Friday, April 24, 2015

2 Minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!

Write whatever you want in the comments section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! 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. 

Let me hear you say it. Let the words fall from your lips like gentle atrocities. Cities will crumble. It doesn't matter because you know everything is relative. We're all related, brothers, sisters, distant, dirty cousins - so, don't sugarcoat it. We're family. 

I feel like you started talking before I was born and you'll be the last one at the funeral. Not because of any sense of duty, loss, decency. It will be all about you. And you might even wonder at why it's like that - justify it - isn't everything about the self?

Just out with it. We've danced around it long enough, parried sufficiently - it's time to thrust. I'll be OK, and you'll be OK. You feel cramped now, but the room will seem a lot bigger once the elephant is gone.


Thanks for stopping by! I'll be out MOST of today (working, no computer) but, rest assured, I'll be reading everything and commenting as I have time, so check back. Post your pieces on your blogs, telephone poles, passing pedestrians, etc. if you like...it's a fun web o' writing.

#2minutesgo

Thursday, April 23, 2015

Sour

She is in the heat of you. The slow, sinking, septic, stink of you. She lives in crevasses. You smell of her, and her scent is abhorrent. You don't know this because no one tells you. So you drag this morbid train behind you, always ducking. She won't save you and she won't even warn you when the goddamn train is coming. You'll stand there 'aw shucks, Mable' and then you'll be fucking dog food. Coyote food. You'll be slime and mush and sickness like she is. Maggots.

She is not a Siren. She is not a warrior. She is not a succubus. She is malignancy and complicity and filth and she doesn't even exist except in your mind. She is knitting sweaters, somewhere. But not for you.

You hear her voice sometimes and you shudder because you will never recover from the blow dealt:

You woke alone in the bed. She came home drunk and disorderly and it looked like she'd fucked half the City because they had coke. And maybe she had. And it didn't matter. And that is the sadness. That is the concoction of revulsion that was created.

You will wake with the taste of her on your lips and you will, seldom, but sometimes, remember summer days when you were so happy it hurt.

Because the fall is worse the higher you climb.


Friday, April 17, 2015

2 minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!

Write whatever you want in the comments section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! 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. 

There is a smell to them. They look with secret eyes, yellowed and dripping - there is the rush of wind in your brain and you wonder where it comes from. They aren't big. Short and sturdy like country kids, they'd look almost wholesome if it wasn't for their faces. 

The eyes are part of it; they are a sick malignancy. The smell doesn't help, it's pungency creeps onto your tongue and you can taste the blood. Still, it would be alright if it was just the faces, just the smell. You watch them writhe in the morning air and your whole body revolts - a thousand 'what if' explosions in your brain. 

Even as they begin to feed, you can do nothing but wonder. But the fear is gone somehow, replaced by resignation.

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be out MOST of today (working, no computer) but, rest assured, I'll be reading everything and commenting as I have time, so check back. Post your pieces on your blogs, telephone poles, passing pedestrians, etc. if you like...it's a fun web o' writing.

#2minutesgo

Friday, April 10, 2015

2 Minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!

Write whatever you want in the comments section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! 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. 

Just step on up, boy - toe that line. There's only so many allowed on the other side, but don't go grousing about it, check your ticket number, you memorize that shit. It's gotta be like your middle name - you gotta be ready. See, folks are strange. They get here and they get bored and then they get to eye-wandering around and it's a big clusterfucking mess. Sure, there's pretty birds in swaying trees. Sure, the air smells like honeysuckle and your allergies don't matter anymore. Sure, bud, sure. Just don't go staring at limpid sunsets and miss the bus. We got a room for folks that miss the bus, and you don't want to be in it. 

I hear ya, pal. You're tired - things are rough down there. I understand. The desire, I mean. It's tempting - there's a whole world here you'll never get to see. Pretty girls in sun-dresses so thin they make old men shudder. There's a thousand kinds of sunshine and, if that's too much, the shade smells like cinnamon. Doesn't matter - you got something even better coming, I reckon. Long as I don't catch ya staring for too long. Sure, it don't make sense. Did you expect it to? Hell, we got protocols just like everyone else. Now, get in line for the delousing.

Thanks for stopping by! I'll be out MOST of today (working, no computer) but, rest assured, I'll be reading everything and commenting as I have time, so check back. Post your pieces on your blogs, telephone poles, passing pedestrians, etc. if you like...it's a fun web o' writing.

#2minutesgo

Monday, April 6, 2015

Ashes

There was dust in the air, dust in the cracks of the leather saddle he sat on. Dust in his boots and dust in his eyes. Ears. Hair. The whole world had become dust and, as loud as he screamed, he could only feel the tearing of his own throat. The wind took the words. The dust swallowed everything, made the world swell-bellied with a cataclysm that belied catatonia.

It was Goddamn dusty.

And dust is a misnomer ... this was sand, so fine it floated, but sharp. There were no dust bunnies, there were swirling dust disasters that cut like drill bits. Blinded the cattle. Choked the machinery. The dust was referred to as dust because "dust" seemed manageable. Even hopeful. "Dust" seemed almost silly.

He wasn't laughing.

It had a smell, the dust. Some folks claimed it didn't, but it sure as hell did. Ephraim knew the smell - it was the smell of fear and heartache and dreams destroyed. The dust was hellfire. The dust made Ephraim question his faith. What kind of God would send them storms that could strip whitewash off a fence, blind the livestock, force them to hunt cabin-gaps until it became an obsession?

The dust had a taste when he coughed it up, too. That light iron aftertaste - the grit of it was worse than the blood.

Goddamn, but he hated the dust.

He hated the dust, and he hated the whole Goddamned mess. He should have known. He would always carry that. It had seemed too good to be true, he'd known that, and it had turned out to be exactly how he feared it would be - now, they were sunk in it. Drowning in dust.

The bank owned everything. It owned Ephraim, and he would have rather sold his soul to the Devil than Jep Peters, but there was nothing else to do except watch the fat man get fatter while Ephraim's stock died, while his daughter tried not to complain about her hunger. He could see it in her eyes, in the fevers that were coming more often. The dust was killing them all, and he might as well have been shoveling it into their lungs because he couldn't stop it. Every day, the dust was worse, and, every day, he lost any ground he'd gained, fingers slipping, trying to find purchase in an avalanche of "dust" - at first they'd hidden their fear in morbid humor. Shrugged it off. There was no hiding now. And not a damn thing to laugh about.

*****

Ephraim stood by the freshly shoveled dust. His wife, beside him, spit into her handkerchief and cried silently, tears cutting fresh white swaths down her dirty face. Ephraim squeezed her hand. He thought she squeezed back. He couldn't tell anymore - where they stood - he couldn't tell about any of it. It was ludicrous. A word he'd kept and figured to never use. Mostly, he wished that the dust would just kill them all and get it over with. He was tired of waiting. Tired of burying friends. Tired of shooting his cattle. Tired of the whole thing. He'd taken to carrying his old Colt, and he didn't know why. 

Now, Annie. He couldn't live without that little face - he could see it clear as day, always smiling, always knowing that Daddy would fix things.

Goddamn it.

The preacher was doing good business, and it showed. The preacher and the mortician up to the city - both of them were doing real well for themselves. Lots of customers. His pulse stuttered.

The preacher had his sermon down now, you had to give him that. His words were fat and lofty. He did not speak the language of his parishioners. They humored him, figured that was the way God talked - all big words and theatrical flourish. Hell, when it wasn't one of yours going into the ground, it was almost a pretty good show. Almost.

Ephraim felt her weight shift, and he squeezed her hand one more time. He was hot. Not weather hot - hot from the inside. His heart pounded, and the wind screamed in his ears. He let the preacher's words wash over him, coat him like the dust. He knew it was winding down, and his hand was on the Colt before he had a chance to think about it. The weight of it felt good, true. He raised the gun as the preacher raised his hands. Tried to hold it steady, hands shaking. Tears turning his eyes to mud.

"So, we lay in one of your lambs, taken too soon. And we place our faith in the almighty goodness of God - God has a plan, and it is not for us to reason God's plans. So, we lay Annie into the ground that has nourished her these nine short years. We send her back to her maker with open hearts. Because we must. It is and always will be so. Ashes to ashes ... dust to -"

The gunshot was the loudest thing any of them had ever heard, but there wasn't one amongst them that faulted Ephraim. Some felt like cheering. It wasn't right, but nothing was right. They blamed the dust. They blamed those who could still say the word without feeling an empty sickness inside.

They did not judge Ephraim. You can't judge a man who already lives in hell.

Friday, April 3, 2015

2 Minutes. Go!

Hey, writer-type folks. AND PEOPLE WHO JUST WANT TO PLAY BUT DON'T IDENTIFY AS 'WRITERS' - all are welcome here! Every Friday, we do a fun free-write. For fun. And Freedom!

Write whatever you want in the comments section on this blog post. Play as many times as you like. #breaktheblog! 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. 

Look at that cat, he's a humdinger. Light drips on hair shine, and the world seems so fine - goddamn, that boy can't be stopped. 

Check out that smile, it should be insured. Me, I'm inured to the wiles of the little turd. Watch him move, but don't get caught up in the swerve. He'll knock you down and you'll stand up turned around. Listen, can't you hear that sound? It's the sound of a million moon balls bouncing. 

Watch out for that man, he's not part of our plan. Look at the way he dresses, check that farmer's tan. 

Go to the funeral out of respect, it's more than the least they can expect. See if you can summon up one of them smiles. But it don't matter. 

It's a stacked deck.


Thanks for stopping by! I'll be out MOST of today (working, no computer) but, rest assured, I'll be reading everything and commenting as I have time, so check back. Post your pieces on your blogs, telephone poles, passing pedestrians, etc. if you like...it's a fun web o' writing.

#2minutesgo

Thursday, April 2, 2015

Bleed

I spark the brilliant blasphemy, another bland epiphany. White room, too large walls and frost in air. You were glowing in your malignancy.

I spoke of steep towers, of canyons so deep the human brain cannot comprehend them. I went through the tubes and I kept going. I am fire and deception, the taint of smoke on hot wind. I am fear and bravery. I am striving towards a finish line, always moving, pulled by a lurid jester.

I am sad because I expected more. It's a set up, you gotta figure. You're young and you want to be old. You're old and you want to be young. I want to sing the truth of a song I've never sung.

You are cold depth.

Sitting in a booth, small town, spider-web cracks in the red, sparkle vinyl. You joked about the small juke box and I laughed, fingernails deep in thigh flesh.

I am the ghost of memory, twisted for the entertainment of no one, granted small glimpses of clutch bouquets and June mornings.

Honey, I'm tired, you say. Baby, that's alright, that's just fine. Tired is alright. That's what I say, while I hear the steel on the grindstone and imagine the depth. So deep you can't see the bottom. Can't see the heart for all the blood. But someone's gotta bleed.

There ain't a whole lot that's sure in life. But someone's always gotta bleed. You mark my words.