Art Therapy

Inspirational song: Maneater (Hall & Oates)

I love Tuesdays. I really do. Going to Rotary and writers group has become the highlights of my week. These activities almost never let me down. Lunch today was with people I adore, and the program was applicable to my own life experiences. We had a speaker who had a major health crisis, poisoned by long-term chemical exposure in his teens that left him in a wheelchair for years, who found treatment that allowed him to regain use of his legs. His presentation was what he used to get the rest of his life back after losing his youth to ill health. He turned to art to piece his mind back together, and he talked about the avenues he pursued and the progress he made along the way. His paintings, photos, and even knit products were wonderful, actually. They made me want to drag out the paints myself. But really, I do have art that I've been using to keep it all together on a regular basis. I live to write. I write to live. I will never give this up.

And on that note, tonight was a second swipe at that flash fiction exercise like the one that I led two weeks ago. We had some of the same people present, and some different ones. We used a different topic (this time "revolution" in any way we wanted to interpret it) to sketch a plot line, a character, and an emotion. I interpreted the topic as "Eric was grounded. He had spent all day learning the guitar lick to the Beatles song "Revolution," even after his mother complained that it was giving him a migraine. But he was obsessed. Now he was trying to sneak out of the house, so he could meet his friends, and rehearse for their punk garage band, "The Resistance."" When I got my three cards, and saw how well they related to each other, I threw my hands in the air, knowing I had won. It was never a competition, but I won nonetheless. Here is what I wrote, so quickly and furiously that my hand cramped and hurt for the remainder of the meeting.

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Sheila spotted her mark in an instant. His hair was sightly disheveled, his tie was crooked, and his eyes were so bloodshot that she could see the red from across the bar where they had arranged to meet. He had asked her to meet in Santa Clara, but she thought it unwise to be seen with him so close to his work. Fisherman's Wharf was crowded and touristy, and no one would think twice about seeing a Silicon Valley businessman and a voluptuous blonde who was obviously not his wife. Any observer would conclude that their association involved a much different sort of transaction.

She uncrossed her long, tanned legs that were revealed beneath a black pencil skirt, and she leaned slightly forward at the waist. That was all it took for her mark to notice her. She raised her glass of red wine to bring his gaze from her cleavage to her face, and once he made eye contact, she gestured for him to join her.

He approached like a man facing the gallows when he saw how beautiful Sheila was. She flipped her long hair over her shoulder with one delicate hand and said in a husky voice, "You are here to see me?"

He stammered slightly, "Y-yes. I'm Matt J--"

"Shh," she cautioned, touching one perfectly manicured nail to her ruby lips, causing him to startle and immediately stop talking. "No names. I don't want to know."

"Right," Matt said. "It's just... I need... I've never done this kind of thing before." He looked longingly at the bartender, wishing he had gotten a drink before joining Sheila.

"They are phasing out my entire department. The whole thing. It's going to be completely automated. I don't know what I will tell my family."

Sheila raised one soft brown eyebrow and asked, "You started a computer revolution in your industry, and now you are surprised when they've come for your job too?"

That made Matt angry, as if he couldn't accept that even he was vulnerable to the advances of technology. "I am not hiring you to give me job advice. We are here to make a sale. That's it. Do you have what I want or am I walking now?"

And just like that, Matt appeared to be wriggling off of her hook. But he wasn't going anywhere. Sheila was the best in the business, and she had never lost a sale yet.

"I have everything you want. I'll even let you have some of it, if the price is right."

Sheila stood and grasped one of Matt's lapels, pulling him out of his seat. He trailed her from the bar into the parking lot. For all the world, he looked like a man about to get exceedingly lucky.

They came to the trunk of her rental car, and she hit the key fob with her thumb. "What caliber were you looking for first? 9 mm?"