August 2011
30 posts
No. 313
This is the story of a blankie. It begins not at the moment it was conceived of, nor at the moment the final touches were put on its seams. No - it could have been aborted with zero guilt right up until the blankie met its owner, was given away, and became itself in the arms of an infant. After that, this blankie’s life was sacred.
It served as a blanket until it was outgrown, and then,...
No. 312
“I think I’m a bit of a hippie.”
“What makes you say that?”
“I don’t wear shoes, I like beat up clothes, I’m into sustainability and getting into folk music, I support activism, I’m concerned about war and about the environment, I’m basically moving into a commune, I’m basically a vegetarian.”
“Those things do not a...
No. 311
There is one particular moment that can sum up the whole of a musician’s existence; a musician need only live it once to know their time in this world is justified. It goes a little like this:
When you have prepared a song that you fell in love with immediately upon hearing it and then played incessantly for months without starting to find it dull - indeed, finding new perspectives,...
No. 310
Sailors, impeccably dressed, swarmed the gate. They set down their bags and then split off in groups of two and three to forage for food; the young man to whom it had fallen to watch over their belongings stationed himself stoically. He stood straight, feet apart, hands clasped, scanning the civilians around him. He looked almost as though parade rest came naturally.
His compatriots trickled back...
No. 309
It’s been dark out for so long that the streets have emptied themselves of all but the most tenacious pedestrians. A “Hey!” in the night could easily be someone protesting to his friends, or calling to a passing acquaintance, or just being loud for the sake of being loud. But if it’s followed up by a “Hey, girl!” and you seem to be the only female around, well,...
No. 308
I suck. It’s basically my job description, to be honest - more than that, it’s my purpose in life. All day long, all I do is suck and suck and then turn around and suck some more. Sometimes I don’t suck enough, and then I get poked and slapped and kicked, turned off and on and dragged around. Which is fair, you know, because all anyone ever asks of me is to suck and then...
No. 307
“Yo!” Okay, what do you want to bet this conversation goes downhill really fast?
“…-delahehooo!”
Groan. Knew it. “Dude, your jokes are so crummy, but somehow I’m sti-“
“Much like my bread!”
…Wow. “I take it back, I’m not still amused. Now I’m just going to punch you in the arm.”
“Ow! Sad.”
...
No. 306
Something in the snap of your hair flying out in spiral arms when you shake out your hair real good after a shower reminds me of a hurricane, I tell you. If I could take a snapshot I’d get a freeze-frame storm, the eye being your brain. What category you want the weathermen to put you in - mildly destructive, or monster?
Take that hair of yours somewhere else, girl, I know you’re just...
No. 305
A group of shapes moved through the darkness. One shape was separated from the others by a few feet and an uneasy silence; they bantered while it looked to the left and right constantly, line of sight traveling up every tree and along every strip of grass. Was nature being appraised, or was it simply the hallmark paranoia of an overactive imagination out past its bedtime? Its indistinct fists...
No. 304
She looks down at the hair she’s stroking. The head on her knee nuzzles her. I suppose this means I’m well liked, her brain muses. And then, as brains do, it hurtles on with incomprehensible speed, picking up the thought Do I have worth? along the way.
Not an eyelash is batted, but its trajectory curves into a dance around the question. Do I have worth? In the time it takes to lift...
No. 303
The boy curls up in his armchair. “I’m not done with the book,” he pleads, holding the remaining pages up between thumb and forefinger, “I’ll go when I’m done!”
“Promise?”
“Y- …noooo, I don’t promise. I’ll go when my parents get back. At ten. Yesterday at twelve, today ten, tomorrow eigh- no, tomorrow, nine, then...
No. 302
I’ve been looked in the eye many a time by finer writers than myself and told (in some way or another): Don’t Fake It. Whether it comes in the form of “write something honest” or “write what you care about” or “write what you know,” Not Faking It seems to be something of a mantra for storytellers. Questions about what ‘It’ refers to and...
No. 301
He slouched in the room’s only armchair, legs spilling over the side, book shoved open against his knees with one hand. His other hand absentmindedly spooned melting ice cream into his half-open mouth from a bowl on his lap. Self-consciousness seemed to be one of those things, like hairbrushes, that it never occurred to him to employ.
It wasn’t that he was handsome. It wasn’t...
No. 300
Consciousness transformed the girl into a sort of sentient croquet ball, propelled gently from one activity to the next by the mallet strikes of her whims. This book’s last pages were left unread; that draft wasn’t entirely edited. Dinner only barely made it to the table. She rolled through the passing hours, devoid of the agency that usually accompanies decision-making.
The girl...
No. 299
He dropped his rake on the concrete with enough force to make it bounce. He smiled at the clatter jangling in his ears, though he knew the girl in the back of his truck hated loud noises. He cleared out his left nostril with a thumb and forefinger as he turned, catching the edge of her grimace. In a matter of moments, the frown was gone, and she continued working serenely. Her companion’s...
No. 298
And then there is the end of the day.
You had the easiest of days; better to end it while you’re ahead. You take your leave, whatever kept you content disperses, and there, next to your toothbrush, are the last few minutes of the day. It is impossible to do anything but smile at them. Your sleeping will be as sweet as your waking was, and soon there will be daylight again to fill with...
No. 297
I am not a fairy. When I walk out under a canopy of gray and smell the fast-approaching rain, my feet are firmly grounded. I do not flit; my footfalls are solid under the drops of water. Step after step bolts itself to the surfaces passing beneath me. There is nothing like a solid sheet of rain to make you feel as though you are being nailed gently into the ground, and also as though the water is...
No. 296
Six beats. That’s all it takes. Six beats muffled to sound as if they were approaching from far away, and a feeling that should have been equally far away bursts wide open again. His sinuses clog with it - literally, physically - and it builds up all along his throat with the speed of water climbing the walls of a canyon during a flash flood. His tongue becomes coated in its bubbles as the...
No. 295
“Programming is like writing an essay for a teacher who, if one single comma is displaced, will give the entire essay an F. And set it on fire. Trying to fix that sucked, I was so hungry I couldn’t even concentrate - oh, I really want a toaster strudel. Like right now. And that box of poptarts is totally empty, how sad. Do you remember a commercial that was about poptarts and toaster...
No. 294
Look, all I want you to know - achingly, with love in my arms do I want you to know this - is that you are splendid and worthy, and nearly everyone you meet will agree with me. Splendid in what way and worthy of what? Every way and everything, as far as I am concerned, but I could also say “in that wonderful human way of ingenuity and intelligence and desire and health and strong...
