Friday, August 29, 2014

2 minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. Every Friday we do a fun free-write. 

You can write whatever you want in the comments section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. BREAK THE BLOG! You have two minutes (give or take a few seconds ... no pressure!). Have fun. The more people who play, the more fun it is. So, tell a friend. Then send 'em here to read your 'two' and encourage them to play. 

If I open this up, I don't know if I'll be able to close it, see? It's like a vault, and it's filled with all kinds of ugly detritus. I imagine cracking the door and watching spirits shriek out into the night. Or maybe I saw Indiana Jones too many times. Point is, once you open it, you can't close it. 

Don't get me wrong. I know there are old women with weepy eyes wondering who the man beside them is. I know that man is sobbing. I know there are mothers, wringing hands, staring at their perfect babies and worrying. I also know that there are women looking through that same window full of bassinets, wondering what the fuck they did.

I'm gonna open the vault. Partly out of curiosity's sake. Mostly, I just figure there is only so much shit you can cram in there until all hell breaks loose.

Thanks for stopping by! 400 views for '2 Minutes' last Friday. Getting bigger every week. See you next Friday. 

*BTW, feel free to put your pieces on your blog. A lot of folks have started doing that, and it's COOL. 

76 comments:

  1. Growing up in a small town was different for Ashley than what she was living right now in San Francisco.

    Small towns were a whole lot different even in culture than San Francisco was.

    People in her hometown knew her by name and greeted her every time she went into a store or diner to buy groceries or to order some food for her parents. She loved that life a lot.

    But she honestly loved living in the big city more so because nobody knew her here. She could slip around town quietly and without detection at night pretty easily.

    Ashley wasn't just a normal girl from a small town like everyone she had met so far knew her to be.

    Ashley was more than that. She was a huntress. A killer of evil. A woman who knew how to handle her weight if she got herself into a tight spot.

    She knew how to handle knifes and other forms of weaponry very well.

    When it came to killing evil, she always succeeded.

    Till last night.

    She had been trailing this demon for a few nights staying out of it's sight when suddenly, out of nowhere she lost sight of the demon for a few split seconds, only to realize that he was standing right behind her.

    He could've killed her then and there but he didn't. He could have slaughtered the girls he was following down the alley but instead decided to come upon her. How he knew I was following him, I couldn't tell you.

    But he somehow realized that I was following him and was able to sneak up on me when I wasn't paying attention.

    And I never made that mistake. Ever. Which meant this demon was beyond good.

    If I were to survive this lonely encounter a top this San Francisco rooftop, I would need to get away from this demon quickly.

    He was ruthless from what the reports on the news said. He was vicious. Leaving very little of his victims bodies behind for the families to bury.

    But something about the look in his eyes when he saw me sprawled there on the rooftop cowering away from him, made him stop. He was about to attack me. He was going to kill me and have me for dinner. But something stopped him.

    What, you may think, made him stop? I couldn't tell you. I didn't even know what made him stop. The only thing right now I'm grateful for is that he let me live one more night.

    The only thing he said to me before he left and I never saw him again for quite some time, was that he knew who I was and what I was destined to become if I stayed on the path I traveled. It's as if he could read my future.

    I tried to look for him again the next night but nobody knew who he was or where he came from. All they could tell me was that he was a dangerous man and that he had powers stronger than they did. He'd even killed quite a few of them himself and that the demons were hunting him down as well.

    He was a wanted man. Both by me and by the demons I hunted at night.

    But no one, not even the measly demons I hunted, could tell me a single thing about him other than to stay away from him or I would be dead sooner rather than later.

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    1. This is an interesting piece, especially for me, as San Francisco is a character in lots of my stuff. I remember well, moving to SF and walking all over the city in wonder. There were demons. I courted them, though. ;)

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    2. Mind you I have never been to San Francisco yet myself. i have only seen it through watching the Giants games as well as movies that have showcased SF as one of the cities so this is purely off my imagination how it could be. :)

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    3. It's even doper than you imagine. Or at least it used to be.

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    4. Things have changed from what I have heard. I want to go there soon. I'm going to a friends party in the Monterrey Bay area in October so maybe on our way back me and my fiancee will visit SF.

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    5. Cool. Let me know if you do. Monterey in awesome. If you haven't read a bunch of Steinbeck, you should before the trip!

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    6. I have a few of his books back in high school. I have been to Monterrey before once when i was a kid but i don't remember much of it. I'll be taking lots of pictures.

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    7. Definitely Cannery Row, my fav plus you can actually go there. Anyway, I like the story. Small town girl goes to the big city, makes it a little better place to live. Has nice potential for a series for sure.

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    8. That might be the plan with this one for sure Ed. Because I am working on Espionage: The Beginning, I am not sure whether to start another series just yet unless this one will allow me to finish it quicker and before the other one is ready.

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    9. Ed, you've read Sweet Thursday, the sequel, yeah?

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  2. And then the bottom dropped out of their world.

    The two of them sitting together, though apart, one shocked and the other willing her courage and strength. Not that he wasn't shocked too.

    It was one of those splitting of the way moments: a time neither would forget. A time where everything changed – perspectives, hopes, ambitions: all now different.

    All hinging on those five or six words; 'I'm afraid it's bad news.'

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    1. This is so tight and tense. Excellent piece. Very real. I've been there and you nailed it. Simple. Too many people overcomplicate stuff like this when they write. In my experience, bad news is a pretty stark affair. Well in.

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    2. Sometimes less is more. Life can be stark. Brutal.

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    3. That is definitely turning point stuff. Like a GSW, fast, painful, and earth shattering.

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  3. My life was a disaster... My wife left me... My kids hated me... My boss didn't like me because I was almost always late to work and smelled like alcohol every day... I was on the verge of ending my life... The gun that I kept in my night stand drawer was calling my name...

    There had been a few times recently where I had actually pulled my gun out and put it to the side of my head but I couldn't pull the trigger. If I were to do that, my kids would grow up without their father.

    I couldn't live with that. I loved my kids dearly. When my wife left and asked for a divorce, she allowed me to see my children on the weekends, but only if I was sober and it was at her new house.

    Most weekends I never got to see my kids though because I was drunk or was getting into fights at the bar. My life was spiraling out of control and I didn't know what to do to straighten it out.

    I wanted to get help but I didn't know where to go. I tried Alcoholics Anonymous but that just ended up making me drink more. I even tried to stop going to the bar every night after work but my body would be in so much pain when I was sober that alcohol was the only thing to ease it.

    When I came home from Afghanistan after the war was over, PTSD kicked in hard. That's when I started drinking. The whole time I was in the Army and before I joined, I had never had any alcohol or had even thought about drinking it. A lot of my buddies in the Army wondered why I didn't drink. I always told them that it just never appealed to me.

    Now, even most of them that I had kept in touch with after we got sent home, didn't even want to talk to me or have anything to do with me because of my alcoholism.

    Everything I did hurt everyone else and for some reason my mind told me that it's okay for me to do this.

    But my heart was telling me otherwise. Even my parents tried everything they thought would work to get me sober and clean but none of it worked.

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    1. Yep. Addicts are very good at 'excusing' their own behavior. This is a sad, real picture of how everything can just slip away if you let it. Well played.

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    2. This is just the beginning of this little piece i wrote. It wouldn't let me share the other piece together as one beacuse it was too long but I'll share the other part in a bit.

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  4. You're looking through the crack in the blinds like it's going to make things better. Like if you SEE it, then there will be some kind of ... something ... in that. It will be a catalyst. It will make the last few months seem real, not like a befuddled falling away.

    Your back hurts and you're about to say 'fuck it' and make a drink, but the car pulls up just in time. It's much nicer than your car. A man gets out. He's better looking than you, and his clothes are beautiful. He opens the door and you see one, long familiar leg. Then the rest. She looks so happy. They embrace, kiss.

    You run to the bedroom and pretend to be asleep. Two days later she's gone for good and the guy who owns the liquor store just smiles and makes change. Or at least that's the idea.

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    1. You just took me back a lot of years. Quite eaves dropping on my timeline and writing my bio. I had plans once, you know. I coulda been a Jimmy Mender...instead of a bum.

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    2. I took myself back a lot of years, too. :)

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    3. Aw, Ed, I think you're perfect just the way you are... and thanks for the reference to Jimmy Mender

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    4. Anytime you can combine references to Streetcar Named Desire and Jimmy Mender, I say you'd be a fool not to.

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  5. But just the other day, I met a young woman while out at the grocery store buying some food and she introduced herself as Kylie. She was beautiful. She had long curly blonde hair and her eyes were a deep blue with a hint of grey. Her cheeks were prominent but you could tell she was still young. She looked to be in her mid to late 20's and probably in college as she was with several of her girlfriends from the nearby campus due to the sweaters that the other girls were wearing.

    When I saw her walking through the grocery store, I was captivated by her beauty. I didn't know what to say. Most of the women I tried to talk to after my ex-wife divorced me and took custody of our kids, didn't want to have anything to do with me because I always smelled like whiskey or moonshine.

    Not to mention I had lost my driver's license from getting too many DUI's. So most of the women didn't even want to talk to me.

    But there was something else about Kylie. She actually talked to me despite what her girlfriends said about me. They told her that I was a useless dirt bag that looked to be in my 40's and was a creep.

    What those girls didn't know was that I was only a 26 year old Army Veteran and had lost a lot in the last five years, including my ex-wife and children, since leaving the Army when I was 21.

    In the five years since leaving the military, I had literally lost everything that was dear to me. The fact that Kylie wanted to talk to me at all was a surprise alone. I wasn't expecting such a beautiful young woman to have any interest in a man that looked scruffy and smelled like he took a bath in a tub full of whiskey and bourbon.

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  6. She was even willing to get coffee with me so that we may be able to get to know each other better. That was a surprise.

    What did she see in me that I didn't or couldn't see in myself? What was it she could read off of me that made her want to get to know me better? How did I come off to her when I asked for her name and told her that she was very beautiful and that I would love to get to know her?

    I didn't even ask her for her cell phone number and she still gave it to me by taking my phone out of my hand as I was checking my account balance and put her number in my phone as well as helping pay for the few groceries I had in my basket.

    She even invited me to her birthday party that was this upcoming weekend. She said there wouldn't be any alcohol but that I was welcome to come and gave me the address to where the party would be held at. She even said that I could bring my two kids to the party as well since her family and several of her younger cousins would be there a well.

    We are to meet up at the nearby coffee shop down the road from the campus around 10 am tomorrow morning since she didn't have any classes till the evening tomorrow.

    When I told her I was homeless and was living in my car which I couldn't legally drive since I lost my license, she said that I could crash on her couch at her apartment and that she had some clothes from her brother who had been living with her recently but was out of town on a business trip. She also said he wouldn't mind me wearing some of his older clothes that he hardly wore and planned on donating them to a nearby homeless shelter when he got back from his trip.

    She even had one of her cousins tow my car to her place for free so that it wouldn't be towed by the police for being parked illegally on the side of the road over night.

    When we got to her apartment and she let me in, I was surprised to see that she lived comfortably on her own while going to school. She told me the shower was down the hall to the right and the bathroom was the third door.

    As I looked around the living room of the apartment, I saw several art pieces that looked to belong in a museum. She had a decently sized television on the entertainment case. Her movie collection was amazing. Some of the best movies were on the shelf. Even some movies that he hadn't watched since he was a kid. Even her cd collection of music was good. A mix of rock and country with some r&b and several rap artists as well, was in her collection.

    I started to think that there was a reason that this woman was brought into my life so suddenly. Her movie and music collections alone made me feel like I already knew her. Like she had been in my life before but had slipped away before I realized she was gone. I mean she did look quite similar in features as a girl I knew in middle school before I had met my ex-wife in high school.

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    1. I'm super interested to know what her motivations are. There are so many unanswered Q's here. Which is GOOD. :)

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    2. I'll have to keep writing for you to be able to eventually find out then won't I, JD?

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  7. He was the kind of prudish judgmental prick who will share your joke on facebook so that he could point out all the political incorrect aspects which were too subtle for all but the deeply anal insecure white guilt ridden dweebs whose approval he was so desperate to gain. And I’m riding in a car with him.

    “Its not going to get any greener buddy,” he quietly remarks to me nodding at the car in front of us. The car ahead has been sitting at a green light for perhaps a tenth of a second. More than enough time to max Al’s patience but unfortunately for me, not quite beyond his attention span. “Its that pedal on the right sweetie,” Al coos as he just realized that the driver in front of us appears to be a young attractive female. This totally changes Al’s view on her driving abilities. “You can take as long as you like honey,” Al purrs as he nudes me in the arm. Al continues his dialog meant to impress me, “I won’t hit you, not too hard anyway...”

    That was the final straw. Enough from Senator Double Standard from the great state of DENIAL. I’m out. I unbuckle my seat belt, open the passenger side door and make my escape onto the hot streets of downtown Portland.

    “Where are you going?”

    “I’m good, just need a walk.”

    Al stares at my retreat while the horns of the cars behind him come to life. I hear the voice of the driver behind Al, “Hey buddy, its not going to get any greener!”

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    1. I was going to say that I love the first paragraph of this piece, but it just keeps getting better. LOVE this one. I have been that guy in the passenger seat many times. Next time I'm just going to get out. Brilliant.

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    2. Very nice. Not only was Al appropriately expunged but your reader is delighted and got your back every step of the way.

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  8. The bars are high and close together and when she presses her face to them, she feels the raw, cold rust against her skin. “WHY AM I HERE?” Her voice echoes in the distance. Water drips. Footsteps ring, sounding too far away to care.

    Nothing.

    She reaches a hand out to a shelf just outside her cage, thinks she can get to the cup millimeters from her fingers. But only knocks it over, the puddle spreading downhill from the corridor over the edges of her de-laced shoes.

    Nothing.

    She throws herself face down on the cot, little more than a square of fabric hand-knotted to a raggedy wooden frame. A sliver bites into her wrist and she curses under her breath. Yanks it out and watches the blood bead, shiny under the buzzing fluorescent light, before the drip slides down her arm. The sticky fluid the only part of her, it seems, that’s still alive, that’s still here, that’s still listening.

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    1. This is a fantastic piece. Terrifying. I don't know what else to say except it's fucking good. And Karen and I have an ongoing argument about whether it's a sliver or a splinter. You're on Karen's side. And this was super ace.

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    2. Quite vivid and terrifying at the same time. There is a difference, at least in my mind, between a sliver and a splinter. Hint, its about what it is made of and how it was formed. ;) Sliver is correct in this instance and aligns with my world view which splintered off reality and got stuck....well the freedom from too much information act prevents my saying.

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    3. Laurie, I always enjoy how you get right to the heart of the matter in these flash 2 minute challenges. Grips the reader right away. JD and Ed stole my descriptor words in their comments: fantastic, terrifying, vivid. :))

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  9. Churchgoers often questioned Pastor Fazool about his surname. It was a far cry from the Anglo-saxon names in their Methodist church directory. Fazool led the list as pastor, a sore thumb waving at the head of the membership.

    “Maybe he’s Italian,” said old Mrs. Burton. “A runaway from St. Rocco’s Catholic Church downtown.”

    “I’ll bet he made the name up. He might be a gourmet cook who loves pasta recipes, especially pasta with beans.” This from Morgan who loved the dish but vehemently abhored Italians, corralling them all behind an electrified fence on a criminal farm.

    The pastor was often questioned but he never responded. He’d quote Scripture, mostly Jesus deriding the hypocrisy of the Pharisees.

    Abdul Mohammed Fazool had grown up on the dirt streets of an Iranian town absent from any map. His parents, brothers, and sister lived in a one-room stone box whose dirt floor was an extension of the dirt street where a low life expectancy rivaled that of the early 1200’s. When he was six, a suicide bomber wiped out his family. Abdul hid beneath stone rafters until days later an American soldier brought him to America. From him he learned about a loving God and converted to Christianity.

    Morgan said on more than one occasion to whoever would listen, “He’s got that dark-skin look like the dagos. Maybe he’s a spy from St. Rocco’s, drumming up business for the pope!”

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    1. You really have a magic touch, Sal. I'm in awe of your pieces every week. I swear, words work different when you use them.

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    2. Really nice piece, especially thought provoking.

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  10. All I could remember of what he looked like though was that he had light brown colored skin with several tattoo’s covering his upper arms and chest. He had a dark, jet black, tightly trimmed goatee and jet black close cropped hair. His eyes were the color of the night with a spark of red in his left eye. He didn't look like the other demons she hunted. Nor did he smell like it either.
    She didn't understand and still couldn't figure out why he let her go if he was so vicious as the news media said he was. Maybe it wasn't him that was killing those girls and it was a demon that specifically hunted women in their 20’s and he just happened to be in the area when it went down and so any witnesses described him instead of what they couldn't understand.
    Hunting demons at night was the best for her. It made it easier to stay unseen from the onlookers that roamed the streets from bar to bar every night in this big city. Part of the reason she had left her small hometown was because her parents and younger brother had been killed by a demon while she had been out on a hunt in the nearby forest that bordered her small hometown.
    The newspaper and local Sheriff’s deputy both said that it was a serial killer the FBI was hunting down and he happened to come through the small town and killed her family while she was gone. The deputy even said she was lucky not to have been home when he killed her family because of how gruesome the scene was when he showed up. He had said there was hardly anything left of her parents’ bodies and her brother was completely gone except for his bones.

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    1. Man, you got novels coming out of your pores. Awesome!

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    2. This is just the beginning of all the stories I have pouring out of my head. It just sucks not having a reliable laptop right now and no money to buy a new one.

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  11. The image in the mirror does not match what’s in her heart. The reflection shows a smiling face, makeup carefully applied down to the exact match of one eyebrow to the other. The complexion seems poreless, painted and spackled with the potion of choice but inside is the bleak, hard core melting inward, inside is the evil cackle of a melting witch, inside is the festering untapped pain of the whole of her family telling her we don’t say such things, we act like ladies, we use our inside voices. Inside is not the woman in the mirror, and she wants to pick up her hairbrush and smash the glass to bits, but thinks only of the noise it will make and the mess and the curses that might escape her pearl-pink painted lips, and that would not be ladylike at all.

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  12. The bottle spun, and you smoothed the front of your Bugle Boy pants - the ones you wore without washing. Your legs had been black for days. When the spinning stopped, the bottle was pointed directly at you, and Suzie had this ... smile. Some weird kind of smile. And you loved Suzie. Suddenly, you wished you had stayed home.

    "One minute in the closet!" All the kids screamed it, and you stood up, trying to look ... not cool, but not terrified, either.

    There have surely been longer minutes in the history of the universe, but it was pretty long. A minute is a long time to stare into the eyes of a girl you want to kiss. Your first kiss.

    You looked into her eyes as they changed from nervous, to excited, to sad, to hurt, before settling on resignation and disappointment. Then, kids pounding on the door and a bunch of jokes about pry-bars. And you sat in the corner for the rest of the night. Until everyone was leaving. Then you thought, goddamn it. No. Man up. Even if that's hard for a ten year old.

    You caught her right at the door and pulled her toward you gently, a hand on her shoulder. You kissed her cherry lips and she smiled, ran away giggling. You walked home slowly, amazed. And you walked carefully.

    Sidewalk cracks sneak up on you when you're ten feet tall.

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  13. Therapy:

    The daylight dimmed. Time slowed down till it flowed like treacle.

    The pretty nurse looked at the husband, her smile uncertain. “You don't have to stop,” she said, offering him an out if he'd wanted it.

    He shook his head. “No,” he said, his lips feeling like they belonged to someone else. “I'm here. I'll always be here. Giving support.” He nodded, catching his wife's attention, willing her to agree.

    A single nod. Wild-eyed and scared but a nod nonetheless.

    “We're together,” he said. “Whatever happens we'll face it together."

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    1. You are so good at switching register. Teaching term, but I can't think of a better one. You have such a clear, distinct voice. A couple of them. Considering that having ONE is a pretty fortunate happenstance...you're good, brother. And also, Treacle.

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    2. Treacle's always good. And thanks, bro'!

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  14. Unsuspecting quarry was lured to the hunting grounds by a cadre of servers comprising mostly young women wearing more makeup than clothing, save for the trio of Chippendale’s clones kept on staff as eye candy for the handful of female customers and the gay contingent, and row upon row of big-screen televisions displaying every sport imaginable.

    Before exiting her car, the huntress checked once again to make sure she had everything she would need for a successful expedition. She had meticulously collected her arsenal, not the least of which was the silk sapphire dress that hugged her curves and revealed just the right amount of cleavage.

    The woman moved through the crowd with uncommon grace, avoiding a tray of margaritas accidentally sent airborne by poor Ashleigh from San Antonio before settling into position at the bar and ordering a Belvedere ginger martini. She was as particular about her liquor as the herd milling about had been mere weeks ago, and, unlike them, was still able and willing to spring for the good stuff.

    “You’ve got outstanding taste, my friend. It’s not often I have somebody specify top-shelf vodka for a ginger drop,” Dave from Boston commented as he delivered her drink. “Are you that selective about...anything else?” She saw the bartender glance out into the crowd as he finished the question.

    “I’m even more selective about...some things,” she replied with a smile.

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    1. Where is this bar? Just asking...

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    2. This is a great piece. You nailed the tone so well. I feel like I'm in the bar. I can't afford any of the drinks or make eye contact, but I'm there. Well in!

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  15. She shook her head as she looked in the mirror. Seventy years have come and are passing quickly - much more quickly than when she was young. Why do some people make it this long and longer and why do some die young. Oh, she had a taste of that - whooping cough at six months - her mom had to sit up all night holding her upright and cleaning out her throat. Almost hit by a car around eight years, yeah - same year she almost ended when food got stuck in her throat - to this day she doesn't remember how it cleared- sometimes she thinks it was her guardian angel. Then at nine - the wave that knocked her down and she almost drowned until she saw a hand floating above her and she grabbed it. Later the woman said thanks for saving me, I lost my glasses and couldn't see and you took my hand. Wow, that was sure backwards. Oh and there was the inevitable boys letting their big dog chase her out into the street and the car stopped just short of hitting her hip. After that either the odds changed or she got older and wiser - no more real close calls. Oh there was the time she bit the end off a thermometer; but knew enough not to swallow but spit it out and rinse and rinse again. So, she grew up - did all the things you're suppose to do - the marriage bit the two kids. Here she is - still married by the way - seventy years old and fifty years married. She looks in the mirror and wonders what's next in store for her.

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    1. This is an awesome piece. Lovely in the best possible sense of the word: real. Excellent writing and reflections. I love the way it rolls, too, gaining momentum. Thank you for joining us.

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  16. Why do they call them crow’s feet? Crows have huge-ass talons. These are just tiny lines. Lots and lots of tiny lines. Pinch eyes together, deeper lines. Scowl and frown, ugly lines dragging the mouth down and creasing that space between the brows. What is that called? Oh, shit. Don’t concentrate. When you concentrate, there’s a football field grid pattern across the forehead. Football fucking field I tell you. Or maybe that’s just because the forehead is so huge. Big-ass forehead. More lines. Brown spots like so many coffee stains on the face, like freckles that all ganged up and made a bunch of larger freckles. Big-ass, huge-ass, large-ass freckles. Man, getting old sucks.

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    1. This is hilarious. Oh, and a big forehead is a fivehead. Seriously, though, this is not just funny, but touching and real. I don't make enough facial expressions to have many lines, but ear hair? Fucking ear hair? ;)

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    2. :D I think I have a sixhead.... Glad it was funny - as intended. Time is too short today to stay and read and comment on all goddammit. Until next week!

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  17. "Wake up. Come on!"
    "wha...."
    "Really bad form to be late on the first day. Hurry."
    i got up out of bed, stretched, and looked through the window into the densest fog I'd ever seen. "wasn't it supposed to be sunny today..." I stopped. Who was I talking to? I hadn't been married for twenty years. I turned back to the bed. Suddenly cold, I saw a body exactly like mine beneath the sheets. What the...
    And on the other side of the bed, a tall blond stranger stretched his wings out behind him.

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    1. I love magical realism and this is good example of why. Amazing how much can be packed into such a short piece. Well done, my friend.

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  18. She sat up in the bed, her body reluctant, the orderly assisting her with a smile. “Take this,” he said, tipping a glass against her lips, encouraging her to swallow until he was satisfied that at least some of it had gone.

    It was too bright and her body ached. Her mouth felt like it'd been filled with wadding and everything was still blurry. What the blazes had happened? Who was that man? And more to the point, where was she? She looked around her, images slowly solidifying as her eyes became accustomed to the light. There was a window with blinds, that man again, a monitor thingamabob with a line dashing from one side to another and a woman in a uniform, looking grave. She wasn't familiar either. Who were all these people? And why wasn't she at home?

    The orderly eased himself onto the bed, kindly faced and calm, taking her hand. “This is gonna be hard,” he said, his eyes suddenly solemn and his smile bleaching to a line. “You were in an accident and you got quite beat up. It was touch and go for a while but we think you're through it now. All you have to do is rest. Recover.” He reached across to the table, picking up the glass again. “Don't try to speak for a while. It's been quite some time. You were in a medically-induced coma. But now you're back.”

    An accident. That would explain it. She must have been brought to a hospital. Closing her eyes, she tried to remember. A car. Was that it? She'd been in the back seat, her mum and her dad in front, driving to school. And then nothing. Just a big grey void from then till now.

    Opening her eyes again, she sagged against the cushions, feeling deflated and adrift. There was a mirror across the room; an elderly woman framed there, her hair like a ball of steel wool and a nose like a hawk. She'd an attendant too; the double of the one she had...

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    1. Wow. This is an awesome piece, brother. I gotta step my game up. ;)

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    2. I love my little twists. And you do damn well, bro. :D

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  19. If I keep talking. Just keep talking. Snip the interruption - tell a funny story that makes me look bad. Don't leave an opening. You know what she'll fill it with. So, smile that billboard smile, sell them teeth whitening strips, get drunk and smoke a cigarette the wrong way. Fucking relax and watch the smoke lick the ceiling.

    Me? I'm gonna keep talking. Long as I'm looking in this mirror and seeing nothing. I know you'll just open your mouth and say true things, and I have no goddamn use for true things right now. I taste aspirin.

    Turn the music up if you don't want to hear me talk. I don't want to hear it either. I just don't listen - that's the trick. Click. Click. Click.

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  20. See, here's the thing. I don't know if I'm comin' back or not. And if I don't, well, there's some shit I wanna say, and there's some stuff I want you to have.
    My baseball glove. Yours. No one's ever worn it but me, so it's gonna take it a while to get used ot your hands.
    There's a box of old porn mags in the garage, under the painter's cloths. Burn it, or enjoy it, or whatever, but don't let Ma find it.
    My copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, and I want you to read it. It'll help with the next thing. I want you to have my bike. I know, it's gonna feel strange for you to be drivin' but maybe it'll help you remember the afternoons when we rode together. Be safe with it, but have fun.
    And the last thing I wanna give you buddy is a little advice. Find someone to hug you as tight as you held on to me. You're gonna be a good man. You'll be better if you share that.
    They're callin' me. I gotta go. I hope I see you in July, but if I don't, I've said what I needed to.
    Love you brother.

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    Replies
    1. That was beautiful. Hard to type with the lump in my throat.

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    2. I figured the bike would get ya :-)

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  21. Peculiar sounds from an unknown instrument tickle auditory nerve endings. If you squint, the slowly rising bubbles in the glass become tiny helium balloons drifting on invisible liquid currents. Hmmm. "Liquid Currents". Sounds like a band name.

    Where was I?

    Reverential musings on the cyclical nature of time occasionally give way to an "Aha!" moment that too soon passes. But it will repeat again before long. See, it really is cyclical.

    Step outside the eddy of time and become an observer. Odd that the vocalist is singing about San Francisco and pretty girls with flowers in their hair when a peek outside would reveal howling wind and biting snow.

    Sun damaged or wind ravaged...the results are the same.

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    Replies
    1. Man, this is fire. The cadence and rhythm. Like a full out sprint. At least I read it that way. And I'm glad I did. Power, for sure.

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    2. Poetry. I always approve of poetry.

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  22. I stare out over the tops of heads decorated like war parties on acid. Every color of the rainbow. Gravity is defied. I'm sweating so much I can barely hold the strings in place and it doesn't matter anyway because all anyone hears is this kind of screaming droning sound from the amps and guttural wails from the mosh pit misers.

    It's so fucking loud. That's something not enough people get to do. Stand on a stage and you're vulnerable, but if you have this thing that sounds like a fucking cyclone when you touch it - well, it's a pretty effective cattle prod.

    And sometimes, if you get the levels just right, the chemistry correct, if you find yourself with racing pulse and harmonic chivalry, sometimes it's like the entire world disappears for a few songs and the manic panic girls and the wallet chain poseurs don't care, but you do. And so do like three other people. Fuck the rest. That's enough.

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    Replies
    1. Yep... that is enough. Thanks for the look inside the performer's head... well written as always.

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