Outtakes

Outtakes

  By Gabrielle Blue

  Copyright 2011 Gabrielle Blue

  Author's Note

  Gabrielle Blue is a pen name for Cheryll (Gabby) Ganzel and Tessa Blue Jones. Outtakes is a collection of short stories, revealing our rather twisted, sometimes grim, sometimes playful mental meanderings. We hope you enjoy them!

  Outtakes

  Table of Contents

  The Weaver

  A Leap in Time

  Cemetery Girl, with Goggles

  Pike Place Peril

  Soldiers and Dandelions

  Second Honeymoon

  Xavier

  The Men's Room

  Threads

  All that Glitters

  Snowdrift

  Purr-fect

  The Devil is in the Details

  The Weaver

  by Tessa Blue Jones

  Rosalind was edgy. Rosalind was tired.

  Rosalind punched her card in the time clock with a vengeance. As she thundered down the hallway, her co-workers, bunched up in threes and fours at the water fountain, parted like the red sea.

  She swept by them to her cubicle, plunking down the thermos at her work station. No one welcomed her back. Not that she blamed them. Her temper was notorious. Still, it would have been nice if someone had at least said good morning. Well, no time to dwell on it now. Time to get back to work.

  She hated the first few days after a long vacation. So much to do to catch up. Things would be out of place. The rhythm would be lost. It would take time to get it back.

  A smiling face startled her.

  "Hello, Rosalind. Welcome back."

  Initially, Rosalind was shocked that someone had actually spoken to her. Then shock turned to disapproval, her lips thinning, turning downward. It was that... that... bohemian weaver... what was her name? Faith, or Joy, or something equally nauseous. 'Trouble' would have been a more appropriate name. Rosalind tried to ignore her and her platitudes.

  But the woman would have none of it. "How was your vacation?" she asked, voice bright, grating on Rosalind's nerves.

  Rosalind grunted, pouring a cup of coffee from her thermos.

  "I don't know if you remember me, Rosalind." She sat with easy familiarity in a vacant chair, swinging her legs back and forth, like a child. "I'm Hope. I drew your name at the last Christmas party."

  Oh yeah. That was it. Hope. Hope with the gift of rainbow colored socks. Imagine that! She took as sip of her coffee, trying to get into the right frame of mind to start weaving. Humanity depended on her weaving. She wouldn't let them down.

  "That was a long vacation you took, Rosalind. Did you do anything exciting?"

  "No." Trying to discourage chit-chat, she was short, abrupt. Then she felt bad. Hope was trying to be nice. Never mind that she didn't have a shred of common sense in that too-pretty head of hers. Rosalind fished around, dredging up more than a one-word response. "Anyway, it was only 52 years. That's not so long, Hope. I've had longer."

  "Well, it seems long to me. I wouldn't want to be away from my weaving that long."

  "I left in 1960, Hope. A quiet time. I left enough Threads to continue."

  Hope shook her bright blonde curls. "Not according to Boss. Early 60s he left a memo, asking for volunteers to pick up your weaving."

  Rosalind felt a faint stirring of alarm. Her stomach began to burn. No one messed with her Tapestry. No one. Not ever.

  "Volunteers? Whatever for? Everything was going smoothly. There was no need. I saw to that before I left. Boss knew it was under control."

  Hope shrugged. "Well, after you left, he must've changed his mind." She grinned at Rosalind. "But don't worry, Rosalind. I took care of it for you."

  The burning in her stomach became a three-alarm fire. No. It can't be. Say it isn't so. Not Hope. Anybody but Hope.

  Rosalind scrambled for her Tapestry, heart sinking as she found it. She picked it up, mind whirling as she saw the chaotic colors woven at the end of her neat Threads.

  "Hope, what have you done?" she whispered, fingers trembling as she held the Tapestry.

  "What do you mean, Rosalind? I think it looks much better. More vibrant, alive." Her big blue eyes held honest bewilderment.

  Idiot, thought Rosalind. She really had no clue, did she? Now what was she going to do? How could she fix this mess and get back to her original pattern?

  She drew in a couple of deep breaths. She wouldn't lose it. She wouldn't. She would remain calm. She would...

  She lost it.

  "You idiot," Rosalind roared. "You have ruined Humanity. What were you thinking, Hope? What could you have possibly been thinking?"

  Cubicle walls rattled at the decibel level. Heads popped over the short walls, the neighboring weavers looking like prairie dogs popping out of their holes.

  Hope glanced around, big blue eyes round and teary. Her lip trembled.

  "But I fixed it, Rosalind. I thought you'd be happy. Why are you being so mean to me?"

  "Fixed it? Fixed it? You've ruined it, Hope. Look at this mess! It's chaotic and jumbled. Humanity can't live like that!"

  "Sure they can," Hope said, tears drying immediately, never sad for long. A bright grin etched across her face. "Go ahead, take a look. It's wonderful, Rosalind. Go on. Look."

  Rosalind picked up the Tapestry, laid it on the work table, squinted her eyes and peered into the Threads.

  And groaned.

  It was even worse than she'd anticipated.

  "Hope," she said, trying to keep the edge out of her voice as she pointed to one of the Threads. "What is this? A woman with three children. Where's the father?"

  "Oh, that. The nuclear family age is over, Rosalind. That whole June Cleaver thing was just too much. So... limiting. I gave women choices. Options. There doesn't have to be a man, you know."

  "How do they survive? The man is necessary to work, to provide for their families. Stability." Really, this woman was dense.

  "Not anymore. The women work now. They can be anything they want to be."

  Rosalind looked at Hope, aghast. "Then who takes care of the children?"

  "Why, babysitters, of course."

  "Of course." Rosalind rubbed a weary hand over her eyes. She looked at another Thread. "And what's this?" She held up a hand in disgust. "No, don't tell me. Two of the same sex together?"

  "Boss said you wouldn't like that one," Hope said, swinging her legs even harder, the grin turning into a laugh. "He said you were a prude. I guess he was right."

  "It's not that I'm a prude," Rosalind said stiffly. "It's just that there are formulas in weaving that work better, Hope. Humans need stability. They need organization and structure." She pointed to a group of bunched Threads. "Take these adolescents. They're all grouped together. That's trouble. See what they're doing? They're hurting each other. I remember when adolescents went to the drive-in or malt shops for entertainment. Now..." she stopped in mid-sentence, shook her head sadly.

  "Um... those are gangs. I know. I messed up a little on that one. If you look further down, though, you'll see where I'm trying to phase them out. The drugs, too. I dunno where that came from."

  "It came from up here... in the sixties, Hope. Right after I left," Rosalind said with a meaningful look. She pointed out an area on the Tapestry. "And what are these?"

  "Oh. Those are computers. I made everything computerized so the Humans could have more time to explore other things."

  "Well, now they have too much time on their hands. Everything is automated. And look at the state of the environment. How are the Humans supposed to live in that mess?"

  Hope quit smiling and started to pout.

  "Look, Rosalind. You can't blame that on my weaving. That was your doing. You and your nuclear power. Bombs and war and stuff. Gas powered vehicl
es, belching fumes in the atmosphere, poisoning everything. Your doing, not mine."

  Rosalind's cheeks were red. Her breath came quick and hard. That naive, stupid twit. She ought to just throw the Tapestry in Hope's face. She'd made a mess of it. Let her deal with it.

  "Now look here. My Tapestry was neat and tidy. Orderly. Structured. The Threads were properly muted, coordinated."

  "You mean boring."

  "Not boring. There was a pattern."

  "Boring. Dull. Uninspiring. And downright ugly." Hope pointed at the end she'd woven. "My part has excitement. It breathes. It's colorful... it's..."

  "It's wrong. It's utter chaos. That's what it is."

  "And yours is so right?" Hope pointed to a few Threads just before Rosalind's vacation. "How about these black ones having to sit at the back of the bus? Separate water fountains, separate schools, separate everything. Like they're not real Humans or something. What's up with that?"

  Rosalind glared at Hope. "I was fixing that. I was. It was just a few loose Threads, that's all. I was going to fix it just as soon as I got back from vacation." She pointed to the sticky on the wall of her cubie, which read, 'Fix loose Threads when back.' She stared bleakly at the Tapestry she'd worked on for thousands of years. It had been so perfect. And now, thanks to a tiny vacation and a maverick weaver, all was lost.

  Wasn't it?

  Rosalind stared at it. Hard. Picked up her Needle and Thread. Maybe. Maybe she could fix it. After all, it was only 52 years' worth. There were thousands of Tapestry before it. There would be thousands of years after it. This was just a small... blip... in the Threads of Time. Maybe... yes, that's it. December 21, 2012. Humans were fearful of that date, anyway. Hadn't she woven in that whole Mayan calendar thing, just in case her Threads had become unmanageable? This was the perfect time to square everything away. Make everything tidy again.

  She bent carefully to her task, picking up the brightly colored Threads, weaving them in with her more muted ones, toning it down.

  Hope just shook her had and hopped out of the chair. "Well, if you're gonna ruin all my good work, I'm outta here. Got my own world to weave, yanno."

  "I'm not ruining it. I'm repairing it."

  Hope sighed. It was a losing battle, for sure. And she'd made it such a kaleidoscope of a world. Bright, colorful, so... here and now. But Rosalind would never be able to appreciate it.

  Hope shrugged. Then grinned and said, "See ya later. Have a good day." She left, only to pop her head in again through the open doorway, a puzzled expression on her pixie face.

  "Hey, Ros... do ya think there's someone, somewhere, weaving our Tapestry?" She actually thought about it for an entire millisecond, then shrugged, face clearing. She waved and bounced out the door.

  "Don't be stupid, Hope," Rosalind called after the few weaver. "No one is weaving our lives." She shook her head, then thought about it. Really thought about it. The realization hit her suddenly, and she actually dropped a Stitch, fingers going quiet and still for a moment. And in that moment, Humanity faltered.

  No. It couldn't be. Rosalind tried to laugh it off, but the laugh got caught somewhere deep inside, coming out more like a strangled cough.

  No. It couldn't be.

  Could it?