't post the revised version until I finish writing the whole story. Here's part 1 of the second chapter, which provides some background information on Sam. I'm still working on part 2, which should move the plot forward. Once again, please disregard the weird indentations. There's something about this blog that messes up my formats. Anyways, I hope you enjoy reading my drafts! :)

Cheers,

Char

***

Chapter 2:

The fact we share the same last name… doesn’t mean we’re sisters.

~

When we’re together, it’s like a double case of androgynous ambiguity. Those who don’t know us, usually poke around in curiosity in attempts to figure out exactly what we are. Strangers’ insinuating remarks such as “You two certainly don’t look much alike to be sisters,” nag at me. To this, I reply in a very polite manner, “That’s because we’re not, ma’am,” “That’s because we’re not, sir.” Now, if they ask Gab, the reply is most likely to be something along the lines of, “I never said we were sisters,” or “You’re right. She’s actually my partner. Girlfriend. Spouse. Whatever you wanna call it.”

My parents were charming folks. They thought it would be endearing to give their firstborn a nickname as a first name. However, I’m positive they regret the one they chose. My elementary school teachers would always look at me in confusion whenever I raised my hand to “Sam Porthos” the first day of class.

“Excuse me, honey. I think your brother is supposed to be in this class. Did you swap groups by mistake?”

“Um, no, Miss. Um, my name… tha-- that’s my name. I’m Sam Porthos.”

“Oh, Sam!” a smile. “Like Samantha, right?”

“No, Miss. I’m Sam, like Sam. That’s… that’s just my name,” I always said, embarrassed, twirling a finger around my ponytail.

This just seems like an issue I’ll never be able to get rid of. I snort-laughed at the image of the disoriented officer who knocked on my door earlier. I could almost see his innards working hard trying to figure out why Sam Porthos looked like a woman.

“So, Sam. I see you find it amusing to be locked up in a cage, huh?”

“That’s Ms. Porthos to you, sir.” After all, that bald-headed, bucktoothed detective wasn’t my friend.

~~~

Chapter 2, Part 2 *coming soon*

The Wonderful World of Customization!

I've been struggling with templates for a while now... I was pretty happy with the last one I had (green/ floral design, jungle-like feel), but it was full of glitches. I'm on a quest to find the perfect template, and I just hope the one I end up choosing is virtually glitch-free. So, please excuse the crazy avalanche of styles, colors, and formats you're about to experience.

Not very happy,

Char

Drift! A melodramatic poem about le floating.

A poem about imagination, daydreams, and memories.

~

Drift!

Charlene Joy Ruiz

I don’t want to open my window this morning,

For I fear that everything I’ve been working on

Will escape and flow out of my soul, across the room,

Out the window, then back again into the world…

After hours searching for the right words

For my mental show and tell, a thought hit my mind.

It spent hours searching for me, and here it is,

Trapped somewhere between my ribs and my throat.

There’s me drifting under a cumulus sky,

Disturbing the thoughts of onlookers…

I step on freight trucks, with catlike surreptitiousness,

Claiming my nighttime alley roof in broad daylight.

Interstate flooded with my stepping-stone trucks.

Jumping on them, one by one, I feel

The heat of the day adhered to my skin,

The healing wind on my naked feet.

Star-studded asphalt,

Furiously dashing below an asphyxiating sun.

Silvery memory-threads in the back of my head.

How I live for this cat-and-mouse game!

~

Cheers,

Char

UNC Hospitals Volunteer Services, Verano 2009

Bueno, ¿por dónde comenzar?

Este verano tuve la dicha de trabajar en el Hospital de niños de Carolina del Norte como voluntaria. Inicialmente, decidí ser voluntaria por el mero hecho de que las escuelas de medicina le prestan atención al renglón de servicio comunitario en la solicitud del aplicante. Mi meta #1 es ir a la escuela de medicina, así que, por supuesto, tengo que poner de mi parte y trabajar al 110%. Comencé por el área del voluntariado porque lucía como un "no-brainer".

He escuchado los mil y un mitos sobre el voluntariado... Que si ¡las escuelas de medicina piensan que es una pérdida de tiempo, porque leer cuentos y jugar con niños no te da experiencia médica! Que ¡si tu empiezas a ser voluntaria desde ahora, las escuelas de medicina te van a amar, porque eso demuestra que de verdad te importa la medicina y el trato al paciente! Que si ¡esto! Que si ¡lo otro! ¡Ay, dios, qué ostia! Bueno, al fin y al cabo decidí hacer algo con mi verano. Cualquier cosa resultaría ser más fructífera que estar en mi cuarto encerrada como un búho.

Escogí ser intérprete para los padres de los pacientes (los martes) y supervisora del salón de juegos (los jueves). Aparentemente, todos mis compañeros de trabajo estaban impresionados porque era bilingüe. Para mí, nunca fue un "big deal"... Total, lo único que tenía que saber hacer era hablar.

Cuando entré al mundo del voluntariado, jamás imaginé que mi niche en el hospital iba a ser tan relevante. Al principo, enterraba mi barbilla en mi pecho cuando le pasaba por al lado a algún(a) doctor(a), porque me sentía inferior. Dos meses más tarde, mi actitud cambió radicalmente, pues aprendí que los voluntarios producían un gran impacto positivo en el hospital.

Cada martes, iba cuarto por cuarto, ofreciéndole refrigerios a los padres cansados y asustados de los pequeños pacientes. Siempre pensé que los padres y/ o familiares montaban un "show", dándome las gracias por ser tan buena. Mi trabajo no era nada del otro mundo... Simplemente, no entendía por qué trataban mi hospitalidad como si fuera el tesoro más preciado del mundo.

Al cabo de varias semanas, me empapé de las situaciones que los padres de los pacientes tenían que enfrentar... los malos ratos, las sorpresas no tan agradables, simplemente ver a sus hijos tirados, inmóbiles en una camilla... ¡"No wonder" que me daban las gracias, cómo si fuera el Mesías! Una taza de café gratis podía hacer la diferencia entre un día malo y un día menos malo. Una sonrisa y diez minutos de conversación alegre hacían toda la diferencia del mundo.

Entonces, fue que entendí que mi meta primordial era tratar a todos los presentes como seres humanos. Mi experiencia pasó a ser "algo que necesitaba hacer para entrar a la escuela de medicina" a "algo que necesitaba hacer para aliviarle un poco las penas a esta gente tan triste y desafortunada, brindar sonrisas, apoyo y palabras de aliento". De veras ni me importaba lo que pensara o dejara de pensar la escuela de medicina.

Durante mi útlima semana como voluntaria, un empleado del 5to piso (oncología), expresó su alegría al ver que me preocupaba por cada detalle del bienestar de los pacientes, sus padres y familiares. Yo simplemente le contesté que alguien tenía que hacerlo, y que prefería que ese alguien fuera yo.

Es verdad que no adquirí información de tremendo valor médico, pero sí aprendí por qué quiero ser doctora. Me di cuenta que, legítimamente, me interesa el bienestar de todos los que requieren atención médica y sus familiares. Esta experiencia me brindó seguridad, al hacerme sentir "a gusto" en un hospital, aunque estuve rodeada de escenas muy fuertes y desgarradoras al alma. Me probé a mi misma que sí podía trabajar en condiciones tan tristes. Y esa es la mejor enseñanza de todas; algo que no se aprende en los salones de clase. Solidaridad. Apoyo. Esfuerzo. Buenas intenciones. Sentido de hermandad. La satisfacción de saber que le brindaste tranquilidad, aunque sea instantánea, a una familia emocionalmente quebrantada. Esta ha sido la mejor decisión que he tomado en buen tiempo. Espero regresar el próximo semestre; se los recomiendo a todos los que quieran hacer una diferencia en la vida de otros.

Cheers,

Char

B♭ - Murder Mystery Draft

Summer is too long and uneventful. That's why I decided to write a murder mystery. I usually focus on vers libre, so story writing is well out of my comfort zone. I do have a general plot, but still don't know how the smaller events are going to unfold. I'd like to dedicate this story to Michael James, my #1 cheerleader, who "busts my ass" whenever I feel like giving up. Thank you. Also, to Ariel de la Torre, my friend for 13 years, another weirdo scientist-writer like myself. Thank you. I decided to write this in English so Michael could understand, so I'll do my best.

Note: This is an "R" rated story, intended for a 18+ or mature audience. Read at your own risk.

Please disregard the crazy indentations. They're a bit off...

***

(Draft)

B♭

Charlene Joy Ruiz

Disclaimer: I do not own Skittles or Mars, Inc. in any way, shape, or form. Any resemblance to real events and/or persons living or dead, is purely coincidental. No Skittles were harmed in the making of this story.

Chapter 1:

Wishing a pompous bitch dead is one thing, but seeing her corpse spread-eagle in front of you, is another.

~

Just as I thought, my Gab was sitting on our red sofa waiting for me. I knew I was in deep shit when her face resembled the color of our furniture… “Why, hello there! Look who the wind just blew in!” I tried to explain what had happened earlier at the office, but she wouldn’t shut it. My baby Gabrielle—hotheaded as fuck. Let the ranting begin! “I spend the whole damn day in this house! Always in the darkroom, feel like a freaking owl! Work my skinny ass off waiting for you to come home! I don’t even see you no more! And the food’s cold! But you don’t care! You just don’t give a flying fu--…”

“Hey, babe, it’s my time of the month. Not yours.” Three knocks on the door came to my rescue. “Police!”

Gab looked at me with a surprised but tentative curiosity when she saw two policemen standing outside our door. She relaxed her stance as she looked the policemen up and down. "Can I help you?" She asked softly.

"Good evening, ma’am. Ms. Porthos?" one of the policemen asked.

"Oh, I'm Sam's girlfriend."

"We need to speak to him, is he in the house?"

She looked confused for a moment, but upon realizing they really were policemen and not strippers, her temper flared right back up as she looked at me and asked, "What did you do now?!"

“Um, I’m Sam Porthos. Is this about Joie Fern?”

“Excuse me, this is serious. We’ve got a warrant.”

“I—I don’t understand?”

The rest of his words seemed to jumble up in my head. “What the hell’s going on, Sam?” “We’ve got a warrant!” “Please, step aside ma’am.”

Shit. They knew.

***

It had not been long since Joie Fern had inherited her uncle’s opulent fortune, that she decided to invest her first millions in buying the Skittles confectionary in Waco, TX. Hm, what can I say?! The glossy bits of colorful sugar had always been one of Joie’s biggest guilty pleasures. Two decades ago, we would sit on her front porch and pop them in our mouths one by one, until they turned white. Fast-forward into the future, and here I am— her dead body before me, a mouthful of Skittles spewing out of her full, lifeless lips.

Knowing Joie, I knew it had been an accident. Her life had been an eternal pas de deux with gluttony; always putting away more than what she could carry. I looked into her glazed, fake emerald eyes and told her that she had it coming. I leaned down and lowered her eyelids, and walked away examining the remnants of her smoky eyeshadow on my fingertips. “Why did you pig out like that?” My fingers trembled as I dialed 9-1-1-.

Joie’s secretary rushed into the penthouse office and had a screaming fit when she saw her boss on the Skittle-strewn Persian carpet. Her panic-stricken face confronted me in confusion, as if searching for a “How?” or a “Why?”

“9-1-1, what is your emergency?” The thought of foul play never crossed my mind.

***

Six hours later, I was at the police station getting my fingers inked. The cops said they had to rule me out as a suspect. Poor Gab. Her tired eyes begged for sleep, but she never left my side. I really do love her. “You better wash those hands good, babe… Don’t want you inking my--…”

“Sam Porthos?” I could not have gotten up faster. “This way, please.”

The detective offered me some coffee, which I gladly accepted. “How long have you known the deceased?”

“We went to elementary school together, so I’d say, about twenty years.”

“How would you describe your relationship with the victim?”

“Tumultuous. We were very close friends all throughout school, and then when we got to college, things changed. She changed. She just… became another person, someone I didn’t want to be associated with. As you already probably know, she had quite a few discrepancies with the law. She just hung out with the wrong people. Funny how we both ended up working for Skittles… We stopped talking for years, and boy, did I get the surprise of my life when I learned she was going to be my boss!”

“Ms. Fern’s secretary informed us that you wished her dead. Will you please elaborate on that?”

“Well, I—you see… Ms. Fern wasn’t an easy person to deal with. She mistreated her employees. She even--.”

“Please, answer this. Did you, or did you not wish Ms. Fern dead?”

“Yes. I did. But, let me tell you something, sir. I wasn’t the only one.”

“So, you do know of anybody who might have wanted to harm Ms. Fern?”

“Oh, plenty. She wasn’t exactly a sweetheart. Many of my coworkers joked around with the idea of poisoning her coffee, and such. But, this is on a whole other level. I’m positive none of them would’ve gone so far as to actually killing her. If you ask me, I think she went on one of those eating sprees.”

“Eating sprees?”

“Yes, she usually gulped stuff down whenever she was feeling uneasy. She just ate the nights away, always thinking of how to make ridiculous fortunes without spending her money. Always cutting down on salaries and benefits and…”

“Porthos. Did you know that we found multiple severe abrasions in Ms. Fern’s esophagus?”

“Come again?”

“She didn’t just choke to death, Porthos. We believe an object was forcibly and repeatedly shoved down her throat, causing major lesions and internal bleeding. The killer apparently thought it amusing to stage a colorful accident. We didn’t find an object on-scene that could have caused this type of damage. We searched your property and found nothing. The murder weapon is missing and the killer is at large. Now, Porthos, would you please stop the jibber-jabber and get down to business? Tell me, who killed Joie Fern?”

I lost my nerve. “Well, at least the bitch went how she liked it. I bet she enjoyed every minute of it. Never spit, always swallow! Serves her right for being such a who--”

“You better get yourself a lawyer, Porthos. You’re under arrest.”

***

This is just to give you a general idea of what I'm writing. I'd enjoy some feedback. I'll post Chapter 2 soon. Toodles!

Cheers,

Char