Where There’s a Spark

Elisa Perin

I was six years old when I first understood how to strike a match. I watched my grandfather lighting his pipe. It was a ritual with him – a way of expressing emotion, I think. He was a man of few words. The pipe, always cushioned in his shirt pocket, close at hand. Close to heart. He would stroke it when my gran told him to do something, when my mother left the house in a skirt, when my sister whined from the cot and neither of them were around to quiet her.

I watched him take the pipe from his pocket, tap the bowl with his index – the skin there harder somehow, and iodine-coloured from years of kissing tobacco. Then the match box. I loved the wooden rattling sound, the whisper of the opening box, the smell of sulfur when the head stroked its rough side. And then the spark, the sizzling flame.

How I loved seeing it dance. Grandfather would watch it burn for a second, as if he was solving all his problems behind its intensity. Then he would bury it in the tobacco, inhale in that puffing way.

Now, as I watched the blaze consume the arcade, each shop folding like a train of camels, I knew I had solved one of my problems. And no one would ever find the little matchbox that started it.

Lewis Leverett

#note to future self: this was a piece based off of a prompt for class, but you won’t have time to finish it until later. Reminder of intentions/ideas: Initially, to tell a story in the form of code. But became a piss-take of literary writing. Need to figure out how to add in a story. But just finish it first. I’m writing it all properly in code so that it would actually work if someone ran it. Just copy and paste it into Docs afterwards and stick it in Courier.

Import Random

bluntOpeningsList = [“He died yesterday.”,”The thing that she disliked most about a full english breakfast was the eggs. So, she wiped the blood off of her hands and ate everything but the eggs.”,”She was the second most beautiful woman in the world.”,”She had only three friends now and they were all dead.”]

#add more once everything is working coreIdeasList = [“A man struggles with fixing a light (metaphor: the man struggles with fixing his relationship).”, “A man forgives his father.”, “A toxic marriage.”, “The protagonist turns into an animal, but somehow it’s still boring.”,”A really toxic marriage.”]

#add more additionalIdeasList = [“Write wholly unnecessary graphic descriptions of the naked female body.”,”Soak the story in an all-consuming pessimism.”,”Write as plainly as possible. Try to write an entire story without an adverb. Or, for added fun, challenge yourself to write the whole story without adjectives!”,”Take out all of the plot points.”, “Incest?”]

#add more endingsList = [“The protagonist is depressed by the events of the story.”, “Nothing happens.”, “Nothing happens, but the protagonist is depressed.”] randomNumber1 = random.randint(0, len(bluntOpeningsList)-1) randomNumber2 = random.randint(0, len(coreIdeasList)-1) randomNumber3 = random.randint(0, len(additionalIdeasList)-1) randomNumber4 = random.randint(0, len(endingsList)-1) bluntOpening = bluntOpeningsList[randomNumber1] coreIdea = coreIdeasList[randomNumber2] additionalIdea = additionalIdeasList[randomNumber3] ending = endingsList[randomNumber4] print(“Here is your literary story prompt!”) print(“First, a blunt opening. Now, you don’t have to use this phrase exactly, but do make sure that it is extremely blunt: “ + bluntOpening) print(“Now, here’s the core idea for your story: “ + coreIdea) print(“In case you don’t feel that idea alone is enough for you to get those awards, here is an additional idea, either depressing or sexual in nature, to help you fall into a literary style: “ + additionalIdea) print(“Finally, here is your ending: “ + ending) print(“Now, rookie writer, novice neurotic, get writing! And remember, whatever you write, keep it in the back of your mind that death comes to us all. If your story is feeling too bouncy, why not add a suggestion of sexual assault, or make the protagonist beat a child, because their father beat them? It doesn’t have to be either of those, but just make sure you remind the reader they’re here to frown and analyse, not to read for ‘reading’s sake’. And -- above all -- never forget: show, don’t tell! Happy writing!”)

#is there a more efficient way of doing this? Have a search when you get back from the hospital.

#So, what’s the story? It should be something grim but vague and quiet, so that it itself becomes a literary story. Or maybe the total opposite? Something tongue-in-cheek and dramatic? Maybe. But wh

Mr Sandman

Casey Brown my head is heavy as a lampshade

– the bulb is dark as coal –this bed is little as the thumb of a doctor whose glove is riddled with holes.

Your scythe sits heavy in the dip of my temple.

I snort its rust

– like honeycomb.