By Kathleen Pickering http://www.kathleenpickering.com
One of the beauties of being an author is that you find stories everywhere. Since this is a mystery writers’ bog where I am so kindly welcomed as a multi-genre author, I want to try my hand at a mystery. Wanna play?
So, it’s a beautiful Sunday morning along the New River in downtown Fort Lauderdale. You are heading for a Jazz Festival where folks may not actually be as they seem.
To reach the river, you enter an open park with a large pavilion just before the river walk. On the paved sidewalk you find this symbol:
You think, that’s cool. Is it a fish? A dwelling? It’s just a novelty until you reach the other side of the park. There where the path ends you see this symbol:
Now, you can’t help it. You follow the orange-brick road circling the other side of the park and discover this:
Now, you’re wondering, is this a secret code? Directions for aliens landing on the green? These symbols are not located at the four compass points, but simply dotting the path at four points where you would enter or exit the park. So, now, your curiosity is peaked. Is there another symbol in the other section you haven’t checked? Sure enough. At the path by the fountain at the city side of the park, you find this:
Then someone’s name is carved into the cement at the foot of the park:
If you tell me what kind of mystery this creates for you, I’ll tell you mine. I’m sure someone smarter than I will be able to tell me what these symbols represent. In the meantime, let’s make our own meaning and build a mystery. It doesn’t have to be long. A paragraph or two, like a cover blurb, will do just fine.
Now, as a throw in . . . across from the park is an open pit where they’re starting construction. The pit is lined with fencing decorate with images such as these:
On the other side of the park is an odd tavern filled with flotsam and jetsam. It’s masthead is a flying mermaid. Do either of these locations have anything to do with the symbols?
Let ‘er rip, mystery writers! The winner gets a free, autographed copy of Mythological Sam – The Call. Let’s see what you can do!
A Day at the Park Reveals a Mystery…
Haunted by the email invitation…
Jessie Holmes fingered her Sax as she entered the park. It couldn’t be. It just wasn’t possible. Her father went missing years before leaving Jessie only the instrument and a stack of sheet music no one else could read.
Jessie stopped dead in her tracks when she saw the first symbol.
Water…His element.
Jessie’s heart flipped. She pulled her sax close and walked the path. Her hands felt the adrenaline kick into overdrive when she saw the second symbol.
Earth…
Her footsteps accelerated. The third symbol waited, fixed into the brick path.
Fire…
Only one left. It had to be there. Jessie ran toward the fourth one. This one represented her ability, the one she’d tried to hide, the one that wouldn’t let her rest. Her eyes widened as saw it waiting for her.
Wind…
Jessie looked up and saw her father’s name carved into the cement.
She shook her head, and gripped the sax. Heard her melody floating through the air.
She looked over at the Riverfront Tavern, and saw him standing there under the mermaid masthead, waving her forward to come join the band.
Paula’s entry is brilliant. I would turn this into a paranormal story also where the jazz festival is a cover for aliens who are hiding among us. They are gathering to initiate an offensive. The symbols represent their military divisions and are evident in tattoos on their arms. Those are cool designs, Kathy, and inspirational to kick off a story.
I’ll build on a revised version of Nancy’s entry, inspired by an actual dream I had last night.
In the dream, a visiting race of aliens somehow left behind an adorable baby alien, who was hidden in a light house that stood on a promontory next to a nursing home. Problem was, the baby alien (it looked like a miniaturized penguin) would leave blistering burns on the skin of anyone who disturbed him, so he had to remain hidden. In the dream I accidentally came across the box that was hiding the tiny creature. The box was marked with a glowing blue eye, which, when I pressed it, allowed me to speak with the baby alien. We became instant friends. At the end, I re-hid the box so that no-one would disturb the little guy.
So to complete the mystery–I left the symbols in the park so that the aliens would be able to find their baby when they stopped at a gas planet and realized they’d left him behind.
So cool, Nancy and Kathryn.
When I wrote that this morning I so saw the Jazz band as a collection of paranormal musicians – or the Star Wars Bar Occupants, calling Jessie to come join them.
How fun is this!
Wow!! This is great . . . I’m not offering mine yet. And, yes, this is great fun, Paula!!
Well, considering the name in the concrete is the same name as my brother-in-law and his son, I have to concoct something!
Do we have until midnight to submit?
Be back later . . . ::scurries off to concoct::
The chill morning air was like a mint in his lungs, refreshment bordering on the uncomfortable. He walked to the park as he did every morning he was in town, to the eye of passers-by he was headed to the Sunday concert series that for many long ago replaced church. He moved with purpose, concealed beneath a relaxed exterior. Expectant yet not expecting the marks that would activate him yet again. Stepping up to the curb he glanced down and his eye landed on a sheet of paper lying on the sidewalk. His heart skipped a beat. The mark lay in front of him, but the wrong one and in a very wrong format. Instead of being scratched as chalk graffiti on the garden wall it was bright and vivid on a piece of paper on the ground, like so much litter.
He moved on without slowing or acknowledging the paper. A hundred paces further, another paper copy of the supposedly secret image, again out of order but clearly visible for what it was. He slipped his hand into his jacket pocket, caressing the butt of the Walther PPK that lay ready. When he saw the third of four images he knew he could not return to his flat, they’d be waiting, perhaps rigging explosives that would end his career in a hell of fire much as he had done to others. No place to go but forward.
To the right a construction crew worked busily to one side their safety boundary fence wrapped with plastic tarps colored with designs that looked like quilts. Two men looked up from their work and watched him pass, faces expressionless. Opposite the work area Harbour Cafe & Bar was crowded with breakfast buffet customers enjoying their eggs benedict and champagne morning fare. Chilling before the music starts. How many people in that crowd glanced up at him as he passed? Enough to know he was under someone’s eye.
He reached the stage as the band was just coming on, passing the fourth out of order symbol just beside the grass field as he slowed his walk. The hair on the back of his neck bristled as he saw the final confirmation of his undoing in the words scratched onto the sidewalk with black charcoal.
Bill Holmes, his own name.
He closed his hand around the pistol, flicking off the safety and caressing the trigger.
“Don’t, William,” said a sultry voice, the bedroom voice of the siren, dripping sensuality that masked the heart of a killer, “you are fast, but I guarantee you are not that fast.”
Ya know – I’ve never been tempted to visit that cluttered looking bar. (Who cleans that mess of hanging debris anyway?) The pirate bar across the river looks sorta interesting. My Ft Lauderdale house is only a block from the Riverwalk & we like hangin’ out to watch the monster yachts squeeze through the waterway. Nice post – but I’m not feeling particularly creative today.
Bill Holmes, friend, neighbor and jazz clarinetist extraordinaire. If you’re going to have a neighbor that keeps you up late with music, you ought to be lucky enough for it to be Bill. We lived in an artistic community. I did some photography and drumming myself, which is how I got to the park today. Bill had left the strangest message on my phone today, practically begging me to come drum with his band at the Jazz festival in the park today. He said that it was literally a matter of life and death and my drumming could save lives. I thought the “literally” part was a bit much. I mean isn’t that one of the most used and most improperly used words out there. He also told me to make sure that I used the Northeast entrance off Merrimac to get into the park. He must have been a little off today. Bill knew the closest entrance from our apartments was off of 2nd Street on the far west side of the park, which is how I entered the park.
As I entered the park I crossed a weird symbol I’d never seen before, a couple of swooping, connected lines with some fill. It reminded me of a doorway. I continued and found another new symbol – kind of like a sun shooting into the sky. I followed it around and found a fully blazing sun symbol, and a symbol that looked like a sun setting on the water with the rays shooting off. I noted them but kept heading for the meet spot with Bill.
Getting to the far side of the park I was keenly aware of the silence. There was no music and this was a Jazz festival? There was a strange tavern filled with what looked like the junk and graffiti of ages, but it was empty and soundless, just like the rest of the park. My nerves were a getting a bit on edge as I focused on my hearing, I found that I couldn’t even hear any birds or bugs. I began to keep time with my drumsticks. I had to have something louder than my heartbeat to listen to. When I got to the far side, I found Bill’s name scratched into the cement, liked he’d used his fingernails to do it.
“Excuse me?”
I jumped at the question and dropped a stick as I turned towards the voice. I saw a small, boy child with a mischievous smile and twinkle in his eyes that looked like it belonged on someone much older…and taller. “Are you talking to me? “ I asked as I retrieved my stick.
The boy walked up to me and looked me up and down like well, like someone over 18. “Yes. You did it wrong.”
“Pardon?” Some punk kid was estimating my bra size and telling me I was wrong about what?
“You did it wrong. You will not find your friend, unless you go back and do it right.”
Then he was gone. Just poof, vanished, gone. I don’t think I actually even blinked.
Okay. Here’s my rendition:
Music. That elusive elixir of sound creating a language that pulls at something visceral within your being until your body moves of its own volition. That was how I would explain my love of Jazz to our listeners as I headed to the riverfront for the festival where we’d be playing for the first time.
It had been a long night in the studio. Bill had been relentless in rehearsing the entire gig flawlessly before we performed today. He’d acted strangely. Edgy. Playing his sax like it was the last night of his life.
When I awoke this morning, he was gone. Not like Bill at all, especially after I kept him awake for awhile after we’ve gone to bed. Again, he’d been so distracted. But, when he returned his focus on me, it was as if he’d never see me again.
I could only imagine he left early to set up beneath the gazebo. He wanted everything to be perfect today. He’d said some important folks were coming to listen to his new songs. He’d shown me symbols he’d found in a cave out in New Mexico last month. Said the wind brought the music to him. He showed me photos of these signs. Four of them, like prehistoric Indian earth messages grounded in time. I had been dumfounded when I heard the new sounds these images inspired in Bill. His sax sounded surreal. Talk about making my body move!
I found the gazebo empty. None of our friends had seen him. After half an hour, still no Bill.
Then, I saw him. Standing beneath the mermaid hoisted beneath the apex of the Irish tavern jammed with flotsam and jetsam of seaports past.
He looked in my direction but seemed blind to me and the folks milling about him. I called, followed him. He disappeared beneath the overhang of a pavilion into the park. What was he doing? We were late for the gig!
I spied a small square at the top of the path into the park. May jaw dropped open when I saw one of the symbols hammered into the path. Like half a fish, or some ancient teepee. Sound was vibrating from the small square. It hummed the melody that Bill had written.
Bill was circling the park, saxophone in hand. I saw him tap something beneath his foot on the path.
“Bill!” I called.
He ignored me, his gaze roaming the path before him. He looked excited. Surprised. Expectant.
Again, I reached the spot he’d just left. A second symbol. It, too, was humming Bill’s song. Bill was jogging now to the other side of the path. He tapped another spot.
I knew when I got there it would be a third symbol. Sure enough, only this one vibrated his song with the strains of a harmonica.
I chased after him as he reached the fourth symbol, and jumped on it with both feet. Like an explosion of sound, Bill’s song erupted from all four symbols in harmony like a four piece band on steroids.
Folks came running from the Mermaid Pub, their dockside chairs, and their boats because the music rocked the area like a Jazz concert gone wild.
I stood dumbstruck, watching Bill play his sax to the accompanying song. His song. I started dancing. I couldn’t help it. I joined the crowd of people dancing in the grass within the circle of symbols.
At a construction site across the street, one of the beautiful, multi-pattern blinds put up along the fence to block the few into the construction began to pulse and swirl faster and faster, the more Bill played, the faster in turned. As Bill threw his head back, playing the climax of his song, a brilliant light burst from the center of the blind.
Everyone, including me, fell to the ground blinded by the light. The music slowly died. When I looked up, people were rising to their feet, looking at each other in question.
I looked where Bill had been standing. He was gone.
I ran to the place he had been. His sax lay on the ground where letters carved his name in the cement and were still smoking.
These were all really good! I can’t just pick one.
So, I’m writing the winners below. If you’d like a signed, paperback copy of Mythological Sam-The Call, please send me your snail mail address. If you’d prefer an ebook, send me your email.
Paula Millhouse – LOVE YOURS!
Kathryn Lilly – Love alien possibilities!
Basil Sands – I’m already nervous for your character.
Chaco Kid – perfect mystery in the making.
Send you info to me at: kathleenpickering@ymail.com.
Thanks for playing with me!