Tags

endings, left behind, narrative, quotes, stories, writing

We abandon stories. They don’t end.”

Percival Everett, Interview

Da Capo al Coda

the velocity of reciprocity
may lead to atrocity, no?

But Madonna said
life is a mystery

every dialectic digresses
into a deontological knot

Which is why SHE told RunDMC
to walk THIS way

signifier and signified will
be sold BOGO

And it really does feel
so empty without Eminem

schizo-capitalist sightmares
stymie the Marxist rebirth

Hello! it really was Lionel
Ritchie we were looking for

[they hold hands and kneel]

Pray for us sinners now and
At the hour of our death.

Tags

cycles, earth, eruptions, heat, lava, life, voclanoes

And so the rival theory: the cult of the volcanoes. Water annihilated by Hades’ heat. A more violent idea, where it is incendiary lava that produces the soil. That the planet exists thanks to an incessant cycle of eruptions and cooling that guarantees its perpetuity. The centre of the world ablaze. The Earth designs its parts in the seething forge of the underworld and spits them out onto the surface via volcanoes. Matter comes out in the form of lava, cools, settles; rain and wind guide it back down to the coasts. As unrecognisable seabed, it continues to fall: gravity draws the minerals back into the inextinguishable combustion of the planetary centre, to the infernal laboratory where everything gets readulterated while awaiting another eruption. Cyclical, impetuous: this is the igneous factory of worlds that the vulcanists whipped up.”

Two Sherpas, Sebastián Martínez Daniell

You Are A Main Character

Tags

fear, fiction, flash fiction, perspective, scenes, short stories, writing

The night was cold and dark (similar to nights in cold climates or in stories like this one). But this is not a story. It’s just a scene. A bit obtuse. An obscene. Have you pictured the darkness? You’re on a street in this obscene cold darkness. Many parts of the street are crumbling. The crevices create what look like deep pools of black water much farther down the road. Just past the lone street light. Does this street have curbs? Hmm. Why do you ask? Yes, it does, but they are the rounded kind. Slight and undamaging if rolled over. What do you see past these curbs? Concrete sidewalk. Grass. We have not made it that far. Your vision stops at the curb. There is curb and then darkness like a black curtain hangs from the sky straight down to the curb. In both directions: a straight road in poor condition. Gentle curbs on either side. One flickering street light. Oh, you think the light was constant when you looked at it earlier? Don’t trust your perceptions. You hear footsteps. Slow. Rhythmic. It sounds like they are coming from a relative distance definitely down the stretch of road with no light. You start backing up towards the light. Is this making you safe, or simply making you a target? Easily seen. The footsteps quicken. Someone is running towards you. You’ve curled your fingers into fists. Your nails are digging uncomfortably into your palms. At any minute this running menace will emerge from the darkness. But no. I told you distrust your perceptions. Reading has put you in this scene. Obscene. You can unclench your fists. It’s okay. You inhale deeply. Just a scene. Take my advice, though. Don’t come back here again.

Tags

books, narrative, quotes, reading, writing

Reader, my neck is your neck. The ambition: to see if it might be possible to do this, achieve this (the project of narration), without either one of us getting hurt.”

The Long Form, Kate Briggs

Do Not Disturb

Tags

fiction, flash fiction, intrusions, modern life, notifications, short stories, smart phone

Parking was always a pain. I knew this. Everyone knows this. And yet I didn’t plan for it. Couldn’t bring myself to leave 15 minutes earlier… Why? I had plenty of time this morning to scroll online and get pissed off at random strangers. I didn’t have time to shave because I was laughing at videos of panda bears falling off of things.

I’m here now. That’s what matters. I turn the car off three blocks away from the café. DING! A text from my sister reminding me to bring the rolls for tonight’s dinner with dad. I thumbs-up-emoji respond. I shut the door and hear a calendar reminder. I don’t even look at the phone because I know what tomorrow is. And then I do look at the phone because I need to know what time it is and whether I need to sprint these three blocks. I should. I won’t.

I speed walk as a compromise. I answer a call from a contractor I have been trying to reach for days and I text my sister back putting into writing that I know the exact type of rolls I am supposed to bring. Several notification sounds I don’t even recognize emerge from my pocket as I enter the cafe and scan the room for Angie. She’s my cousin and we start every new year off this way.

She waves from a cozy corner table in the back? It not our usual table but the place is packed today. An alarm on my phone starts chirping obnoxiously. People are actually staring amidst the hum of other noises. I fumble the phone out and turn off the alarm. As I pass a trash can, I’m tempted to just throw the thing in there.

Angie gives me a big hug and we sit down. She’s already ordered my favorite brew . She still looks after me like a surrogate mom. DING! “My sister,” I explain by way of apology to Angie. I set the phone to vibrate and don’t bother texting my sister back. We slip into familiar conversation as if a year hadn’t passed. It’s possible we saw each other as recently as eight months ago at an uncle’s memorial service, but it’s not like we got to hang out. She’s telling me something about a new job or a new dog, but my phone has almost vibrated itself off the edge of the table. I used my wrist to kind of bump it back in place as I reach for my coffee. I feel like I’m forgetting something. Why is my phone still vibrating? What if it’s an emergency… “Hey?” We make eye contact. She repeats a question, I must’ve missed. “What about you—how’s your job going?” I shrug my shoulders and just as I start to tell her about the promotion I missed a breakthrough call bursts through on my phone, a repeating chime that escalates in volume and frequency the longer it’s on. Dad’s ringtone. Piercing and shrill.

I stand up, snatch the phone off the table, and hurl it the full length of the café whereby it shatters the front window and clatters to the sidewalk. The place is suddenly silent except for the hiss of the espresso machine. The patrons turn in unison towards the window and then, in slow motion as if choreographed, their heads swivel 180 degrees in my direction. To stare at the crazed man standing post-throw. I picture steam coming off my head and my eyes blazing demonically.

“Hey?” Angie says.

I blink. Look down. I’m seated.

“Aren’t you going to answer that?”

Tags

facts, hearsay, information, quotes, truth

…we must not expect to get real information in such a line. Facts or opinions which are to pass through the hands of so many, to be misconceived by folly in one, and ignorance in another, can hardly have much truth left.”

Jane Austen, Persuasion

Tuesday Night in America

Tags

america, fast food, fiction, flash fiction, short stories

It was a dark and stormy night… Well, there’s actually a lot of light pollution around these parts and it was only drizzling. Maybe just misting. Is that a form of precipitation? Let’s start over. I want to try and be honest for once: It was a night ruined by artificial light and moistened by rain so tiny as to hover in the air. Better?

We were driving towards oblivion. (Oh, I love the way that sounds. Really, we were going to Arby’s but my arteries view those as synonymous terms.) Oblivion had a drive through that we frequented about every other week or so. Who’re we, you ask? Well, me and the driver. Some refer to her as my wife, but we live together for the sake of tax and immigration purposes only. She’s my roommate, essentially. My partner in fast-food. So nothing out of the usual. Routine. Banal and greasy. Except on this night…

We were behind one car awaiting our turn to place an order. There were no other cars in the parking lot. No one entering or exiting the restaurant. “Did you see that?” Klara said. “What?” I’m swiveling my head back and forth not really knowing what I’m looking for. And then I saw it! “That?” “Yes, that!” “Was it… I mean… ” “What else could it have been, you moron?” (truly a term of endearment despite how this might sound upon first exposure). As if we routinely saw naked men wearing only a fake bear’s head running through Oblivion’s parking lot…

It circled a third time as gunfire rang out. “I told you that sex club that opened down the street was bad news. Fucking town has an Arby’s, a gas station, and a sex club… ” It was hard to disagree. Another shot rang out and the passenger side of our car suddenly dipped slightly toward the rear. The car in front of us pulled up to the pickup window. Klara pulled up to the ordering display as the rear right of the car wobbled. “What are you doing?” “What’s it look like?” “We’ve got a flat tire and some naked guy is being hunted out there!” “Yeah, well, I’m still hungry. And they’re not shooting at us. Besides, he ran off into the woods behind the dumpsters over there.”

I was torn. Frozen with indecision. My mind going in dozens of opposite directions: Call the cops (but the chances of them showing up in under 45 minutes was highly unlikely). Get out to see if the naked bearhead guy was ok (and risk getting shot or becoming a part of whatever sordid dynamic was at play–yeah, no thank you). Order my usual shake and roast beef (it is only human to seek comfort in the familiar during times of stress). You might guess what I did.

“Do you want me to at least put the donut on before you attempt to drive us home?” “You got rid of the donut last year, remember? Said you needed the room in the trunk for your ice fishing bait and tackle or some such nonsense.” Did I do that? I did do that. I just nodded slowly, looked ahead, and began to noisily enjoy my shake as the rhythmic wobble of deflated rubber carried us home.

Tags

knowledge, life, quotes, self awareness, surprises, understanding

I try to understand, but everything I do is a surprise even to me, as if I were an unknowable amalgam full of errors, an open wound closing up and splitting open, always wavering between criticism and self-pity.”

Gabriela Ponce, Blood Red

Surfacing

Tags

clandestine meetings, conspiracies, elvis, fiction, flash fiction, jimmy hoffa, short stories

They had agreed to meet on New Year’s Day, corner of Western and 63rd, at 1:10, under the cover of broad daylight. Jimmy was early, but not by much. The sky was overcast, a damp chill in the air, Mother Nature unimpressed by the holiday. Droplets of sweat sprinkled a furrowed brow. He couldn’t afford to be recognized. This rendezvous had been planned fifteen years ago and there had been no contact since.

A passing car backfired and Jimmy almost dove behind a trashcan. He took an exasperated breath as he pretended instead to be tightening a shoe lace. Was that him? Almost a half block away, an overweight man sauntered down the road. The ridiculous sideburns were gone as were any attention-grabbing clothes. The hair wasn’t slicked but there was still that familiar movement of the pelvis.

He would be… what? … 57? Jimmy was almost 79, his age and identity further masked by some surgical work.

And there it was—the sign! Elvis lowered his left hand to his waist, fingers outstretched, palm down, and touched his side. Three taps. Right on time. As agreed.

Jimmy let him pass without making eye contact again and began to follow about a quarter of a black behind. The street was busy but not too busy to prevent keeping the King in sight. They had agreed to meet at the post office after initial contact if everything looked clear. Neither were aware the building had been shuttered some eight years ago. Elvis placed something along the concreted ledge just past the locked entrance to the old post office. He kept walking. Jimmy found a small, business-card sized envelope on the ledge and pocketed it.

They were off-plan at this point. It seemed like Elvis had quickened his pace. He turned right at the next corner, lost to visual contact. Jimmy sped up but could feel hid heart edging into dangerous territory. He was almost panting when he reached the corner. No sign of Elvis in any direction. He opened the small envelope and the type on one side of a thick card read: I’M SORRY.

The truth hit him at almost the same time as suited men firmly took each of his arms and “escorted” swiftly into a dark sport utility vehicle with tinted windows. The vehicle had appeared out of thin air. One of the men simply said, “Come with us, Mr. Hoffa.”