Friday, November 24, 2017

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.


It's wrapped around your neck. It's in the center of your teeth. It's in the trials and tribulations of your poor mind as you sleep. Fuck your conscience, utter nonsense, this squalid business of catharsis? I find it laughable. Cut another line and cue the tape, I'm ready for my solo. 

Your eyes were empty sockets, and I smiled by it, smiled too white because of the fucking black light. What the fuck is up with that? Now? That's some freak show shit. And if you scare me with the strobe again, I'll cut your heart out and eat it. 

Goddamn, the walls.

Why is everything you say soaked in bullshit and misery? Why am I even reaching for some meaningless approbation? Epiphany. Look at the bald monkeys dance.


Humanity? Insanity. 

We never had a chance. 


You judge your neighbors' oddities and indulge yours spasmodically. You get magazines in stacks, but only read them periodically. They're decoration. Like red death-fruit. If that's even true. 

Look at me, so cute. So astute. 

Now excuse me. I have ceased to amuse me. And I'm going to use this claw-hammer to fix the way the world's abused me.

Hammered. Sanguine. 

Watch while I drive the first nail in. 

#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...

Friday, November 17, 2017

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.



His eyes were half-closed, but that wasn’t what made them hard to look at. It was the color. Somewhere between grey and yellow. Not the color eyes should be. Not human eyes. But that’s the color they were. And you didn’t want to be disgusted, but you couldn’t help it. 

Just like you couldn’t help the fact that you tried not to breathe when you were in the room.
God. That room. Too white. Before someone got the smart idea to paint hospital rooms seafoam or pink or beige. That white room seemed an unfair contrast to the spoiled-milk eyes. Sick and scummy like old butter.

And it always ended the same way.

“Go on, Johnny. Give Grandpa a kiss.”

And you wanted to scream. I never even kissed the man when he was alive. And then you thought: “he’s still alive, idiot.” Then, “no, he isn’t, not really.” Everyone standing around waiting for you to put your lips on that sandpaper cheek. And you couldn’t explain. You’d loved the man. Actually flat-out loved him. Not like your Mom who tolerated him. Not like your uncle who hadn’t spoken to him in ten years.

This was not him anymore, and kissing had never been part of the bargain in the first place. And he was old. He didn’t even know where he was. You didn’t even want to be in the room. Hell, you knew he wouldn’t have wanted you in there. He would have wanted you outside, breathing the fresh air that was no longer an option for him.

But you kissed him. Because the alternative was too hard. And would require too much explanation. 

Let the skeletons stay in the closet.

You kissed him and thought, “when I grow up, I sure hope I’m not a big-ass hypocrite like y’all.”

And then everybody went to Dairy Queen.


#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...

Friday, November 10, 2017

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.


“Do you think the dead speak to us?”

Her head was canted to one side. Eyes colored with that film some old folks get. Her hair was white and thin … she had the smell, too. That dusty tooth-decay smell that seems like it’s surrounding you as soon as you get close to it. The question shook me a little. That’s all I’m saying. I don’t get shook too easy, but it was the way she said it – slow, calm – too slow, too calm.

“I don’t know if I ever thought about it … er … no?”

She smashed her fist onto the table with surprising force. It made the egg cups dance for a second. Knocked my juice glass onto the floor, but it didn’t break. Jelly jars are built for rough living. It didn’t even spill because I’d finished the juice first like I always do.

“What the hell kind of answer is that, boy? You don’t sound sure at all, but you’re sure sounding like it’s sure. How do you know?”

I wanted nothing more than to get up and walk out of the kitchen, past the green stove and the green fridge, straight out into the green yard where I knew Bullet would be waiting. But I was stuck.

“Well, I ain’t never heard no dead person talking to me.”

“You ever seen God, boy? Nope. That doesn’t mean he doesn’t exist. You like to fish? How come you go fishing if you’re not sure that there are fish in the water?”

“But I am sure that there are fish in the water.”

“You catch a fish the first time you went? ‘Cause I remember you coming home with your Deddy. Crying. For a while. Saying there weren’t no fish to be caught.”

“It takes some time to learn.”

“But you’re prepared to tell me that the dead can’t talk after eleven long years on this planet?”

“Jeez, Gram. What are you so fired up about? I didn’t do nothing but sit down to eat breakfast.”

She looked shamed then. Or scared. Truth was, she looked like she was waiting to get punched in the face. That shook me, too. And, like I said, I’m usually pretty steady.

“I heard your Deddy last night. I wasn’t asleep. Maybe not all the way awake. You know that place right between the two? The one where if you wake up, your heart’s pounding and you can’t hardly fall back asleep?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, I heard him. He said, ‘It’s OK, Mama. Wasn’t your fault.’”

“Well…”

“Well what? I never did nothing to that boy. Why’s he coming to me in the middle of the night telling me not to worry?”

“Gram, you might have imagined it. It might have been a dream. Hell, maybe it was him. Maybe they let you get drunk in heaven, and he didn’t know what the hell he was talking about.”

She got that look again. Like she was mad. Like she was going to reach for something to swing at me. Then the whole table flipped. I swear I didn’t touch it, and Gram wouldn’t have had the strength, but it knocked her over. Twisted her.

She lasted a few months after that. Never was the same. She got weak. Then, she died. And you’re not going to believe me, and I don’t expect you to believe me. But the truth is the truth.

The night she died, when I was lounging in that small place between awake and asleep, trying to figure out how I felt about the whole thing, I heard his voice. And he wasn’t drunk one bit.

“It’s OK, son. Wasn’t your fault.”

#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...

Friday, November 3, 2017

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.

The stream is maybe eight feet wide, but it’s deep under the tree on the opposite bank. You can see the bottom in your mind. You’ve mapped it out with lost lures and broken line and fish caught and released. You probably don’t have it perfect, but I bet you’re closer than you think. It’s been many years. You’ve stood, braced against the rushing water, for many hours. There are brookies in the stream. And you know where to find them. That seems both just and unjust.

So many things do.

But, today, it doesn’t matter. You don’t care about the fish; it’s about the ritual. Because the old man is dead, and that doesn’t make any kind of sense. But he wouldn’t want you listening to some bullshit preacher talking doggerel and nonsense. He’d want you here on the stream. And it’s where you can still feel him beside you. Still smell the cigars he smoked to keep the bugs away – even when there wasn’t a bug in sight. 

Sometimes, you gotta hold your vices tight.

You flip the bait into an eddy and watch it dance for a second before it sinks. Your finger on the line – you’ve done this a hundred times. A thousand. A million? A lot. A whole fucking lot. And this was the old man’s favorite spot. So, it is both surprising and expected when you feel the tap, tap, tap on the line. You set the hook gently, and then it’s all focus. Time disappears and it could have been thirty seconds or a minute, but suddenly you got a nice little brookie finning by your boot and, for a second, you don’t know what to do.

And that makes no sense. Until you think about it.

Who are you going to tell when you’re packing up the car? Who’s going to give a shit about one fish – even though the colors were so deep? So rich. No one cares. It’s just a fish. But he would have cared. He would have asked if you’d taken the barbs down. How much of the hook did the fish get? Did you have to take her out of the water?

The car is waiting where you left it, but it’s a truck because it’s yours. It’s not an old, brown Dodge Colt. It doesn’t smell like horehound. It doesn’t smell like anything. There are a few worms left in the can on your belt and you dump them by the car. Strictly for the birds. You hear him say it. And that’s enough. 

It’s a damn sight more than you would have gotten at church.

#2minutesgo Tweet it! Share it! Shout it from the top of the shack you live in! I will be out most of the day, but I'll be back...