I really can’t pinpoint the moment I went from being young and fun to being old and sour.
Sometime after I started my first serious job and somewhere between the third and tenth time I had to sell out everything I believed in is my best guess.
chains
Totally uncharacteristically, he made sure to buy snow chains for the big road trip from warm LA to Salt Lake City, what with the forecasts calling for icy conditions and snow, snow, snow.
Since it didn’t snow the entire time, the snow chains sat in the trunk, forgotten, until the car got a flat and he had to move them to get at the spare, which, of course, he had forgotten to keep inflated.
Unravelling
Oh shit she’s unravelling!
Woollen dog comes apart.
Ants
I set the ants in my yard various tasks.
I’m trying to get them to evolve but they keep complaining I’m only doing it so I don’t have to hang my own clothes up or mow the lawn.
For two
The cataclysmic retardation my best friend suffered utterly destroyed him and left a fucked up shell.
Now I have to do twice as much and be twice as good because I’m trying to live for both of us.
Vitamin D
He couldn’t take his eyes off his mother’s breasts as she combed his hair for school. He quickly threw his head under her shirt and began having breakfast.
Three A.M. Laundry
His eyes dart left right and back to the rumbling laundry apparatus before him, and he leaps. After a moment’s observation, he is still perplexed as to why his sister comes down here so often.
Thank You
Dreams have always lingered. You are helping me make them a reality.
Manifestos
If you’ve got a day off tomorrow like me then I’ve got a totally awesome idea for us!
Let’s all work on our manifestos together!
Not Close Enough.
On a craggy hilltop just thinking about fishing, the misty rain over the Coral Sea soaks my thoughts of better times, of the dreams that never seem quite able to touch, the rocks below seeming so far away, the wind so cold, memories diminishing.
Looking up, out of the curtain of wind swept rain the multi story grey monster, a US carrier, its deck stretched out so close, stepping off the hilltop I found nothing, just the wind and rain, following by the sickening thud, snap, and tearing of flesh as the lower legs find the rocks below, trying to grab the grass before bouncing further to the underside (the underworld), finding not a blade, the deck just not close enough.
The Lost Dog
It was a chilly twenty-three minutes past two in the morning of one late October when Archie, the Johnsons’ progressively arthritic and generally grumpy West Highland Terrier, finally managed to squeeze beneath the fence, evade the gaze of the facility’s security lights and set off down the alleyway as fast as he could carry himself, back to where he’d come from, quite sorry he had ever left in the first place.
He was followed close behind by a great many others – big and small, young and old, stumbling and hobbling – who stuck with him all the way across frosty fields and muddy paths, over New Town tarmac and Old Town cobbles, beneath icy black skies and towards the fire-bitten sunrise that lit up the delighted face of the youngest Johnson as he called out to his parents, looked down from his bedroom window upon a garden of seventy-three brand new pet dogs and locked onto the bright black eyes of one tufty white and decidedly less grumpy face.
Canadian Politics
I could not believe the audacity of the pompus ass. Just because she was our Member of Parliament did not entitle her to a new fur coat at taxpayer’s expense.
Al Dentes
A thousand and five thoughts were whirring through his head, among the most logical, number seventy seven was a wondering about only having felt his heart beat three times in the twenty seconds previous. Number fourteen was less rational considering the cirumstances, ‘pepperoni or capricciosa?’
Nevermore
Regret
He studied her face, thinking how beautiful she was, and thought of all the nights he had left her alone, frantic with worry, while he caroused with his friends. After several minutes, he dialed the number, and with tears rolling down his cheeks, said, “I’d like to report a suicide.”
Time Opens New Wounds
After awhile, Stan convinced himself it really had been only a one night stand. Two weeks later, he forgot his wedding anniversary.
On a Child’s Death
He came into this world with a triumphant howl and as I cradled him in my arms I cried tears of joy. He left this this world for another realm and as I cradled his head once more I bent my head over him letting the tears of sorrow wash over his face.
Stakeout
Nothing was happening. He dozed off, and when he awoke nothing had changed.
Lend it
We launched an epic war of conquest and years later we returned home, bloody but victorious.
Next time we ask to borrow a cup of sugar, just lend it ok?
Paper
This paper belongs to four strangers (they all got off at different stations). Ink-strained and alone, but at least it got a free ride.
– Tom Burns
Nightmare
He woke up covered in sweat, nervous, with his heart beating really hard due to that dreadful nightmare: he stabbed his own wife while she was sleeping, with such an anger…
His hands were soaked in some kind of red dense liquid, he was holding a knife.