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We Once Lived in Caves and Other Stories by Khristian Mecom A Thesis Submitted to the Faculty of The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements of Degree of Master of Fine Arts Florida Atlantic University Boca Raton, FL May 2011 i We Once Lived in Caves and Other Stories by Khristian Mecom This thesis was prepared under the direction ofthe candidate's thesis advisor, A. Papatya Bucak, M.F.A., Department of English, and has been approved by the members of her supervisory committee. It was submitted to the faculty ofthe Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters and was accepted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree ofMaster ofFine Arts. SUPERVISORY COMMITTEE: == Wenying Xu, Ph.D. ~~IChair, Department ofEnglish MajUIlaPeIldakUf]h.D. Dean, The Dorothy F. Schmidt College of Arts and Letters kl151 UJ/J B!"T1o!~~- Date Dean, Graduate College 11 Acknowledgements The author would like to express her sincerest gratitude to her family, especially her mother and father, for all of their support and love, without who this collection of stories would not have been possible to write. Also, she would like to thank her thesis committee members, Professor Kate Schmitt and Professor Elena Machado. And a special thanks to Professor A. Papatya Bucak, her committee chair, who has been an instrumental guide and teacher, without who the author would not be able to call herself a ‘writer.’ iii Abstract Author: Khristian Mecom Title: We Once Lived in Caves and Other Stories Institution: Florida Atlantic University Thesis Advisor: A. Papatya Bucak, M.F.A. Degree: Master of Fine Arts Year: 2011 The following manuscript is a collection of eight short stories that center on the theme of how stories and storytelling, in all their different forms, fill our lives. In one story a girl that lives in other people’s houses, longs to tell her story, while in another story a girl struggles with a secret her grandmother leaves behind as she tries to reconstruct her grandmother’s story. Some stories use magical and fairy tale-like elements, which work as allusions in the stories and echo the events happening in characters’ lives. Another theme present in the collection is that of family and how familial relationships affect identity and self-discovery. In one story, a wildfire allows the stories of different generations to be told, while a widow builds a family out of the aftermath of her husband’s death in a different story. iv Table of Contents We Once Lived in Caves ................................................................................................. 1 Love & Black Holes ...................................................................................................... 17 The Pretty Fall ............................................................................................................... 34 when we still had the rest of our lives ............................................................................ 50 Cerberus ........................................................................................................................ 54 The Outlaw Cordelia Powell .......................................................................................... 92 When the House Burns Down ...................................................................................... 122 The History of Dead Things......................................................................................... 151 The Writing of We Once Lived in Caves and Other Stories .......................................... 177 Bibliography ................................................................................................................ 202 v We Once Lived in Caves There once was a girl who lived in many houses. In the house across the street, that’s her, right there, peering out from behind the blinds, a glimmer of blonde hair, the shadow of a shifting body trying to get a better look, and she’s watching the young man across the street leave for work, which is strange for many reasons; one being the young man leaving work, Peter, could have sworn that she lived in the house next door to him. He doesn’t know her name, has never been properly introduced to her, but he’s seen her around. She’s something of a fixture in the neighborhood ever since he moved in. Peter remembers seeing her coming out the back door of the house next door to him once, and remembers thinking that she was pretty, although she didn’t look a thing like the family who lived there. All their children were dark haired while she had hair that was the shade of a yellow crayon, and those children were extremely vocal, laughing and yelling at the close of summer days as they played in their backyard. Peter would open his windows on those days and let the sound drift in, and he was sure he had never heard a voice that matched the girl he saw coming out of their house that day. He imagines her voice as airy and musical, not rough and loud like those children. The girl had stopped and looked at him, frozen for a moment, and as he was about to say something, a polite ‘hi’ or a similar greeting, she smiled, showing all her bright white teeth, and slipped away 1 before he could say anything or smile back. One day Peter drives by her as she walks down the sidewalk. She wears a backpack, although she looks a little too old to be going to school, maybe she’s on her way to the bus stop, to some class at the local community college, he thinks. While he waits at the stop sign at the end of the block, she waves like a long lost friend, hand curving from side to side, fingers spread, and it feels as if she is trying to call him back as she has something to give him that he has forgotten. But as usual, he is late and as he turns the corner, she stands waiting as if she is making sure she has disappeared from his rearview mirror before she leaves. Well, that girl’s name is Amelia and she lives in many houses, but none of them are hers, and she lives in Peter’s house, and although Peter doesn’t know her yet, she knows him. It is far easier than one would expect to live in someone’s house without them knowing it. There are some fairly simple rules, of course, the Do’s and Don’ts of coexisting in secret, a standard of living, if you will. On the top of the list, and this is the real trick, is to put things back exactly where you find them. Exactly, not in the general area, not guessing where it might have been, but in the precise spot, down to the last detail where you picked it up. When taking a toothbrush out of the holder, before even touching it, be sure to memorize the angle that it’s leaning, which way the bristles are facing, and only when you can close your eyes and build the picture of that toothbrush in your mind can you then remove, use, and place it back exactly the way you found it. Likewise, you must always remember what station the TV is on before you change the channel, don’t worry about the remote, people ever remember where they put that 2 anyway. You can never tell what little misplaced item can call attention to your presence. Any of those small miscalculations can ruin the whole thing, forcing you to make a hasty exit when someone comes home early because of a gut feeling. Never underestimate the ability of a person to notice the little things. Who’s to say for certain why Amelia breaks the rules, why she lets herself get noticed. It might have started off as an accident but what happened after surely wasn’t. She’s coming out of a house on Earhart Street, a place she’s been staying at on and off for years now. It’s a real nice ranch style with a family of five living in it. She almost feels like a part of the family, almost, as she has watched the children grow up, seen them age in their school pictures hanging in the hallway, and slept in their beds that have continued to expand larger from singles to doubles. The family cat greets her affectionately. She knows their names (Tom and Diane, little George, Tiffany, and Laura) and hobbies (model cars for George, Tiffany and her paintings, Laura’s ball of rubber bands), and where they go on vacation (always to Pennsylvania to visit the grandparents). But to Amelia’s credit they do not know her, have never seen her close up, but once or twice they’ve driven by her as Diane, the mom, drives them to school, and Amelia always waves in hope that they will wave back. At three o’clock, just before the children come home from school, Amelia exits the house by the back door, careful to lock it back up with her spare key; the one Tiffany’s mother scolded her for losing. Amelia senses someone watching her as puts the key back into her pocket. She glances up to find a young man watching her. It seems he was in the process of bringing the garbage cans around to the side of his house. She 3 recognizes him. He is the next door neighbor. She knows everyone on this street; she was there when he moved in. His name is Peter Fischer. He lives at 8395 Earhart Street. He works a lot; leaves very early in the morning, and comes home after it is dark. She is sure that he is not supposed to be home at this time. He’s very good looking, she thinks, and he almost reminds her of someone she once knew, a boy from her first grade class or a guy out of a soap opera she used to watch when she stayed home sick from school. And it is the first time that anyone has ever reminded her of a time when she had a home of her own.

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