Briefs of Fiction, posted on January 11, 2010 at 06h55
I know that man under that black mask. His name is Henry. My wife and I were at his daughter’s wedding. We were also at her funeral. I wore the same hat to both. My knees are sore, so is my back, and my wrists are tied together much too tight. It’s irritating.
I ask Henry how Marie is, if she still has the bad knee. He stares at me with angry eyes, and if they could speak, they might say, this is supposed to be anonymous! Well, what do I care? What do I have to lose except this little bit? Continued…
Lyrics, posted on January 10, 2010 at 10h10
Written by Michael Lagace
Through the stillness of the silence, hear the shrillness of the violence ring out
The guiltless live the finest on the blood of men that might just give out
Hear the chorus of the soldiers enforcing their orders to lay down
In our age of disorder will xenophobic borders break down?
I see many doors but no way out
Continued…
In the past several years, the greatest physical pain I’ve known has been at the hands of dentists. An infected root canal from ten years ago had to be removed and replaced. Bone from my jaw was grafted to where my front tooth was. When the first bone graft failed, it was redone, and sixth months after that healed, I had a titanium post inserted. This was the procedure that disturbed me the most.
Unlike the previous few surgeries, this time I was awake. The chair was tilted far back and an anesthetic was applied to my gums and the roof of my mouth. Then the dentist cut open my gums and drilled a hole up into the site. I wasn’t sure if I could feel the drill itself or just its pressure, but I felt something and had to stop for more anesthetic. The dentist then pushed a large ratchet-like tool up into my mouth and told me I might experience some discomfort. He began to crank the lever. Continued…
Storytime, posted on January 7, 2010 at 09h17
This was for a short story contest years ago where I was randomly assigned to write a comedy about a personal trainer. Included here is its submitted form, without necessary revisions. Enjoy.
Polly Pennyworth didn’t review Malcolm’s complete Placement Profile before he came into her office that morning taking long, lunging strides with each step. Usually the firm’s receptionist kept all these things organized but they’d been without one for weeks and she still hadn’t found the motivation to do it herself. Now here he was in her office – the kind of man that exercised with every movement he made, getting stronger even when he ran his hand through his short, gel-set hair – and Miss Pennyworth was unprepared.
Since Malcolm had come into her office, she had become irritated, like an instant allergy to nitwits, and everything from her usually comfortable blouse to her unusually warm office was annoying her. Malcolm was no exception. She was anything but impressed by his well-defined physique, but found herself staring at him anyway, the same way anybody would stare at someone doing deep-knee bends during an interview. She opened his file up and spread the various papers around in front of her, doing her best to ignore the constant squeaking of his tight orange and black spandex.
“When you’re ready, Malcolm, we can begin.” Continued…
With online dating, I’ve found the frequency of misunderstanding to pervade the relationship. Take, for example, my brief relationship with the Banker. She was the last woman I met when I was actively looking for my One and Only. I fell for her the moment I saw her profile picture. And really, I’m not a shallow person by nature, but the tendency with dating sites is to fall for their selective imagery first, their selective biography second, and then make up a personality for them, one that suits the qualities you want. And in her, I gave her all the qualities I wanted.
The Banker and I chatted through the site, then through instant messaging, and finally e-mail. It was there that the relationship would end, but not before we met in person one evening. Continued…
We humans are a crafty breed. We’ve adapted ourselves to live in nearly every area of the planet; from coastlines to inland, frozen tundra to deserts. Through innovation of resources at our disposal, civilizations have developed almost everywhere, and within these civilizations, cultures were formed and carried down through generations. Today, some of us embrace our culture completely, others not at all, and the rest embrace culture selectively, with each subsequent generation adjusting it little by little.
Culture includes such things as language, food, social constructs, customs, and religious beliefs. The non-physical aspects of culture are dependent only on its ability to be communicated, whereas the physical aspects — predominantly including food — depend partly on communication but greatly on available resources. For this reason, moving to a new country centuries ago meant leaving behind a lot of your culture, particularly food. Recipes themselves moved easily but when certain ingredients weren’t available, they had to be adapted to what was available. Even the non-physical aspects of culture changed, since some things are taboo or illegal in other places. Culture, then, always changes. Continued…
Briefs of Fiction, posted on January 4, 2010 at 06h55
He’s late, she thought, looking at the clock radio by the cash register. His hot chocolate and banana-chocolate chip muffin sat on the counter, untouched, unmoved. She imagined why he might be late, avoiding worst-case scenarios as if that might make them come true. He was usually among her first few customers; some days he was even there right as she opened. And it wasn’t a vacation because she would have known that. He must have slept in.
He finally came in around nine o’clock, and she smiled immediately.
“Running late this morning?” she asked. Continued…
Prose, posted on January 1, 2010 at 12h01
Upon finishing Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, I was left much more affected than I’d been during the previous dozen chapters. The dense philosophy had lost my attention many times, but I kept reading, hoping that satisfaction was waiting by the end. And it was, although it took until the Afterward for things to really sink in.
Robert M. Pirsig explained the concept of time that the Ancient Greeks had understood. Often, we think of ourselves walking forward through time, facing tomorrow. This is inaccurate, as it fails to address two crucial elements of perception and time. First, we cannot see and we cannot predict tomorrow; thus we do not face it. Second, the past is never at our backs because we see it the entire time, however fading away it seems. So it is, then, that the author wrote, “They saw the future as something that came upon them from behind their backs with the past receding away before their eyes.” Continued…
