In Grist
Beca Barons is a writer struggling to succeed in publishing a story, and a life-altering event curtails her progress towards that end….The accident opens a "tear" between parts of her mind where her "creations" and those of others she has known, come forth to rescue her from the precipice of death….Now, inside her mind with her Constructs of the stories she has written from past to present, she must fight to heal herself from within, and save her body as it fights to stay alive following the accident in the outside world.
This story has been inspired by the "Mass Effect" universe. Inspiration from the author's AUs of the "DrellVerse".
Rated M for mature: trigger warnings, casualty, violence, language, and graphic imagery.
Chapter 1
"I feel it takes me out of my hell to watch someone else's." She blew smoke from both her nostrils. In one hand, a pad of paper; in the other, a pencil. Her companion was a "crunchy" sort from out of a thrift store, his hair messy, beard growing in from laziness, and clothing stale. He coughed, phlegm in his throat by the sound of it.
"So you watch the news about sharks eating people off the coast of a foreign country?….That's horrible….You should get out more often, come have drinks when I take time off from writing in the evening," he pulled out a thick manuscript, and set this heavy ream on the table between their dishes of long-ago eaten breakfast eggs and toast, "….I should have a few nights ahead of me if you want to consider. Finished this baby last night," he ran his thumb over the pages with a flipping sound, "….I think it'll be a winner," he leaned over it, "….How about you and me go to that place we were at with Lori, the wine there was good….Have a few glasses and enjoy some time away from the desk?"
"I don't drink with you, Kra'," she avoided looking at the thick folder with his finished novel inside its covers, "…and I hate getting drunk."
"Seriously?….Beca, you're a lush and you hate relaxing," he lifted his coat off the back of his chair and began to pull it onto his arms. He had a cigarette hanging between his lips, wagging as he spoke….Now he puffed and inhaled, blowing a cloud out of his lips and nose, "….Tell me about what you're writing, Beca," and he settled back in his chair, hand on his manuscript, taunting her with the pile of papers and folder around it.
"I'm working on a new idea," her eyes were brown, "….It has something to do with space and politics, bullshit and aliens….There's this guy who takes over everything, and you end up hating him, trying not to like him even when he's got his moments where he's, like, the only one who does anything right….He's a man who runs away from his responsibilities—"
"How does that make him someone who does everything right—"
"I'm not finished and you're not listening," she tapped out her cigarette into an ash try—an empty water glass—and looked him dead in the eyes, "….He has responsibilities that aren't necessarily nice responsibilities, but that are imposed on him by who he is, where he's brought up. He's a man who wants to do the right things, but by what waits for him and those who surround him, he's taught to defend himself with anger and violence….That's my story so far….I need to find out where he takes my pen."
"It won't go anywhere," he picked up his chipped mug and drank, the logo for Cariza's staring back at her in a green circle with a golden banner through it. Beca could smell his coffee breath from across the table, among the cigarette smoke. There was a sickly sweet smell to it. Her confident expression waned. She looked down at his manuscript between their plates.
"Why would you shoot it down before I've written it….I'm going to write it, and it'll be different than what I've said, I'll….What's wrong with my idea?"
"It's not what the mass audience is looking for, Beca…."
"What….and you know….you know what everyone wants….What do they want, Kra, tell me."
"The idea's just….done, Beca….It's a poor story, face it….Don't waste your time. Come up with something else before you spill out all that ink and frustration over something that's not going anywhere….It'll never take off and you'll be disappointed. I mean, how many times has some bad guy tried to turn out the hero in these stories….Give up on it."
"Fuck off, Krazinski."
He brought up his hands in defeat, then squatted out of the chair to stand, belt buckle clear under his dowdy shirt and coat above worn jeans, "….Bye, Beca, I'll check with you later….You're obviously a little too defensive…." He moved out of the chair, freed himself from between its seat and the table, and walked passed her on Beca's right.
Beca stood, abruptly sounding back her chair's feet as it skidded on the floor of the café, "….You forgot your manuscript, Asshole."
Krazinski came back and picked the folder up to take with him, smiling smug at her with a short laugh, "….Name-calling now, are we…." His cigarette was burning too close to his face….He took it out of his mouth and used the waning stub to emphasize his words, "….You can't take criticism."
"It's not criticism, the story's not even written. You think you have a feather in your cap because you finished your fucking mermaid story—which sucks by the way."
"It's not about…." He shook his head, frizzy dark curls over his brow swaying, and took his manuscript, the dying cigarette, and his person towards the exit to move away from her….He stopped at the door, "….Thanks for the breakfast…." She stared at him as he turned his back and left into the day outside.
"Bill, please…." She turned her eyes from Kra's back to the waiter by the cash register next to the diner top….Beca pulled out a wad of cash and dropped two twenty dollar bills on the table, "….I need change…." The waiter had come over, scooped out the difference for her and Kra's bill from her sash's pocket, and swapped the change with the two twenties on the table….Beca pocketed the ones and left a five for tip, "….Thanks," then grabbed her coat and left.
Bringing her notepad and pencil with her, she went to the door, pushed this open, and stepped out onto the sidewalk, hit by cool air in her face.
She had a dumpy old convertible with the soft-top up, waiting for her in its parallel spot on the street.
She strode over to it in her Mahyo treads on her feet.
Pulling her key out, she unlocked the driver door and dropped into the front seat, tossing the notepad and pencil behind her in the back.
She slapped her hands with the key on the steering wheel, "….Fuck him," and the key bit into her palm, but it didn't bother her. She stared through the windshield at the idle street ahead, "….Fuck him twice…." She slid the key into its ignition slot, and turned the car over into operation….Beca backed up, drove forward slowly, turning the wheel counterclockwise, then clockwise to straighten out as she entered the lane.
She accelerated away from the curb and Cariza's. At the intersection ahead, she slowed the car and stopped.
The light glared red, overhead and oblivious of the fact no other cars were waiting to pass perpendicular to Beca's street.
Beca glared forward below it, waiting for the green in her peripheral vision….The traffic light clicked audibly, and the red turned to green. Beca drove through the intersection, hard on the gas. She spun the wheel clockwise, taking the convertible right.
Beca checked her sideview mirror, catching a glimpse of what might be coming down the lane behind her. All she could see were strands of dark brown, nearly black hair being sucked by the air vacuum made from her lowering the window, air passing over the car, seeping inside the convertible she was contemplating removing the soft-top overhead on, and so she turned to crane her neck and head about, fleetly to check behind her through the seats and rear window.
She straightened out her drive, having swerved a little with the turning back and forth to see her blindspots.
Sure of her area, she accelerated for home: a small townhome clustered in a square with three others in Bakerville, ten minutes away.
She turned on the radio, loud music filling her ears with bass and pop….Beca immediately let her head bob to the beat, holding onto the steering with one hand and the other arm out her window, cool autumn air pulling her tresses….Her palm slid down over the dimpled steering leather to her signal-lever to flash the bright yellow-orange light at her rear driver-side fender for a lefthand turn ahead, "….Fuck you, Krazinski!"
She abruptly decided to pull over….Guiding the convertible to the side of the road before the intersection, she set the gear in "P" for park.
Stretching to reach behind the front seat, she pulled forth her notepad and pencil. She opened the middle console of her front seat, dropped inside the pencil on receipts, change, pens, and other knick knacks she kept around for just in case she needed something useful, and grabbed a pen.
For the next two hours, she wrote, filling up that five-by-seven notepad with her first rough draft of the story she'd started sharing her ideas about with Kra' at the diner café. At first it poured from her pen—angrily scrawled across lined pages, and as she flipped to new blank sheets, her writing became gradually calmer, the cursive serene, until all started to soothe and dismiss from her mind the former rejection experienced by her in Cariza's.
Her jaw unclenched, her shoulders relaxed, her body "breathed" in its loosening hold over her joints….She wrote for two hours, cramped and relaxing in her convertible on the side of the road with the engine off….When it was time to add the final period, she looked up out the windshield thoughtfully.
A peace had come over her.
She looked down at the notepad in her hands and turned the pages to the beginning….She smiled—the "outline" was done, at least….Fuck….him….I'll show him when it's done….The fucker….
Setting the pen and notebook beside her on the passenger's front seat, she started the car again, played the music a little softer in volume, and pulled out onto the road—feeling immensely satisfied. She gripped the steering wheel with both hands. She sang over the music, knowing the lyrics by heart, and letting her voice fill the convertible now….and she was homeward bound.
Somehow, even in her clarity, as she was driving left through the intersection ahead, she missed the signal turning red.
The street perpendicular to hers was filled by this time with cars and trucks waiting at the light for this last-second convertible to turn into the lane heading northbound on Candriss Street….and a black truck with flaming red and gold banners on its top saw the righthand lane of the double-laned street open, and the driver of this truck—thinking to jump ahead of the rest—accelerated with a roar of the engine down the open pass meant for righthand turns only….A larger dump truck sat at the head of the line of cars waiting to continue northward, blocking the driver's view of the intersection's crossing lanes….and the little grey convertible turning left through it all.
Beca heard several blasts of horns….She felt the car move violently—hardly in the lane for longer than a few seconds as she joined with Candriss Street northbound—The sounds of brakes, the screams of metal, plastic, glass twisting and crumpling thunderously….lasted no more than a split-hair of a second for her ears to hear before, as when one falls asleep, she doesn't realize when it happens, Beca was unconscious.
The little convertible flipped eight times beyond the ruined end of the black truck, rolling to a stop in the far left lane of the incoming traffic line after passing over the double parallels of yellow paint, coming to its ultimate perch on the driver's side of the car.
