Seeing as how I'm prepping for another (most like demoralizing) contest entry, I thought I'd shoot two barrels of fish with one shotgun and post some of the compositions I'm considering for submission.
The contest? Hint Fiction.
The deadline: August 31 (this coming Monday, I believe).
The skinny: Compose a story in 25 words or less - perfect for a twitter post. Come to think of it, I should post mine on my much neglected Twitter account. I'll try to due that right after I send in the entries for consideration.
Well, here they are:
The Funeral of an Enigma
The programs were referred to often - compulsively, it seemed - as the structure they provided was some sort of relief from the awkwardness and boredom.
Baggage
From the pedestrian bridge, she emptied the purse into the river, laughing through the tears. She kept the purse, though, for the memories it held.
The Humanity
"There is a indifferent, yawning chasm in between compassion and resentment," Drake drawled as he withdrew the blade. Footsteps echoed down the alley.
He Was Supposed To Have Made His Mark By Now
From the opposite sidewalk, surreptitious sideways glances at the girls walking by in tight, skimpy clothes. The sight was suddenly, for the first time, depressing.
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Listening to: Miles Davis - So What
via FoxyTunes
Showing posts with label Spontaneous Combustion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Spontaneous Combustion. Show all posts
Friday, August 28, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
New Music Monday - Jazz Trip
I'm not going to lie - today's song is an unmitigated failure. Just does not work. A hot mess. Sorry, but not every experiment can work out right.
I was going for a weird jazzy trippy number. Not sure what actually happened, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't stand a chance in front of Obama's Death Panel, which, by the way, would be a good band name.
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Listening to: Gogol Bordello - Start Wearing Purple
via FoxyTunes
I was going for a weird jazzy trippy number. Not sure what actually happened, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't stand a chance in front of Obama's Death Panel, which, by the way, would be a good band name.
----------------
Listening to: Gogol Bordello - Start Wearing Purple
via FoxyTunes
Friday, August 21, 2009
Flash Fiction Friday - The Old Man and the Mailbox
The Old Man And The Mailbox
"It's hot already," John muttered to himself as he wiped his dampening forehead with a white handkerchief. He thought about just unfolding it completely and draping it over his head, like he had seen the Arabs do back in the war, then thought better of it and folded back up and slipped it in his shirt pocket. He slowly traversed the blinding white concrete of his driveway, like a firewalker, towards his mailbox at the end. Today was the day he got his Social Security check - they arrived like clockwork on the 5th of the month, or the 6th if the 5th was on a Sunday. And the postman was always there by 10 AM; it was 10:30 now.
His shuffling feet had made their way halfway down the driveway before he had to pause for a break. He had a walker but refused to use it most of the time. He was still man enough to walk out to get the mail, for Chrissakes. Again the handkerchief came out and wiped away the sweat, on his face now as well as his brow. He remembered marching through the deserts of Africa during the war, in the somewhat romantic way that time can tint such things. He started toward the mailbox again, letting his memories distract him from the pain in his joints until, like a blessed oasis, he was at the mailbox at the end of the driveway.
It was impossible to see inside the dark cavern when he first opened it; his eyes needed a few seconds to adjust. His eyes still worked pretty well, he thought. He took comfort in thee small blessings whenever he noticed them.
To his surprise, the box appeared empty. He reached his shaking hand inside and felt around. Nothing. An odd sad sensation flooded into his veins, and he closed the mailbox. He retrieved his handkerchief yet again and wiped himself down. It's too hot to think, he thought. The handkerchief finally went on top of his head, awkward appearances be damned, in an effort to cool down.
John checked the watch on his well-tanned wrist, a beautiful gold Rolex he got when he retired from the car factory. The watch said 10:40. John opened the mailbox again. Still nothing.
----------------
Listening to: Sybris - On Man!
via FoxyTunes
"It's hot already," John muttered to himself as he wiped his dampening forehead with a white handkerchief. He thought about just unfolding it completely and draping it over his head, like he had seen the Arabs do back in the war, then thought better of it and folded back up and slipped it in his shirt pocket. He slowly traversed the blinding white concrete of his driveway, like a firewalker, towards his mailbox at the end. Today was the day he got his Social Security check - they arrived like clockwork on the 5th of the month, or the 6th if the 5th was on a Sunday. And the postman was always there by 10 AM; it was 10:30 now.
His shuffling feet had made their way halfway down the driveway before he had to pause for a break. He had a walker but refused to use it most of the time. He was still man enough to walk out to get the mail, for Chrissakes. Again the handkerchief came out and wiped away the sweat, on his face now as well as his brow. He remembered marching through the deserts of Africa during the war, in the somewhat romantic way that time can tint such things. He started toward the mailbox again, letting his memories distract him from the pain in his joints until, like a blessed oasis, he was at the mailbox at the end of the driveway.
It was impossible to see inside the dark cavern when he first opened it; his eyes needed a few seconds to adjust. His eyes still worked pretty well, he thought. He took comfort in thee small blessings whenever he noticed them.
To his surprise, the box appeared empty. He reached his shaking hand inside and felt around. Nothing. An odd sad sensation flooded into his veins, and he closed the mailbox. He retrieved his handkerchief yet again and wiped himself down. It's too hot to think, he thought. The handkerchief finally went on top of his head, awkward appearances be damned, in an effort to cool down.
John checked the watch on his well-tanned wrist, a beautiful gold Rolex he got when he retired from the car factory. The watch said 10:40. John opened the mailbox again. Still nothing.
----------------
Listening to: Sybris - On Man!
via FoxyTunes
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Photo Odin's Day
In an effort to try something new, and to make up for the fact that due to being away for the weekend there was no New Music Monday, I've decided to try posting some pictures. The photos are random, but interesting (at least to me)...hope you like them.
I found this at an abandoned campsite at the edge of the woods right along Lake Superior. The paper scrap and the lake rocks were sitting on an old stump. The rest of the letter was nowhere to be found - probably blown away. This bit seemed to have been plastered to the stump by the rains of the previous couple of days; it was just drying out as I found it.
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Listening to: Harlem Shakes - Strictly Game
via FoxyTunes
I found this at an abandoned campsite at the edge of the woods right along Lake Superior. The paper scrap and the lake rocks were sitting on an old stump. The rest of the letter was nowhere to be found - probably blown away. This bit seemed to have been plastered to the stump by the rains of the previous couple of days; it was just drying out as I found it.
----------------
Listening to: Harlem Shakes - Strictly Game
via FoxyTunes
Friday, August 14, 2009
Flash Fic Friday - Kvasir Sat
My offering today comes from an idea I had on my way out the door to work yesterday, as I was generally lamenting a mild case of writer's block. In the way of background info, Kvasir is the Norse god of inspiration.
Kvasir sat alone in the large alabaster room. The immense space was lined in the distance with billowy curtains, also white, which hung still and sterile. The room seemed to have no discernible boundary. Kvasir sat on a weathered wooden stool in the middle of the room. In front of him on a large raised pedestal was a chunk of marble, rippled and veined with thin rivers of crystals in several magnificent colors. In and of itself, the marble might be considered a work of art. Kvasir sat.
"What am I going to do today?" he asked out loud into the expanse.
His tools, a chisel in his left hand and a hammer in his right, were heavy. His grip was, ever so slightly, weakening. The instruments were heavy not only with the substance of their composite materials, but heavy with time. All the time.
The block of stone and the pedestal it sat upon were covered with a thick layer of fine dust, so powdery and light that it was hard to actually see. A thin layer had even seemed to have settled over Kvasir himself, collecting in the whiskers of his beard and the wisps of his long thinning hair. His naked back, though muscular, appeared worn by time and the enervation of a difficult existence.
"What am I going to do?"
The sound of his voice had an empty quality, most likely due to the fact that his words left his mouth and just kept going, into seeming infinity. His hands tensed up, absentmindedly manipulating his sculpting instruments. Kvasir sat, staring at the block of marble in front of him, at first intensely, then drifting off into something more like lassitude. He let out a deep sigh. His breath disturbed the dust on the marble and pedestal, sending a whisper of silvery powder into the air. Some of it drifted back and settled over him.
"What," he asked, "am I doing?"
----------------
Listening to: Sleater-Kinney - Dance Song '97
via FoxyTunes
Kvasir sat alone in the large alabaster room. The immense space was lined in the distance with billowy curtains, also white, which hung still and sterile. The room seemed to have no discernible boundary. Kvasir sat on a weathered wooden stool in the middle of the room. In front of him on a large raised pedestal was a chunk of marble, rippled and veined with thin rivers of crystals in several magnificent colors. In and of itself, the marble might be considered a work of art. Kvasir sat.
"What am I going to do today?" he asked out loud into the expanse.
His tools, a chisel in his left hand and a hammer in his right, were heavy. His grip was, ever so slightly, weakening. The instruments were heavy not only with the substance of their composite materials, but heavy with time. All the time.
The block of stone and the pedestal it sat upon were covered with a thick layer of fine dust, so powdery and light that it was hard to actually see. A thin layer had even seemed to have settled over Kvasir himself, collecting in the whiskers of his beard and the wisps of his long thinning hair. His naked back, though muscular, appeared worn by time and the enervation of a difficult existence.
"What am I going to do?"
The sound of his voice had an empty quality, most likely due to the fact that his words left his mouth and just kept going, into seeming infinity. His hands tensed up, absentmindedly manipulating his sculpting instruments. Kvasir sat, staring at the block of marble in front of him, at first intensely, then drifting off into something more like lassitude. He let out a deep sigh. His breath disturbed the dust on the marble and pedestal, sending a whisper of silvery powder into the air. Some of it drifted back and settled over him.
"What," he asked, "am I doing?"
----------------
Listening to: Sleater-Kinney - Dance Song '97
via FoxyTunes
Monday, August 10, 2009
Reykjavic Nights
Good Moleman to you!
Today Part 4 of the agonizing pain in which I live every daaaaaaay.
By which I mean it's New Music Monday!
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Listening to: The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
via FoxyTunes
Today Part 4 of the agonizing pain in which I live every daaaaaaay.
By which I mean it's New Music Monday!
----------------
Listening to: The Verve - Bittersweet Symphony
via FoxyTunes
Friday, August 7, 2009
Flash Fiction Friday - The Raisin Girl
The Raisin Girl
"What nationality you think the Sun-Maid girl is?" Steve asked through the wispy trails of smoke that rose between us.
"I don't know, Steve," I replied, and left it at that, savoring - in a moment of fully self-aware passive-aggresiveness - the deliciously agonizing limbo in which he was now swinging, just begging for me to relive him, which, finally, I did. "What do you think?" I asked, extending my open hand.
Floodgates open, the words gushed through. "I used to think she was like, Italian or something, I don't know - when I was growing up. Or maybe just a white chick like that Dorothy chick in 'Wizard of Oz'. Now that I'm older and more world-weary, I'm thinking Mexican...maybe an outside shot she's Indian."
I think he meant 'world-wise'. "She's fictional..."
He finally passed me the lighter and continued. "Like Pocahantus."
I ignored him and sparked up, drawing the dancing orange flicker in until it was a barely visible blue.
"I wonder what her life was like," he said, looking to me for a response.
I turned my eyes to him and shrugged, grateful that my mouth was occupied so he couldn't expect much in the way of a reply.
"She probably died young," he supposed out loud. "Smallpox...or maybe the Spanish flu. And I wouldn't be surprised if she was raped more than once."
I exhaled a smooth plume of blue smoke. As my lungs emptied, it began to feel like I was melting just a little. I smiled dumbly to myself, feeling very much at peace. "Sucks," I said to Steve; I was referring to the fate of the poor Sun-Maid girl, but I then thought that he might think I was referring to the weed.
"Oooh!" Steve burst out, pointing a fat, boorish finger excitedly in my face. "Oooh! Like the Land O Lakes chick...you know, that Indian chick with the butter?"
I thought of that trick where you cut out the butter she's holding, then fold her up so that her bare knees show through and look like boobs. I was going to mention it to Steve, as I'm sure he'd constructed one before; hell, probably even jerked off to it, but he pre-empted me.
"Do you think, Joe, that they were..." he seemed to lose his train of thought for a bit, then found it again, "think they were...passionate women?"
"Fictional," I repeated.
"Man, I bet they could fuck," Steve said longingly. "The both of them."
I shrugged again. Soemtimes, that's all I can do.
"Tell me you wouldn't hit that," Steve demanded.
I did not tell him that, or say anything, actually. All I could do was sit there and think, over and over, that I simply had to get a new pot dealer.
----------------
Listening to: Brendan Small - Louis Louis Rap
via FoxyTunes
"What nationality you think the Sun-Maid girl is?" Steve asked through the wispy trails of smoke that rose between us.
"I don't know, Steve," I replied, and left it at that, savoring - in a moment of fully self-aware passive-aggresiveness - the deliciously agonizing limbo in which he was now swinging, just begging for me to relive him, which, finally, I did. "What do you think?" I asked, extending my open hand.
Floodgates open, the words gushed through. "I used to think she was like, Italian or something, I don't know - when I was growing up. Or maybe just a white chick like that Dorothy chick in 'Wizard of Oz'. Now that I'm older and more world-weary, I'm thinking Mexican...maybe an outside shot she's Indian."
I think he meant 'world-wise'. "She's fictional..."
He finally passed me the lighter and continued. "Like Pocahantus."
I ignored him and sparked up, drawing the dancing orange flicker in until it was a barely visible blue.
"I wonder what her life was like," he said, looking to me for a response.
I turned my eyes to him and shrugged, grateful that my mouth was occupied so he couldn't expect much in the way of a reply.
"She probably died young," he supposed out loud. "Smallpox...or maybe the Spanish flu. And I wouldn't be surprised if she was raped more than once."
I exhaled a smooth plume of blue smoke. As my lungs emptied, it began to feel like I was melting just a little. I smiled dumbly to myself, feeling very much at peace. "Sucks," I said to Steve; I was referring to the fate of the poor Sun-Maid girl, but I then thought that he might think I was referring to the weed.
"Oooh!" Steve burst out, pointing a fat, boorish finger excitedly in my face. "Oooh! Like the Land O Lakes chick...you know, that Indian chick with the butter?"
I thought of that trick where you cut out the butter she's holding, then fold her up so that her bare knees show through and look like boobs. I was going to mention it to Steve, as I'm sure he'd constructed one before; hell, probably even jerked off to it, but he pre-empted me.
"Do you think, Joe, that they were..." he seemed to lose his train of thought for a bit, then found it again, "think they were...passionate women?"
"Fictional," I repeated.
"Man, I bet they could fuck," Steve said longingly. "The both of them."
I shrugged again. Soemtimes, that's all I can do.
"Tell me you wouldn't hit that," Steve demanded.
I did not tell him that, or say anything, actually. All I could do was sit there and think, over and over, that I simply had to get a new pot dealer.
----------------
Listening to: Brendan Small - Louis Louis Rap
via FoxyTunes
Friday, July 31, 2009
Flash Fiction Friday
Arrg - this week has been hectic, and I've no time to properly compose a piece for today. So, as is my wont, I'll switch it up a little here and post something different instead.
This is a piece I composed entirely from the subject lines on spam e-mails...very original, I know. But I thought it would be fun. Who knows - maybe I'll be the next Sarah Palin!
Here it is:
This is a piece I composed entirely from the subject lines on spam e-mails...very original, I know. But I thought it would be fun. Who knows - maybe I'll be the next Sarah Palin!
Here it is:
He that enola
I maxie ourselves girvin
of nimitz no dempster,
you which expellable.
An retrofitted from
as is arabi.
In huesyville yourself kopperl,
The no veracity
I lairdsville as ridiculous
Of drennen many greenleaf
Or what turnabout
do keshena from aguanga.
He venerable to oblivion
An scary or notorious
Or mart of noontime
My clyman till moapa
in benedicta well halworth,
In harrah which cordelle
In weston go esposito,
Of earling what bache
Be aqua
With krakatowa at carlisle.
New found sex drive
appetite ceramics
on himself saturnalia.
That he mollie
tender altered medic
Or renovate everything fickle,
do it shalom.
In
her usurious self verdant
Till it sashay
it quiescent is feminine.
Have a cassandra
no he manna
With so predispose
on my canadian.
Be no thousandths,
Be the grandson,
Or sap be combinatorial.
Do go dissociate
his inhibit the cache,
Which draftsmen is miles
To numeral do missionary.
To corrosive or burn
As by weller
It no suitcase.
----------------
Listening to: Beck - Alcohol [#]
via FoxyTunes
Friday, July 24, 2009
Flash Fiction Friday - The Clown Flashes Back
Goal: 600 words or less.
Actual count: 613 words - close enough.
NOTE: The following scene takes place in a small town around the turn of the 20th century. The big tent for the traveling circus caught fire during a show. The town has no hospitals anywhere near, so all of the injured are brought to the town pharmacy.
THE CLOWN FLASHES BACK
Ross wandered throughout the triage area with a full bucket, offering ladles of water to anyone conscious. Except to those who were moaning, or crying, or screaming - they terrified him. He felt an odd revulsion, like he might catch something from them. He knew this was a ridiculous thought, but he couldn't shake it. His wanderings took him to a clown with an ink dark face and huge white mouth painted on in the shape of a frown. A clown next to him was painted similarly, except with a red face and a smile. They reminded Ross of the iconic drama masks he saw in advertisements. The smiling clown was dead.
"Kid," rasped the still-living clown, "help me out here." He struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. Ross knelt beside him, proffering an overflowing ladle.
"Nah," the sad clown waved the water off. "Can you reach into my breast pocket, kid? My medicine..." he asked.
Ross gingerly snaked his hand into the clown's pocket, carefully avoiding any physical contact. He pulled out a silver flask, dragging along with it a photograph, which fell to the floor beside the clown. The photo was of a young woman, light-haired and in refined dress. She was beautiful - Ross could not help staring.
The clown took a swig from the flask and wiped his mouth with a sooty sleeve.
"You have no idea what it's like, kid," the clown whispered after a moment, beckoning Russ closer as he spoke. A glaze was forming over his old yellow eyes. Ross figured his medicine must be kicking in.
"There was my Gretchen..." The clown paused briefly as emotions flushed through his face. "...lying limp on the dock - I kept praying she would pass out and be spared the pain. Her leg stuck out at an obscene angle. I could see the bone; jagged and messy. The blood was everywhere, kid, growing in a pool, staining the new white dress I had bought her."
He paused for another sip from the flask.
"A crowd gathered, and I felt as though we were in some absurd play. I wanted to yell at them - tell them all to go away...no one would help. They just stood there - dumb!" he exclaimed loudly. More quietly, he continued, "I suppose there was nothing they could do."
Ross listened intently. Between the clown's story and the beautiful picture at his side, he was able to block out most of the moaning and screaming in the pharmacy.
"As she passed, I stroked her hair and face to comfort her, and I positioned myself to block her view of her horrible misfortune...and then...such a beautiful sound I heard. Two ships in the harbor were sounding their signal horns alternatively. C# and A, so haunting and stark. A third horn joined. I closed my eyes. It sounded like a chorus of angels in my head. I felt an overwhelming impulse to lose myself in that sound, to leave the horror of the moment and flee to the world of those horns, like sweet Sirens they called me."
Tears were tracing big, ugly lines through his grease paint face.
"I was holding her, and all I could think of was running away! I hear that music every day - it haunts me, it won't leave me..." The clown broke down into sobs. Ross sat there as trailed off, afraid to move, unsure of what to do, until his father called for him to come back behind the pharmacy counter.
Behind the counter, his father grabbed him roughly. "Keep away from that dirty drunk!" he scolded. "Lord knows what you might catch from him."
Actual count: 613 words - close enough.
NOTE: The following scene takes place in a small town around the turn of the 20th century. The big tent for the traveling circus caught fire during a show. The town has no hospitals anywhere near, so all of the injured are brought to the town pharmacy.
THE CLOWN FLASHES BACK
Ross wandered throughout the triage area with a full bucket, offering ladles of water to anyone conscious. Except to those who were moaning, or crying, or screaming - they terrified him. He felt an odd revulsion, like he might catch something from them. He knew this was a ridiculous thought, but he couldn't shake it. His wanderings took him to a clown with an ink dark face and huge white mouth painted on in the shape of a frown. A clown next to him was painted similarly, except with a red face and a smile. They reminded Ross of the iconic drama masks he saw in advertisements. The smiling clown was dead.
"Kid," rasped the still-living clown, "help me out here." He struggled to prop himself up on his elbows. Ross knelt beside him, proffering an overflowing ladle.
"Nah," the sad clown waved the water off. "Can you reach into my breast pocket, kid? My medicine..." he asked.
Ross gingerly snaked his hand into the clown's pocket, carefully avoiding any physical contact. He pulled out a silver flask, dragging along with it a photograph, which fell to the floor beside the clown. The photo was of a young woman, light-haired and in refined dress. She was beautiful - Ross could not help staring.
The clown took a swig from the flask and wiped his mouth with a sooty sleeve.
"You have no idea what it's like, kid," the clown whispered after a moment, beckoning Russ closer as he spoke. A glaze was forming over his old yellow eyes. Ross figured his medicine must be kicking in.
"There was my Gretchen..." The clown paused briefly as emotions flushed through his face. "...lying limp on the dock - I kept praying she would pass out and be spared the pain. Her leg stuck out at an obscene angle. I could see the bone; jagged and messy. The blood was everywhere, kid, growing in a pool, staining the new white dress I had bought her."
He paused for another sip from the flask.
"A crowd gathered, and I felt as though we were in some absurd play. I wanted to yell at them - tell them all to go away...no one would help. They just stood there - dumb!" he exclaimed loudly. More quietly, he continued, "I suppose there was nothing they could do."
Ross listened intently. Between the clown's story and the beautiful picture at his side, he was able to block out most of the moaning and screaming in the pharmacy.
"As she passed, I stroked her hair and face to comfort her, and I positioned myself to block her view of her horrible misfortune...and then...such a beautiful sound I heard. Two ships in the harbor were sounding their signal horns alternatively. C# and A, so haunting and stark. A third horn joined. I closed my eyes. It sounded like a chorus of angels in my head. I felt an overwhelming impulse to lose myself in that sound, to leave the horror of the moment and flee to the world of those horns, like sweet Sirens they called me."
Tears were tracing big, ugly lines through his grease paint face.
"I was holding her, and all I could think of was running away! I hear that music every day - it haunts me, it won't leave me..." The clown broke down into sobs. Ross sat there as trailed off, afraid to move, unsure of what to do, until his father called for him to come back behind the pharmacy counter.
Behind the counter, his father grabbed him roughly. "Keep away from that dirty drunk!" he scolded. "Lord knows what you might catch from him."
Friday, July 17, 2009
Flash Fiction Friday - Overheard Over Beers
"Well, that sucks," Zoe commented, then finished her beer. She set the opaque brown bottle down on the old lacquered wood table.
"These things happen, it was your first time, don't worry," Rick comforted her, sort of. "We'll try again tomorrow night."
Zoe let out a heavy sigh, surreptitiously slipping a burp in underneath it. She fiddled with the tattered remnants of the label she had peeled off of her beer bottle; she spread it out flat on the table with her hand and then let it go, watching as it slowly rose and curled back up on itself.
"Don't be discouraged," Rick added. Zoe dismissed his encouragement as an attempt to break the awkward silence between them.
"I don't know what the fuck I did wrong...I did everything exactly like I was supposed to!"
Rick bristled at her language. Zoe sensed his discomfort and felt a little surge of something - passion, adrenaline, anxiety - she didn't know what, but it kind of excited her. Maybe it was the beer. With her long fingers, she picked at the amorphous blob sitting on the table. She brought a bit up to her lips - a little salty, too gooey.
"Don't get upset. It happens to me all the time - I follow the recipe exactly, double check everything, but sometimes..." he trailed off, looking out the big picture window at the dark city outside. They sat in silence for a while before Zoe got up and fetched a couple more beers from the fridge in the back. She sat down hard on the padded stool. She was never good at concealing her emotions. She even sat angry.
Rick grabbed the opener out of his apron pocket and pulled the caps off of the beers. "Sometimes," he continued where he had left off earlier, "sometimes the bread just doesn't turn out right."
Zoe took a long swig, and Rick took the opportunity to continue.
"I'm worried about you," he stated.
Zoe pulled the bottle from her thin, strawberry lips and swallowed. "Worried about me why?" she asked, short of breath from her drink.
"You know why," he replied. "You should really come with me this Sunday."
"Oh, Jesus, Rick. Not this again..."
"It would mean a lot to me. And it could really help you; help you make a difference in your life." Zoe's big eyes rolled like fat summer moons as she turned her head to the side. "Look, I know what I'm talking about here. I used to be just like you. I went through all the same things: the doubt, the depression, the anger..." Rick trailed off, watching her face to see if he had hit his mark. She turned back and stared at him, poker-faced, for a moment before slowly bringing the beer back up to her lips.
"It doesn't have to be like this for you," Rick implored. "Sometimes things aren't as bad as they seem."
Zoe held her stare, gradually making Rick uncomfortable enough to look away. An old fan droned in the background.
"Sometimes," she paused to drain her beer before continuing, "sometimes things just don't turn out right, Rick."
----------------
Listening to: Warpaint - Billie Holiday
via FoxyTunes
"These things happen, it was your first time, don't worry," Rick comforted her, sort of. "We'll try again tomorrow night."
Zoe let out a heavy sigh, surreptitiously slipping a burp in underneath it. She fiddled with the tattered remnants of the label she had peeled off of her beer bottle; she spread it out flat on the table with her hand and then let it go, watching as it slowly rose and curled back up on itself.
"Don't be discouraged," Rick added. Zoe dismissed his encouragement as an attempt to break the awkward silence between them.
"I don't know what the fuck I did wrong...I did everything exactly like I was supposed to!"
Rick bristled at her language. Zoe sensed his discomfort and felt a little surge of something - passion, adrenaline, anxiety - she didn't know what, but it kind of excited her. Maybe it was the beer. With her long fingers, she picked at the amorphous blob sitting on the table. She brought a bit up to her lips - a little salty, too gooey.
"Don't get upset. It happens to me all the time - I follow the recipe exactly, double check everything, but sometimes..." he trailed off, looking out the big picture window at the dark city outside. They sat in silence for a while before Zoe got up and fetched a couple more beers from the fridge in the back. She sat down hard on the padded stool. She was never good at concealing her emotions. She even sat angry.
Rick grabbed the opener out of his apron pocket and pulled the caps off of the beers. "Sometimes," he continued where he had left off earlier, "sometimes the bread just doesn't turn out right."
Zoe took a long swig, and Rick took the opportunity to continue.
"I'm worried about you," he stated.
Zoe pulled the bottle from her thin, strawberry lips and swallowed. "Worried about me why?" she asked, short of breath from her drink.
"You know why," he replied. "You should really come with me this Sunday."
"Oh, Jesus, Rick. Not this again..."
"It would mean a lot to me. And it could really help you; help you make a difference in your life." Zoe's big eyes rolled like fat summer moons as she turned her head to the side. "Look, I know what I'm talking about here. I used to be just like you. I went through all the same things: the doubt, the depression, the anger..." Rick trailed off, watching her face to see if he had hit his mark. She turned back and stared at him, poker-faced, for a moment before slowly bringing the beer back up to her lips.
"It doesn't have to be like this for you," Rick implored. "Sometimes things aren't as bad as they seem."
Zoe held her stare, gradually making Rick uncomfortable enough to look away. An old fan droned in the background.
"Sometimes," she paused to drain her beer before continuing, "sometimes things just don't turn out right, Rick."
----------------
Listening to: Warpaint - Billie Holiday
via FoxyTunes
Friday, July 10, 2009
In Vino Veritas contest entry
Just a quick update:
While cruising through the bloggosphere recently, I stumbled upon a flash fiction contest at The Clarity of Night. I had this idea knocking around in my head since last winter while I was lounging on the couch in a Nyquil daze. And at only 250 words, I figured I could knock it out quickly. The result is below; I intend to submit it sometime this weekend. Enjoy! Comment! Enjoy!
Fetch
Two figures approached from the southern horizon - they seemed to have been brought along with the storm. As the lightning flashed violently through the downpour, Eva traced their progress towards the isolated shack. She tried to wake her father and mother, but they were too drunk to rouse. In a panic, Eva grabbed some bread from the table and ran out the back door. She checked over her shoulder as she fled, making sure that the shack was keeping her blocked from view.
----------------
Listening to: The Pogues - Bottle Of Smoke
via FoxyTunes
While cruising through the bloggosphere recently, I stumbled upon a flash fiction contest at The Clarity of Night. I had this idea knocking around in my head since last winter while I was lounging on the couch in a Nyquil daze. And at only 250 words, I figured I could knock it out quickly. The result is below; I intend to submit it sometime this weekend. Enjoy! Comment! Enjoy!
Fetch
Two figures approached from the southern horizon - they seemed to have been brought along with the storm. As the lightning flashed violently through the downpour, Eva traced their progress towards the isolated shack. She tried to wake her father and mother, but they were too drunk to rouse. In a panic, Eva grabbed some bread from the table and ran out the back door. She checked over her shoulder as she fled, making sure that the shack was keeping her blocked from view.
Upon arriving, the two men strode right in, simultaneously drawing their hoods back as they entered the one room hut. They were nearly identical, and were often mistaken for brothers. Eva's parents woke abruptly, and sat up straight on their old cots as the two men sat down at the modest dinner table. The man on the right pulled a decanter out of his satchel and set it on the table, and the man on the left, the one who did all the talking, spoke.
"Glasses," he rasped, motioning to the decanter. Lightning silhouetted him intermittently. Eva's mother stumbled out of bed in a drunken hurry to collect two glasses for the men.
"Come, sit," he said as he poured. Eva's parents, terrified, obeyed. He pushed the glasses towards them.
"Drink," he urged, and they hesitatingly did.
"There," the stranger said as they silently set their empty glasses down.
"Now," he whispered, leaning in towards them, "where is the child?"
----------------
Listening to: The Pogues - Bottle Of Smoke
via FoxyTunes
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Fire Works
Fireworks haven't been a big deal for me since I was, well, I'll say around 12 or so. And back then blowing shit up was as exciting as, well, saying "shit" out loud so that it might be heard by God and everyone. The charms of both of these things have faded over time, as one might reasonably hope they might. Hell, I actually drop my voice when I swear now.
So I was a little reluctant when a friend asked me to go to the Fourth of July fireworks in his boyhood hometown. He was excited because it was the tiny town's centennial, and this was supposed to be an especially spectacular display.
"Really? Fireworks?" I asked incredulously. "Really?"
"Dude, just c'mon," Ryan insisted. "What else are you going to be doing this weekend? Come up with me; we'll hike, we'll get drunk, and we'll watch the fireworks. It'll be fine."
I actually had been looking forward to doing something this weekend, but video games and masturbation hardly seemed to be a slam dunk counter-argument. So I relented. I went up north with him, and the trails were breathtaking, the beer was free, and the evening air was deliciously cool. I couldn't believe I was wearing a sweatshirt in July.
We stayed at his cabin, which was a cabin only in the sense that it was out in the woods and wasn't his primary residence. Every modern luxury was at my disposal, which was really the only thing I had to rag on Ryan about the entire weekend. I was hoping for something a bit more primitive. But the walks in the woods were nice, so who am I to complain?
We left his cabin at around dusk and walked the half-mile to the high school baseball fields where they were holding the fireworks display. There was almost nowhere to go; every inch of grass was covered with a blanket or tarp on which sat a family or group of howling drunkards, sometimes both. We ended up finding a spot just off the paved path. There were cars parked on either side of the path, butting up right against it, so we had to stand. We were situated right in front of a new Lexus SUV that looked like it just rolled right off the lot. It didn't even have a metal license plate yet. It had backed in off of the path, so we were facing it's hood. About thirty or so feet behind us was a large pole building used, I would suppose, for storing all the field equipment and such. The moon was fat and yellow and low in the sky, and would be the backdrop for the fireworks display.
The show was supposed to start at 10 PM. We had arrived at around a quarter to, and Ryan and I stood there in the dark listening to people walk by us talking into their cell phones.
Now, in this small town, the air raid siren, which is also used to summon the local fire brigade, goes off at 10 o'clock - for curfew or something, I'm not exactly sure why. But the thing, which was only a couple of blocks, went off as scheduled at 10, and was ear-piercingly loud. Before the sound had faded from my skull, the first firework had burst in the night sky - a big shower of golden sparkles that sort of resembled a palm tree, I thought.
Of course, writing about fireworks is, to paraphrase David Byrne, like dancing about architecture, so I won't describe all of the amazing display, except to say that it was indeed amazing, and when my neck got tired from craning upward I looked at the dark, shiny hood of the Lexus SUV and could see the brilliant lights reflected there, and also the bangs reverberated off of the metal pole building with a cool 'pew-pew-pew' sound. There were spectacular fountains of light; the night was lit up by multicolored bursts, illuminating smoke trails that hung in the air like huge spiders. Ryan was right, the display was incredible, and I was glad I had come. The whole crowd cheered and yelled appreciatively after every large volley of explosions, and there were several.
Then, about 15 minutes in, the air raid siren goes off, this time repeatedly. A fire call. The alarm bellowed out into the darkness, and kept going. I would guess that most of the fire department was here at the ball field for the display: they were the ones who set them off, and they, of course, were also here because this was the most likely place for a dangerous fire to erupt.
I'm not going to lie - the mood was somewhat subdued after the siren started going off. It just kept going, a completely counter-intuitive soundtrack to the light show. They started setting off the fireworks more rapidly, trying to blow everything up as quickly as they could so they could finish up and get going. The resulting barrage was something I will remember the rest of my life, and I doubt this display could ever be topped and still be legal. It was so amazingly beautiful, and bright, and loud; and yet how difficult, how empty and even callous it felt to be celebrating our independence, to be enjoying ourselves, as someone's entire world went up in flames before them. The more dazzling it was, the more I hated myself.
----------------
Listening to: Pearl Jam - Dissident
via FoxyTunes
So I was a little reluctant when a friend asked me to go to the Fourth of July fireworks in his boyhood hometown. He was excited because it was the tiny town's centennial, and this was supposed to be an especially spectacular display.
"Really? Fireworks?" I asked incredulously. "Really?"
"Dude, just c'mon," Ryan insisted. "What else are you going to be doing this weekend? Come up with me; we'll hike, we'll get drunk, and we'll watch the fireworks. It'll be fine."
I actually had been looking forward to doing something this weekend, but video games and masturbation hardly seemed to be a slam dunk counter-argument. So I relented. I went up north with him, and the trails were breathtaking, the beer was free, and the evening air was deliciously cool. I couldn't believe I was wearing a sweatshirt in July.
We stayed at his cabin, which was a cabin only in the sense that it was out in the woods and wasn't his primary residence. Every modern luxury was at my disposal, which was really the only thing I had to rag on Ryan about the entire weekend. I was hoping for something a bit more primitive. But the walks in the woods were nice, so who am I to complain?
We left his cabin at around dusk and walked the half-mile to the high school baseball fields where they were holding the fireworks display. There was almost nowhere to go; every inch of grass was covered with a blanket or tarp on which sat a family or group of howling drunkards, sometimes both. We ended up finding a spot just off the paved path. There were cars parked on either side of the path, butting up right against it, so we had to stand. We were situated right in front of a new Lexus SUV that looked like it just rolled right off the lot. It didn't even have a metal license plate yet. It had backed in off of the path, so we were facing it's hood. About thirty or so feet behind us was a large pole building used, I would suppose, for storing all the field equipment and such. The moon was fat and yellow and low in the sky, and would be the backdrop for the fireworks display.
The show was supposed to start at 10 PM. We had arrived at around a quarter to, and Ryan and I stood there in the dark listening to people walk by us talking into their cell phones.
Now, in this small town, the air raid siren, which is also used to summon the local fire brigade, goes off at 10 o'clock - for curfew or something, I'm not exactly sure why. But the thing, which was only a couple of blocks, went off as scheduled at 10, and was ear-piercingly loud. Before the sound had faded from my skull, the first firework had burst in the night sky - a big shower of golden sparkles that sort of resembled a palm tree, I thought.
Of course, writing about fireworks is, to paraphrase David Byrne, like dancing about architecture, so I won't describe all of the amazing display, except to say that it was indeed amazing, and when my neck got tired from craning upward I looked at the dark, shiny hood of the Lexus SUV and could see the brilliant lights reflected there, and also the bangs reverberated off of the metal pole building with a cool 'pew-pew-pew' sound. There were spectacular fountains of light; the night was lit up by multicolored bursts, illuminating smoke trails that hung in the air like huge spiders. Ryan was right, the display was incredible, and I was glad I had come. The whole crowd cheered and yelled appreciatively after every large volley of explosions, and there were several.
Then, about 15 minutes in, the air raid siren goes off, this time repeatedly. A fire call. The alarm bellowed out into the darkness, and kept going. I would guess that most of the fire department was here at the ball field for the display: they were the ones who set them off, and they, of course, were also here because this was the most likely place for a dangerous fire to erupt.
I'm not going to lie - the mood was somewhat subdued after the siren started going off. It just kept going, a completely counter-intuitive soundtrack to the light show. They started setting off the fireworks more rapidly, trying to blow everything up as quickly as they could so they could finish up and get going. The resulting barrage was something I will remember the rest of my life, and I doubt this display could ever be topped and still be legal. It was so amazingly beautiful, and bright, and loud; and yet how difficult, how empty and even callous it felt to be celebrating our independence, to be enjoying ourselves, as someone's entire world went up in flames before them. The more dazzling it was, the more I hated myself.
----------------
Listening to: Pearl Jam - Dissident
via FoxyTunes
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
The Brick Oven
I was down low on the marble floor, staring upwards, towering brick leviathans on either side of me. The canyon was flooded in murky shadows; almost all of the daylight from outside was filtered and diffused before it could reach down here at the bottom. I examined the bricks as well as I could in the dim conditions and discovered they were old, probably reclaimed from a building that had been torn down recently. They had some writing embossed into them, which I of course couldn't read; probably the name of the company that originally fired them. They were made from a smooth river clay, light red in color, and most had a chip or two out of them, but they were still structurally sound.
This long dark echo chamber felt as if it might have been inhabited by a thousand ghosts. Sound and light waves bounced around endlessly, searching for some sort of final resting place. I tried, knowing full well of the futility, forcing my way through the bricks, trying to get them to shift, or get the mortar to crack. The dead air between them walls seemed to sap my energy. I sat there for a long time, he continued his work, the walls getting ever higher above me. A claustrophobic fear surged through me, but was gone just as quickly as it struck. I wandered the desolate canyon, feeling lonely and useless. The bricks were cold, and I clung to them where they met the floor, wishing they could absorb me and I could leave this place.
He placed a metal grate overhead, stretching across the canyon, joining the two walls. I wanted to swoop up overhead and get a look at what he was doing, but I couldn't find the energy to even get up off the floor. Once the grate was in place, he continued with the bricks, building ever higher. Eventually, out of boredom more than curiosity, I ventured further down the canyon, and came to a sort of crossroads. Straight ahead was sooty darkness. To my right and left the canyon bumped out a little. At the end of the bump-outs was more brick wall, but there was a small rectangular window in each. I could see the sunlight through the one to my left. I went up and looked through the little window and could see all the way to the city. The forms of the buildings outside were hard to decipher through the sunlight coming from behind them. There was so much going on out there. So much life.
I sank back down to the floor, scraping along the face of the bricks on the way. The bricks here were a little warm, from the sun I assume. Looking up, I saw his face looming over me, staring down through me. He smiled. He turned away and went back to his work. I slowly drifted back, retracing my route, to the entrance of the brick canyon and wandered aimlessly until I found myself by the lamp on his nightstand. The stones scattered around the lamp were also warm from the sun. They were also covered in a layer of dust. This, I thought, must be where the universes I used to watch go to die, shipwrecked on this rocky shore. I settled over them and did not move for a long time.
----------------
Listening to: Radiohead - Pyramid Song
via FoxyTunes
This long dark echo chamber felt as if it might have been inhabited by a thousand ghosts. Sound and light waves bounced around endlessly, searching for some sort of final resting place. I tried, knowing full well of the futility, forcing my way through the bricks, trying to get them to shift, or get the mortar to crack. The dead air between them walls seemed to sap my energy. I sat there for a long time, he continued his work, the walls getting ever higher above me. A claustrophobic fear surged through me, but was gone just as quickly as it struck. I wandered the desolate canyon, feeling lonely and useless. The bricks were cold, and I clung to them where they met the floor, wishing they could absorb me and I could leave this place.
He placed a metal grate overhead, stretching across the canyon, joining the two walls. I wanted to swoop up overhead and get a look at what he was doing, but I couldn't find the energy to even get up off the floor. Once the grate was in place, he continued with the bricks, building ever higher. Eventually, out of boredom more than curiosity, I ventured further down the canyon, and came to a sort of crossroads. Straight ahead was sooty darkness. To my right and left the canyon bumped out a little. At the end of the bump-outs was more brick wall, but there was a small rectangular window in each. I could see the sunlight through the one to my left. I went up and looked through the little window and could see all the way to the city. The forms of the buildings outside were hard to decipher through the sunlight coming from behind them. There was so much going on out there. So much life.
I sank back down to the floor, scraping along the face of the bricks on the way. The bricks here were a little warm, from the sun I assume. Looking up, I saw his face looming over me, staring down through me. He smiled. He turned away and went back to his work. I slowly drifted back, retracing my route, to the entrance of the brick canyon and wandered aimlessly until I found myself by the lamp on his nightstand. The stones scattered around the lamp were also warm from the sun. They were also covered in a layer of dust. This, I thought, must be where the universes I used to watch go to die, shipwrecked on this rocky shore. I settled over them and did not move for a long time.
----------------
Listening to: Radiohead - Pyramid Song
via FoxyTunes
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Rules for ghosts
1) Ghosts exist in a separate dimension from the physical world, thus encounters between the dimensions are rare and difficult to comprehend. A good explanation is done by Carl Sagan, where he tries to describe the 4th dimension.
2) Ghost take up roughly the same space as when they were living, but can grow larger (slightly) and can shrink (significantly).
3) Ghosts perceive the entire cross-section of light and sound.
4) It is very difficult and rare for a ghost to influence the physical world: it can pretty much only be done on a quantum level, but with enough effort, these quantum fluctuations that ghosts influence can have physical results.
5) Ghosts are fields of potential energy that has not found a catalyst to release into kinetic energy. As the kinetic energy is released, the ghost dissipates into the Universe.
----------------
Listening to: Nine Inch Nails - 4 Ghosts I
via FoxyTunes
2) Ghost take up roughly the same space as when they were living, but can grow larger (slightly) and can shrink (significantly).
3) Ghosts perceive the entire cross-section of light and sound.
4) It is very difficult and rare for a ghost to influence the physical world: it can pretty much only be done on a quantum level, but with enough effort, these quantum fluctuations that ghosts influence can have physical results.
5) Ghosts are fields of potential energy that has not found a catalyst to release into kinetic energy. As the kinetic energy is released, the ghost dissipates into the Universe.
----------------
Listening to: Nine Inch Nails - 4 Ghosts I
via FoxyTunes
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Reluctant Ghost Back Story - The Bakery
I was late again, but in no hurry. Spring was finally here for real - winter would not be creeping back as it so often does in late March - and I was taking the scenic route on my walk to work. It was already warm this morning, and was supposed to get up into the seventies by this afternoon. Two fat robins sliced through the air right in front of me: an argument over territory, no doubt. I could already smell the aroma of burnt bread in the breeze. After a couple of quick detours down some wooded avenues, I headed directly for the bakery.
I loved the old screen door, looked forward to it every time I came here. The old red and green paint was peeling, and the ancient screen was a little rusty and bulged a little here and there from the times it had been walked into.
The first thing you notice when you step foot into the bakery is the noise of the fans. Several of them, placed in strategic locations throughout the bakery, going at full speed, trying to circulate the hot dry air of the oven with the cooler air from outside. And that's the second thing you notice: the heat. It feels almost like walking into a wall; it will stop some people in their tracks. I liked that - standing behind the counter, watching customers get backed up and walk into each other on the hot days.
"You're late," the owner, Rick, said to me. This has pretty much replaced "Hi" as his standard greeting to me.
"I know, " I replied, quickly slinking back behind the counter. I took an apron from the rack and tied it behind my back as I walked back to the dough station. Some of the loaves have already proofed, and I shift them to the oven and get started shaping the sourdough and cutting the english muffins. It's hot already, and I get to pull the bread from the oven once the loaves have all been made. The last one in in the morning gets to pull from the oven, that's the rule. I end up in front of theoven a lot.
I talk with the other bakers about what we all did the previous night. They are friendly enough to me, but I sense an undercurrent of resentment sometimes, becuase of my lateness, I suspect. Today, they're not upset with me and we have a good time back there with the dough. Soon enough, everything is rolled out and shaped and all that's left is the proofing, so I go up front. I take the big wooden paddle with the long handle and start shoving in the raw loaves.
Within seconds I'm sweating, and before long beads are pouring off of me, some hanging on the end of my nose, which is so gaddamn annoying. These times in front of the oven I vegetate; thinking is a useless endeavor. Just pull out the dark loaves, scoot in the light ones. Waves of hot, dry air billow out into my face, catching small tendrils of my hair and levitating them into the air along side my face, eventually sticking to my drentched cheeks and forehead. And during these times my consciousness would wander aimlessly until it wound up where it always did. The dark thoughts.
I don't think there was ever a day I stood in front of that oven that I didn't think about crawling into it. Just curling up in its toastiness, this warm womb from which I pull the stuff of life. Some days my thoughts were realistic, thinking about the physical process of my body burning, the pain and screaming, the torture, and then, finally, the release. But mostly these were romantic thoughts that ignored the ugly facts of self-immolation; the muddled logic of the suicidal.
One time I held my hand against the metal body of the oven, just to see how long I could stand it before the primitive instictual brain would overrule my willpower and force me to remove it. Quite a while, it turned out. It hurt instantly. The pain only grew in intensity, and was a more different kind than the shallow smarting of scrapping a knee or hitting your thumb with a hammer. This must be, I thought, why hell is full of fire.
I looked to the ceiling, trying to ignore my hand. Ancient beams were exposed, so old that gaps had formed between the grains in the wood. I think the parts between the beams is plaster or something; it has grown dark over the years from the smoke particles given off from the little crumbs of bread that fall to the floor of the oven and bake down to little bits of carbon.
At last I could stand no more and removed my hand. It was a bright red and almost alien-looking. I looked up from my hand and saw Rick was looking at me in disbelief. I ran to sink in the back and turned on the cold water full blast, testing it with my unburnt hand until the hot water from washing the dishes had cleared the pipes. I stuck my hand unter the ruhing stream of cool water. Just the force of the water stung, and I turned the knob counter-clockwise until the stream was gentle. The relief was immediate, almost magical. I pulled my hand out of the water and the pain returned instantaneously. My entire right hand was a throbbing agony. I hadn't even had the sense to try this with my other hand - the one I don't write with. Fuck.
I placed it back under the water. The cool water was as good as morphine, as far as I was concerned. Rick came back and asked to look at my burn. I reluctantly removed it from the water and showed him, after a few more seconds of savoring the relief. There were already large blisters forming. Rick ran to the freezer and came back with some ice. He wrapped it into my hand and told me to go home and rest. He added that I should probably go to the doctor. I just stared at him. He stared back at me, and for a long time we jsut stood there silent.
"Are you OK?" I could tell he wanted to ask, but he said nothing more. I could hear the other workers gathering behind him, asking what had happened. I left by the back door so I wouldn't have to face them.
----------------
Listening to: Atmosphere - Smart Went Crazy
via FoxyTunes
I loved the old screen door, looked forward to it every time I came here. The old red and green paint was peeling, and the ancient screen was a little rusty and bulged a little here and there from the times it had been walked into.
The first thing you notice when you step foot into the bakery is the noise of the fans. Several of them, placed in strategic locations throughout the bakery, going at full speed, trying to circulate the hot dry air of the oven with the cooler air from outside. And that's the second thing you notice: the heat. It feels almost like walking into a wall; it will stop some people in their tracks. I liked that - standing behind the counter, watching customers get backed up and walk into each other on the hot days.
"You're late," the owner, Rick, said to me. This has pretty much replaced "Hi" as his standard greeting to me.
"I know, " I replied, quickly slinking back behind the counter. I took an apron from the rack and tied it behind my back as I walked back to the dough station. Some of the loaves have already proofed, and I shift them to the oven and get started shaping the sourdough and cutting the english muffins. It's hot already, and I get to pull the bread from the oven once the loaves have all been made. The last one in in the morning gets to pull from the oven, that's the rule. I end up in front of theoven a lot.
I talk with the other bakers about what we all did the previous night. They are friendly enough to me, but I sense an undercurrent of resentment sometimes, becuase of my lateness, I suspect. Today, they're not upset with me and we have a good time back there with the dough. Soon enough, everything is rolled out and shaped and all that's left is the proofing, so I go up front. I take the big wooden paddle with the long handle and start shoving in the raw loaves.
Within seconds I'm sweating, and before long beads are pouring off of me, some hanging on the end of my nose, which is so gaddamn annoying. These times in front of the oven I vegetate; thinking is a useless endeavor. Just pull out the dark loaves, scoot in the light ones. Waves of hot, dry air billow out into my face, catching small tendrils of my hair and levitating them into the air along side my face, eventually sticking to my drentched cheeks and forehead. And during these times my consciousness would wander aimlessly until it wound up where it always did. The dark thoughts.
I don't think there was ever a day I stood in front of that oven that I didn't think about crawling into it. Just curling up in its toastiness, this warm womb from which I pull the stuff of life. Some days my thoughts were realistic, thinking about the physical process of my body burning, the pain and screaming, the torture, and then, finally, the release. But mostly these were romantic thoughts that ignored the ugly facts of self-immolation; the muddled logic of the suicidal.
One time I held my hand against the metal body of the oven, just to see how long I could stand it before the primitive instictual brain would overrule my willpower and force me to remove it. Quite a while, it turned out. It hurt instantly. The pain only grew in intensity, and was a more different kind than the shallow smarting of scrapping a knee or hitting your thumb with a hammer. This must be, I thought, why hell is full of fire.
I looked to the ceiling, trying to ignore my hand. Ancient beams were exposed, so old that gaps had formed between the grains in the wood. I think the parts between the beams is plaster or something; it has grown dark over the years from the smoke particles given off from the little crumbs of bread that fall to the floor of the oven and bake down to little bits of carbon.
At last I could stand no more and removed my hand. It was a bright red and almost alien-looking. I looked up from my hand and saw Rick was looking at me in disbelief. I ran to sink in the back and turned on the cold water full blast, testing it with my unburnt hand until the hot water from washing the dishes had cleared the pipes. I stuck my hand unter the ruhing stream of cool water. Just the force of the water stung, and I turned the knob counter-clockwise until the stream was gentle. The relief was immediate, almost magical. I pulled my hand out of the water and the pain returned instantaneously. My entire right hand was a throbbing agony. I hadn't even had the sense to try this with my other hand - the one I don't write with. Fuck.
I placed it back under the water. The cool water was as good as morphine, as far as I was concerned. Rick came back and asked to look at my burn. I reluctantly removed it from the water and showed him, after a few more seconds of savoring the relief. There were already large blisters forming. Rick ran to the freezer and came back with some ice. He wrapped it into my hand and told me to go home and rest. He added that I should probably go to the doctor. I just stared at him. He stared back at me, and for a long time we jsut stood there silent.
"Are you OK?" I could tell he wanted to ask, but he said nothing more. I could hear the other workers gathering behind him, asking what had happened. I left by the back door so I wouldn't have to face them.
----------------
Listening to: Atmosphere - Smart Went Crazy
via FoxyTunes
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Spontaneous Combustion II - Ch2 reluctant ghost
I didn’t die here or anything – I shuffled off that mortal coil half a state away from here, out on the edge of the woods, when I shot myself in the chest on purpose. That was a retarded fucking plan. All of the poetry and symbolism and revenge and everything pretty much gets lost in the all the pain. The unbelievable crushing wave of excruciating, punishing pain. Even though I’m dead and detached from the cruel tethers of nerve endings, I can still almost feel the agony I was in that night. I still have no idea about the afterlife, even though I’m in it, but if I do ever get to be reincarnated, I sure as hell won’t be trying that shit again. Pills, maybe, but nothing violent like that.
I had hitchhiked my way up to the North Shore of Minnesota, up near Canada. I didn't have my car. My car keys had been taken away the week before by my mom, who wanted to to keep me near. I spent a good portion of my last mortal week in a vain search for my keys, whipping drawers out of their resting places, flipping furniture, spilling the contents of my mother's purse on the threadbare carpet of her bedroom. By the time I left my house behind for good, it looked as though it had been ransacked by thieves or junkies; in a way I suppose it had been.
My initial decision had been to walk. I'm am still in awe over the determination of this force that was driving me and the weakness of my faculties. I honestly just said, well, fuck it, I'm going to walk the 300 or so miles and I'll get there when I get there. Delusional, right? I had managed, over my lifetime, to develop a practice in the circumvention of reason. I cultivated this partition in my mind between logic and reason, and this undefeatable drive within me. I was able to cobble together some semblance of unity between these sides of me, but everyone, so to speak, knew who got the last word on any subject.
In my bag was a pistol I had taken from my dad's house about a day before I decided to go up north. My dad kept in in the back of his closet - I had discovered it years ago when I was a little girl, rummaging through my his stuff, trying to solve this enigma of a man. I told my brain that it was for protection on the road along the way, but I knew deep down what it was for. Logic and Reason knew what it was for, but they would sleep when I told them to. I would often touch the gun on the way up, careful to never actually hold it in a purposeful way.
I walked about five or six miles before I first realized that this walking thing was just not very realistic and I stuck my thumb out. The rides came fairly quickly (my mortal form was, I can now see, pretty attractive), and I actually turned down more rides than I took, making decisions that I now find a little funny. Why would someone who wants to die be so discriminating in who she chooses to take rides with? I mean, I did have a gun. I suppose it comes down to control - I wanted to control the details of how this ended.
I eventually wound up near a small state park a little south of the international border. I didn't actually enter the park, because I was deliberately trying to leave no footprints on my journey up here. I left Highway 61 and walk a very short path through a narrow band of woods until I could see Lake Superior. I stood on the beach for a short time, kicking off my sandals so that I could feel the warm rounded stones on my feet. They were warm. I shook the cold out of my body. People would walk by every so often, saying 'hi', their clothing whipping behind their bodies like flags.
After a while I felt so conspicuous and exposed that I retreated back to the edge of the wood. Instinctively, I hunched down a little bit and scanned the trees. I saw squirrels scurrying through the treetops, and bugs and butterflies, but no other signs of life. I saw that this narrow band of woods - they were a couple hundred feet wide - was crisscrossed with trails. From my location, there were two paths, four different directions I could take. I took the one that led most directly into the heart of the woods. After a few dozen steps, the path widened. Or I first though that it widened. In actuality, a small campsite had been set up along this path. There was no tent set up, but someone had left a couple of articles of clothing and a canteen hanging on a branch of a young tree. The limb bend under the strain. Was anyone coming back for these things? I wondered. Should I relieve the sapling of this weight? Again, I scanned the woods, looking for signs of human movement among the white birch trunks and fluttering leaves, listening for faint sounds of joy or serious murmurs. Eventually, I left the site as I found it and wandered on, following winding trails that often came back on themselves in complex circuits, finding many such small campsites like the first one; some completely clean, some strewn with garbage, most in a state somewhere in between.
The sun was beginning to set. I had subconsciously been using the daylight as measure of my last moments. I hadn't actually made a conscious decision as such, but I knew inside that once the stars had come out, it was time for me to go. I walked back towards the water. As I walked, I bent my elbows and held out my hands, as if I were ready for a hug. I felt the leaves brush against my sensitive fingers and palms, some fuzzy, some leathery. I treasured each experience, every step seemed a noble lifetime, a royal procession in a stoned paradise.
The water soon appeared, spread out like a vast galaxy and on into infinity. The first stars were showing in the sky. I stood on the edge of the woods that lined the stone beach of Lake Superior. Listening intently to the waves, I tried to have them drown out any thoughts I might have. Wind would alternately flutter through the leaves of the trees behind me, sweeping tendrils of my hair over my dirty face, then switch and come at me off of the lake, cooling me sweetly. The earth seemed to be breathing, the wind seemed to be engaged in the act of drawing my soul out of my body. I was scared, shaking almost violently. The air coming off the lake was a bit chilly, but not enough to produce these tremors. I reached into my worn woven bag and produced the pistol. It felt like a boat anchor in my hand.
I sat down in a heap on the rocks. They were so smooth and went so deep that it didn't hurt at all. I placed the gun delicately beside me and picked up a smooth oval of basalt, absentmindedly manipulating it while I listened to the big lake in front of me and the occasional rumble of a 18-wheeler passing on the highway to my back. My thoughts drifted, eventually, to contemplations about what it would be like throwing myself in front of one of those behemoths. What would happen? I was pretty sure the success rate would be higher than trying to do it myself; I would just have to take a step - one step - and everything else would be taken care of for me. The more I thought, the more appealing it became. I scrambled to get to my feet, hurriedly stumbling towards the highway, the skish-skish of the smooth stones yielding to my weight echoed in my head.
My conscience made a desperate wail for my attention, and it stopped me cold. The echoes of my footsteps faded and were drowned out by the waves gently slapping up against the rocky beach. What about the driver? I thought. What would happen to him, how would his life change? Would he feel guilty; in essence, would this dark force haunting my form jump ship and land squarely over him?
I looked up to the stars and screamed in rageful fits before striding briskly and determined back to the gun on the beach. Tears were streaming down my face now, catching and holding my windblown hair against my cheeks. I stabbed at the gun through the blurry vision of my tears, eventually finding it with my long, numb fingers. I grasped it and brought it up to my chest, turning it around so that the barrel faced me. My thumb found its way in between the trigger guard and the trigger. I toyed with its resistance. I stared into the seeming ocean in front of me, listening to it. I cataloged in my mind a book of lasts: my last meal, the last person I talked to, the last time I laughed [NO PERIOD OT THE END OF THIS SENTENCE ON PURPOSE!]
Then it happened...the gun went off. I looked down to see the handgun at my feet, blue in the bright moonlight, and I was vaguely aware that my hand hurt – from the kickback of the gun, I guess. For an eternal moment I was just there, hovering above the ground, not moving, not even breathing. I felt like a fossil, trapped floating in between my actions in the past and all of the possibilities that I might have experienced. Nothing happened for the longest time...I just hung there. I thought maybe I might be alright. Maybe I was fine.
Then I was seized with a kind of searing agony I had seen described in books. Oh, I thought, that’s what they were talking about. I fell to my knees, coming to rest on my haunches. The insects and pollen swarmed around me without pity, curious yet detached, landing on my sweaty face. I wondered for an absurd second what kind of bread the yeast in the air on the lakeshore might produce. I thought I could see the yeast, some sort of squiggles multiplied in my vision, anyway. I wanted to swat it away, but my arms were clutching my chest and I was scared to move them. I doubt they would have moved if I'd tried. I was in a merciless pain for a while, but eventually it subsided. I was scared too; I'd never been so scared. Oh no, I kept chanting softly to myself through chattering teeth. Oh no. No swearing, no anger, nothing profound nor poetic. Oh no.
After I collapsed and couldn’t move anymore, the thoughts rushed through me, liquid and random, passing so fast I couldn't acknowledge them. The rocks were cool and felt good. The bubbling yeast dancing in my eyes was forming intricate geometric patterns. I wondered if they were angels. Maybe I should talk to them. I thought I heard a low buzzing sound. Was it the ocean? It hurts. My mom doesn't know where I am. I am so sad. I am cold. Who will find me? On no. Roll over. Just roll over. Onto back. I think I see Orion. I wish someone were here to hold me. It hurts. Oh no. The lights in the sky may have come from stars long dead. Oh no...
The process of dying continued after I lost consciousness. I’m not sure if my spiritual arrival here occurred immediately or after a few days or weeks or what. It took me weeks even to question it. Maybe I was just in shock.
He was crying and wandering around the house all desolate, and dressed nice the first time I noticed him, so I’m thinking maybe it was right after my funeral? I pretty much ignored him for the first few weeks. Not out of rudeness or anything, I just ignored him...I’m not sure why.
I can’t even remember his name. I know I know his name, but I just can’t seem to recall it. Not long after I first arrived I tried to look at his mail only to discover I can’t read either. That was frustrating as hell. I felt like I was still intelligent and could form thoughts and everything, but at the same time I felt like I had the faculties of an infant again. That was the first time I actually influenced the physical realm.
----------------
Listening to: Antlers - When You Sleep (My Blody Valentine cover)
via FoxyTunes
I had hitchhiked my way up to the North Shore of Minnesota, up near Canada. I didn't have my car. My car keys had been taken away the week before by my mom, who wanted to to keep me near. I spent a good portion of my last mortal week in a vain search for my keys, whipping drawers out of their resting places, flipping furniture, spilling the contents of my mother's purse on the threadbare carpet of her bedroom. By the time I left my house behind for good, it looked as though it had been ransacked by thieves or junkies; in a way I suppose it had been.
My initial decision had been to walk. I'm am still in awe over the determination of this force that was driving me and the weakness of my faculties. I honestly just said, well, fuck it, I'm going to walk the 300 or so miles and I'll get there when I get there. Delusional, right? I had managed, over my lifetime, to develop a practice in the circumvention of reason. I cultivated this partition in my mind between logic and reason, and this undefeatable drive within me. I was able to cobble together some semblance of unity between these sides of me, but everyone, so to speak, knew who got the last word on any subject.
In my bag was a pistol I had taken from my dad's house about a day before I decided to go up north. My dad kept in in the back of his closet - I had discovered it years ago when I was a little girl, rummaging through my his stuff, trying to solve this enigma of a man. I told my brain that it was for protection on the road along the way, but I knew deep down what it was for. Logic and Reason knew what it was for, but they would sleep when I told them to. I would often touch the gun on the way up, careful to never actually hold it in a purposeful way.
I walked about five or six miles before I first realized that this walking thing was just not very realistic and I stuck my thumb out. The rides came fairly quickly (my mortal form was, I can now see, pretty attractive), and I actually turned down more rides than I took, making decisions that I now find a little funny. Why would someone who wants to die be so discriminating in who she chooses to take rides with? I mean, I did have a gun. I suppose it comes down to control - I wanted to control the details of how this ended.
I eventually wound up near a small state park a little south of the international border. I didn't actually enter the park, because I was deliberately trying to leave no footprints on my journey up here. I left Highway 61 and walk a very short path through a narrow band of woods until I could see Lake Superior. I stood on the beach for a short time, kicking off my sandals so that I could feel the warm rounded stones on my feet. They were warm. I shook the cold out of my body. People would walk by every so often, saying 'hi', their clothing whipping behind their bodies like flags.
After a while I felt so conspicuous and exposed that I retreated back to the edge of the wood. Instinctively, I hunched down a little bit and scanned the trees. I saw squirrels scurrying through the treetops, and bugs and butterflies, but no other signs of life. I saw that this narrow band of woods - they were a couple hundred feet wide - was crisscrossed with trails. From my location, there were two paths, four different directions I could take. I took the one that led most directly into the heart of the woods. After a few dozen steps, the path widened. Or I first though that it widened. In actuality, a small campsite had been set up along this path. There was no tent set up, but someone had left a couple of articles of clothing and a canteen hanging on a branch of a young tree. The limb bend under the strain. Was anyone coming back for these things? I wondered. Should I relieve the sapling of this weight? Again, I scanned the woods, looking for signs of human movement among the white birch trunks and fluttering leaves, listening for faint sounds of joy or serious murmurs. Eventually, I left the site as I found it and wandered on, following winding trails that often came back on themselves in complex circuits, finding many such small campsites like the first one; some completely clean, some strewn with garbage, most in a state somewhere in between.
The sun was beginning to set. I had subconsciously been using the daylight as measure of my last moments. I hadn't actually made a conscious decision as such, but I knew inside that once the stars had come out, it was time for me to go. I walked back towards the water. As I walked, I bent my elbows and held out my hands, as if I were ready for a hug. I felt the leaves brush against my sensitive fingers and palms, some fuzzy, some leathery. I treasured each experience, every step seemed a noble lifetime, a royal procession in a stoned paradise.
The water soon appeared, spread out like a vast galaxy and on into infinity. The first stars were showing in the sky. I stood on the edge of the woods that lined the stone beach of Lake Superior. Listening intently to the waves, I tried to have them drown out any thoughts I might have. Wind would alternately flutter through the leaves of the trees behind me, sweeping tendrils of my hair over my dirty face, then switch and come at me off of the lake, cooling me sweetly. The earth seemed to be breathing, the wind seemed to be engaged in the act of drawing my soul out of my body. I was scared, shaking almost violently. The air coming off the lake was a bit chilly, but not enough to produce these tremors. I reached into my worn woven bag and produced the pistol. It felt like a boat anchor in my hand.
I sat down in a heap on the rocks. They were so smooth and went so deep that it didn't hurt at all. I placed the gun delicately beside me and picked up a smooth oval of basalt, absentmindedly manipulating it while I listened to the big lake in front of me and the occasional rumble of a 18-wheeler passing on the highway to my back. My thoughts drifted, eventually, to contemplations about what it would be like throwing myself in front of one of those behemoths. What would happen? I was pretty sure the success rate would be higher than trying to do it myself; I would just have to take a step - one step - and everything else would be taken care of for me. The more I thought, the more appealing it became. I scrambled to get to my feet, hurriedly stumbling towards the highway, the skish-skish of the smooth stones yielding to my weight echoed in my head.
My conscience made a desperate wail for my attention, and it stopped me cold. The echoes of my footsteps faded and were drowned out by the waves gently slapping up against the rocky beach. What about the driver? I thought. What would happen to him, how would his life change? Would he feel guilty; in essence, would this dark force haunting my form jump ship and land squarely over him?
I looked up to the stars and screamed in rageful fits before striding briskly and determined back to the gun on the beach. Tears were streaming down my face now, catching and holding my windblown hair against my cheeks. I stabbed at the gun through the blurry vision of my tears, eventually finding it with my long, numb fingers. I grasped it and brought it up to my chest, turning it around so that the barrel faced me. My thumb found its way in between the trigger guard and the trigger. I toyed with its resistance. I stared into the seeming ocean in front of me, listening to it. I cataloged in my mind a book of lasts: my last meal, the last person I talked to, the last time I laughed [NO PERIOD OT THE END OF THIS SENTENCE ON PURPOSE!]
Then it happened...the gun went off. I looked down to see the handgun at my feet, blue in the bright moonlight, and I was vaguely aware that my hand hurt – from the kickback of the gun, I guess. For an eternal moment I was just there, hovering above the ground, not moving, not even breathing. I felt like a fossil, trapped floating in between my actions in the past and all of the possibilities that I might have experienced. Nothing happened for the longest time...I just hung there. I thought maybe I might be alright. Maybe I was fine.
Then I was seized with a kind of searing agony I had seen described in books. Oh, I thought, that’s what they were talking about. I fell to my knees, coming to rest on my haunches. The insects and pollen swarmed around me without pity, curious yet detached, landing on my sweaty face. I wondered for an absurd second what kind of bread the yeast in the air on the lakeshore might produce. I thought I could see the yeast, some sort of squiggles multiplied in my vision, anyway. I wanted to swat it away, but my arms were clutching my chest and I was scared to move them. I doubt they would have moved if I'd tried. I was in a merciless pain for a while, but eventually it subsided. I was scared too; I'd never been so scared. Oh no, I kept chanting softly to myself through chattering teeth. Oh no. No swearing, no anger, nothing profound nor poetic. Oh no.
After I collapsed and couldn’t move anymore, the thoughts rushed through me, liquid and random, passing so fast I couldn't acknowledge them. The rocks were cool and felt good. The bubbling yeast dancing in my eyes was forming intricate geometric patterns. I wondered if they were angels. Maybe I should talk to them. I thought I heard a low buzzing sound. Was it the ocean? It hurts. My mom doesn't know where I am. I am so sad. I am cold. Who will find me? On no. Roll over. Just roll over. Onto back. I think I see Orion. I wish someone were here to hold me. It hurts. Oh no. The lights in the sky may have come from stars long dead. Oh no...
The process of dying continued after I lost consciousness. I’m not sure if my spiritual arrival here occurred immediately or after a few days or weeks or what. It took me weeks even to question it. Maybe I was just in shock.
He was crying and wandering around the house all desolate, and dressed nice the first time I noticed him, so I’m thinking maybe it was right after my funeral? I pretty much ignored him for the first few weeks. Not out of rudeness or anything, I just ignored him...I’m not sure why.
I can’t even remember his name. I know I know his name, but I just can’t seem to recall it. Not long after I first arrived I tried to look at his mail only to discover I can’t read either. That was frustrating as hell. I felt like I was still intelligent and could form thoughts and everything, but at the same time I felt like I had the faculties of an infant again. That was the first time I actually influenced the physical realm.
----------------
Listening to: Antlers - When You Sleep (My Blody Valentine cover)
via FoxyTunes
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Spontaneous Combustion I - ch1 reluctant ghost
wisdom, right view, mix ingredients (sadness, isolation, despair, fear), scenery as character, free writing
I still have no idea why I would be here, in this place. It’s a great place to haunt, to be sure. Wide open floor plan, very high ceiling with exposed wooden beams that seem as thick as an average tree, around a dozen ancient windows lining the southwestern-facing wall. The windows are tall and fairly thin, coffin shaped. During the day, the sunlight filters through the old glass and marks time along the floor in angular wavy pools, getting longer and progressively taking on a more amber hue as the sun arcs across the city.
The floor is old and wooden, worn down in some areas, so the grain sticks up in ripples. The wood floor runs throughout the loft except for the kitchen, which is covered in a beautiful gray and black marble. The appliances in the kitchen are all stainless steel, and seem to be of a design more suited for a commercial rather than residential purpose. This reminded me, a little, of where I used to work when I first, and that reminder brought with it the first twinge of nostalgia I'd experienced for my old life. He does not spend much time in the kitchen - in the time I've been here, he exists mainly in the bedroom.
The bedroom is off of the kitchen, in a corner, and is not a room as such since the floor plan is so open, but it is more or less easy to spot the fuzzy borders between areas. It is fairly small and manages to somehow appear claustrophobic, due in part to the imposing bookcases that line the walls. There is a narrow galleyway between the books and his bed - he can just reach over while still lying down to pluck a book off the shelf.
A small bathroom is tucked into the bedroom area, not much bigger than a closet. It is old and echoey and lined in white ceramic tile which is dingy but not dirty-looking, more weathered or antiqued, I would say. He spends what most would say is an inordinate amount of time in here. Out of concern (or more, to be honest with myself, untoward curiosity) I looked in on him one day only to discover this is where he goes to masturbate. I was not repulsed by this discovery, at least not like I'm sure I would have been had I been alive; I felt more of a kind of sympathy and understanding. I was able from my perspective to see more than just a vulgarity, but also the motivations within this human, at least a little. And this was, in part, a mechanism; a ritual to beat off, so to speak, the demons of lonliness and despair that were so obviously plauging him. At least, it was becoming obvious to me the more I observed him.
There is a small nightstand with a lamp next to his bed which borders the edge of the sitting room. He has scattered a bunch of smooth gray pebbles and rocks over the surface of the nightstand in a more or less random manner, as if he were broadcasting flour over a marble countertop, preparing to knead dough. I recognized the rocks immediately - they were from the North Shore, near where I killed myself. (died?). There was a strange energy to them.
I still have no idea why I would be here, in this place. It’s a great place to haunt, to be sure. Wide open floor plan, very high ceiling with exposed wooden beams that seem as thick as an average tree, around a dozen ancient windows lining the southwestern-facing wall. The windows are tall and fairly thin, coffin shaped. During the day, the sunlight filters through the old glass and marks time along the floor in angular wavy pools, getting longer and progressively taking on a more amber hue as the sun arcs across the city.
He has placed several spindly floor lamps around the loft at strategic locations; one on either side of the kitchen area, one near his studio area, one by his couch. They are all of the same design - sort of a wrought iron look to them, with ornate iron vines sprouting a small dark leaf every so often as they climb the length of the lamps.
He barely uses the lights at all – by day there is plenty of light from the windows. At night, there is usually enough ambient light from the street and other buildings for him to get around by. All of the corners are dark and cobwebby, and the place is just draped in layers of shadow. The lamps just stand there like deserted sentries, unable to fulfill their one duty. Every surface of this place is covered in a thin layer of dust that glows phosphorescently in the evening hours.
The floor is old and wooden, worn down in some areas, so the grain sticks up in ripples. The wood floor runs throughout the loft except for the kitchen, which is covered in a beautiful gray and black marble. The appliances in the kitchen are all stainless steel, and seem to be of a design more suited for a commercial rather than residential purpose. This reminded me, a little, of where I used to work when I first, and that reminder brought with it the first twinge of nostalgia I'd experienced for my old life. He does not spend much time in the kitchen - in the time I've been here, he exists mainly in the bedroom.
The bedroom is off of the kitchen, in a corner, and is not a room as such since the floor plan is so open, but it is more or less easy to spot the fuzzy borders between areas. It is fairly small and manages to somehow appear claustrophobic, due in part to the imposing bookcases that line the walls. There is a narrow galleyway between the books and his bed - he can just reach over while still lying down to pluck a book off the shelf.
A small bathroom is tucked into the bedroom area, not much bigger than a closet. It is old and echoey and lined in white ceramic tile which is dingy but not dirty-looking, more weathered or antiqued, I would say. He spends what most would say is an inordinate amount of time in here. Out of concern (or more, to be honest with myself, untoward curiosity) I looked in on him one day only to discover this is where he goes to masturbate. I was not repulsed by this discovery, at least not like I'm sure I would have been had I been alive; I felt more of a kind of sympathy and understanding. I was able from my perspective to see more than just a vulgarity, but also the motivations within this human, at least a little. And this was, in part, a mechanism; a ritual to beat off, so to speak, the demons of lonliness and despair that were so obviously plauging him. At least, it was becoming obvious to me the more I observed him.
There is a small nightstand with a lamp next to his bed which borders the edge of the sitting room. He has scattered a bunch of smooth gray pebbles and rocks over the surface of the nightstand in a more or less random manner, as if he were broadcasting flour over a marble countertop, preparing to knead dough. I recognized the rocks immediately - they were from the North Shore, near where I killed myself. (died?). There was a strange energy to them.
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