Chatterbox...

and The Insecure Writers' Support Group's First Wednesday Post

This past month, I’ve been writing for A.C. Cargill, All-Human Author #Summer Scare, so I thought I’d give the un-scary side of writing a shot this week. This story came from an encounter I had with a very talkative person. After an hour of non-stop, one-way conversation, I came home and wrote Chatterbox. Hope you enjoy.

Image by AI-Hobby-Kunst from Pixabay

Chatterbox

Mara was a young girl with a gift, though most people in the small town of Bellridge would have called it a problem. She talked. Constantly. Endlessly. With a kind of cheerful determination that could wear grooves into the patience of the most indulgent listener.

She even narrated mornings to herself (“And now I’m going to brush my teeth—minty today, very refreshing!”), debated with her cereal (“You could try being less soggy, you know”), and held full conversations with passing dogs, who, in her opinion, were excellent listeners if not particularly insightful conversationalists.

At school, teachers learned to call on her sparingly, not because she lacked answers, but because each answer arrived wrapped in three anecdotes, a question, and a fun fact she’d read somewhere but couldn’t cite. Her classmates had developed strategies. Some nodded and smiled. Some slowly edged away. Her best friend, Lila, had mastered the art of inserting a single well-timed “uh-huh” every thirty seconds while doing homework.

But Mara didn’t notice her friends’ irritation or their need to employ survival strategies against her barrage of non-stop, one-way talking. To her, the world was too full of day-to-day happenings, and she was convinced that those events were so much more exciting when shared out loud.

One afternoon, while walking home, she discovered something new to talk to—an iridescent, pointy-topped box sitting at the edge of the sidewalk. It was no larger than a lunchpail, and on the lid was a latch without a lock. She stepped nearer to get a better look at the delicate silver filigree covering its surface.

“Well, hello there,” Mara said, crouching down. “You are lovely and quite mysterious. Are you mysterious? Because I’ve always wanted to find something mysterious, though to be fair, I once thought my neighbor’s cat was mysterious, but it just turned out to be grumpy—”

The lock slid up with a shushing sound like librarians make when you’re talking in a study area.

Mara froze mid-sentence. “Did you just…shush me?”

The lid popped open, and Mara jumped away. When the box didn’t do anything else out of the ordinary for boxes, she crept forward and peered inside.

It was empty—just a dark space that seemed deeper than the box allowed for.

“Oh,” Mara said, leaning closer. “You’re one of those metaphorical things, aren’t you? Like a symbol. I bet you’re a symbol. Of what, though? Possibility? Secrets? Snacks? Hopefully snacks because there’s nothing better than a nice—”

The box made a soft humming sound.

“Okay, that’s new,” Mara said. “You hum. That’s good. I like a good hum. I hum sometimes, though I’ve been told I’m better at talking than humming, which is fair—”

The hum grew louder and steadier as if someone was turning up the volume and pressing a constant play button.

“Are you trying to tell me something, because if you are, you’ll have to do more than just hum at me. Like my mom always used to tell me when I was little, “Use your words.” She took a breath and continued. “Or maybe…”

Now she took her time to examine all sides of this oddly behaving wooden box and the delicate silver tracery that covered it. She risked touching one side with a quick tap of her forefinger, and when it didn’t do anything strange or threatening, she moved her finger over the scrolls and swirls.

It didn’t take long for her to discover that those scrolls and swirls weren’t only decorative; they spelled something.

“Chatterbox?” She stepped back. “What an oddity you are. You’re something of a—”

And then, quite suddenly, Mara’s words—her actual words—began to shimmer in the air in front of her mouth. Tiny glowing syllables, tumbling out before diving straight inside the box.

With her silence, the words stopped appearing mid-air. She clamped her mouth shut, her eyes wide with shock.

Slowly, she opened her mouth again. “Hello?”

Hello floated out, glowed faintly, and slipped into the box.

Mara stared, for a moment, speechless.

“Well,” she whispered, then winced as “well” flickered into existence and vanished into that dark space, too. She pressed her lips together, thinking hard. Why were her words visible? Why were they disappearing like that?

“Stop…” That disappeared, too, and when Mara tried to finish the sentence, which she’d intended would be, “You are not supposed to steal my words.” There was a blank space where “you” and “are” were supposed to be. So what actually came out was, “Stop. …not supposed to steal my words.”

It was true that Mara did rattle on and on, but while she sounded like a featherbrain, she really did have a good mind. And confronted with this confounding phenomenon, she put that good mind to use at once.

Silently, she reviewed what she’d just said. Yes, for the first time, she carefully considered what she’d uttered in the last few minutes. Then she did a test. She tried to say “not supposed to steal” out loud again, but no matter how hard she focused on forming that phrase, she could not utter it. Then she tested “Hello.” But there was only the sensation of breath in her throat and silence.

This box was taking her words and locking them away. If she said much more to it, who knew what would be left of her vocabulary?

All her life, words had gushed out of her like a river. Now, for the first time, she could see them. Count them. Lose them.

She sat there for a long moment, silent.

It felt strange, like holding her breath too long.

Then, carefully, she said, “You’re… locking up… everything I tell you.”

All of that floated away, visible, precious, and then gone.

Mara considered the box. She considered how many words she used in a day. In an hour. In a minute.

“Maybe,” she said slowly, “___don’t need to say everything.” She’d lost “I,” so there was no way she could refer to herself with that pronoun.

The box gathered in those six words and hummed, but softer now, more like a cat’s contented purr.

Mara closed the lid gently and stood up, tucking the box under her arm. As she walked home, she was silent. She had some serious thinking to do. After all, she’d just acquired something magical that gathered up her words and imprisoned them. She wondered if they’d be locked away forever. That would be terrible.

She vowed to talk less from then on. When she did talk, it would be about important things, and she’d choose her words as if they were precious, because now she knew they were.

The box seemed to settle into her embrace as she had these thoughts. Then the lock slid aside, and all those captured words rose free like bubbles into the air.

Mara smiled, relieved. “Thank you.”

And in that moment, the Chatterbox vanished from her arms.

The next day when she met Lila at school, she smiled and said, simply, “Hi.”

Lila braced for the onslaught of one-way conversation, but when it didn’t come, she squinted at Mara as if checking to see if it was indeed her chatty chum. “Hi? That’s it?”

Mara grinned and nodded.

For once, silence felt like enough.

The End

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And now for…

Posting: The first Wednesday of every month is officially Insecure Writer’s Support Group day. Post your thoughts on your own blog. Talk about your doubts and the fears you have conquered. Discuss your struggles and triumphs. Offer a word of encouragement for others who are struggling. Visit others in the group and connect with your fellow writer - aim for a dozen new people each time - and return comments. This group is all about connecting! Be sure to link to this page and display the badge in your post. And please be sure your avatar links back to your blog! Otherwise, when you leave a comment, people can’t find you to comment back.

Let’s rock the neurotic writing world!

The awesome co-hosts for the August 5 posting of the IWSG are Shannon Lawrence, Diedre Knight, Liza, and Pat Garcia!

Every month, we announce a question that members can answer in their IWSG post. These questions may prompt you to share advice, insight, a personal experience or story. Include your answer to the question in your IWSG post or let it inspire your post if you are struggling with something to say.

Remember, the question is optional.

August 5 question - As a writer/author what is something you regret? Or something that you wish you’d done differently in your writing process?

I can’t say I regret anything I’ve done because each step in my writing process has taught me something—about writing, publishing, or myself.

I could have made my life easier if I’d stuck with one genre, but I love to experiment, so I didn’t. Instead, I’ve written Young Adult, Middle Grade, and Adult. Inside each of these categories, I’ve tried my hand at contemporary/realistic fiction and fantasy. I’ve written novels and short stories that range from steampunk to horror to some stabs at the literary.

Just try to market all of that!

So, no regrets, but I do shake my head at myself. Could you make things any harder, Lee?

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Because No One Notice is once again echoed in the headlines.

When I wrote this book, I didn’t know the real world headlines would be so close to this imagined story. Unfortunately, they continue to show us what happens Because No One Noticed.

Five friends plan futures. One obsessed loner plots escape. The collision between them will come at a very dear price to everyone in the small town of Las Animas.

Available on AMAZON