It was a mistake to go o the attic. I had mistaken the quiet for…what? resolution? That maybe they were gone? Freddie is chittering, “titties! boobs!” Stupid little thing. We’re okay. He wings overhead as I hit the top of the stairs. I track him as he goes round three times and closes the door to the birdcage where he sleeps. Guess he just wanted me to know he was …
She has three fingers and one thumb on each hand — just like a cartoon. Her Maker took shortcuts with her, it seems. There are other ways she is not of us, her hair is too white; her skin, too dark. The gray eyes are some compromise of extremes. When I need a view well outside of myself, I go to her. Nothing like an alien perspective to put …
“You’re gorgeous.” The gut response is to argue the point. The list of what-is-not-gorgeous and possibly-downright-ugly springs to mind. That is, her mind. What she says instead is, “Thank you.” and walks away.
A charm invests a face Imperfectly beheld. The lady dare not lift her veil For fear it be dispelled. But peers beyond her mesh, And wishes, and denies, ‘Lest interview annul a want That image satisfies. -Emily Dickinson You do know that what you see is carefully edited. So much is behind the veil. So much is left out. Context. Wars, scandals, legislation. So many words. No need to report …
With each step, the hallway doubles in length. Behind each door is the possibility of the man. Maybe behind each door. She can’t escape him. Turning around doesn’t seem to matter. “Am I turning at all?” “You’re thinking.” The hall recedes and disappears into a spoon in a cup.
Everything has something that makes them tick. Sometimes it’s a battery. Sometimes that battery is dead. Thought there were words enough there to get a story going. Sometimes that battery is dead. So there is the review of the day, the asking of feeling, maybe a revisiting of memory and looking for holes. Perhaps it is safe to visit the box labeled “dead to me” for some thing, some spark, …
“You’re thinking.” he said. Coming back to the physical world is swimming to the surface from the bottom of a swamp. She lets it go. Reluctantly. That pearl of thought is lost. Never very good at holding on to ephemera, even the stuff that lives inside her mind. Cute. Okay. He can be forgiven for interrupting that particular reverie. Seems unimportant now. It turns out it really was important, but …
ENTRY # 2569 I kept waking up and going back to bed until it was right. The first time was around 6 and who knows what monkeys were inhabiting my brain before I opened my eyes, but I woke up crying, Not the sobbing cathartic kind, just a quiet hopeless kind. The dog was concerned. I checked my computer for stories and to see if anything had changed – it …
ENTRY # 2542 I am not surprised that the Capuchin sounds like Pat Morita. (The other option would have been James Earl Jones, but the Capuchin does not have the authority of God.) Depending on whether or not I want to take what he is about to say seriously, I can either channel Mr. Miyagi or Arnold. I have placed the photograph unmolested back into the box. The woman and …
ENTRY # 2539 From where I am right now, I cant imagine a resolution to the story. This is where semi-autobiographical fiction can take its turn, because even I hate watching it unfold in real time. The head monkeys were never very precise. They were just a wall of internal noise. Now that Ive given them character, I kinda have to make something up. Still dont know what they (as …
