Drawing Is Super Hard

So, we decided to write a graphic novel. Or, well, maybe it's more of a manga, we don't know. It's like a comic book, with several issues, at any rate.

The point is, it's complicated. And especially so, given that we cannot draw. We have been told our stick figures look rudimentary and amateurish.

Serious, honest-to-god, actual sample. Stop laughing; it's not funny.





Luckily, we thrive on challenge.  So what we ended up doing is writing a script, which is totally a thing that one can do.  Check out this guide from Dark Horse Comics.  Three issues are scripted and ready to be drawn - it's about a couple of kids who have to stop visitors from another dimension who are making all of the stars go out. Now we just need to find an artist willing to work for percentages. Which almost none of them are, so...we'll have to get creative and figure something out. Anyone know anyone?

Hey ya!

Just got the news that my entry (Get Ready For The Weirdness) just garnered 2nd place over at the Clarity of Night writing contest! I feel just like the Soviet Olympic hockey team in 1980, only without the crushing oppression and fear that my family might spend the next four years in Gulag.



In all seriousness though, I am so seriously stoked! This is huge for me, and with so many great entries, a real honor.

Thanks to everyone who voted, and also to everyone who participated. You are all awesome! Tonight, I drink to you!



----------------
Listening to: OutKast - Hey Ya!
via FoxyTunes

Drug of Convenience

I've heard it said before that there are are no "recovered" (past tense) addicts, just addicts who've shifted their priorities. I'm not sure who said it; maybe I even made it up, though it sounds perhaps a little too clever for me. The point is this: The drug that brought my life into the wall was weed, which, I realize, is pathetic. And maybe that gives you an idea of the sort of stuff from which I am made.

Sometimes - though not very often, as I kept my crumbling inner life extremely well hidden - people ask me if I miss it; if the desire for drugs that once controlled me still calls. I'm not stupid; I know the answer, the only answer that a recovering addict can give: "Yes, sometimes, but I know it's just not worth it." Bullshit - all of it - every word.

The real answer is this: "Yes, I think about it literally every day. When I find my self alone and bored, it's all I can think about. I mourn my drug of choice's passing as I would the death of a family member. I was watching a movie the other day where the characters were taking hits off a bong they were passing around - I noticed that each time one of them took a hit, my mouth opened, and I took in a slow, steady, deep draw of breath.

"I made a big show out of deleting every contact out of my phone, but I know with religious certainty how my numb addict fingers will dial any number of them, the beeps and boops of the keypad hitting my ear like a symphony as my virtuoso fingers play the keypad like a concert instrument. But I don't. I can't even say for sure why; maybe I'm just getting used to not running myself ragged around an elaborate scaffolding, forever patching holes in my stories and keeping my structure of lies from crumbling around me. And it's nice not to be completely exhausted all the time. So yes, I suppose I know it's just not worth it, but that doesn't make it's siren song any less tempting."

Back to shifted priorities; from my drug of choice I had to switch to a drug of convenience, of pragmatism: Coffee. I come downstairs every morning and put on a kettle, poured from a water filter to get all the chlorine, salts, and everything else man deems fit to either introduce or not filter out. This water is pure, uncut, the best you can get. Next I scoop the coffee (fair trade, organic) and three scoops into a french press - none of that automatic drip swill for me - this french press is an elegant work of art, glass and chrome, imported from Europe. By now the kettle is whistling; I wait till it hits a certain pitch, indicating a particular fervor to the boil, before I take it off the burner and let it sit for thirty seconds. Yes, I actually do watch the second hand on my kitchen clock. When it's time, I pour the water in. The grounds seem to accept the steaming water as an extension of their own being, and they suck it up, becoming somehow more than the sum of their parts.

From there, I wait three minutes, until the grounds have all risen to the top, and the bubbles that were on top of the grounds have popped, leaving little craters on the grainy, quicksand surface. Then I insert and push down the plunger, all the way down, then bring it back up, and push it back down. At this point, my intuition takes over; it may be done, or may need one more plunge. A subtle calculus aided by each of my senses at once will let me know which is the right action. From there, I pour the coffee into another, identical french press, clean, sparkling, and once it is full, the plunger goes in - more to keep the heat in than anything else.

This ritual is the sacred to me, nearly - but not quite - inducing the same trance-like state that unrolling a baggie, cleaning the pipe, filling the bowl, and rubbing my thumb across the cross hatched metal wheel of a Bic lighter used to bring.


----------------
Listening to: Sleater-Kinney - The Fox
via FoxyTunes

If this blog were a dog, it'd be dead...

Long time, no write, bloggosphere.

Well, that's not entirely true - I've been writing like an MFer for weeks and weeks now, desperately trying to get my novel finished and edited to the point that I'd feel OK sending it off to get printed (one of the prizes for winning NaNoWriMo is a certificate for a single printing of your novel. Only one catch: must be redeemed by June!).

I've taken a brief break from the novel to do - guess what - more writing! I've just put the finishing touches on an entry for the latest Clarity of Night writing contest. He be the fruits of me labor:


Get Ready For The Weirdness
By Kurt Hendricks


"Get ready for the weirdness," I said, turning the knob.

We were blinded as the huge picture window was revealed; it was a brilliant, clear day outside. As our eyes were adjusting to the sudden brightness, Lisa gasped and took a step back. I thought she was startled by the rather large disco ball hanging from the ceiling, but even as the thought was forming, a solid 'thwack' reverberated through the room.

I expected some reaction from Mayme, but she didn't stir from her seat by the window. I walked over, repeating her name, louder and more urgent each time. An apprehensive hand reached out to touch hers, which was clutching the joystick controller for her electric wheelchair. It felt like defrosted poultry.

"Another one," I told Lisa. This was her first time delivering, and I wanted to instill in her an expectation of this sort of thing. She just looked right through me with a thousand mile stare. I turned to Mayme and sighed.

I never thought I'd end up a drug dealer again. Ever since legalization, the glamour - not to mention the money - had left the profession. The clientele had changed, too; now mostly senior citizens looking for pain relief or a way out. Coltrane played on softly in the background.

“That crow…,” Lisa whispered, “it flew right into the window.” She was still obviously a little shaken. “It must’ve been attracted to the shiny thing.”

“Yeah,” I said, “you’ll get a lot of that.”


Thanks for all the fishes!


----------------
Listening to: Monty Python - Always Look On the Bright Side of Life
via FoxyTunes

Flash Fiction Friday - How To Walk A Plank

How To Walk A Plank

This morning, first thing, I got a paper cut - a deep one at a weird angle. It left a little flap of skin, one that I could peel open and close, starting and stemming the blood flow as I wished. I was pissed at the time, but now am so grateful for it.

Once I had put a bandaid over the cut, I inspected the itinerary (which was the paper I had cut myself on) that was slipped under our cabin door overnight. It was rather light compared to the previous ones on the cruise, only one item - a gathering on the top deck. I turned the paper over to check if there was anything on the other side, but it was blank. I absentmindedly tossed it on the dresser and went over to the bed, kneeling down and giving Karen a soft kiss on her forehead. Her moaning reply made it clear she would not be up for joining me this morning. "Feel better," I whispered in her ear, and then I left. I am so very grateful for this little, seemingly meaningless interaction. You have no idea.

Between the paper cut and the fact that my wife was seasick, I was sure it was going to be a bad day. The seas had been very active the day before, though they calmed significantly over night. Checking myself in the mirror, I combed my hair and left for the top deck, where I arrived into this nightmare.

I was sure I hadn't heard the man right; he did have a very thick accent. A flash of knife blade and a nod toward the railing aided in my comprehension. "Walk the plank," he had said.

I goggled incredulously. Do they even do that anymore? I refused to believe they did, even as they were shoving and threatening me toward the starboard railing. As we got closer, I saw a length of board sticking out over the edge. The other passengers were screaming and yelling, but it sounded very far off, as if I were hearing them from a nearby island rather than from the same boat.

A makeshift staircase had been cobbled together to help me up to the plank. It felt almost like I was floating up them due to all of the pirate hands that were helping me along. Once on the board, all the hands disappeared, and I knew for the first time in my life the feeling of being truly alone.

The wind had picked up again. I was worried for a bizarre moment about being blown off the board before I had walked off the end. The absurdity brought a laugh up from somewhere in the depths of me, but it erupted instead as a wailing sob. I felt so pathetic, so embarrassed. I wished I didn't have to do this in front of everyone.

Now that tears were flowing, a procession of images that had been clawing at the back of my mind burst forth: my wife...what would happen to her? They didn't know she was still in the cabin. Would she be killed? Raped? I scanned the horizon for any sign of rescue. It was an extremely stressful proposition to look out past the end of the plank, but for my wife I did it. There was only ocean.

I was shaken from my thoughts as my hands were pulled behind my back and tied. One of the men asked me if I wanted a cigarette. I thought long and hard about it. It was an unbelievably difficult decision for me; the toughest one I can remember in my life. I don't smoke. Eventually I said yes, but spit it out into the sea almost immediately. The pirates laughed. I had a tiny cruel hope that maybe they would decide that I was OK, that they'd take me down, maybe even welcome me into their ranks. Would I be OK with that, with stealing and killing? I wondered.

My hands were, as I mentioned, tied behind my back, but they were positioned such that I could feel the paper cut I 'd received this morning. My bandaid had fallen off, probably due to all the sweat. I stood there on the plank, unbelieving, rubbing my thumb across the flap of skin. I was very happy to have something to focus on, to distract me.

Fiction Friday - Northern Lights

Wow, Friday already. My work today is a rough draft of a story I'm prepping for entry to Storyglossia. The theme for entry is "Musical Obsession". I am fully aware there is not too much of that in my offering this week - that will be woven in between now and the deadline for entry, 9/15.

As always, constructive comments (and, of course, encouragement, be it genuine or bald-faced lies) are welcome.


NORTHERN LIGHTS


Katja leaned back, propped up on her elbows, the high sun glinting off her shiny horns. She was young and beautiful, and couldn't have been more exotic, Jake thought. Her eyes were squinted into tiny slits, scrunching up her nose in an adorable way. She was much
more tan than a girl from Finland ought to be. Her head swayed gently from side to side, as if she was listening to music only she could hear. Jake was immediately drawn to that particular idiosyncrasy, almost fell in love with her on the spot because of it.

"I don't want to die...don't get me wrong," Jake said. He was looking out where the river from the melting glacier met the ocean, watching the chunks of ice flowing swiftly out into the wavy blue infinity. A seal popped his head above the surface of the river, looked around momentarily, then went down again.

"Do you ever think you might be of...possessed?" Katja asked.

"I have thought so many things...I used to think, back when I was a little kid, that everyone could see music. I don't know, the kids seemed to sort of understand at first, but as we got older, I got more and more weird looks." Jake picked up a handful of black sand and let it slowly sift through his hand. It was a thrilling sensation; the sand on top was hot from the summer sun, the sand underneath was cold, the way you would think it would be in a place called Iceland. The temperatures mixed as they traveled between Jake's fingers, creating a sensation that his nervous system didn't quite know how to deal with, and so just got all tingly. He lost his train of thought momentarily.

"Weird looks?" Katja prompted.

"It was so familiar and natural to me - I assumed everyone could. I still kind of think that it's something we all have when we're born, something we lose as we grow. Of course, I realize that it's more likely all here." He pointed to a spot on his head a little above and in front of his right ear, where the tumor that caused his vision resided.

Katja sat up and scooped up a handful of sand herself, and let it slip through her fingers, just like Jake did. She also experienced an odd sensation, Jake noticed, as goosebumps raced across the bare skin of her arms and chest above her breast plate. She scooped up two more handfuls before giving her head a little shake and brushing off her hands.

"Maybe this is from God, do you think?" she said, reaching into her bag and pulling out cheese, bread and a tin of tuna, which she spread out on the blanket they were sitting on. She then reached back in and retrieved two bottles of water, handing one to Jake.

Jake scoffed at the idea, waving his hands as if the very idea was a pesky insect that wouldn't go away. "Some people in my family think that. I don't know, maybe that's how they're making sense of my thinking."

"Your thinking about the surgery?" Katja asked. "I understand...I think."

"Like I said, it's not like I want to die or anything. I just think about how...different my life will be. I won't have this special gift or talent, or, I don't know...curse, affliction..."

"What does it look like?" Katja interjected. "The music when you see it?"

Jake paused, rolling his eye up towards the heavens and then closed them. He took a couple deep breaths and appeared to be lost in thought for a few moments. He turned his gaze back towards the water and saw the seal's head come back above the surface, closer now. He exchanged a glance with Jake before slipping back under.

"Sort of like the Northern Lights, I guess," Jake finally said.

"I have seen the Northern Lights," Katja said. "They are beautiful, but I don't think I should want to see them all the time."

Now finished with their lunch, she reached bag into her bag and pulled out two cups of skyr, handing one to Jake. Jake reached for it with a reluctant slowness, wondering how long they had been in there - were they still safe to eat? And how deep is that bag? It's like a cornucopia or something. Sensing his apprehension, Katja said, "It's OK. It keeps without refrigeration." Jake opened his and tucked in. He had grown fond of skyr.

"Is it distracting?" she asked.

"The Music thing? Sort of. I can't listen to the radio when I'm driving - at least not when I'm driving in the city, anywhere where I'd need concentration. I drove through the desert once listening to some CDs. That was...a... great time."

Katja's eyes never left Jake as he talked. She brought the little fold-out spoon up from the cup of skyr to her soft mouth, twirling it in there to lick the concave side clean, slowly withdrawing it through her pouty lips. Jake tried hard to not keep his eyes on her the whole time and turned his eyes again to the water, where he saw the seal again, by the shore, nearly half way out of the water. The seal was waving his nose in the air, sort of like the way that Katja's head would sway slowly from side to side. As he sat there observing it, the seal was suddenly pelted with a scattershot of small pebbles. Jake turned immediately to Katja; it took a couple seconds to get his head around the fact that she had thrown the rocks.

"Pesky," she stated, just the slightest hint of contempt in her voice. "They will come and try to steal food."

She leaned back again, propped up on her arms, her body in that revealing costume spread out in front of Jake. She reached a hand up to hold her horned helmet, to keep it from sliding off. She craned her neck toward him, squinting into the sun behind Jake, one eye completely closed, as if she was winking, and said, "I think you should have the operation." This had the effect of plunging Jake into a complete state of indecision.


----------------
Listening to: Nine Inch Nails - Lights In The Sky
via FoxyTunes

Flash Fiction Friday - Hint Fiction

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.


----------------
Listening to: Miles Davis - So What
via FoxyTunes

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

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

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

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."

----------------
Listening to: The Drones - The Minotaur
via FoxyTunes

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

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.

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

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

For posterity's sake

I have recently discovered, to my dismay but certainly not my surprise, that I have done a horrible job keeping track of my creative endeavors. I had one short story published in a now-defunct magazine called (I believe) The Heron. I can find no record of this anywhere - I can't even find the paper copy of it that I received. Hopefully it is still somewhere in my house.

Another short story of mine was published in an e-zine, although I never actually saw it because the link they gave me didn't work. Their check did not bounce, though, so I wasn't too upset.

The one piece of mine that I know for sure was up on the Net has now been taken down, unfortunately. I would have no record of it at all had my local congresswoman not sent me a news clipping:

And to think I didn't even vote for her...and won't next time she runs, either. Oh well.

I've noticed that I know exactly where most, if not all, of my rejection letters are...I wonder what that says about me?

Below is a copy of the short story referenced in the above news clipping:

THANK GOD FOR TORNADOES

“That’s not tornadic”, Matt opined. “Now if the sky was green, then that would be tornadic”. He recited to anyone willing to listen a list, obviously complied over a dull lifetime and endlessly rehearsed, of the times when he had witnessed a green sky; but I was much more interested in looking out at the actual sky through the one small window in the room. Matt’s voice droned on behind me about the tornado he saw when he used to work at a fast food joint, while my eyes searched outside, wondering what the big deal was. The sky was not particularly dark, the wind was gentle, and the rain was merely a moderate downpour, nothing to really get concerned about. I turned to notice Shannon walking up towards us.

“There were no customers there, so we all went out in the parking lot, and it had been blowing a blue streak, but then it got all still and quiet, and that’s when we went out.”

I glanced over at Shannon, thinking he might find the humor in all the Hardee’s employees standing in the parking lot facing an imminent tornado strike, but his eyes were focused far away, out the window. He tried to keep as uninvolved as possible with the people and politics here at work; probably a good idea, but it makes him pretty boring to talk to, which is too bad because he’s one of the few people here with half a brain in his head. I turned my gaze back through the window as well.

“What the hell is the siren for?” Shannon demanded, roughly stroking the scraggly red whiskers on his jaw, “It’s fine out there.”

I mentioned, while maintaining my focus out the window, that I had seen the weather report this morning, and that a cold front was coming in, bringing with it some possibly severe storms, and hopefully some cooler weather for the next couple days – a welcome break from the devastating humidity of the past two weeks. The severe stuff, I told him, was supposed to be passing to the south of us. Shannon grunted his agreement with my remarks.

“Yeah, it’s fine out there,” Matt added. “Now, if the sky was dark green, that’s a sign for tornadic.”

I looked to hopefully to Shannon again – still no reaction on his characteristic grim and serious face. Disheartened, I turned and looked out the window with him. A guy was sitting out in his car, waiting for the rain to ease up, I surmised. Finally he gave up waiting and got out of the car, holding his briefcase over his head as he rushed to the entrance. The headlights of his Buick were still on. I think we were all hoping that they weren’t the type that turned off automatically. That’s cold, I realize, but factory work will instill that type of mentality in you.

Matt was suddenly right over my shoulder and into my personal space, standing on his toes and trying to get a look outside. I cringed and shrunk from his touch when he put his hand on my shoulder to boost himself up slightly higher. He lost his balance and nearly fell into Shannon and me.

“Nah...that’s definitely not tornadic,” Matt insisted once he had stabilized himself. As he spoke, the excessively large wad of chew he kept between his lips and teeth threatened to spill over. Little bits of it were interspersed in his prominent braces. It was always uncomfortable conversing with him, as the possibility of being showered with tobacco juice was always there, and he had a habit of standing uncomfortably close when speaking.

I turned away from Matt without a word or even a visual cue that I was ending whatever conversation he might have imagined we’d been having, scanning the room for likely escape route. The room was a stark white abortion, a purely utilitarian cinder-block construction. Like the rest of the factory, there was no clock in here. The company did not want clock-watchers. Instead, they alerted us to our break times with bells over a loudspeaker, like we were caged rats or prisoners or something like that. More than anything, more than being an inconvenience, or an assault on our dignity, it was just sad – just sad that I, a grown man, viewed the simple act of putting on my watch every morning as a way to “Stick It To The Man”.

The siren ceased it’s warning, and I turned back towards the window. The sky was continuing to lighten, still raining, but any possible threatening weather was obviously well past us now. The white-collars stood up and went hastily back to their offices upstairs. Everyone else stayed put. It was hot and muggy out on the floor, and there was little work to do besides. Orders had been dropping off, probably the result of the sub-par product we had been turning out lately. Everyone had been talking about it for weeks.

“If they need us out on the floor,” Frank said, “they can come get us. That’s the supervisor’s job...give the ‘all clear’.” Frank had been with the company since the ‘50s, a fixture at the factory. He was not well respected by anyone here, especially the newer people. His reputation for laziness was not helped by his sloppy speech or his habit of napping after lunch, and his obsolescence put into sharp focus by the increasingly simple “busy work” assigned to him. It would be difficult, though, I would imagine, staying motivated while living through the golden age of labor and into the rise of the corporations.

Around the room, everyone mumbled and nodded their vague agreement with Frank. Someone else, I’m not sure who, not that it really makes a difference, floated a semi-articulated thought that we ought to stay in here all day no matter what management has to say about it. More muttered agreement. I couldn’t really tell who these splintered ideas of rebellion were coming from, or how a conformity was reached, but in the end almost everyone seemed to be of the opinion that we needed to make a stand, to air our grievances, to scream defiantly against the roaring tempest of corporate decision.

“It’s always been that way,” Frank repeated. “Stay and wait for the ‘all clear’.”

My legs were exhausted from standing all day, so I turned away from the window and went to grab one of the seats that had opened up at the long conference table when the office people left. I sat next to Laura, who had an injury and was temporarily working on assembling benefits folders to be distributed to all the workers at the factory. I glanced casually at the contents of one of the folders, and commented on the fact that over half of the material seemed to be out of date.

“Yeah, I know, “ Laura sighed impatiently. “Anita brought that up, and I told her: if you got a problem with it, go see management. It’s not my job to correct their mistakes. Talk to management about it.” Anita is the union steward. She’ll get all worked up about this or that, talk big about taking the company to task over infractions large and small, real or imagined, but in the end she’s all bluster, and everybody knows it.

“If they think I’m redoing these damn things they’ve got another think coming.” She slapped another assembled folder down on the stack to punctuate the end of her sentence. I think we both knew she’d spend weeks tearing these books apart and then reconstructing them, until she was well enough to work.

Sensing the air of hostility and anger she had enveloped herself in, I decided to get up and walk back to the window. Matt and Shannon had wandered off, so I stood alone, watching sheets of rain dance across the street. As I stared absently at the rain, I thought about how much of what we manufacture is done in the spirit of anger and hostility, how many parts just don’t quite fit right and so are forced into place with a wild hammer and fuming curses. I also noticed the Buick’s headlights were now off. I didn’t know if they turned off by themselves or if the battery had died, and really didn’t care too much about it either way. This whole damn factory could blow away, for all I cared.

Why the factory had gone to hell was fairly obvious – we switched to a new material supplier, who gave us our metal as a substantially lower price, but also a substantially lower quality. As we struggled working with the inferior new material, we fell behind because it was so time consuming and because so much of the product had to be scrapped. As we fell further behind, angry customers called, demanding their purchases be delivered immediately, and so quality control standards were relaxed, which meant that stuff that should have been rejected was instead shipped out. Our reputation after all this was obviously not good, and so we lost customers. And now here we were in what should have been the busiest time of the year for a industrial refrigerator manufacturer, with next to nothing to do.

The sirens had gone silent over ten minutes ago – if I hadn’t had my watch, I would’ve sworn it’d been about an hour – and still no one had come to get us. I held out a sliver of hope that we could while away the day in the comfort of the air conditioned bunker/conference room, but tried not to dwell on it. Instead, I eavesdropped on the several conversations going on around the room. They were all remarkably similar – they were all about tornadoes.

“Once I was in a mobile home during a tornado,” Cindy said. She rocked back and forth in her chair, simulating the motion of the trailer, I suppose.

“It was so scary and loud – all the trailers around us got damaged, but ours was untouched.” Her voice lilted up as she ended her sentence, bubbly with the good news that everything worked out all right for her.

She was holding court, most of the guys were around her, rapping off clumsily worded double-entendres which fell around her like so many errant arrows. She was by far the prettiest woman in the factory, in a way not too far different from her trailer in the story...of course, even though she made out OK, there she was, still in the trailer park.

“Untouched!” she emphasized.

“Speaking of touching...” one of her sweaty admirers began.

“Yeah, I tell ya, one hit my home once, sounded like a freight train coming through.” The attention of the room slipped momentarily from Cindy, but never quite fully, and the moment’s wavered attention drifted toward, but never really focused on, Frank.

“Like a freight train,” he repeated, far-off stare, searching for but finding nothing to add. He deflated in his chair, relinquishing any meager hold he might have had on the room. Cindy continued her story, which never really went anywhere or shed any new details, for the next several minutes to her rapt, albeit captive, audience. I thought seriously about leaving the window and moving out of earshot of her inane ramblings. Instead, I stood there propped against the window frame and waited, and waited, letting her voice lull me into a not unpleasant semi-catatonic state, and decided that maybe this was the safest place for me to be right now.

An annoying scraping noise distracted me eventually. Over in the corner, I saw the boys from Material Inspection. They were the Dead-enders – any newly hired person who was sent to work with them lasted all of two weeks, tops. Like most of the problems in the company, they were left unaddressed. They were ensconced in a bitter shell, numbly punching in every day and collecting a check every week, doing just enough to not get fired, waiting out the ravages of time and circumstance, holding on until retirement or death. They were scratching marks on the table using regular putty knives – probably the most used tools in the factory – shaped and sharpened using a grinding wheel into instruments resembling jailhouse shivs, sculpted with more care and attention to detail than they exhibited toward any actual product of the factory.

I turned away from them, suddenly more disheartened than usual. The morning had started wonderfully, a compassionate break from the routine drudgery and anguish; but now I saw that it had simply been moved to another room. The same inane conversations held over and over again - the lines of a dark and too obvious comedy. The same lack of concern...the same defeated mentality.

There was not so long ago a time of craftsmen, when pride was taken in one’s work; when a guy could get a blue-collar job and support his family. My grandfather worked hard every day, dirt forever on his hands, scraped knuckles, a couple of beers after a hard day, a gold watch and a fat pension when he retired. It was an honest, romantic way to make a living. I’m nearing the age of my grandfather when he was half way to retirement, but they keep raising the retirement age, leaving me to trudge onward like Sisyphus...the same defeated mentality.

Finally, the moment we had all been hoping wouldn’t come, had come. Ray came into the room – he must’ve drawn the short straw among the supervisors. None of them liked dealing with us. Most of the workers made a point to make sure any interaction was difficult and emotionally draining. New conversations began as if previous ones had never taken place, everyone played dumb – a supervisor would just have to start all over again, building from the ground up.

He stood there for a few moments. The conversations continued, but in a noticeably hushed tone. Eerily, no one moved. Hands on his hips, he surveyed the room with a scowl before speaking.

“OK, people, let’s get back out there. The siren stopped a while ago.”

“We’re supposed to stay put until we get the ‘all clear’ from the supervisor,” Frank challenged. “That’s the rules.”

“OK, OK...here’s your ‘all clear’. Now let’s get back out there. C’mon, people! Let's go!”

He rambled across the room, barking and flailing, dislodging people form their comfortable cliques and seats and conversations, upsetting everyone with his ruthless attitude.

Reluctantly, and with much groaning, everyone painstakingly got up from their seats and staggered slowly out onto the floor. As we left the room, the hot, sticky, dishearteningly overwhelming air of the factory weighed us down, slowing us even more.



----------------
Listening to: Atmosphere - Smart Went Crazy
via FoxyTunes

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

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

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

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.

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.

At night I can see little sparks trickle down the lamps and into the floor, which I'm assuming is some natural phenomenon that is out of the spectrum of the view of the living. It is beautiful, like a small waterfall, and it can transfix me for an entire night sometimes.

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.