Never had really long hair, but at one time it was big. I lived in Brooklyn in 1975. I have had facial hair for the last forty years or thereabout. As I started to lose hair on my crown, I guess I thought I'd grow enough on my chin to replace it. Then, I decided I didn't want to look like a member of Z.Z. Top, so I just let the idea go. I can't get it to look so big anymore, but it's all good.
Fifty-Two Cubed being a third collection of six-sentence flashes, stories & observations
by Michael D. Brown
Š 2011 No part of this work may be reproduced in part or in whole without the express permission of the author.
Contents Slipstream 1 ..................................................................... 7 You Can Get There from Here ............................................8 But You Can‟t Go Home Again ........................................ 9 Oh, How I Hate Sunday Night ........................................ 10 My Housemate‟s Mother Pays a Visit ................................ 11 Ariadne and the Blue Prince ............................................ 12 Eleven Twenty-Two ........................................................ 13 My Clichéd Response ...................................................... 14 Irresistible Urges at Noon on Thursday (Bad Sex II) .......... 15 It‟s All in the Telling ...................................................... 16 Six About Me ................................................................. 17 I‟ve Learned These Things ............................................... 18 Illustrating Microfiction.................................................. 19 Slipstream 2 ..................................................................20 That Old Familiar Feeling ............................................... 21 The Life You Imagine You Lived ...................................... 22 J.H. & A Moment with His Muse .................................... 23 Toppled: Totem Animal Challenge ................................... 24 Moving Words ............................................................... 25 Penalty ......................................................................... 26 The Spectacle of the Mime ............................................... 27 Cinderella: Yada, Yada ................................................... 28 Purple Passage ............................................................... 29 “I Could Tell You, but then I‟d Have To…” ......................30 Translocation ................................................................. 31 A New Yorker‟s Birthday State of Mind ........................... 32 Slipstream 3 .................................................................. 32 Departmental ................................................................ 34 I‟m Just Saying, Is All .................................................... 35 When Six Is Not Enough ................................................. 36
Raving, Not Frowning .................................................... 37 Tea With a Neighbor ...................................................... 38 Shoes Between the Two of Them....................................... 39 1977 ............................................................................. 40 Fails and Peeves (Apologies to Liz B. Browning) ................ 41 Six Routes to Soul Killing ................................................ 42 Six Spurs to Soul Feeding ................................................ 43 While the Ink Has Not Yet Dried .....................................44 Asemic Six ..................................................................... 45 Slipstream 4 ..................................................................46 The Missing Element ...................................................... 47 The Kind of Men I Really Go For .................................... 48 Sublimation in the Suburbs .............................................49 Pop Quiz .......................................................................50 Not for the World ........................................................... 51 Graham at the End of Term ............................................ 52 Graham Must Decide ...................................................... 53 Revolver ........................................................................ 54 Only Then When „I Am‟ ................................................. 55 Dog in the Manger ......................................................... 56 Dog in the Manger 2 ...................................................... 57 Old Photograph.............................................................. 58
Slipstream 1 When all the bikinied teenagers went to the beach in that summer of ‗69, they played volleyball, while their boom boxes blared danceable Beach Boys‘ tunes (never the Beatles because the Fab Four were having problems staying together, and it was rumored Abbey Road would be their last album) and the kids were trying to recreate the sunny days of Frankie and Annette even though the Brooklyn beaches were a far cry from those of southern California. Andrew shied away from the games, however, as did Stephanie, and as he had eyes for her, and they were the only two not sporting deep golden pre-cancerous suntans, they seemed like they would make a terrific couple, but Stephanie did not respond favorably to any of his few awkward advances, and mostly sat reading The Love Machine and nodding every so often that, yes, she would join in as soon as she finished ―this chapter.‖ She was the one who first noticed the wispyhaired older man who lay tanning himself, on his blanket every afternoon, staring at the kids with what appeared to be envy, though he never spoke to any of them, and then when the other girls mentioned that they thought he was creepy, she said she found it kind of sad that he was always there alone. One day in late August, Stephanie did not show up, and when she didn‘t come the next day, or the day after, Andrew went calling for her, and discovered that she and her mother no longer lived in the two-family house on Crichton Avenue, that in fact, they had just up and moved away from the neighborhood, telling no one where they were going. Cassie, one of the deep golden girls, who had been observing Andrew‘s interest in Stephanie without masking her disappointment, told him not to take it so hard as there were plenty of other fish in the sea, plenty of healthier looking fish if he caught her drift. She was the one who pointed out, with a wink, after several days that the old man, too, had stopped coming to gawk at them, and that was true enough because he never appeared on the beach again during the rest of the season.
You Can Get There from Here Álvaro is giving me a lift home from school during rush hour and complaining as usual in his inimitable way about the stop and go traffic. With a scowl he‘s saying, ―Pinches desmadres, es una mamada este trafico,‖ and I haven‘t seen him smile in a long time. Suddenly, in the conglomeration of vehicles at the stop light, just about four or five short of the dreaded gridlock, something really weird occurs; from the passenger side of the dark gray Hyundai in front of us, emerges a woman, apparently angry, carrying a baby, and dragging a howling toddler with her across two lanes of waiting cars, and she quickly opens the door of a taxi, pushes the boy inside, and gets in herself. We look at each other, at the taxi wherein the woman is staring straight ahead, and we can see the driver of the Hyundai, probably her disgruntled husband, who may be more embarrassed than angry, is also staring straight ahead. Álvaro says, ―See that woman in the car next to us, how she‘s craning her neck, and enjoying this little show like it was the latest telenovela?‖ He smiles when I tell him, ―Well, I know where my next six sentences are coming from,‖ and when the light turns green, the Hyundai makes a left turn off the crowded boulevard, and the taxi lurches forward carrying a woman and two kids into their obviously unplanned destiny.
But You Can‟t Go Home Again Back when I used to ride the subway downtown to my dreary job, I would play that game of guessing other riders‘ back stories, and after seeing the same people day after day, when I managed to stick to my schedule, I came to refer to these people by the nicknames with which I‘d supplied them. I‘d tell Marjorie at lunchtime, ―Hey, I saw Dixie and her daughter again, and they still haven‘t changed their twin beehive hairstyles.‖ This was the early nineties, and although the daughter was just a go-go girl out of her time, the mother was probably from outer space, and they chewed gum in synchronous, audible clacks while speaking some East European lingo. If I went to J&R Computer World after work with Jamie, I might mention that I had been entertained that morning by Hound Dog and his bad Elvis impression, which didn‘t always impress the other riders when he took the pie plate off his head so they could toss him a few coins, and the plate still held the remains of his scavenged breakfast. I guess I kind of lost interest in relating my anecdotes when the new hard line boss came on board and Marjorie decided to quit and her former assistant, who was promoted to her position, didn‘t find those tales so amusing. My decision to go quiet also might have been based on Jamie‘s telling me, ―Man, you really need to get a life.‖
Oh, How I Hate Sunday Night It doesn‘t feel like the beginning of a fresh new week; rather it represents the end of a stale one wherein I did not manage to catch up with nor remove any of those pressing tasks from my overloaded agenda. I‘m reminded of emails to which I forgot to respond and phone calls I failed to make. At least five stories are passing between my ears, and not one is begging for resolution. There are many assignments and quizzes to be graded, supplies needed for my home, and two enormous projects coming up shortly which require time and effort I have not found. Yes, a new week is starting, but from where I sit it looks like I can expect more of the same. I can foresee that I will be in a similar quandary in seven days, but I promise not to complain again about this topic so long as I manage to catch a good comedy on the tube or in the theater before next weekend because I sure could use a good laugh.
My Housemateâ€&#x;s Mother Pays a Visit While she was calling him hijo and directing a comment or two toward me, I attempted to respond with my small supply of stock phrases, but when he became precioso and she seemed to realize I had nothing original to offer, I excused myself, came inside to turn on my laptop, and open the 'My Images' folder. After a while, he came in and asked for a cigarette whereupon I glanced at my watch, and gave him a questioning look. In a soft voice, he said, "It doesn't look like we're going to make it to a show; my mother's tired, and she's going home soon, so it'll have to be tomorrow night." He took a cigarette from the pack on the table and inhaled deeply then exhaled in an expansive way, in a way he wouldn't do in front of either of his parents. After extinguishing a good two pesos worth of cigarette by mangling it in the only surviving ashtray, he slid back the door and walked out onto the patio, from where I could have sworn I heard his grandmother snoring. I went back to looking at the hundred or so digitized photographs I had scanned and stored, photos of my family in New York from back in the day, and suddenly realized, as I had taken most of them I appeared in very few.
Ariadne and the Blue Prince Once upon a time in Brooklyn there lived a young girl who had outgrown her childhood toys, but was, nevertheless, picking each one up, holding it for a few minutes, and remembering the days long before when she would play with that specific toy. Near the end of the line, she held a little plush horse she had called Pegasus, but she began to feel silly daydreaming of her childhood, and said, ―Oh, how I wish a handsome prince would come and take me away in marriage, and I could put all this behind me.‖ She was thoroughly surprised when Pegasus suddenly spoke to her saying, ―If you rub my rump three times I will become a handsome blue prince; four times I‘ll become a purple prince; five times…‖ and his list went on and on taking her through all the colors of the rainbow and then some. In her astonishment at hearing the little horse speak, Ariadne rubbed its rump three times, and then almost fell over when in a puff of smoke there now stood before her Prince Charming, who was totally blue including the flesh of his hands and face. Disappointed and confused, she asked the prince, ―How many times did you say to rub for light brown?‖ However, she knew it was too late for clarification and magic had its limits when the prince let out a loud snorting whinny, and stamped his left foot on the floor twelve times. ____________________________________________________ [Inspired/plagiarized from a tale one of my students wrote for MuDJoB. I have reams/screens of homework to go over. Of course, Montse's story had a happier ending, and didn't require rump rubbing, but I took her set-up in a different direction aiming to make some of you smile. And I haven't written one word for NaNoWriMo yet today. --mdjb]
Eleven Twenty-Two I turned ten in April of 1963, and was madly in love with Carol Priscilla Reed, who hated being called Prissy, and in retrospect I think she also hated my following her around everywhere as she considered herself much more mature at fourteen. She was not above collecting Beatles memorabilia in preparation for their coming to America, was herself madly in love with George Harrison, and would allow me to accompany her in November to the one candy store five blocks away that carried the little photo magazines of the soon-to-be Fab Four. The day John F. Kennedy was assassinated, I was in my Catholic school third grade class marching in line around the room to return the SRA reading booklets to the big box Sister Philip Neri kept in the lockable cabinet in the rear, when the shocking news was announced over the PA system, and I suppose Carol was in one of her classrooms at PS 10, or smoking outside with her friend Mary with the enormous noonies. I remember turning to Paul Furnari and saying, ―I bet it was Nixon who killed him because he was mad about losing to him.‖ I did not see Carol at all that afternoon, and in the evening my mother, who had not lived with my father for many years, and had planned a night out with my Aunt Pat to celebrate her 33rd birthday brought us over to her house where my sister would baby-sit all the kids together. All the girlfriends that had gathered there were greatly disappointed that there was nothing on the television, but accounts of the murder, and my mother remarked more than once, ―Well, I guess that shoots this evening to hell.‖
My Clichéd Response Tomorrow, too early, I have to attend a meeting with the people who positioned me in Siberia after I fucked up the first time, and I believe, just possibly, they may, backs against the wall, be thinking of offering me the job again. It‘s not something I want, and I feel bad my boss had to disappoint them with a stress-filled ―No,‖ but after five years of keeping her on twenty-four hour call, you would think they might have had someone, anyone, in the wings in order to maintain their upper hand. The new season is just weeks away, and they can‘t waltz into it blindly. It‘s all Greek to them. For me it‘s second nature and first language, and I have spent all evening considering what bargaining chips I hold this time around. Of course, the meeting may be about something else entirely; say, my lack of punctuality, and if that‘s the case, I‘m dead in the water, and will float away, belly up, to the tune of ―Pride Goeth,‖ under the new regime.
Irresistible Urges at Noon on Thursday (Bad Sex II) By the creaking noises emanating from her neighbor‘s window across the yard Cilantra could tell Diva was going at it again with the middle-aged guy from two doors down, and imagining the positions they were getting into made her randy. She spritzed herself behind ears, under breasts, along wrists, and around ankles with Irresistible, donned her most enticing black negligee, the opened-backed, lowheeled slippers with the puff balls on them, then swept up her hair, checked herself in the full-length boudoir mirror, and let her hair fall down again, so it gently brushed her shoulders, all in preparation for having her weekly quickie with Myron, her very own Don Juan, and neighborhood insurance salesman. He had his own key and knew exactly where to find her every Thursday at 12:15, which would not be at her kitchen table, although they had tried it there once, and his back had gone out preventing his next week‘s call. She had to admit she looked good today, so good, in fact, that she had an undeniable urge to touch herself on her sweet, moist cleft, and once she started gently rubbing, she found she couldn‘t stop as her breathing quickened. Not unlike Molly Bloom, she began chanting, ―yes, yes, oh yes; I say, yes,‖ not realizing her voice was rising along with her self-induced passion, and indeed was unaware of anything other than the thrill her fingers were producing, until she was interrupted by the sound of Myron‘s ―a-hem,‖ and she noted he was standing, pants-less at the ready, in her bedroom doorway. She could see his loins were already on fire, and he needed no further encouragement, but she offered some anyway by suggesting to him, ―Here, love, smell my finger.‖
Itâ€&#x;s All in the Telling You thought you had done just about all you could do to impress the hell out of your peers, and were riding high atop a pillar of air, the falling from which provides neither comfort nor direction in how to proceed smartly through Oblivion. Of course, you wouldn‘t know what they said about you, and the inflated tone in which the stories were related until it was far too late to lift you out of your depression, a deep one, by the way, as demigods leave stupendous craters upon crashing, especially after freefall. You may have tried to console yourself in the attenuated belief that you never premeditated your rise in stature, lacking conviction in your aptitude, often feeling dizzy in momentary weakness, coming from a poor background and therefore not entitled, but in your heart of hearts, you knew you sought celebrity, and your self-esteem only dwindled by degrees after you realized how tenuous the position could become. Did you really do your best, or did you get lax? Perhaps you felt disqualified, but still kept an ear cocked for exaggerated compliments, remnants of those glory days, hoping they were not being tossed in pity, and you should have reminded yourself that those who really needed help were wasting hours gawking and lingering over the photos taken immediately after your surgeries. How many people in recent history need no surname to be recognized?
Six About Me 1. My initials are MDJB and for a couple of weeks in, oh, around 1993 I spun records in a dance bar in Manhattan frequented by gay Asians, and the flyers read, ―Listen to the sounds of Michael Brown, your rockin‘ DJ.‖ 2. In almost ten years of living in Chiapas, I have yet to visit Palenque, one of the reasons I moved here because I had visited Tulum before moving down, and love ancient sites. 3. Once I had one gin and soda during a luncheon in which a ―friend‖ prodded me to try a calamari salad for the first time, and then was seriously ill for three days, after which the friend laughingly said, ―Well, really you should never mix squid with hard alcohol.‖ 4. As a teenager, I used to go with fake ID to a dance bar in Brooklyn called Bananafish Park where I often danced with a girl named Shelly until the night I almost swallowed her tongue while Harry Chapin was performing Taxi live on the bandstand. 5. On a flight to Miami, while sitting between a friend and another passenger, who was from Spain, I exhausted my small repertoire of Spanish in order to give my friend the impression I spoke it well, and stayed quiet when he later told others how articulate I was. 6. I was tested in college and learned my IQ was 142, but I‘m so vain that I have never submitted to testing again, or if required to do so for employment, have not asked for the results, for fear of learning that I‘m not so intelligent as I once thought I was. Here are some of the "lies:" 1. It was earlier than 1993. I was 40 that year, but played deejay when I was in my early 30s. 2. I do love visiting ancient sites, but that was not one of the reasons I had in mind when moving to Mexico. 3. The unfortunate mix caused the most violent bout of vomiting I have ever experienced, but it only lasted a day and a half, and I think I lost about 3 to 5 lbs. Seriously! 4. I didn't need fake ID as I was 18, but a couple of my friends did, to get in to meet the "hot girls," and yes, Harry Chapin did perform at Banafish Park with his band. In truth, the place could only be considered a dance bar part-time, as it mostly featured live acts.
I‟ve Learned These Things When something you regret having done comes back to bite you on the ass, you may not be able to sit down for a week. Men are allowed to use overpriced male-oriented grooming products, but only to a degree because if you use that little For Men Only beard brush to cover the tiny gray patch that falls on your forehead, students will feel free to let you know they‘ve noticed that you ―painted your hair.‖ Making quiet observations with a new friend inside a church or a bookstore can provide an unforgettable memory just as easily, and perhaps more so, than those deriving from more formidable situations. Getting older doesn‘t really suck, but complaining about things that we all have to go through is a lot less likely to chase away acquaintances than by overwhelming them with the details of your specific problems or ailments. Circadian rhythms do exist, and the perfect diet does not. If you keep ashtrays in the house, you will find a use for them.
Illustrating Microfiction
Slipstream 2 February, a wet month in 1979, started out with news of the return to Iran of the Ayatollah Khomeini, which looked bad for the United States, and even though the BeeGees were riding the comeback trail to a second string of successes due to their appropriation of the disco sound, the movement itself was said to be dying an inglorious death by rock and rollers everywhere. Andrew, never a serious rock fan, listening to Tragedy on the radio and looking at photos in the news of Alexandria, Virginia in the throes of a blizzard, turned on the television and caught the coverage of the total solar eclipse as it was being broadcast from Montana. Celebrants, including some modern day Druids dancing in front of a replica of Stonehenge, were being interviewed, and Andrew noticed how the shamans seemed to be keeping time to the Gibb Brothers with some moves that would never be demonstrated on a dance floor in any of the clubs he frequented. The one image that raised the small hairs on his arms, however, and brought an unpleasant heat to his cheeks was the hippie throwback that stepped forward to offer a few words on how the eclipse signaled the world‘s people to face up to all that was currently wrong with it. Despite her long bedraggled white hair and headband, her blemished cheeks, the drugged look in her eyes, and the fact that he had not seen her in almost ten years, he immediately recognized Stephanie Lenition, who had sat away from the other kids at beach parties, sat reading popular novels, and then unceremoniously disappeared from his life one late summer day, and he thought to himself, well, there goes another of the world‘s great mysteries solved. He had thought of her many times over the years, but Druids had never been part of his imagined scenarios.
That Old Familiar Feeling Surely, I should be stronger, show more fortitude, eviscerate the memories, but I can‘t; I‘m in too deep, and she‘s swank. It began as a mild attraction to youth and charm with the hint of turpitude. I curbed the inclination as well as I could, but the proclivity lingers long after it has lost its feasibility, and it festers as a reopened wound. So many years had left the scars of my own immaturity healed over, or so I thought, but a thing like that never goes away. It merely rides under the surface of untouched passion waiting to be called forth, to re-blossom, if such a thing be possible, and now I believe it is, requited, ridden or unregarded. To be reminded constantly of one‘s eldritch capabilities is a sad and unhealthy thing, a painfully delicious distraction, and though there are levels, our numbers, not unlisted, remain untapped.
The Life You Imagine You Lived In the life you imagine you lived – the one that ended in darkness on the water, I was your friend, or at least I saw myself that way, and part of that had to do with how you always supplied the best resources for mind expansion, and were so generous with them. In that realm, I loved Trudy, (surely you remember her name full well) the life of any party, until she would get drunk and start talking about her breasts, and how they provided sustenance enough for any boy wanting to prove his manhood. She was one of a kind, that one, but, unfortunately, there were many kinds of one, and, too, she was damaged goods after coming up out of the soybean field. I saw you as another Jay Gatsby, with your tinge of sadness longing for repletion behind a charade of satisfaction, and loved you as a brother in spite of reflecting my own inadequacies back at me. We all knew you would wind up floating away into oblivion, and the odd thing was how we discussed wishing we had joined you in that final endeavor so ineffably not sharable. In our hearts we know you are still here, and we call, and call to you, taking note of the green light flickering at the end of the dock; a light that never shines so brightly as it once did in the life you imagined you lived.
J.H. & A Moment with His Muse I know nothing much about him save for the type of bread he used in crumbing his trail. I would like to learn how he ran the rainbow through a sieve in order to add color to all the parts of speech; I mean you expect to find it in adjectives, but even his prepositions and conjunctions glow! He indicates the specific moods of sky and field, and exposits poetry discovered behind stones. If his text treats of a living, breathing human, you are going to see yourself and enjoy the free analysis. He does not lazily call forth rhyme to serve, but you will hear the music. Looking forward, if I am only granted a few moments to share thoughts, in the presence of others, I intend to seek his muse, pull her aside and chat with her. I am wondering if I can convince her to let me in on some of that action, and if I am entitled to a discount for loving what she has helped him produce.
Toppled: Totem Animal Challenge Falcon woman leads us into the second decade of the twenty-first century with a satchelful of traditional aphorisms, and she‘s worth her weight in solid gold to the core. Woodpecker, formerly in Falcon‘s chair, now sits tap, tap, tapping at his keyboard, expounding the benefits of utilizing all that he retrieved from his working vacation in Fort Worth, but that was six years ago! Bear gets the job done, at least enough to avoid complaints, but don‘t ask him for anything you need today or tomorrow because by the time he brings it to you, you will have forgotten why you asked for it. Lucy Goosey, flibberty-gibbet, makes such good cookies, everyone courts her for the baked goods alone, but compliments her on the blue sweater that has gone so well with her blond curls for the last five years. Grounded Owl catches worms, tries to convince himself they are snakes, though they rarely behave so well, and easily escape his fretful clutches. Low man on the totem pole; let‘s call him eager Beaver, is a little too enthusiastic and unforgetful of his recent training as he seems more competitor than assistant, and it was his communicative approach that toppled the structure.
Moving Words Soft treasure in her eyes guaranteed future dividends could be provided. In his warbling, alternately, she found no sustenance. He sang sweetly of conquest of adversity, a warm haven in which to dream, the cleansing of the rain, and a mother‘s power to heal with words, but his heart was never in it, and for that she remained incredulous. Anything can be learned by rote, and if the instruments are properly tuned, can fill the air with meaning, but meaning vacant of soul cannot feed an insect, so when he recited Shakespeare, and Donne, and Keats, and told her nothing, she wrote, ―FRAUD,‖ several times in comments on his FaceBook page, and tweeted her discontent in a font red as spilled blood. The treasure sank deeper into her eyes, calcified, and the dividends were written off to a bad investment. Oblivious to what he had lost, he numbered his ―friends‖ in the high hundreds, and sang for anyone else who surfed past believing face-to-face conversation, and honesty, were equally overrated.
Penalty Why do I let my young assistant irritate me to the point where I make bad decisions just to be perverse? I can‘t blame him for being the way he is—trying to make his way along a path paved with the mistakes and blunders by us, trained so long ago—potholes gaping, reparations forgotten, like a mother whose breasts still express milk years after her child has been weaned. I recall a silly, nonerotic flick starring a middle-aged woman known as Milky Mama, but I guess you can figure out for yourself what occurred throughout its plotless script, and I wonder if you have ever noticed how the tiniest versions of some of our avatars suggest an image quite different from what the fullsized photo portrays; a serious looking writer sitting at a table evolves from what was assumed to be the Cheshire Cat from Disney‘s take on Alice in Wonderland, or an unsliced pie becomes a frost-glazed rock surface. It‘s so true, things are not always what they appear to be on first glance. I am not yet old, nor enviously trying to work my way backwards, and sometimes a young person is just a partially experienced youth heading toward his middle years with all his learning mechanisms locked, who, though he can bring a smile to your lips at odd moments, frustrates you when he lets it be known he is not a reader, and, damn, Milky Mama must be in her sixties by now! Of these things, I am fairly sure, but you will have to take my word for it because the little pictures do not reveal the available data all at once.
The Spectacle of the Mime Wordlessly, he gave a faultless performance, but it was as much the honky-tonk musical background as it was his body English or facial expressions that made the first act in any way memorable to me, the teenagers drinking from bottles in plastic Oxxo bags, or the gathered couples and single strollers. He appeared browless in a solid black leotard, with his shaved head painted in the same deathlywhite paste that crusted where the neckline veed below his clavicle, suggesting the marks of noose burn. I don‘t know that I would ever be willing to put my life on the line to preserve another's, nor that I would ever expect another to do so for me, but I applauded as heartily as the rest as we, his audience, were unaware he had dressed and made up appropriately for his final show. He mimed a man obsessed by his ticking watch and some sort of mission; waiting for his destiny, which was a long time coming, seemingly overdue. Then, in mere seconds, he reacted quickly, shoving a pedestrian out of the way of an oncoming sports car, was struck himself, and performed a triple somersault before landing on his feet, then falling, arms outstretched, forward onto the pavement in front of us, as the driver sped away. We cheered, whistled, and clapped spontaneously for some time before someone remarked the mime had not moved a muscle from the moment his body hit the ground, and in our awestruck silence, we realized the rescued woman was sobbing.
Cinderella: Yada, Yada There is no costume for the lurve ball because if you don‘t go as yourself, there is no point in attending. All that glass slipper stuff is only frosting. The prince felt he was in up to the gills, in the way a commoner would feel, without the regal trappings. Cinderella was looking to escape the grind for one fabulous evening, and the house cleaning, and cooking, and de-boning all that fish. P.S.: She didn‘t know about his gills beforehand. They say he rediscovered her in his kingdom among hundreds of eligible young females, but the truth is with her feet swollen from hours of unaccustomed dancing, he literally bypassed the wretched maiden, settled for marriage to one Lady Althea Hermione Balafort, a sixth cousin on his mother‘s side, and lived more less unhappily ever after, while Ella, who stood cheering anonymously among the crowd outside the palace during the wedding, remained forever single, and kept the newspaper photos pinned above the refrigerator to remind her of her one glorious night crowned by a deeply-tongued kiss that was merely a red herring.
Purple Passage City Club was having a big promotional Easter sale and had decorated the front of the outlet with hundreds of pink, white, and purple balloons, several of which had escaped their moorings and in what looked like a joyful manner made their way across the vast parking lot toward the boulevard. As I watched their flight to freedom while walking along the pedestrian passageway, I was disheartened to see three or four white balloons unceremoniously squandered beneath the tires of exiting cars, but one purple beauty filled with air almost to bursting safely made it all the way to the freeway, and then dodged and danced around passing autos, under a truck and out the other side, until it came to rest briefly on the island, where it nestled between two tall, closely-planted yuccas. Soon, the warm breeze lifted it, and put it back into play among the traffic. That purple wonder survived for a full twenty minutes as I smoked a cigarette and watched, beginning to think it was indestructible. It reminded me of myself at my new position at work, wondering how long I could hold on to the pretense of impressing my Director with knowing exactly what I was doing, timing everything just so, sticking to my agenda, and believing all things were possible. Feeling good, I stubbed my butt in the public ashtray, but when I gazed back to bolster myself with another look at my omen, I could not find it, until I noticed a swift biker, already gaining distance, picking bits of purple from his visor and tossing them to the wind.
“I Could Tell You, but then I‟d Have To…” As soon as he says, ―Oh, you mean because…‖ you realize you‘ve wasted another good one on him, and the fact that you repeatedly try plying him with sophisticated humor, means that, what, you‘re the one with the deficiency? Adam gets the point, but why does he always feel the need to explain it out when the humor depends on leaving parts unsaid? Someone should introduce him to Bettina, who was likewise an explainer, and the two of them could sign up for a course in Irony 101. I want to shout, ―Just let it go, and either laugh or don‘t laugh,‖ but that would imply that I‘ve analyzed the meta of the situation, thereby making me look, well, you know, but, then, if he exposited on my analysis, I think I‘d go postal. ―Postal—because of Son of Sam, and those others, who before their moment of infamy, lived quiet…‖ Oh, please, don‘t get me started.
Translocation Have you noticed how the rain glides down the windows and funnels its way along the crenelated sill gutter, and have you looked into any of the various books provided in your night table? Some are quite old, yet remarkably cogent in these times, and you can see by now, as stated in our ads, our little place is a real getaway with no television, radio, or Internet, so I hope you appreciate the soft piped-in music. I hope you will enjoy the updated menu too as we‘ve tried to avoid dullness and repetition while still providing good nutrition, which is not to say your usual fare was otherwise, but you know what I mean. Are you comfortable? I ask because as you were the last to arrive, we‘ve had to situate you here in the last room down the corridor, and with Miss Cotler still lively at 71, we don‘t expect another availability for some time yet. Maravelle will be up with your dinner at six pm sharp, so please pull in the tray through the slot promptly because we never unlock the doors and we really don‘t like to resort to the harsher methods of dealing with another hunger strike.
A New Yorkerâ€&#x;s Birthday State of Mind
Slipstream 3 When his young daughter asked him what a fatwa was, Andrew knew the definition, but was taken aback that such an insidious charge could be issued in the modern world, and taken seriously enough by its proponents and the so-called perpetrator that he felt the need to go into hiding. Up to the moment the child raised the question for a current events project, Andrew had not thought twice about it, as it was something spoken about in other parts of the world, not his world. Then, too, he had been distracted with his reading of Vaclav Havel‘s Letters to Olga into thinking there was room for change, and that really, political ideologues and religious zealots did not have much power beyond their regional borders, did they? Madonna on MTV was singing Like a Virgin, writhing and rolling, suggesting that her lyrics belied her innocence, and nine-year-old Angelica, too much under the influence of pop stars for his liking, surprised Andrew every day with her precocious sophistication. If all went the way he had planned, she would be studying at a good university by the turn of the century, and he suddenly pictured an old, world-weary dissatisfied customer with a brilliant mind inhabiting the body of a young woman, and he feared she would find reason to divert his intentions for her future as she would have every right to. He tried to erase the disappointing vision from his mind, but the only image that came to replace it was that of a disappeared love who had joined a cult, aged unnaturally, and danced on television before his astounded eyes, proclaiming the end of the world so many years earlier than expected.
Departmental Word spread throughout the campus as fast as WiFi at top speed could manage, so that in the twenty minutes between culmination of the sixth semester‘s Economics departmental and checking final grades with other teachers, and the 11:00 start of the fourth semester‘s exam, everyone, teachers and students alike, knew the queen of the tech had compromised her leadership position an iota or two in having her cell phone confiscated, and no amount of pleading on her part convinced Ms. Bartlett to relent in her decision to call her highness‘s parents to come and claim said instrument suspected of transmitting nefarious text messages code-named Galbraith. She was a very popular queen, and so the tone set by Ms. Bartlett‘s obstinacy could be read in the antagonistic teen-aged faces entering the big, brightly lit hall for the massacre at eleven. I had my own reasons for animosity toward the pedantic Ms. B. as she had co-opted the services of all the newest staff members, and I had simply to help monitor and watch my grasping young assistant parade around the hall as if having reached the apex of his career, having done little to nil in helping with the deluge of semester‘s-end chores in our own discipline of English Lit. Satisfaction was sweet in noting students waving him away in favor not of being given an easy answer, but instead eliciting an encouraging remark from their regular teacher‘s aide. The scary thing was in how quickly, quietly, and mostly through the efficient use of signing, the mutiny was planned and then put into action, but when the students throttled Ms Bartlett soundly, I was hoping that young Carlos would be given a good thrashing too before the rest of us had to step in, break it up, and restore order to what had been all week a rather non-eventful, yet timeconsuming process. The queen sobbed in appropriate moments when her parents arrived, and she retrieved her unscathed cell phone, seeming quite happy texting her BFFs in between nodding regally and appreciatively to the line of loyal subjects paraded past her to Juvey, Detention, or dismissal depending on the severity of their involvement, yet to be analyzed, in the videos already and surreptitiously uploaded to YouTube.
I‟m Just Saying, Is All My memory is sharp as hound‘s tooth, and brief, not much wider than a big-buckle paisleyed belt, ‗Sixties vintage. Remember Mary Quant, and Twiggy; you can still see them around even if they no longer ring many bells. I thrived in the days when they did; absolutely loved those longlegged, peek-a-boo gals. They didn‘t open locked doors nor raise glass ceilings, but they certainly had an impact while Warhol was touting fifteen minutes, and, oh, those knockkneed gams, and clown-mascara‘d eyes! London Getaway weekends, Westminster chimes, Day-Glo posters in headshops, flowers everywhere, and hippies willing to speak with you whether or not you were carrying--it isn't like that today! Where are the girls in this age of women, and where is my wily youth?
When Six Is Not Enough Sometimes I think six sentences aren‘t nearly enough to carry a mood, and I get in those moods quite often when I want to follow Glen around the city for more than five minutes, be guided through historical sites along with Diana, experience novella length romantic liaisons from another era in Sandra‘s words, be blasted away by Robert‘s tough guys and damaged women, or watch and note the capabilities of Teresa‘s super yet humble mom character. I want more than two or three laughs and need a passel full of Gita‘s Shiners, a safari‘s worth of Mike‘s nature watching, or a few intriguing rants from Jared or Joe or Bolton, and don't get me started on my writing partner Nic. Anything written by either of my two favorite Bills or Jamie can transport me, and I want to be taken away by larger novel-chapterlike doses, and this is not to mention several new voices nor old friends who don‘t show up often enough to please my reading palate. There is a way to satisfaction when I get like that, and so far it hasn‘t grown stale; I use an aggregator, and my favorite is a Firefox addon called Sage, which, if you visit a writer‘s blog and press the right button, will extract his or her last thirty, yes, I said thirty, pieces in their entirety and place them all neatly, chronologically on one page for you. Now, in the case of some of my more prolific friends, 180 sentences in one sitting is almost like having a new book every month, while from others, well, it‘s worth the wait, and since there are no trees chopped down in the process, I feel it‘s an ecologically sound way to go about satisfying my reading gluttony. Still, I find I cannot help popping in every other day when I should be busy at work just to see what friends are producing, marvel at how many have already written an opus or two and wonder why my own output is so sparse.
Raving, Not Frowning I thought I would be spending my mornings watching Jedward videos (just as okay with Britney) and making charts (oversized for viewing by back wall hangers) for next semester (and its trial by Vidiomás fire) or drinking many plastic tankards (a gift from a superior player, currently acquiring her doctorate up at Yale) of coffee because it‘s plentiful only during the early hours, but then a student (one of the sweeter) with whom I worked during the January through May session (the warm-up, return to the plate) came up to me on my return trip (don‘t ask) and inquired where the summer class was being held. Like a snap of fingers (never quite as "clique-y" as they should be) my June disappeared, and a syllabus that had been left lying had to be reanimated. It wasn‘t cool. But what the hell, it was Dorys, and she‘s good to go come August if she makes it through her last English and a dangling Physics, which I cannot comment on, but will say she has naught to fear with the former as hers is fairly copacetic, so long as I am allowed to correct that erroneously pre-charged evaluation penalty, and she's ready for Stevie Smith and The Necessity of Not Believing. If those twin pixies could get Vanilla Ice up and running again, their vitality and brashness should help me turbo through the month, and if one late arrival got me off my duff, well, at least July won‘t find me complaining about secretarial spread. One more trek through the rabbit hole, then it‘s off to the mountains, and I just might seek a way to stay there if the air doesn‘t prove too thin, and my meds don‘t run out.
Tea With a Neighbor Mother was looking out of Florence Harvey‘s window on the second floor of the big brick-red tenement of flats as my brother and I walked down the block from school. When she beckoned to us, Raymond ran away toward our place at the end of the street, but I, who loved having tea and crackers served by the older woman, who walked with a limping gait, made my way up the dark stairway alone. I never enjoyed when Aunt Flo would suggest we all go downstairs to visit her daughter Sally who suffered from some awful skin disorder that made it peel off her lobsterlike hands, and always avoided walking past the building when Jenny the enormously fat lady, who lived directly above Flo, and who had once been taken out in an ambulance because it was said she had scarfed down an entire watermelon one afternoon was sitting propped on a bed pillow at her window as she would holler down to the kids, ―Hey, sonny, got any candies in your pockets?‖ Tea alone with Aunt Flo who played old music on a radio and did not own a television set was always a treat, though, as I listened to the ladies gossip about the neighbors. In those days, I never stopped to wonder why my mother, an attractive divorcee, well, never married to my father actually, was friendly with a group of women so unlike herself.
Shoes Between the Two of Them ―I suppose I could wear them when we go to the concert in the park on Saturday, but, really what were you thinking when you bought these for me?‖ ―I wasn‘t thinking much of anything other than you might like a comfortable new pair of shoes.‖ ―Well, a woman thinks of a lot of things when she goes to try on shoes, handbags they might match up with, the color of her favorite clothes at home in her closet or whether she might have to pick up something new to wear with them, and honestly, I‘m surprised you even remembered my size because they do fit well, at least.‖ ―A woman in the mall was wearing the same shoes, and because she seemed to have feet similar to yours, they caught my eye, so I asked her where she bought them, asked her size, explained the situation, and went to Emyco and picked up a pair for you.‖ ―Excuse me, but are you telling me you bought me another woman‘s shoes?‖ ―Oops, I guess I should have listened to her when she advised me against it, but I really thought you‘d like them.‖
1977 He tried to initiate a lip lock in the theater, but she seemed all caught up in the gravity occurring between Woody Allen and Diane Keaton on the screen, and raised her hand to cover her mouth, ostensibly reacting in thoughtfulness, but really, it was just too soon. Later, at her door, and having absorbed about as much romance as she could handle at that age, she hoped he might try again, but he seemed to have lost his momentum, and for five days, she thought he had lost the desire completely. Saturday next, he did not attempt a replay perhaps because he didn‘t want to talk to the hand, or because Chuck Norris stimulated adrenaline more than testosterone, or he may have sensed she was having her period. He did buss her on the cheek at her door, and the promise lingered for long minutes as she gazed out from inside at the star-filled sky. Someone would claim there was magic in those stars. The next weekend, they watched television in her parent-less house, where they kissed each other passionately several times before she let him get to first base, and shortly thereafter they decided to stop spending time together under the guise of needing to see other people for a while, which they labeled a trial separation until it became permanent.
Fails and Peeves (Apologies to Liz B. Browning) What are my failures? Let me count the ways. I am too much into nouns and verbs, you know, the grammar, As I like to teach, but not to hear a stammer. I cannot stand to find things out of place; Where stuff is put, please, that‘s where it stays. I am easily irked by stumbles and pauses, And one‘s failure to note the ends of clauses; Hemming and hawing as nights turn into days. I smother with possessiveness you‘d never choose, For all my peeves, and bits that bother me now, If I catalog my faults, I‘ll surely blow a fuse. Should you not approve – I hope you will allow The cranky turns of all my moods! – and tell your muse, I shall not dwell on failures after HoW.
Six Routes to Soul Killing
Lingering too long over a misstep that you can‘t take back, never sincerely meant to happen, but were aware of while it was happening, and friends who say, ―It doesn‘t really matter,‖ often enough for you to know that it does. Wanting to help, maybe financially, everyone who comes forth in need, but not being able to, and trying to judge on the spot who could use your help most; then, realizing you were audacious in judging the needs of others. Trying to beat a sense of ennui, especially on viewing so many smiling faces and in light of others‘ apparent enthusiasm causing you to think they are less than intelligent or lying about having obtained happiness. Wanting to share your life with someone of similar interests, but not exactly the same interests, nor having exactly the same opinions or wildly variant, consistently argument-causing opinions on the things that matter to you, and how long you must look in seeking someone to measure up to your outlandish criteria. Feeling the all too rapid passage of time in an interior way, and how it seems to be accelerating in the modern age for those who have crossed particular thresholds. Wanting to believe in a higher power, but finding it more and more difficult, to the point of impossible, after witnessing so many inequities visited upon humanity, and don‘t give me that free will crap because I‘m not looking to argue about these things when I‘m all played out.
Six Spurs to Soul Feeding
Walking into, or remembering walking into an old fashioned florist‘s and being overwhelmed by the fragrances of so many fresh cut flowers as it was the few minutes you could feel whole even though you knew you were there to purchase something to commemorate the passing of a loved one because you had also had to accompany adults there long ago to commemorate especially good times. Eating raw vegetables and fruit and taking note as you lift a slice of cucumber to your mouth what a clean, crisp sensation that particular vegetable renders. Receiving compliments for a job well done that you have to admit to yourself that yes, this one time you do deserve such because you tried, truly tried, to do your best and you succeeded. Realizing late in the day that you, or someone near you, can still detect a faint whiff of the cologne you splashed on that morning, the far too expensive cologne you spend so much on only because you know it will furnish such moments, and they help you ever so briefly to feel more than average. Hearing from someone you have never forgotten, but unfortunately never get around to calling due to too many trivial commitments and having them tell you they miss you and the sound of your laughter, in a good way. Looking through ancient family photographs, skimming over the surface of your life as if it were a movie and dwelling, though not for too long, on the least painful parts, then, pondering the learning experience those parts provided because, really, all that happiness requires is a spur.
While the Ink Has Not Yet Dried Perhaps it was a trick of the rain-occluded light that caused us to believe that black thing dangling among the soaked leaves was a bat, but whatever it was, it never took wing throughout three-days‘ observance. Inside, in the warmth of conviviality, evening beverages on extended schedules, and some of the best damn food available on this or any other menu, along with spontaneous prompts and a few toasts, hugs, embraces, and much good cheer, succor was provided to a like-minded group of scribes. Will we recall the spiky applause and velvet oratory, keeping them safe within the lockbox of memory, to be called forth in anticipation of another How-not-two? Somebody think of a site, a date, and send out the call, or should we give this weekend time to marinate and appreciate in value, then‌ The' Event ran/was run smoothly, passed so quickly; could we not flock together again in a heartbeat? Might there be another not-bat/omen hanging above porch railing shadow/virtual lake midst trees somewhere calling us home?
Asemic Six
This has been an attempt to present episodes of a longer piece through asemic writing. The main tale to whose episodes this piece links remains "To be continued..." I became aware of asemic writing through the recent work of Karyn Eisler and Dorothee Lang. Dorothee is the founder of the > Language > Place blog carnival. Julia Davies has brilliantly put together Edition No. 7. You should explore this highly entertaining project, and please note my own humble contribution to this latest edition, which has nothing to do with the episodes behind this piece, but serves as part of the coda to a very different tale.
Slipstream 4 In the weeks after Angelica returned from Woodstock 99, she was different in ways that left her father feeling uncomfortable, but he didn‘t say too much about it in front of his ex-wife because Cassie had been against her daughter‘s trip upstate from the first time the possibility was mentioned. Andrew was the one who had paid for the trip, reminded Cassie how she had enjoyed her own youth in the sun with music and friends, and convinced her that it would be a learning experience for Angelica during her first summer break from Amherst, with the bonus of expressing her parents‘ liberalism, and how they would never try to keep her on a leash. It wasn‘t that she returned with rebellious spirits complaining of the crass commercialism that plagued the festival, nor that she was ungrateful or resentful toward them for having sent her into the fire so to speak, and Andrew never saw Angelica‘s face in the television reports of the violent, destructive ending to what had promised to be three days of love, peace, and music meant to evoke the original event thirty years earlier, which he and Cassie had been in no way likely to attend, but nevertheless always regretted missing out on. It was something more invidious, and how could it not be when neither parent had ever been deeply involved in any set form of worship, and did not consider themselves religious in the least? When Angelica showed them mud-scarred photos of the ancient, wispy haired guru and the pale-skinned middle-aged woman who purported to be his acolyte, and told them how she had been profoundly moved by the features of their ―program,‖ which she wanted to research, Andrew felt his heart breaking, found it difficult to maintain his analyst‘s suggestion of a healthy silence while the phase passed, and his disappointment overwhelmed his judgment, causing him to utter unretractable accusations. His daughter announced she would not be returning to school in the fall, and Andrew suffered a slight heart attack, from which it took two months to recover, and by that time she had moved out West to a commune in Montana.
The Missing Element Much of the time he bided on the fringe while passion and enthusiasm wafted like smoke filling the top half of a back room poker game in the days before political correctness. He would like to have held someone close enough to pick up on an untold secret, but the old bromide about the intellect of the quiet one was likewise wafting, and he therefore maintained that bit of distance. In the presence of new faces, shining, gleeful, friendship-eyes, and predisposed coupling, his stance was the only one that made sense in that moment, at that gathering, under the influence of spirits. It could have gone differently. He could have climbed into the frisson on the second go round, and the casual brushing of fingers and/or a shoulder charged with current might have sent him home with electric memories in place of a soft recurring dream, though dreams are good, and this one is working. But damn; if there is any justice in these spheres, the next opportunity that presents itself, someone is going to be kissed, kissed hard, at length, and he hopes the charge prevails, for there might also be some dancing.
The Kind of Men I Really Go For The kind of men I really go for, the kind I like to spend time with, are not those who enjoy relating their conquests of women with that edge in their voices and the sidelong glances that are constantly checking to see if you believe them. Neither do I care for macho men who laugh wholeheartedly at jokes about gays that use the word fag, complain about how much time their wives spend gossiping, while they themselves fawn over rough and tumble sports stars, follow the careers of those considered most manly, and maintain the memories of outdated statistics as if that were not three or five sides of the same coin. Is that a geometric possibility? The kind of men I enjoy listening to, e-nun-ci-ate in a soft spoken manner, but do not back off from a challenge because they are afraid of verbally abusing an arbitrary etiquette. I like sharing secrets and minor discretionary intimacies with both men and women, and am disappointed when women make more of it than it is, and men make less of it. I hate to think women are from Venus, men are from Mars, and we are all stranded on this planet trying to find a comfort zone in which we can live and still make war.
Sublimation in the Suburbs You know, if they both wore hats, although they almost never do, and going on looks alone, I couldn‘t tell the two of them apart. Certainly, Veronica can be bitchy in a playfully malicious way, and though Betty appears to have the more pleasant personality, she has been known to pull off a vindictive prank or two. No one truly knows what‘s going through Jughead‘s mind because he‘s always stuffing his face with burgers like some Wimpy-wannabe and trailing with that hangdog look after Archie, all the while trying to avoid Big Ethel as who wouldn‘t; she‘s so sexstarved and just plain irascible. It seems none of this crowd, not Moose, nor Dilton, nor even Reggie, that vain, snide, punctiliously perverse separated –from-Veronica-atbirth braggart and snob is into drugs, alcohol, swearing, or even shoplifting, and about Archie, the hugely freckled ginger dunce with cross hatches permanently sketched into his hair, the less said, the better since he‘s going to be 87 this December. All of Riverdale‘s youth set find humor in the lamest of amusements. Kind of makes you wonder, doesn‘t it, ―what‘s happening with yesterday‘s teenagers, and did they ever get any?‖
Pop Quiz Did you know you would see me through half-lidded eyes upon waking from the heat of a hand placed on your back, and that I would ask you to sit with me for coffee, while assuring you that you could return for some beauty rest as soon as I left the house, and that it would not bother me that you were free to do so while I had to drive to an eight-thirty meeting with someone I'd never choose to spend more than fifteen minutes with? Did you know you wouldn't actually be able to return to bed after noting how shafts of sunlight caused the iguana to bask motionless? Did you know I spend at least twelve minutes, sometimes contiguously, every day, looking at that picture of you in the silver frame I placed on the left-hand side of my mahogany desk, happy in the knowledge I have no appointments scheduled because in those moments I wouldn't be able to come up with words to share? Do you know you have exactly fifty percent of your mother's beauty and fifty percent of your father's good looks, and your intelligence quotient exceeds mine by at least, oh, say, twenty points? And did you know I would willingly sit beside you no matter how tired I was, no matter how much work from the office my briefcase contained, watching Casablanca for the umpteenth time and imagining you as Ilsa and me as Rick, and sometimes vice-versa, just to hear you murmuring several of those fabulous lines under your breath? I ask you now to tell me how you know these things just for reassurance that I was not the only one taking note.
Not for the World One day in March, Abel advised Ximena she shouldn‘t be so disgusted when the English teacher touched her shoulder or elbow or gently pulled her hair when he passed down her row during verbal drills as he was just making a friendly gesture, and that he himself wouldn‘t mind if the teacher, or anyone, he quickly added, touched him now and again in that way. Ximena laughed though not in a mean way, and told him she would do the glide with him to Payaso del Rodeo in the school‘s mid-term revue, but it would have been nice if he had asked her instead of the other way round. Two days after that, three of the bigger boys beat Abel very badly because one of them claimed he had been staring at him while they were playing basketball on the stone court just outside the school grounds, and Abel had to be taken to the hospital then, afterwards to recuperate at home. Ximena visited him every afternoon and related what was happening in the classes they had shared, which after a month of Abel‘s not showing signs of improvement, it looked as if he would not be returning to, and later would be a semester behind Ximena in every subject. She coached him in math, in which he showed little interest, in civics, to which he smiled but remained quiet, and it was only when she came to talking about the English teacher, whom she claimed was still acting so touchy-feely, that her friend perked up, and asked many questions. She wanted to tell him the truth, that Mr. Lazarus was no longer at the school, had in fact been fired, that Abel was a very bad judge of character, and that she regretted having chosen not to participate in the revue without him, but she didn‘t because she knew that would make him cry, something she never wanted to see him do; not for the world over anything she might say.
Graham at the End of Term He knew well enough. He had drunk himself through this experience twice before, and had in fact been expecting Clara to return again this holiday. The question was only a formality, and he felt he would soon be easing into her visit in a much more subtle way than his fat cat was ever able to muster. Graham had spent the early days of December wishing for a return to his past, planning so many questions to put to Clara when she came, and now with the racket outside, he could not think of any. ―Please, my dear,‖ he said, ―allow me a moment to bar the window, and shut out the cold and that awful noise.‖ ―You have come to the end of your third term of solitude, Graham,‖ his spectral wife said, ―thus, you must acknowledge from whence those voices come.‖
Graham Must Decide Graham wished for an easy solution like changing the channel halfway through a movie to which one had lost the thread, or perhaps never even picked it up from the beginning, but there was no answer coming from outside his mind. Here he stood amidst many ghosts calling him to responsibility, or perhaps merely trying to spook him out in the way an old rival might play devil‘s advocate whilst the need to make a decision lay with him. Here was Clara speaking to him in an archaic tone, one she had never used in life, telling him he could choose to go forward in some new persona, and all the while ghastly looking faces showing him what he might become if he did not choose. It was all too difficult when he had only looked toward reminiscing, and he pulled at his hair. Noticing the few gray strands that came away on his fingers, he could see that they were real enough, but within the hour his hair, indeed the rest of his corporeal self, would become a memory, if memories carried into a new life, or death. ―How will I…?‖ he started to ask, but Clara had disappeared, and only the revenants of his past remained to taunt him.
Revolver The ghost of his grandfather looking remarkably young and fit, and wearing his holiday uniform spoke to him in a withering way, saying, ―Why should you get to choose something so profound as a new beginning when you‘ve waffled through six decades looking older than an athlete weaned off his steroids, and don‘t you know what time it is?‖ Graham had never liked his maternal grandfather, who was always ready with a putdown for those who had the temerity to defy fate. Thankless he was that he himself had discovered the fountain of youth by dying young and retaining his looks, but he wouldn‘t go away! On all those holidays when it snowed, he brought his bulging spirit to the door and frightened away the scrawny carolers. It was not all bad without some good in it as Graham despised chalky pimpled youths who put aside their base instincts to trudge around from house to house spreading their lackluster cheer to those undesiring of same, but then the geezer in the red and green jersey wouldn‘t stop cawing like a crow about how much better the man would be had he slipped to the other side while still in the flush of his own youth. ―You‘re more screwed than Scrooge, more Bing than Beatles,‖ the young looking old ghost was fond of sniping, and Graham would murmur to himself, ―White Christmas be damned,‖ tasting something like yeast on the back of his tongue, and wondering if his grandfather had ever met John, George, or the Maharishi in his travels.
Only Then When „I Am‟ Giselle could feel aching in her soul, not like a heart attack or gastritis, nor was it physical like her monthlies. She wanted something more here and now. It seemed ironic to her, a great reader, that she had never experienced this intense discomfort before taking up the works of Doris Lessing‘s later period, which led her to revisit Gurdjieff and see him in a new light. She fervently wished for a spiritual connection with someone by whom she could be guided, little knowing that by extending such an invitation one-third of her prayers would be answered. She was making her way for a second time through Lessing‘s Sentimental Agents… and beginning to feel she had fallen a victim to words. Lights were dimming everywhere and publishers were economizing by printing in smaller type thereby using less paper, but reaching rational conclusions was becoming a blinding experience and Giselle suffered from headaches and posture problems she attributed to too many hours in front of a computer screen, all of which, combined with her soul rot left her unaware of the portion of Graham‘s mind that came to reside in hers on moving day.
Dog in the Manger This year there were two new buildings in the village and lights where there never used to be; in addition, children would be able to ice skate on a mirror, but since they rarely had time to move, nobody but tiny Rudolph was able to take advantage of the innovation. A young couple, obviously lovers, she with a muff, and he sporting a tam o‘shanter, sat on a park bench that had been installed in the cottony snow bank, never moving even when it was possible; though Rudolph said they had snuggled closer during the time he had ventured out onto the icy mirror. Madame Treyne had looked her absolute best last year before being put in the box, but never reappeared in her florist shop, which continually displayed previouslyfashioned arrangements, and it was rumored she had been broken in storage, which happens occasionally. Madame Sparger spent as much time as she could in the bakery with SeĂąor Wemple, which kept him unaware that the caroling repertoire had been increased by several songs from an earlier era, and the two made suppositions as to who might be inhabiting the new houses, if anyone did, as the lights stayed on all hours. Caesar could have told them the little houses were electrified but empty as he discovered from sniffing around, but aside from these few moments snatched from suspended animation, there wasn‘t much activity in the village this year, and it was rumored the people rarely went out because times were known to be hard, in spite of the new pieces, which were probably set up to distract from that fact.
Dog in the Manger 2 With my Lois and Clark 速 mug of coffee in hand, I sit staring at less renowned, yet smiling porcelain figurines, and invest whatever emotions I suffer to run into theirs. Outside the season, they don't have any of their own, you see. Before the deaths of friends and loved ones on key dates, it was just a holiday experience, from the ides of November through the opening of January, but lately the time frame has expanded on either side of the calendar, and now my ennui obtains until well past anniversaries in April. As the miasma of the rainy season, with nary a catalytic flake of snow, synthetic or otherwise following, lasts here from April through September, the year is fairly well drenched with unextraordinary days. Sometimes, I wish I could go back in the box and sleep along with Madame Sparger, Se単or Wemple, and the rest for eleven months, but then there would be no one to awaken them and let us have our lives. Alternatively, I wish I could, like Superman, fly backwards really fast around the world and relive undamaged days.
Old Photograph
Intending a quick comparison, I raise my eyes to the wall mirror, but they get stuck in a glued observance. Only the raised eyebrow persists.