Die, Mug, Silence

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

The waitress eyed his mug like a Black Friday shopper eyeing the father who just grabbed the last Tickle-Me-Elmo. His knuckles white from keeping a tight grip through the handle around the sphere of the terracotta cup. His eyes glancing at the waitress and back at the coffee, half full and still steaming in his hand. The waitresses grip on the coffee pot equally as tight, a white band appearing where her choke hold on the handle, pressed against her wedding band and drained the blood around that finger.

He watched as she delivered a plate of egg whites to an older man two tables away. Then she walked over to his table.

“How is everything?” her question a distraction to her real intention. A rope-a-dope as her coffee pot hand darted forward across the table toward his mug.

“Everything is great, thank you.” He said, taking a sip from his coffee and bringing closer to his being, away from the hovering mother ship of coffee.

“Great, I’ll be back to check on you.” She wavered eyeing the mug, her hand beginning to shake from the extension of the nearly full pot in her hand. The moment passed and she retreated, moving on to the next table, where their mugs were exposed, and she filled to the brim each one with steaming coffee.

His mind was quiet. Eating alone, he’d become accustomed to the silence in his immediate vicinity. The conversations and cacophony of forks, knives and cups clattering spilled over into his space, but that was to be expected.

The waitress stopped at the coffee maker and began reloading her pot. She glanced back at his table; the mug still locked in his hand. She nearly spilled the coffee but there was more than enough in the chamber to cock back and fire more coffee into his cup, no matter how full it may have been.

She walked straight back to his table. “Refill?” The pot hovering inches from his mug-holding hand.

“No thank you,” he replied.

“Are you sure?” She insisted, pushing the pot closer to him until they nearly made a toast.

“Yes, I’m quite satisfied with the amount I have, one cup is enough.”

“Well, refills are free, sir, don’t be shy.” She was on the attack. He still stayed on the polite defense.

“That’s a great policy but I think I’ll have had my fill with just this one cup, thank you.”

“Okay, I’ll be back to make sure.” She fired back. This shot wiped out his front line and civility became the casualty.

“Ma’am, no need to come back. I only want one cup of coffee.” The smile on his face turned a few degrees to a thin line.

“Okay, we’ll I’ll be back in a few minutes to make sure. People change their minds.” She threatened to leave but her smile faded, and she stayed, her arm shaking from holding the full pot out in front of her.

“Do not come back. I have finished my meal and once I finish this very cup of coffee, this single cup of coffee, I will pay my bill and leave. Should you continue insisting, I will be forced to leave only a 10% gratuity.”

“Sir, are you not happy with our service?” Her brow furrowed and the line became a frown. His brow furrowed and the thin line became a frown.

“Your service is excellent, perhaps a bit too much. It could be said that there is too much service. And if there should be too much of something, it is still inadequate.”

“I will refill that mug.” She pushed the pot against his mug, threatening to tilt its spout into his mug.

“You will not.” He pulled the mug away.

“I will provide this service as per our policy.”

“Policy be damned, I would rather die than accept your refill.”

Sleep, Store, Offense

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Lemuel rested his eyes, just for a moment. The last few days had forced him to be alert, but the moment he let down his guard, he was out. His eyes fluttered rapidly behind his eyelids as his mind processed all its eyes had taken in.

Lemuel watched skeletons running around on a beach with black pebbles. Their bones clacking on the rock as they swiveled their heads around, which, their heads were cameras. Cameras with long lenses that whirred when they zoomed and had cables attached that ran all the way to somewhere Lemuel couldn’t see. The camera head skeletons crowded around Lemuel, pointing their lenses at his lemon stuffed mouth.

The setting and characters shifted. The clacking bones and whirring lenses morphed into the strange noises coming from all the people in the marketplace. All the strange noises from the other creatures in cages also stirred into the blurry soup being made in Lemuel’s mind. He stood in front of a long table, octopi crawling all over each other and up the pillars holding up the tent. A man came out making guttural noises from his mouth and maybe even nose before taking out a giant clever and hacking at the squirming maw of tentacles and beaks on the table. Heads, beaks and tentacles still suctioning flew everywhere.

One landed on Lemuel’s face and he tore it off with a hiss and pop. Lemuel stared horrified at the massacre of the sacred creatures he was taught to hold in reverence. The providers of the ink that allowed the lemonmouth to speak, to stand out amongst themselves and the rest of the world. The ink that allowed them to tell their stories, both ancient and new.

Lemuel began to cry, his tears hot and angry. He began to shake violently. His arms and legs stretching and growing wider all at once. Tiny suction cups dotted his growing arms and he grabbed at anyone with his new tentacles, anyone in the marketplace, but their quick pace and constant noise prevented them from noticing anything was going on. Every person Lemuel grabbed continued making their noises and looking around as if they had forgotten something.

Then Lemuel woke up. Someone was shaking him. He looked up into the eyes of a woman, she smiled but there was no lemon in her mouth and also not a single tooth. She spread her arms wide in the greeting he understood. On her bare chest, between a shirt, he could see the lines of the lemonmouth, from a different ship most likely, and quite old judging by its faded color.

The lines on her chest told a story of motherhood, of disgrace, of shame. There was also a new line, one Lemuel hadn’t initially noticed. It was a skeleton hand, it’s pointer finger and pinky sticking straight up while the thumb and other two fingers were pressed into the palm, almost like a head with horns. Lemuel didn’t recognize that symbol, but in looking up at her face and keeping the new lines in his mind, he noticed a strength.

She motioned for him to follow and he did, this being the only other lemonmouth, or closest thing to one, he had found in a few days.

Outlook, Violation, Thumb

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Lemuel sat at the bow of the ship staring at the thin line that his elders had told him was land. Born on the boat, he’d never been to land, but he was told it was like the deck of a ship that never rocked and often stretched as far as the eye could see. Lemuel was also told that there was no need to ever go there. The ship and the sea had everything they needed. Except for the lemons and a few other supplies.

To go and live on shore among all the evil that existed there was one of the main themes Lemuel was taught time and again. For the lemons and other necessities, special crew members called thumbs were designated and even then, they traveled ashore in groups of three; one with a blind fold, another with a gag in his mouth and the third with earplugs. Each specialized in a sense. The eyes (gag) surveyed and looked for the appropriate vendors. The ears (blindfold) listened to the side conversations of vendors to make sure they were not being taken advantage of. The mouth (earplugs) spoke for the fleet belonging to the Lemonmouths.

Lemuel looked down at his first tattoo, a small black lemon on his right wrist. Made from the ink of octopi and squid pulled up, boiled down and inked by the “daubers”. According to his grandfather, the Lemonmouth needed very little to communicate and in a picture a thousand conversations could be had. By looking at the other’s eyes and down to their tattoos, Lemuel had learned to communicate.

The lemon wedged in Lemuel’s mouth was still fresh, the rind had not yet broken down or been accidentally punctured by a tooth. He wiped away the steady stream of saliva with his water cloth, a strip of sail each Lemonmouth carried around for that purpose. His was brown and crusted by salt but that was normal.

In Lemuel’s world, the lemon was a sacred object. Geronimo Coolidge, their forefather, the lemon prevented scurvy, but it also kept out evil spirits, from entering the body or the world. A world, that for Lemuel, consisted of water and wood, yet he would stare at that thin line near the horizon and wonder what it was like, evil or not.

Insist, Nap, Meaning

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

The cowboys silhouette dipped left and right with the trotting of the horse. Dust swirled around and the tumbleweeds hopped and rolled across the trail. The horse would slow its pace until spurs dug into its side. A quick gallop and then back to a trot but the cowboy demanded they keep moving.

The journey had started just before the sun started peaking at them from behind. Now the sun was slipping behind the mountains in front of them.

They came across a stream and the cowboy stopped, taking the bridle in his hand and leading the horse to water. As the horse drank, so the cowboy dipped his cowhide waterskin for his own drink. After filling it, he cupped a hand into the water and drank.

Spotting a tree across the stream, they walked through the water and tried to rest. The cowboy leaned up against the tree and covered his face with his hat. The horse bended its knees and collapsed immediately into a snore. They would continue on during the night but from transition of light to darkness they would sleep.

Only the sounds of the snoring horse, wind flapping through the leaves and the stream could be heard. The cowboy kicked off his boots and rubbed his feet, keeping the hat over his face. The horse kicked out but kept snoring.

Crickets, invisible to eye but not to the ear, began to drown out the other sounds. The cowboy fell asleep and dreamed.

Of swirling dust, giant tumbleweeds, snorting horses, distant gunshots, crying children and a woman’s embrace. Riding a 20-foot horse, the cowboy approached a city the likes of which he’d never seen. Buildings like mountains, lights in the shape of words and tropical fruits. A thousand bells ringing and glasses clinking. Carts with giant wheels pulled by invisible horses.

The cowboy now rode on a horse smaller than the carts that passed him. He looked up all around to see walls of glass and light. No signs of tumbleweeds, cacti or even dust. A man wearing a bright orange cowboy vest that reflected light carried a giant satchel over his neck and around his waist. The man walked up to the cowboy, looking down at him and tapped two notes together before handing him one.

The cowboy held it in his hand “two for one drink special at the spicy cabana. Girls drink free.”

The horse snorted in his sleep, waking the cowboy who removed his hat and looked out over the plain. No glow in the distance, no sun only the moon, stars and the crickets. Scratching his head, the cowboy pulled on his boots. He stood up and looked all around. With two quick clicks of his tongue, the horse sat up and the cowboy bent down to pet its mane.

Strap, Navy, Onion

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Wiping away the tears under an orange sky. A peach-orange hue mixed with fog, chemicals and city lights. The knife pushed into the onions sending up its own natural recipe of tear gas. One wrinkled hand picked up the cutting board and another used the knife to slide the chopped pieces into a pot.

Sizzling and hissing, the onions surrendered with a delicious smell.

BOOM. BOOM. BOOM. The hands dropped the knife. The ships guns were starting their one-way messages. Boom. Boom. Boom. This time more distant, another ship in the fleet reiterating the firsts statement.

Picking up a potato, the hands deftly maneuvered the root vegetable into little starch squares. After each one, the hands picked up the cutting board and slid the pieces into the pot, adding to the onions smell.

After the potatoes came the carrots. The hands cut little circles, roughly the size of the squares and dropped them into the pot. Halfway through, a message from the enemy came through and rocked the ship back and forth. The hands dropped everything and grabbed a leather strap fastened to a steal handle on the kitchen wall.

The hands and strap swayed with the movement of the ship, both attempting to stay upright. It was only water that had been disturbed but the waves let the ship know it wasn’t pleased. The hands grabbed at the knife and carrot, now working slower, a little shakier.

A bead of sweat dropped onto the cutting board, a reminder. The hands grabbed a shaker of salt and sprinkled it into the pot.

Another message was sent from the enemy on shore, this time a BOOM. The ship’s lights turned red and the hands, fumbling for the strap, found themselves grasping for something as they slid on the floor, back and forth. Steadier, the hands pushed of the ground and shaking, attempted to pick up the knife. Realization. The knife set down, the hands grabbed the salt and a wooden spoon, stirring in salt with the other vegetables.

One hand fumbled for something inside a shirt. A necklace made of wooden beads all cascading down on a fishing line that ended in a lower case “t”. The other hand wiped sweat from a brow and scratched a temple.

“Who had cooked the last supper? Were they aware of the impending doom forecasted for later that evening? Were their signs?”

The pot steamed and the hands relaxed, back to their work.

Wave, Paper, Flexible

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Hands reached for the little boat. Fingers tapping its paper corners and sides but the current whipped it down the gutter. The blue and red ink began to puff out in areas where the boat was pelted with rain and splashed with the small waves rising over sticks, stones and garbage clogging the drains.

Dropped into the makeshift river, this little boat was light and feathery. It’s creases tight and corners sharp. Now after rain, rapids and collisions with hands and debris, the little boat was becoming heavy. The taut micro-fibers ultimately making up the boats triangular shape were losing their rigidity.

The rain turned to hail, and the sky’s angry kidney stones pelted the little boat. Each ice pea dunking portions of the paper vessel into the water. The sail was nailed from the side and submerged before teetering back to its shape. The bow was hit, and the boat flipped over, and righted itself once again, continuing its unguided journey.

No matter the danger, the boat stayed the course and went with the flow of the stream. The only thing that changed it was the fibers loosening their grip on its former shape. With each dip in the water, every wave, every reaching hand, stick, stone, hail or rain drop, the little boat slowly changed.

By the time the rain stopped, and the sun jostled its way through the angry clouds to dry its tears, the little boat was no longer that. Instead, a crumpled piece of paper snagged on a branch and dried in the sun.

A day later, with no rain, snow or hail forecast, a man without a home wandered down the street. The paper shivered in the wind, catching the man’s eye. He bent to pick it up and looked at its blue lines, like a watercolor prison door. Pulling a black marker from the side of his beanie, he wrote.

He stuffed the paper into his pocket and made his way to the intersection downtown. A woman, stopped at a red light looked over to her left and saw a sign that said, “Hungry, anything helps.”

The little paper had changed and changed back again. Now it would change again.

Twin, Undertake, Continental

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

I weaved my way through jumping, sweaty people. Lights of all colors illuminating the room in a series of flashbulb photographs. My mind filling in the gaps where empty spaces had appeared a millisecond before. I touched my ear and in a flash of blue light saw some liquid on my hand, blood. The thudding continued. The sweat was making the hair on the back of my head stick to my neck at every swivel. Where was the bathroom?

I couldn’t know when this acid and bile was going to erupt from my stomach, but a mission to the find the bathroom was what I had to undertake.

To my right, a lizard tongue flickered from the scaly snout of a human sized reptile. No. I looked again. It was gone. I could see the sign with the naked human signifying my vomit sanctuary. The other wore a triangle.

The DJ booth was right in front of me, blocking the quickest route. I turned left. Something licked my right ear. I looked. A yellow eye blinked and the head in which it was housed pulled back its forked tongue.

The bathroom was right around a speaker, I grabbed the back of the speaker and propelled myself forward, through the swinging door of the bathroom. Straight through the swinging door of the first stall. The sides of the bowl caked in dried shit and the pieces of half-digested food of others. Grabbing the bowl of the toilet, my mouth opened and sprayed its own contents into what I realized was the mouth of some sort of lizard. Its tongue lapping at my sick.

Twins? That was my first thought. Not ‘what the fuck?’ or ‘is this really happening?’ My first thought, looking back was relatively rationale and progressive. Was this lizard a twin or a triplet? Not even, how the fuck was this huge lizard coming through the small toilet? I might as well have thought ‘from which part of the continental United States does this lizard hail?’ Jesus.

I pulled my head back and in that blur of a second, I was looking up at the stall door, the ceiling and lapping up sick from a familiar head opening its human mouth back at me. The lizard was gone but now I was looking out from the toilet.

A roar pierced through the thudding of the music. Water rushed all around my head and I began to spin. Faster. Faster. Faster until everything in view blended into shapes and colors. The shapes disappeared and all I could see was black.

The thudding crept back into my ear drums. A thousand little drummer boys in each ear banging to the same beat. I looked up and through the color tinted photographs saw the whole dance floor, the DJ booth, the bar and the signs for the bathroom at the other end of the room.

“Yo, are you alright?” a voice yelled in my ear. I looked up, it was human.

What? I said with my eyes.

“You threw up all over yourself.” The human yelled back.

I wiped at my chin, feeling wet from my beard. The table covered in yellow, bits of hotdog, and red ketchup. At least I hope it was ketchup.

Just a trip, that’s all. I leaned my head back and relaxed. It was over. Then I flicked out my tongue, cloven at the end, and lapped up the vomit.

Offspring, Forward, Tin

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was a simple bike. A red one with a single gear. She loved it. With the exception of a few flat tires, the bike never gave her problems. Not like her previous cycles with their rows of teeth continually biting into the chain and causing it to slip with every hill climb, slope or flat. The red bike simply went, not backward, always in the same direction.

When her mind wandered, she would allow the bike and her legs to carry her body wandering as well. When she felt the pressures of all that is external tightening her body, she would let the curves, slopes and speed of a ride loosen her up. When her heart ached, the two wheels and single frame were as sturdy a companion as any. Though at times she did feel, out of want and not necessity, that a companion would be nice.

She thought about someone with whom she could share her joys, fears, triumphs and failures. Not out of necessity but simply of want, a desire not to be lonely. Perhaps even one day to share the lessons the two of them would learn about their joys, fears, triumphs and failures with little versions of themselves. To create life would be yet another adventure.

Pedaling every day for the same reason yet spurred by different emotions, she thought about her past attempts at love. As she mulled each relationship over in her mind like beads on an abacus, she considered the weight of each person she had loved or nearly loved.  The sum total of which lead her to a question, are there any good men left?

Climbing up a hill, she leaned off the seat and pedaled with her head down. Some of those men had been thieves, stealing her time, attention and love by not completely sharing themselves. Or in some cases, sharing much but not exclusively.

At the peak of the hill, she sat back down and slowed her feet. She thought of the men who had tried to stifle her, to prevent her from being herself and only being for them. Those relationships were shorter.

At the crest of the hill, she stopped pedaling and let the physics of the slope and the wheels do the work. She thought of one more lover and friend. He was none of those things yet he could not take care of himself.

She coasted into her driveway and into the garage. Perhaps someday, he would be ready to come home. Until then, she would protect her heart, protected by dented tin, nevertheless protected.

Shitstorm

A short fictional piece from a long time ago.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

“You’re a good writer.”

Lucy always told me that after I mentioned a new piece I was working on. I never believed her. I never believed anyone unless they told me they didn’t like it. I have no confidence in my writing. I think that’s why I keep doing it. Once I stood up on a surfboard I called it quits. I had done it.

That’s the problem with me, I need reassurance. I keep track of dates, remember peoples birthdays, show up at the same place at the same time every day until we apologetically call in with a raspy voice in between vomits to tell our bosses we can’t come in today (I’m not a fan of run on sentences, they never seem to end).

I guess it’s all a cruel joke. I write because my head fills up. Like a gray cloud and when it rains it pours. A class four hurricane is less chaotic. A confident writer is like a four-eyed teen on his first date. I try to believe it but I’ll always know the truth.

If I could just have it all; confidence, whit, humility, a fresh perspective, a unique point of view without any pretension. I might be happy. I might be able to participate in my own existence rather than simply write about it.

Lucy thinks I should let loose. I’m neither up nor down and unless I’m interested, nothing sticks. My interests are excessively fickle for any promises. I drink to have conversations, to care, to show concern and consideration (Next I’ll try expressing myself with words that begin with the letter D).

It takes everything I have to be sincere. being drunk simply makes the spinning slow down for a while. Or maybe the spinning speeds up so fast I don’t notice that I can’t concentrate. Blackout. Either way alcohol nurtures society but absolutely obliterates the individual. I choose not to be a martyr for booze. I don’t believe I ever had the courage to live absolutely on the fringe. Yet I have just enough disdain to keep the television off.

Kids

A short story, 2018.

By Marcus Jonathan Chapman

I stepped out of the Vault.  I could only stomach so many drinks on open mic night.  I lit a cigarette and closed my eyes for the first inhale.  The pure puff.  I didn’t need a reason to drink but the first cigarette after wetting my throat was as good as any.  I could feel the smoke coating all the way down to my esophagus.  I held for a second then let the smoke waft out of my mouth.

I had gone out by myself.  The feeling was exhilarating because I knew how others looked at the lonely guy at the bar.  Going to parties or out with friends was predictable.  Sure, I would laugh and make others laugh but there were so many other emotions.  I flicked my cigarette and headed for the underground bar located two blocks away.  I had only been there twice before.  The crowd out front usually consisted of sun burnt felons with purchase stickers on their flipped-up baseball caps.  The thought and the alcohol made my blood angry.  I lit another cigarette to relieve the unwanted stress.  Rounding a corner, I looked across the street at the entrance.  A kid about 7 years old stood out front squatting down, tilting back and forth.  After crossing the street, I saw it was a little girl.  I was curious.

     “What are you doing out here?”

She didn’t look up but responded cheerily.

     “Waiting for my mommy.”

It was nearly midnight.

     “Where is she?”

I became conscious of my cigarette.

     “She’s downstairs.”

     “In the bar?”

I flicked my cigarette away from her.

     “Yeah.”

I thought about being noble and telling her mom off but decided that getting rid of my cancer stick was enough.

     “Okay, well be careful up here.”

     “Okay.”

     “And don’t talk to strangers.”

     “Okay.”

It wouldn’t ruin my evening because nothing beats the excitement of entering a bar.  It feels like waiting for the ball to drop at the roulette table.  Except the odds are always in my favor.  I walked up to the bar and placed my bet.

     “A jack and coke, please and a pint of whatever.”

I pushed the chair next to me a few inches further away.  I always got too restless at the counter.  The barkeep came back with my drinks and grabbed the money I put on the table.  I was a winner.  What I did with my winnings was unpredictable.  Often, I never knew how an evening would end.  I finished off the jack and coke in three gulps.  There was more beer, so it took a few more swigs.  It was time for a cigarette.  The trip upstairs was a little more cautious than the jog down.  I had plenty of time to pad my fresh pack, rip the plastic, tear the paper and flip a fag up with my thumb.  I pulled the cigarette out with my lips and stepped outside.  A couple were doubled over laughing and trying to say…something.  I smiled and raised my eyebrows as I fished for my lighter. 

The boyfriend made his way to me.

     “Dude, dude, dude.”

     “What’s up?”  I chuckled to be polite, but his laughter was contagious.

     “We just saw this homeless man.”

This sent them both into a guffaw.  I sent out an amused snort, realizing I was trapped, at least until he got to the punchline.  The girlfriend composed herself.

     “We saw this homeless guy walk by and his pants were sagging all the way down PAST his ass.”

The boyfriend picked it up from there.

     “And he was pushing his cart in front of him and shuffling like Frankenstein.”

The two lost it again and I thought about correcting the boyfriend.  Doctor Frankenstein was the creator of the creature.  The creature had no name.  A device probably used to further the creatures struggle with its identity.  I realized I was boring myself and didn’t think the couple would give a shit about what I had gleaned from my literary criticism class.

     The couple’s laughter died down and we talked.

     “I’m Charlie, Cigarette?”  I offered.

I don’t remember their names, but we talked.  Where you from?  What do you do?  How long have you lived there?  They were nearing the fork in the conversation where strangers either become friends or never see each other again.  Then the boyfriend said something that really impressed me.

     “Well now that the bullshit is out of the way, how about some weed?”

I thought about it for a few cigarette drags.

     “I appreciate the offer, but I had an experience with a demon in a bathroom the last time I mixed.”

     “Oh shit, you trip out?”

     “You could say that.”

     “I’m sorry bro.”

     “No worries, now I mainly stick to spirits.”

     “Then let’s get a drink!”

We hoofed downstairs and livened up the near empty underground bar.  We ordered drinks.  The couple would talk.  I would talk then we would all laugh.  Nothing would be remembered in the morning.  We all spoke freely. The girl sat down while the boyfriend and I laughed and patted each other on the back.

The boyfriend was getting horny.

     “Babe, you tired?  You want to leave?”

     “No let’s just get out of here.”

     “She’s right.”  I said, “This place is dead.  Let’s go to the Vault.  It’s a bar just a couple blocks away.  I want a cigarette anyway.”

We started our final trek up the stairs and the boyfriend shouted out.

     “Fuck this place!”

I laughed and high-fived him while his girlfriend looked mortified. 

I was drunk.  I handed out cigarettes and cut across the street toward the Vault.  By this time all the amateurs would be gone.  It was time to do some drinking.  The boyfriend ordered us three beers.  I was extremely grateful, but I ordered another jack and coke.  I didn’t like to take chances. 

We bullshit some more.  The couple danced.  I can never remember names.  Then the girl danced alone.  I was towing the line between drunk and insanity.  I sat quietly responding on auto-pilot.  The girl stopped dancing and the boy went to the bathroom.  She sat across from me and stared into my eyes.  She bit her lip.  Leaning on one arm she slid her finger up and down her bra strap. 

I watched the tip of her finger from the top of her shoulder to the top of her breast.  Her leg touched mine and mimicked the motion of her finger.  I looked toward the bathroom.  I stood up somber and put a cigarette in my mouth.

     “Cigarette?”  I offered.

She didn’t take the bait and continued lusting.  I looked toward the bathroom.

     “I think I’m going to take off.  Where did your boyfriend go?  What was his name?”

     “Why don’t you stick around.  He’ll be in there for a while.  He’s sick.”

     “Oh, well I’ll give him a cigarette when he comes out and call it a night.”

I was intently staring at the bathroom and looked up.  I wanted to get the fuck out of there.

     “Here, why don’t you give him the cigarette.  I’m in and out of consciousness.”

I handed her the cigarette.  She continued to stare. I could feel her horny, cheating eyes following me out the door. I stepped out of the Vault and lit a cigarette.  I closed my eyes, feeling the smoke coat my throat, esophagus and lungs.  I exhaled.  Alone again.

Block, Oral, Solve

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Oral?

Yes.

Oral, as in…

Yes.

As in the type of examination?

Oh. Yes, that too.

Okay, I’ll have to perform orally. Actually I’m more comfortable with the term verbally if that’s alright with you?

*I prefer oral…

What was that?

Nothing, yes, perform verbally.

And I just stand here on my blocking?

Right where you are standing, that’s fine.

On the black tape X, correct?

Yes, where you are standing is fine.

I’ve read through the monologue, I think I understand who the character is but I’m not sure what his motivation is. What problem is he solving in this scene?

*Jesus Christ.

I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you.

Your character is ordering fast food at a drive-thru. He’s solving his problem of hunger.

Okay, I did think of that but then I thought, well is my character really starving or is he high? Is he just stress eating? Does he have a high metabolism? Or does this meal represent his first meal after going nearly 3 days without food?

Why don’t you go with your instinct and we’ll have you say your two lines, then I’ll see if it works or not with the director’s vision.

Okay.

I’ll start reading all the other parts, you read your characters.

Okay.

Exterior, Billy’s Burgers, night. one car pulls up to the drive thru and begins to order. Our main character, Sally, listens, slightly annoyed. Sally – Welcome to Billy’s, what will you be munching on this evening?

I’ll have the billy cheeseburger, fries and a pepsi.

Will that complete you’re order?

Yes, thanks.

Customer #2 drives around to the window…and that’s the scene. Thank you. That was great. We’ll let you know–

–Well, that was my take with my character driving through with the munchies.

Okay.

I’d like to try again but this time my character is simply stress eating, not hungry.

Fine. We’ll take it from your line.

Actually, could you read the line before mine, it helps so I can react.

Sally – Welcome to Billy’s, what will you be munching on this evening?

I’ll…have…the billy cheeseburger (long pause) and…fries…and a pepsi.

And scene. Great, that was different. Thank you for–

–Okay just one more but this time.

No, I’ve seen enough to make a decision. I’ll call you with the directors decision.

What about the verbal part? I mean the oral part.

We can skip that today.

No, I want to do this right. If nothing else I need the experience auditioning.

No need, you did fine.

Please, I insist. I’m new to acting and even just getting auditions and going through those is helpful.

We don’t always do the oral, um, examination.

Well, could you do it today?

It’s a little unorthodox, but this is Wollyhood, you understand? It’s a different town, we do our own thing out here.

Yeah, sure, I can go with the punches.

The test is really more about seeing if an actor has what it takes to perform under pressure.

Okay.

We like to see that under the most stressful, uncomfortable conditions, an actor can take art to the next level.

Okay.

That by passing the oral exam, they show us just how committed and confident they are.

So what’s the test.

Kneel down and suck my cock.

Exemption, Marine, Slot

A short piece incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was a losing combination but they met at cherry, grapes and seven. She was a marine, he was a truck driver. She was killing some time away from the barracks, not looking but maybe looking for something different. He was playing the slots like he was filling out paperwork for a 401K and life insurance policy all in one. Gripping the black stick he pulled it down, putting the machine into gear and starting its flashing lights, beeps, and boops.

She was adjusting her camo cap and looking at the roulette tables across the casino, to her right. She bumped into him. They looked at each other and then at the combo that stopped on the screen; cherry, grapes, seven. He chuckled to himself then stood up, “excuse me ma’am.” and gave a limp salute.

She smiled, “At ease, I bumped into you. Let me buy you a drink.”

“That isn’t necessary, ma’am. I’ve already got my security blanket here.” He twirled his glass so that the ice clinked.

“Well, if you change your mind I’ll be at the bar putting on my dancing shoes.” She smiled and looked him up and down.

He smirked and looked down at her tan boots. “I bet you could cut up a rug with those standard issue’s.”

“What’s your name, soldier?” she asked.

“Tom.”

“Staff Sergeant, Mary Maline.”

“Mary, it’s a pleasure to meet you. If your offer still stands, perhaps I’ll slip on some dancing shoes at the bar as well.”

The two made their way to the bar in silence, glancing at each other every so often. He looked down at his drink and around the flashing lights and sounds. She adjusted her cap and looked around at the flashing lights and sounds.

They reached the bar and she ordered. “Two Bulleit whiskey’s, neat.”

He raised his glass to her and finished off his drink, setting it on the bar with a clink.

“Where might two people move their legs and bodies around in a show of complete tom foolery?” he asked.

“I don’t believe the club is open, but there is music playing at the food court, if your up for dancing with complete exemption of social norms.” She answered.

The bar tender set their drinks on the bar. She paid. They toasted to warm casino nights. She grabbed his hand and they zig zagged through the smoke, illusions of grandeur, lights and sound of the casino toward the food court.

There was some contemporary pop playing, they rested their drinks on a deserted table with discarded Chinese food. Then they danced.

Projection, Obstacle, Hour

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

His mind projected to him what he wanted to see. Perhaps not what he would ever consciously want, what his ego would want, but what his id was subconsciously saying to him. A figure with a beard down past his knees. Gaunt cheeks yellowed with jaundice, as was the rest of his naked skin. His ribs showed and the skin between his collar bones sagged enough to hold a shot of whiskey on both sides.

What he faced now was the inevitable state of his future, if he kept at his current pace, actions and emotions. Somewhere within him, it felt only an hour away. The future he now saw in the mirror.

The only obstacle to this vision of fury, wasted away was that constant voice of societal pressure, pounded into his head since childhood that one must keep up appearances, maintain a stiff upper lip, keeping up decorum triumphs over weakness of the spirit. To see a well groomed, well-maintained, well-dressed figure in front of him would, should and could keep him within the acceptable realm of sanity.

He wanted to be in sanity. Completely doused in rubbing alcohol, clean and pure. Free of the germs of doubt, low self-esteem and decay. Though he secretly felt that what modern psychologists labeled as deficiencies of the mind, were really just the variables that made up a persons character and personality. The stamps of an original individual.

Why should his sanity ever be in question when it swam in the same pool of saturated judgements and opinions as those who were insane and those who labeled others insane. It was all the same doggie paddle, just different ends of the pool.

The difference, he thought, was that some very few felt comfortable swimming completely naked, while most felt the need to cover themselves with that seasons flavor of bathing suit. They were all naked, and sex assured that everyone viewed the clothed and unclothed alike, as naked or potentially naked. And so that question of sanity ran down the same track.

He smiled and wondered just how far into the deep end he could swim. How far he could dive before needing to come up for air. How long he could last before feeling the need to cover his nakedness in front of those who pretended not to be naked behind their trunks, one pieces and bikinis.

What was the point of the bathing suit if everyone already knew the truth underneath?

Trace, Estimate, Satisfaction

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

His fingers traced the groove that ran down the center of the barrel of the gun. The pointer finger taking a sharp right turn down to the end of the handle.

“And you know how to use that sweaty?” He licked his lips after he said it.

Her thumb clicked the safety off and moved up to the hammer, cocking it back. She double squeezed the trigger as if clicking a computer mouse. One, two shots went into his chest. The second bullet assisted the first through his chest cavity, and past T5 and T6 of the thoracic vertebrae. Her employers required such details so they could verify them with the coroners office and newspapers.

He was wide eyed and taking short halting breaths.

“To answer your question, yes, I do know how to use this thing.” She let it flop back and forth in her hand. “It’s pretty easy really, just squeeze. It’s like using a weed whacker or hand blender. Pretty straight forward.” She holstered the gun in her bra and put her white gloves back on.

“If I had to guess, you have about 10 to 15 minutes of living left to do. That’s a gift in my book, not many people are given the satisfaction of knowing how much time they have before, well you know.” She sat with her legs crossed, bouncing her right foot over her left and her hands stacked on her right knee.

“You…” he tried to say something but the effort produced bloody spittle on his lips.

“If I were you I would take time to review your surroundings. Start with this beautiful hard wood floor and work your way over the Persian rugs, carefully laid over one another as if haphazard, follow them to the base boards and their precision cuts all the way around the room. Take in the eggplant colored walls and up to the crown molding with its striking bevels, curves and lines so elegantly dividing the wall from the ceiling. Take in the Spanish style texture of the white ceiling and follow that to the center piece of the room, the French empire crystal chandelier. Note how it’s trimmed by Swarovski crystals. I bet you never bothered before today, huh?” She winked at him.

His eyes were glazing over but he laid back and stared straight up at the bell shaped light fixture dangling above him.

“If you don’t mind, I’m in a bit of a hurry, so as you pass I’m going to search your pockets for the information I am required to find. I’ll do that now.” She paused, as if waiting for permission, seeing him blink she proceeded.

Bus, Defeat, Miracle

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

He hopped on, paid the fair and took an open bench seat towards the back. Someone had vomited in the seat across the aisle from him. Gripping the handle above him, swaying with the bus, he lifted himself into the window seat and stared out.

The rain drops on the window made all the head lights look like shooting stars passing him. No one was walking the streets. Homeless were huddled at bus shelters, doorways and underneath shop overhangs.

Then, once again, he thought about her, a new her, a more recent her. As quickly as it had begun it had ended and instead of the hurt subsiding, it was rising again.

He lowered his sleeve by raising his arm and twisting his wrist to check the time. 40 minutes to get home, review what he had written so far, think about the new direction for the project and then call Larry. The new project was about his divorce but he couldn’t stop thinking about the girl friend he had had shortly after signing all the paperwork. He had lost her too.

Maybe lost wasn’t the right word, she had come and gone. He had to sit with that. Accept it and not hold onto it. It was too easy, with everything that had happened over the past year and a half, to not view things as defeats stacking up. He was winning in defeats. He snorted and smiled to himself, checking the neighborhood they were in. Two more stops.

No one saw the smile because of the mask he wore, everyone wore. The pandemic was still raging and he thought about how much social distancing he had already lost, now this “act of god.” It would be nice to experience a miracle some time soon rather than disaster after disaster.

One more stop. The bus pulled away from the curb and he watched the red and blue lights of a cop car across the street. They bounced all inside the bus when they passed.

He had to force himself to think about the story. At first a good idea. Taking his recent experience with divorce and creating a fictional horror out of it, exaggerating the feeling of loneliness, strangeness of the once familiar and the questions of what he had done wrong.

The bus stopped, he grabbed his bag and jogged around the corner to his building. Someone was exiting and held the door for him.

“Thank you.” he said passing.

“No problem, it’s nice to catch a brake sometimes.” The old woman laughed and let the door slip from her hand.

He kept going, trying to force himself to think of the story, to write what he knew but be separate enough from it to tell it coherently. Unlocking the door, he nearly tripped over his dog, Marty who was nearly seizing from excitement.

“Marty! Not now. I got work to do, bud.”

Setting his bag on his desk, he pulled out the notes he had begun taking. Reviewing all the acts and asking himself, what small details can I add that provide some relief to the heaviness of the story?

Production, Costume, Healthy

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

There was a calm in the crowd. That moment the lights flicker, signifying everyone to take their seats. Moments before there were members of the audience everywhere, in the aisles, restroom lines and mezzanine bar. Now they gingerly took their seats and made themselves comfortable. It was a professional crowd, each one doing their part to create a cohesive beast of attention.

He stood, stage right, peeking out of the curtain, watching them. Some opened the programs, others sipped drinks and in the balcony, a few focused their binoculars. They were nearly ready.

He looked down at his wardrobe; adjusting the lapels of his jacket, straightening the collar, un-ruffling his pants, and straightening the noose around his neck. Tonight’s performance would be his first and last. All 23 years of his life led up to this moment.

In the general public, out there where the world communicated in double-speak, entendre’s, metaphors and straight lies, his act was intolerable. Why would a healthy young man of 23 with nothing but future ahead of him take his own life? Why? Why? Why?

The stage would be his answer. He would deliver a monologue explaining his life, experiences, doubts, fears and perceptions. He would be joined on stage periodically by doctors, lawyers, therapists and his own parents. They would ask him questions and he would respond honestly. Then, after he’d make his exit, the audience would have an answer to the question of why, while staring at his swaying corpse.

The idea was that those viewers who accepted his answer may be closer to their own little productions than they would like to admit. And those who still did not understand were either in denial or what the actor playing the psychologist might say “in a healthy state of mind.”

Taking one more breath, he waited for the lights to dim and the spot to shine on the step stool center stage. No music, no sensationalism, just light and then darkness.

Ladder, Boat, Housewife

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

She came out of the water dripping. A scene of a movie during a time when movies objectified women. Could have been last Summer’s blockbuster. I digress. She paused at the aluminum ladder dipping into the water from the dock. She pulled herself up a rung to get her mouth and nose out of reach of the wake washing over her. A speed boat passed a few meters away, probably not seeing her. I’m sure it wouldn’t have passed so fast had she been standing on the dock, her full person visible.

After a few minutes she came the rest of the way out of the water and grabbed her towel resting next to a coil of rope. Drying her hair, she laid out the towel and sat down. Another boat passed, this one slowing its engine to a low growl when passing the dock. The men in the vessel, a cigarette boat, hooted, whistled and hollered at her. She laughed to herself, not out of flattery but because her 31 years of life had taught her a new law of nature, when she appeared, men gawked.

Now she was a housewife. Married to a man who had at one time had dreams. He had since achieved them but still rarely came home. He cheated. She wasn’t stupid. But she still knew, at one time, there love was true. She hadn’t sacrificed most of her 20’s waiting for him to finish medical school, then residency, then research, trials and awards. His ambition seemed to know no bounds and his cock didn’t either.

She stood up, grabbed her towel and walked up the dock toward their lake house. She passed through the tennis courts, pool, fountains and eventually made it to the open french doors leading into the back of the kitchen. Her bare feet slapped against the polished concrete floors, wet from the grass leading back to the house. She stopped at the fridge to grab a beer. Propping the cap against the counter and tilting the bottle at an angle, she slammed down her right hand, sending the cap spinning somewhere around the marble counters and tink-tink tinking down onto the concrete.

She had all the things her mother and father, church, school, friends and acquaintances told her she would want. But she didn’t. They told her she could live to a ripe old age, keep her looks up to her sixties and never want for anything. She would have rather lived 3-5 short years with a convict, running from the law, staying in cheap hotels with single digits in their names than to sit in luxuries lap, just waiting for something to move.

She took the winding staircase one step at a time into the master bedroom. She stepped into the shower and rinsed off. Another day to kill. Too much time and no life.

Resort, Trait, Separation

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Yeah, there were palm trees, cabana’s, poolside drink service, as many towels as you could request, a 24-hour buffet and plenty of security. A complete separation from what was actually just outside of the resort. They told me to stay within the confines of the property, you know, for my safety and shit. But what was out there? There was nothing at the pulga vieja that I couldn’t find at a Los Angeles or Miami beach.

I wanted to know what this country was like. What did they really eat. I was almost positive they didn’t eat Wagyu sliders and tapas, I was almost certain they didn’t bring you a towel and when you said thanks they would respond, “para servirle,” or “to serve you.” No, I imagined they were just like me when I was at home. Annoyed with herds of tourists crowding the places that I thought were beautiful, the places I enjoyed because they were part of my home.

So I grabbed a bag, called a local taxi number and got picked up in front of the main entrance of the resort. The guard at the front gate was trying to shoo away the cabbie when I got there. I told him it was for me and immediately his demeanor changed, though he tried to warn me against leaving. Was I being kept in the resort, where everything was charged to my room? Where the more time I spent inside, the more likely I was to purchase food and drinks?

I got in the cab and told him to take me downtown. With what little of the language I knew, I tried to talk to him. From our limited conversation of gestures and using only the words we knew in each others languages, we found understanding. He lived in a smaller city just a few kilometers from the main city, the tourist city. It was a quite place, he said. His wife worked in a small shop making some sort of food and he drove a cab.

We got downtown and I waved good bye, cinching up my backpack. I stayed where I had gotten out, in front of an old hotel I had read about in certain novels. The sort of novels that men in the 1950’s wrote about, pretending to be about grit and truth but really living in luxury without spending their millions and ignoring the people that had lived in that location for centuries, even millennia for all I knew.

I started walking down the street. There were luxury shops I had seen in downtown’s across the U.S. and Europe. There were street vendors selling the things I had seen about this place on television and movies. I got the sense that they had set up shop for all the backpack carrying people who needed sunscreen applied every 2 hours.

I stopped in front of a shop and ordered some of the local food I had heard so much about. It was good, but somehow didn’t sit well. Maybe it was the family of tourists at the table next to me, who looked like me, complaining about the service. Maybe it was the fact that just a couple blocks down the road I spotted a Kurber Bing, with its iconic scepter holding out a juicy burger (a burger, I might add, that never looked like it did in the advertisements).

I went down to the beach, removed my shoes and walked on the sand, looking out at the sea. Cruise ships were coming and going. I followed the line of oversized ships to the port where hoards of people, with backpacks, disembarked.

I took a seat in the sand and looked up at the sky. Not much different than where I called home. I looked down at the sand. Not much different than where I called home. An old lady made her way up to me, holding up a book with postcards of the scenery I was currently enjoying. I smiled and politely waved her off. Some kids came up to me with small toys that lit up with they made impact. I laughed and tried my best to tell them no in their native tongue. A young man came up to me and tried to sell me sandals, saying they were made by his grandmother. I said no thank you. I saw another woman coming up to me, about to sell me something else.

I was annoyed. I got up and started walking back downtown, ready to hail a cab. I wondered what this place would be. I had traveled so far but found that it seemed only to cater to me. What would this place look like if all eyes were not on me? I suspected that it was the way it was out of necessity. That it was this way because people like me kept traveling, expecting something authentic but only receiving what we expected.

Peasant, Delay, Banquet

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

He’d been called it before, many times. This time, he stopped and thought about it; peasant. An antiquated word with almost no relevant meaning. He didn’t own a farm or small piece of land that he worked and paid taxes to the king. He lived in a small studio on the lower east side of Manhattan.

Of course he paid taxes, whether it were to kings or for the infrastructure of society was for political parties to debate. Which he hoped represented him.

He stopped at the mailboxes and turned back to look at the lady who had called him a peasant. She turned the corner, flicking her fur coat as she did. He smiled, thinking about all the movies, TV shows and books that told him women in fur coats were cunts. Was that true? Or was that only true in this instance?

Grabbing the mail he went into his building. Thumbing through the mail was a familiar activity. Bill, bill, garbage, bill, coupon, but what was this…

A banquet for one of his friends, that night. in 30 minutes. Shit. He sprinted up the stairs, not even bothering to wait for the elevator, which would have taken 15 of his 30 minutes. His front door lock was tricky, he had to pull the knob while twisted the key and then let go of the knob so that…something would work and the door could be opened. There was always a slight delay, he learned patience but this time he did it, first try, experience was key.

The sprint up the stairs made him sweat so he jumped in the shower. His friends apartment was a 10 minute taxi ride, 20 minute subway ride and 30 minute walk. He only had money for a walk, so he convinced himself to be comfortable with the idea of being fashionably late, even if his fashion was lacking.

Never mind, he thought, fuck this banquet. My friend is always celebrating stupid shit and rubbing in every little hickey he gets from lovers or extra chicken McNugget he gets from McDonald’s to all the people he knows. Fuck him.

So he stayed in the shower, rubbed one out and watched TV for the rest of the evening.

Why? What the fuck did you do last night?

Rugby, Hair, Hammer

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

A real bruiser, this guy. He had a head that looked like it had been pressed by vices, one smashing his chin and nose, another pressing against his ears. His neck was about as thick as his skull. The rest of his body looked like a sculpture in progress. A cube of marble with arms, a chest, stomach, legs and feet with none of the ripples and bumps of a completed piece. He was a block.

He was most comfortable and alive in the middle of a scrum. Locked arm and arm with two other bruisers, pushing against the entirety of his opponents. His team would always say that they swore he was doing all the work and that they were just along for moral support.

He was one of those guys that stayed in shape from 18 to 50 years old, no matter how much he ate, drank or otherwise consumed. Teeth might fall out of his mouth but the rest of him remained an absolute unit, as they would say on the sidelines.

He would have kept going, there was no signs of him slowing down. Except one day his picture appeared in the paper. His face was caved in by a hammer. It appeared that someone wanted to put a little more detail into his bulky features.

And so he was remembered, briefly, by family, friends and team mates but will be all but forgotten when they also pass on. Hopefully by less artistic means.

Patience, Large, Presidency

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

I’ve been giving brow furrowing thought to uprooting my life and changing it radically. Thoughts that slow my steps when I walk, strip away all that’s around me and humble me in the chest. What are the things I have? So fortunate am I to have them, when compared to the other. Yet, perhaps, they are not what I should have.

For this thought to manifest in any sort of tangible way requires patience. A sort of patience that I have not practiced in my 34 years of consciousness, of which the prospect of practicing looms large over head. A weight that pushes down on my and wrinkles my forehead. What are the things I want, if they are not the things I have? Is it as simple as wanting the things I have? Or is it a question of adventure, a simple matter of trying, failing, trying, failing, trying, failing, and defining success out of those efforts. That is the currency of patience.

The presidency is touted as one of the hardest jobs on the planet. but why is this question only whispered in underground places, is it even a job that should exist? Should there be a thing so unreasonable, so unsatisfying for all of us that it exists? Why can we not question the existence of something we once created?

And so I find myself, questioning my existence. What have I created? It’s not a question of regret or satisfaction, it’s a question that follows; having done this, am I still satisfied continuing to do the same? What do I want next? What is my next challenge?

That I write is not in question. However, what I write about always changes. And so likewise, I will be until I am dead, but I need not be doing the same things.

Such a radical change in existence is daunting. To move from the home I’ve created. To move from the job in which I found a voice. To move from a room where there is light and identifiable shapes into a room that is dark and filled mostly with shadows.

It’s not a question of purpose. To treat purpose like some treasure to be found with or without a map is to take away ones own intrinsic value. I believe, for me, it is a matter of finding what is next. What will be. What may be, if I simply try.

It comes down to a simple act, however, a simple act becomes difficult when the opposite of actions have become habit. To not do becomes more comfortable than to do. To be a passive observer of ones life. To consume. To applaud the achievements of others while allowing that recurring monologue in my mind to run like a ticker tape around my mind, reminding me that there is more in me than I have allowed myself to express.

I must also recognize the place I am in. To be kind to myself. To understand that I am not a machine, not a creation built by man but made from natural acts and self-created. To think otherwise is to undermine existence itself. The pressure I may feel to determine a future, my future, is wholly my own.

I have placed that looming prospect of patience and radical change over my head. And so I must recognize that that is okay. That I am not at the summit but at the base of a journey I am willing myself to take. A journey all at once formidable and exhilarating.

I am at the beginning of an end. Or perhaps it is the very beginning of a new beginning. Whatever this phase, this time, this place. I am open to the idea and an idea is the most natural creation of man.

Fantasy, Census, Mill

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

There was an explosion in his mind, a spectacular explosion of imagination. A world appeared out of thin air. It moved, breathed, projected light and shadows. Creatures moved in and out of the darkness and light. Buildings pocked the land from castles to shacks. It was a world of his own creation, built from scratch through memory and imagination. A world so vast and ever expanding it was impossible to keep a running record of all its inhabitants.

The walnut shaped mill in his head kept churning his thoughts into fantasy.

Everything was imagined from mythical beasts to majestic feasts. Yet he could not conjure her, even in his own memory. She would not appear in his imagined world.

The waiting room in which he had dozed had grown in occupants. Nearly every seat was filled with someone coughing, bleeding, clutching their chests, or nodding off to sleep. An EMT made her rounds through the room, checking vital signs and taking temperatures, just enough to ensure people were alive in that purgatory before a hospital bed.

He’d come in to the waiting room many times before. Sometimes for food from the vending machine, sometimes for warmth but mostly for a place to sit. He often waited a full day but it was still a nice reprieve from sitting by the highway or sleeping behind the rubble of an abandoned lot. Here he had to be seen, if not immediately, then eventually but he would be seen and heard and felt and spoken to.

Here in the waiting room, they were required to pay attention to him. To hear him out. Listen to him speak and speak back. Here he would be counted among the living, even if just before they died. There would be a record of him, no matter how menial the numbers of his blood pressure were.

He nibbled at the vending machine egg salad sandwich, savoring each bite. Here he was a person, waiting like all the rest to be seen.

Woman, Cellar, Cutting

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Her razor blade was still on the nightstand, dried brown with blood. There was water running, the shower, she must have turned it on to hide any sound. What sound, I didn’t know, but then again suicide is often uncharted territory if done correctly.

I put her clothes from the hospital in the hamper and sat on the bed. What were all those forms I needed to fill out? What were those phone numbers I had to call? Why did I put her clothes in the hamper?

I stood up, compelled by the only instinct, I knew. I headed down to the cellar and grabbed the first bottle of wine on the rack, not bothering to read the label. I suppose it wasn’t instinct, simply learned behavior.

I pulled off the label, twisted into the cork and popped it open. Red wine. Whiskey would be better but I was able to hide my learned behavior behind a hobby of wine collecting. Maybe that was one of the reasons that compelled her to leave. One of many, I guessed.

I went back to the room. No glass, just the bottle. I laid in bed. I need to fix that baseboard it’s loose. She had pointed it out. I never got around to it. Probably never would. Perhaps that was one of the last remaining forms of communication between us. A shared responsibility for the house. Without that, what was the house?

I turned and saw the razor blade still poised on the edge of the night stand. I imagined it had just been used and looked down to see the crowns of blood on the floor below it. What had that felt like? Sitting here, hiding from me, wanting to escape, not just this home but everything. There wasn’t a single place she would have rather gone, could have gone other than to that unknown place that hovers like a stick behind us. Or maybe in her case, like a carrot dangling in front of us.

A deep emptiness seemed to push all else out of my stomach. A pit so vast I couldn’t drink fast enough to fill it. The emptiness forced tears out of my eyes and shaking so violent I double over, gripping my pillow. It pulled my face in all directions, contorting my mouth into ugly cries. There was a deep hole and would not be filled again. Never.

What did it feel like to sit here, shower running and cut into the veins of the wrist? To cut so deeply that the blood rushed out like a crack in a dam. What sort of emptiness was that? Or was it exactly like my own. An agonizing look into nothingness.

I grabbed at the razor blade, spilling my wine. What sort of emptiness did she feel? That woman, that once called herself mine. My woman. A woman. What did it feel like?

Nipple, Mustache, Sprinkler

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was pierced. Some sort of small barbell that ran the diameter of the aureola. A few tattoos; praying hands, rosary beads with a cross, some biblical texts and a bloody Jesus on the cross on his back. He had slicked back hair and a lady tickler that seemed to be frozen in a crawl up into his nose and down into his mouth. Though, this priest wasn’t tickling ladies with that mustache.

“Turn, bend over, spread your cheeks and cough.” He paused and looked at the other freshly imprisoned men complying. His clothes black with a strip of white, wadded up on the floor behind him.

He finally turned and overheard someone say, “he’s going to be in that position a lot.” He wasn’t sure who said it, could have been a guard or an inmate, but it didn’t matter. The truth in his head was verbalized.

They shuffled down the corridors being shown to their cells. He reached his and a man, small, bone thin and not a tattoo visible would be his celly.

“What you in for?”

The priest hesitated with his answer as his cell mate looked him up and down. Seeing he wasn’t going to answer, the cell mate continued.

“It’s probably better not to answer that question or make up a lie. I have the bottom bunk, you’re on top. Keep your shit until I’m not sleeping, I don’t want a rude awakening.”

The priest set his clothes and things on the top bunk. He looked around at the toilet, the desk, the bunk bed, the bars at the end of the cell and the cobwebbed sprinklers on the ceiling.

“I’m Henry.” He said, still gazing up at the sprinklers.

“Well, Henry, I’m willing to bet that your pregnant pause when I asked why you were here was something that really only God can deal with. And their ain’t no sprinklers in hell.”

Eye, Leader, Raccoon

A short story incorporating three random words, written in 20 minutes.

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Through the peep hole, all I could see was that big blue window into her soul. I smiled and knocked again. She opened the door but the chain kept the door open just a crack. Maybe she didn’t recognize me. Maybe I had the wrong house. Then her head peaked through the crack.

I smiled a little wider this time.

“Hi, it’s me.”

She only stared. Not saying anything. I could hear the sounds of a house full of living. Pots, pans, yelling kids, a TV.

“Is this a bad time.”

“What are you doing here?”

Now the words caught in my throat. I folded my hands behind my back and cleared the uncertainty welling up.

“Well, I wanted to be the first to tell you that I got that movie made. It was purchased and now there’s some director looking for actors and…well, I just wanted to tell you. You were always so supportive of that.”

She looked at me. Then closed the door. I heard something scratching and then the door opened all the way. She stepped onto the porch, shutting the door behind her. It took every ounce of social conditioning and domestication that had been thrown my way to not instantly through my arms around her shoulders and pull her head into my chest.

She crossed her arms slowly and then looked up at me.

“You couldn’t have called or texted?”

My cheeks flushed. I knew she could see that.

“I’m sorry, you’re right, this isn’t fair of me.”

“No, look, I think it’s great. That’s what you’ve always wanted. It sounds like you’re on your way to something great.”

I knew she was just extending a guilty hand. I looked around the yard and spotted chains and a lock on the lids of their trash cans.

“So you keep a pretty tight lid on your trash now, huh?”

“What?” She looked where my gaze held then laughed. That sweet laugh. “Oh, yes, well we have some pretty tenacious little bandits that dig around and spread it out every night if we don’t.”

She uncrossed her arms but took a half step backward.

“I’m sorry, again, I should have called, I just thought it would be cool for you to know when the trailers came out and stuff. You’d see them on TV and know who made the movie.”

She looked at me for what seemed like a full moon cycle. It was only a few seconds before she spoke but I could see that familiar glint, somewhere buried back behind her new life.

“Well, it’s just that, it’s hard to see…”

Another pause. I knew what she was going to say, something to the effect of it’s hard to see me but it wouldn’t work, it never worked. Despite what I thought to the contrary.

“Alright, well it sounds like you’re busy in there with the little ones. I just wanted you to know and now you do. It was great to see you.”

“It was great to see you too.”

I turned to go down the steps. She turned to go back inside.

I thought about the most memorable people in history. The presidents, kings, bishops, popes, captains, outlaws, revolutionaries and wondered how their greatness was shaped. I wondered if they didn’t have their own broken hearts and so turned the world into their anvils, beating it into the shapes that suited their desires.

As I got to the gate, she yelled out to me.

“Hey, I’m gonna see your movie the day it comes out.”

I smiled and thought about an empty theater playing my movie with only her big beautiful eyes to watch it.

Beast, River, Turbulent

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It’s a gorgeous creature. I can see it from the burbling banks. I’m sitting behind a tree. The low leaves and uncut foliage provide enough cover for me, but not for… whatever I’m looking at.

The silky white skin pops out from the greens and browns of the forest. It approaches the water one step at a time, looking around with every gentle paw print.

Then the thunder clapped. Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of lightening. I didn’t flinch, my gaze fixed on the creature. I forgot about my hunger. I forgot I about my thirst. Maybe I just ignored my basic needs. The creature moved so elegantly on the other side of Sacramento. In between us the sound of rushing water. I was able to ignore that too.

I stubbed out my cigarette. The smoke would be a signal. The burning cherry a red eye in the middle of the forest. Looking through the scope, the creature looked around one more time before bending over to lap up the river water.

The creatures pause gave me a chance to look at it through the cross hairs of the scope. An elegant white skin with bright orange dots all over. Something I’ve never seen before.

Long arms that bent like a bulldogs. Legs that rippled with muscle. Hair that ran from it’s head down to where I imagined some sort of sexual organ. I was attracted but not sure what sort of creature I was looking at.

My knees shook from sitting for so long. The rifle dipped and I gripped it with a “Click.” The creature looked up, seemingly straight at me, through the scope and into whatever part of me people call the soul.

I was terrified to breathe. What I had considered a burbling brook a few minutes ago seemed now like a turbulent vortex. It started to rain.

The creature looked up to the sky and roared.

I watched, now with my rifle lowered. Across the banks, I realized it was twice as big as me. It pawed at the dirt, backing up a few paces and began to charge the river bank. Just before touching the water, it leapt.

It seemed to hang in the air for an hour. I stayed in my position with the rifle’s barrel digging into the dirt. I was too enamored with the creature.

Just before it landed in front of me and roared I thought how I would do everything to make sure the creature would exist, forever.

Right in front of me, the creature opened it’s mouth, revealing yellow piles of teeth. Sharp and dripping with saliva.

Before the beast took its bite, I wiped away a bit of saliva so I could watch. It grabbed my throat and shook. I didn’t put up a fight.

If I could nourish such a magnificent creature, then I was doing the lord’s work, as grandpa would say.

Potato, Elephant, Rocket

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Fly me to the moon, let me play among the stars. Let me see if…Shit what’s the rest of it? Something about Jupiter and Mars.

“Sir, the enemy is approaching.”

“Don’t charge the elements until you see the expressions on their faces.” I thought that sounded good, strong, confident.

“Sir, that’s pretty close sir.”

“Exactly.” More confidence and strength.

“Sir, we can use our new rockets to fire at them at their current distance, sir.”

“Yes, but we have nothing to fire at them but potatoes and cans of soup.”

“I think that would hurt, sir, especially at the speed and force with which we can fire them. Canned soup at that speed is basically a cannon ball.”

“I see your thinking private, but we need that food. If all we do is bruise a few of their men, we’ll also be feeding them. I don’t know about you, but if I’m starving, I’m not above digging a spud out of the orbital socket of a dead man’s skull. What about you private?”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“I said, would you dig a potato out of a dead man’s skull if you were hungry enough?”

“I suppose so, sir.”

“Well private, I suppose the enemy would not be above such behavior either.” I tapped a cigarette on my gloved wrist.

“Light.”

“Here you go, sir”

CLINK, HISS.

I took a thoughtful drag and let the smoke come out with my next words.

“What do you think about pancakes private.”

“Pancakes, sir?”

“PANCAKES! Pillow-y spheres dripping with melted butter and sweet maple syrup. What do you think of that.”

The private looked up at the sky, as if the clouds would fall down onto a plate and the heavens would rain down syrup.

“That sounds nice, sir.”

“Indeed, private, indeed.”

ZIP, ZIP, SPLOOSH.

The elephant reared back, like the grand finale at a barnum and bailey’s circus act. I fell from my saddle to the rear of the elephant.

My cigarette fell, just a foot from me, I reached, pinching it between two fingers. My head, suddenly hot. Everything went dark and a smell, an ungodly smell. I could hear faint voices. Was my spirit leaving my body?

“huh, ooor eeeaaad tuck eeeefaant aaasss!”

What was he saying? It was getting hard to focus. I was getting sleepy. Time for those pancakes from the sky.

…

“I served with General Culos, he was a confident and strong man. I think about him everyday. So let this memorial be a reminder to all of us that the enemy is not always in front of you. It can come at any moment from behind–from a behind.”

There in the town square, where General Gustavos Peditos Culos was born and raised, was erected a statue of an elephant standing, trunk saluting the sky and the torso of a man, head lost in the anus of the pachyderm, with the uniform, patches and medals of the town hero.

Milkshake, Drawer, Dinosaur

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

Did her milkshake bring all the boys to the yard? That’s what Milton wondered in his cell while two feet away from him, his celly took a shit. What was her milkshake? He knew, instinctively it was metaphorical language for the way she moved her ass while dancing. That invariably, those movements suggestive of animals presenting themselves for fornication would bring all the boys out to “play,” so to speak.

But why milkshake? Was it simply because of the word “shake” before that white silk that dripped from utters? Was the word yard to imply that the boys were in prison? So starved of female interactions that a simple shake would bring drooling “boys” from their cells to her side? Or was the emphasis on boys? That the yard was attached to a school and not a prison, making her statement more literal. That didn’t make sense, why use a word like milkshake to describe her dance, just to turn around and be literal about the school setting.

Milton scratched his nose, perhaps it was the waft of fecal matter, like the sudden chill of a ghost passing through the living, or perhaps he was reminding himself that he thought too much.

“Hey, you ever think about how dinosaur bones are gasoline?” Milton looked up at his celly, who often began think deeply while in his thinker pose.

“Um, no, I think about different shit.” Milton chose not to clarify that there was no pun intended. The pun being that shit referred to his milkshake conundrum rather than to the little brown bun coming out of his celly. And at that point, that little brown bun was making his nostrils scream.

“huh.” His celly began to wipe. Milton looked toward the bars of his cell. “It’s crazy how the death of some ancient creatures fuels so much of our lives.”

Milton thought his celly had a point but chose not to acknowledge it, they had plenty of time to build a deeper relationship.

“Hey, do you still drawer?” Milton winced at his celly’s pronunciation of draw. He pronounced it with an “R” rather than stop speaking after saying “draw”.

Milton turned back after the sound of the flush to answer.

“Yeah, I will once I get my pencils back.” Milton said, laying down in his bottom bunk, his head as far away from the toilet as possible.

His celly hopped up onto the top bunk.

“G’night, Milton.”

“Goodnight.”

Milton began drifting off, thinking about gigantic reptiles roaming the earth. Herds of triceratops, if they were called herds, keeping packs of Raptors at bay with their tri-horned faces. Stegosauruses whipping Tyrannosaurus Rex’s with their spiked tails. Woolly mammoths sinking in tar pits.

Milton’s celly pulled him out of the tar pit of sleep, one in which he was more than happy to sink. He was singing again, the same song as always.

“My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard
and they’re like, it’s better than yours
Damn right it’s better than yours
I can teach you, but I have to charge.”

Reservoir, Material, Crack

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was the last of the water supply. A large artificial lake and there was a crack. The only materials left to patch it would contaminate the water.

But one dude was like, I can fix it. And then he shot himself in the head, just above the crack. His plan, I can only guess, was to use his body to stop the leak. The problem, in the long term, was that his body would eventually begin to rot and therefore contaminate the water supply anyway. The problem, in the short term, was that he hadn’t accounted for the steep curve of the wall. So his body rag-dolled down the slope, not even close to the crack. Ironically, he had landed where the water was pooling so that nobody else could at least enjoy the runoff.

Then some other chick said she could fix it. She cut off her hair until it was just above her ears. she wadded up the mess of hair and began stuffing it into the crack. Not a bad idea, except that she had to cut her locks into smaller pieces to be able to fit. So people were constantly sticking out their tongues and grabbing small hairs for weeks after. Eventually the hairs either rolled outside of the reservoir or drifted into the water supply.

Then some priest was like, I’ll pray about it. For all we know he’s still doing that.

Then some politician was like, I’ll fix the crack. What I’ll do is collect a small percentage of all your money and with that I will be able to find the appropriate solution. The money was raised quickly, the first time. He took it and then declared, well first, we must have a building dedicated to researching a solution for the crack. So the money went into the building.

Then again, the same politician told the people that for a small percentage of money he would expand on the research. He could update the facilities, which he also called home on the top floor. This update would allow them to hire the best scientists and equipment which would this time guarantee a solution for the crack.

More money was raised, this time a bit less. but the raising of money continued and more buildings were erected.

Now a female priest came along and said that the prayers of the other priest were incorrect. So she went on the opposite side of the reservoir and began her version of prayer, which to the rest of us looked very similar to the first guys. Anyway, she’s still there and water is still leaking from the crack.

The rest of us figured we’d just go for a swim while there was still enough water to do so. While down there, one of us got too close to the crack and the small part of their back received a small hickey from temporarily getting stuck in the crack.

One of the kids smiled wide and grabbed an old sheep bladder. He swam down to the crack and place the bladder just in front of the crack, watching as it seemed to grab onto the wall. From the other side arose a cheer, the leak had stopped.

At this the priests, both of them, leaped into the air and said, I told you my god would deliver. At the same moment, the politician appeared in his window and said, I told you the schools and research buildings I built would solve the problem.

We told them to fuck off.

Vein, Ghost, Decoration

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

She tapped at median cubital vein, slapped at it. The skin turned red and eventually the vein bulged. Squeezing her wrist, she pushed the tiniest drop from her syringe. The blood she drew into the syringe, wrapped itself into the hero, grabbing it’s hands and pulling him into her body.

The sensation was of wallflowers. Becoming a part of the scenery, the background, a decoration that’s been hanging for so long it’s lost all meaning. A ghost viewing life but not able to live. She leaned back, her mouth open, her eyes only slits. The needle stayed in her vein.

This was what life was supposed to be like, this feeling. The feeling that kids have when their minds are not filled with worry. When everything is a surprise and the smallest pain feels the worst because there are no other comparisons. Their minds aren’t in control, only their hearts.

These were the sorts of Hallmark card thoughts that passed through her mind. The price of this feeling of what life should be like was to miss out on the life she otherwise knew. Her addiction was a dance with what ought to be and the ache of ruining what was.

Addictions, once progressing, have a limited shelf life. They lead always to change. Only to change. The battle is between who and what will be in control of that change. The what has the advantage because the who needs light to make moves and there is mostly darkness in a battle with addiction.

Once down and clear and back in the life she knew, that familiar ache rocked her back to a sitting position. She couldn’t know it now, but that ache was really feeling. Pain of losing a bit of life and feeling that loss immediately after each tiny death. Pain is what separates the decorations from main attractions, the ghosts from the living.

She remembered something, maybe from a tv show or movie, “to feel pain is to know you are alive.” So she pulled out the needle, tears in her eyes and gritting her teeth, knowing that she was still alive.

Tax, Silence, Sailor

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

She could hear only the wind and the waves. Standing at the lighthouse, she looked out as the light behind her flashed a silhouette of her figure to all watching sailors. Tonight there was no storm.

When she closed the glass door of the lighthouse, for a moment, there was only silence. Silence and the spinning light.

For months she watched and waited. The rocky dirt all around the small island undisturbed but for a patch about six feet long and three feet wide. She missed her husband but not his drunken behavior. Perhaps a sailor would come ashore and give her the attention she required, though she wasn’t eager to pay the heavy tax of a relationship. A tryst was all she longed for.

Sun or moon. Fog or rain. She kept the light shining. The work, however taxing, still left plenty of time for her mind to be pulled to her husband. A strange mix of righteous indignation and guilt. The men of the sea seemed never to suspect that a woman could be anything but warm respite from waves, rain, splinters and scurvy. She would do better with the next man, guilt has a queer way of turning one into a saint.

As the sun dipped into the ocean, she noticed the lights of a ship approaching from the dark side of the sky. Ahead, in a dingy, rowed a sailor approaching her rocky haven. She clutched her knitting needle and thought, I will no longer accept a drunk fist but I’ll welcome a gentle caress.

Guitar, Waiter, Poetry

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

It was Flamenco night. Some black haired, olive oil skinned man was grating his finger tips on the guitar. A woman whipped her skirt around her legs with one hand while clacking castanets in the other. A spot light illuminated the two on stage, the only other light coming from the candles at each table.

“More sangria, sir?” the waiter hovered his pitcher over my glass. I nodded. He poured. I chugged.

I chewed on a bit of apple that made its way through my teeth and watched the Spaniards sweat on stage. The woman began to sing. A haunting wail that sounded like the agony of regrets. She twirled and sang words that sounded like the poetry of the dead or the drunk.

It was my fourth Sangria. My eyes began to water and tear splashed on the table. Maybe it was the music or maybe it’s because mixed drinks are hard to judge.

I looked around the room. A woman with white hair and spectacles clapped her hands. A man with a bald spot threw his shoulders back and forth to the rhythm. A young couple was making out in the corner. The waiters danced with their trays between our tables.

I looked at the empty seat across from me but didn’t feel regret. I couldn’t place the feeling.

I flagged down the waiter for another Sangria and sat, trying to figure it out. All this raw emotion and rush of feelings but I was alone. In younger days it was easier to identify my feelings. This is happiness. This is regret. This is anger. As I grew older, the feelings tied themselves to memories and experiences, making it harder to untangle one emotion from another.

And so this is it. A moment. The moment. It leads into the next and swallows whole each moment until you find yourself alone. It wasn’t pity I felt for myself, just a reminder that when life is around you, it must be grabbed, touched, caressed, held, laughed at, cried with, struggled with…

To feel it all, all at once and acknowledge that I was feeling. That’s all that was necessary.

The waiter filled my glass. I took a sip before setting it down to enjoy the rest of the show.

Bake, Defenestration, Plaza

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman

“It’s one quarter for the defenestration, a dollar for fenestration and an extra two bucks to choose the vehicle.” I fingered the two dimes and nickel in my pocket, wondering if I was attractive enough to talk to the lady working the front desk of the “Crimes and Felonies Simulation Center” into letting me choose the vehicle with out the extra two clams.

I took a step back, looking through the window across the plaza at the “Misdemeanors and Minor Offenses Simulation Center,” tucked between the dollar store and the empty one forever hanging a lease sign. I could get more thrills at “Minor Offenses” but the quality, you can’t skimp on quality.

Slapping my three coins on the counter, I said, “I’ll get defenestrated today.” I grabbed some copper from the “take a penny, leave a penny” tray and said, “which vehicles can I select with this.”

Without changing her expression, or tone, she said, “Tell you what, I’ll run the simulation myself. Follow me, sir.”

We walked through the shop, I could hear screaming, thuds, cracks, shattering glass, grunts, wet gurgling and all the sounds a comfortable middle class boy like myself doesn’t often get to hear or experience outside of movies and video games.

We stepped outside to the back of the shop. Parked net to a dumpster was a Ford Taurus, somewhere from the early 90’s.

“Get in.” she said, already shutting the door behind her. I knew where this was going, she would tell me not to wear my seat belt, hit top speed and send me flying through the windshield, but she was hot so I ignored my brain.

She drove, her hands ten and two, no radio, stopping at every light, keeping two car lengths between the vehicles in front. Textbook safe driving. We pulled up to a bakery and she said, “get out.”

Together, we went into the shop. I smelled cinnamon, pastries and apple pie. It was like walking into grandma’s house on Christmas. “One croissant for me and whatever he’s having.” I looked at all the deliciousness on display and selected a cream-filled pastry, “That one.” I pointed.

With pastries in hand we got back in the car. I closed the door behind me and bit into my baked good. The outside was flaky and crumbled in my mouth. Then my tongue hit the warm cheesy filling and I closed my eyes.

My eyes were nailed shut with shards of glass. I felt warm liquid trickling down my head and neck. My face grated against the gravel leaving skin, muscle and tissue on the asphalt behind me as I slid forward. Like soft Gouda between the holes of a grater. My veins and arteries snapping and popping as I traveled forward. The blood vessels twisting and shriveling as they came in contact with the air.

I felt my legs and waist folding over the back of my head as my momentum carried me forward. My face, the sole of a 12-year-olds Vans as she skids her foot on the ground to slow her bike.

My back snapped. My shoulders popped out of socket. My face skin worn away, my skull chipping off and my teeth flying out like corks around the world on New Years Eve. My body stopped and everything was black.

The next voice I heard was gods.

“Thank you for choosing Crimes and Felonies Simulation Center for your real life experiences. Be sure to get out of your chair slowly as your mind may still be adjusting to reality. The light will fade up slowly and then it will be safe to exit.”

25 cents well spent.

My last confession

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
1,407 words

I must be falling. My suit jacket is bunched up under my arms and flapping around my head. A strip of polka dots slaps around my face. My calves and white cotton socks exposed. Shoe laces whip my shins. The wind changes pitch as it passes through the circle I’ve formed with my lips.

Forgive me father for I have sinned; it is…

     The air is getting colder. I look down and see flecks of shine coming and going on a canvas of blue. The ocean coming up to greet me. I make out, almost directly below me, the Golden Gate bridge.

I pray I hit it so the story ends.

The bridge whistles past and out of instinct I point my toes to the water and press my arms to my sides. The air rushes into my lungs just before water rushes in my nose and past my ears. My eyes are shut but less and less light makes it through my eyelids. I put my arms out to slow the dive.

     I open my eyes. All around are people. Some swim gracefully above, others motionless and fall past me. I see a man in shorts and a polo pushing past a motionless woman in pearls and an apron. Her hair wrapped around her face, pointing her way to the surface. People were everywhere, submerged, floating and swimming, looking around confused.

I look down. A mass of behemoth black shadows swirls below me. I look up. Pants, belts, socks, skirts, blouses, bras, thongs, ties, jackets, shoes falling toward me. People kicking and thrashing toward the light. I see people at the top burst through the surface and take a breath of air. My chest starts to burn with envy. Naked bodies fall toward me.

I need oxygen.

O’ my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee…

     I started to push up as if there were solid objects below my feet and hands. I am heavy with wet clothes. A woman removes her shoes and fights upward. I pull at the water to fight up. I kick off my own bloating leather soles and pull off my socks. A loose tie wraps around my neck as I push upward. I tear it off and begin removing the rest of my clothing, always gyrating upwards toward the light. The burning in my lungs starts to feel like the image of a film reel being eaten up by a flame. I’m feverishly kicking like a frog while my hands tug away at the belt. I pushed off my pants. The shirt doesn’t tear quickly enough. I look down and begin to panic.

     The shadows seem closer and the light farther away. Something touches my foot and instinct kicks in. I look straight up, now completely naked and cup my hands for full force. I’m beginning to exhale in short bursts that grow longer with each snort. I’ll run out of air soon and then, out of habit, inhalation will take over.

I am sorry for these sins and all the sins of my whole life…

     Next to me, a man grips the legs of the person above, trying to pull himself up. He exposes the man’s ass and they both fall further down. They reach for me while their mouths fill with water and sink to the swirling black masses.

A woman below me reaches for my leg. I kick at her hand, but she grabs my ankle. A bubble of air leaps out of my throat but the muscles tighten their grip on my body, and I pull both of us forward. 

     I won’t make it to the top with her extra weight. The burning in my chest has been replaced by spasms. My lungs pounding in their cage. I begin to sputter. Whatever air is left in my lungs turns to bubbles in the water. The light is just a few strokes above me. I look down and see a man grabbing at the woman hanging on to me. I kick at her hand, she lets go, now fighting off her own leech. I push forward and in another two strokes, the light blinds my eyes.

Thank you, father.

The light disappears.

#

In an abandoned house off the 215 freeway I go to confess my sins. The minister sits behind a plaster wall from 4:00 pm to 4:52 pm. He enters through a hole in the outside wall because the front door is boarded up. Sitting in the master bathroom, he takes confessions through a glory hole. 

I walked in with the dead eyes of a junkie, unsticking my eyelids from the caked cocaine and running eyeliner. Another day wasted. Given up to the night before. I had time to confess before Father Ibsen spent the rest of his night suckling at any booze he could find, nursing his own demons. I stooped to put my face by the hole. Parting my dry lips with my tongue, I recited the script.

“Father forgive me for I have sinned again.  I know not what I did but I know a blue-eyed, red-haired devil in fishnet stockings made me do it.”

A lighter clinked and hissed. Tobacco hit my nose. Smoke poured through the hole and made my eyes well up. His words curled through the haze.

“Tell me son, what have you done that you say the devil made you do?”

My eyes tried to focus. I listened to my breathing and my mind clarified for a moment. Guilt has a queer way of turning me into a saint. The few moments in between coming to and my next blackout I find myself curling into a ball and begging my inner child for forgiveness. My ego quenches the thirst, but my self flushes it into oblivion. However, feelings don’t mean facts, so I answer honestly.

“I don’t know but the evidence keeps piling up behind me.”  Father Ibsen passes the cigarette through the glory hole, filter ripped off. I extend two yellow fingers to accept. 

“Son, in my terrifying experience the demons don’t scratch, tear, bite, claw, scream or yell, rip, shred or gnash their teeth. No, they brush your hand, touch you lightly on your thigh and whisper in your ear. They’ll give you sweet words and pour confidence down your throat, inject self-esteem into your veins and breathe life into your nose. It’s a slow seduction.”

I took a long pull from the cigarette. With no filter, the smoke punched a hacking cough out of my lungs. I choked it down to hear the rest of Father Ibsen’s sermon.

“They make you think you are doing all the work. That you make the decisions and take charge of your destruction. So that by the time you feel the scratching, tearing, biting, clawing, screaming, yelling, ripping, shredding, and gnashing of teeth you think it’s the demons but it’s really the angels giving all they have to try and pull you back. While the demons lay back, pissing and blowing snot bubbles all over themselves with laughter at the violent struggles of their boy scout doppelgängers.”

Father Ibsen stuck two fingers back through the hole. I handed him the cigarette and he continued.

 “That is the devil’s greatest pride. She twists her forked whiskey-soaked tongue around yours until you can’t tell the difference and when you think you know, she has you.  Her trick is making you think all the rules and regulations will save you, but the fortress is really a prison.”

The words were ironic coming from the fiery, vodka drenched breath spurting out of the hole. He chuckled and finished his impromptu sermon to the choir.

“So, it makes me laugh, son, until tears stream and sides ache, when I hear one of my children say, ‘the devil made me do it’ because son, aren’t we just the devil?”

His final words sounded like an admiring mother mildly scolding her mischievous child.  I heard his chair creak as he stood up. He passed his collar through the fuck hole, spotted and stained with sweat and semen, and spoke the last words I ever heard from his mouth. “Time for this devil to change costumes. But you should sit on this side of the wall. Hearing the insanities of the other, keeps one’s own in check. Their ain’t no glory on this side of the hole, any stone age queen will tell you the same.”

end

⭐

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Dinosaurs and Jesus

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
576 words

I picked up Saul after work. He was standing outside of a hole-in-the-wall Taqueria, smoking a cigarette. He got in the car and we headed to his girl’s trailer home. 

            “While I was standing out there a cop rolled by and stared me down.” Said Saul.

            “That’s always annoying no matter what you’re doing.”

            “Yeah and I was smoking. Loma Linda has a ban on smoking.”

            “Jesus, they’re making weed legal and banning cigarettes all in the same state.”

            “Someone told me there was a proposal to ban cigarettes or all nicotine stuff in the military.”

            “There’s no way.”

            “Yeah, some health nut politician.”

            “And replace them with what? Prayer beads? Crystals?”

            “I can barely walk outside without needing a cig, I can’t imagine sitting in a foxhole, bullets flying, you die right next to me and I’m not supposed to smoke?”

            “If that’s not the time, then when?”

            “Right.”

            He pulled out another smoke just as I pulled up next to the trailer home.

            “I just need to give this money to Paula’s mom.” He said, his lips pressed around the cigarette. Then he disappeared around the corner of the motor home.

Saul was in town for a few days before he moved out to Santa Barbara. He traded in his TV and PlayStation to get Paula a guitar. His plan was to find a campsite, set up and tune out. Off the grid. She would panhandle while he looked for a job. Her disability checks were also mentioned.

I was envious. The thought of my girl, some trees, cigarettes and booze were better than any heaven I had been told about in school. And those were the same people who denied the existence of dinosaurs while standing in front of the nearly intact skeletal structure of a Triceratops, their imaginations must have been out of this world. But Saul was looking everything right in the face and saying no.

He came back around the corner and hopped back into the car.                                                        “Jesus, not another second with her.”

            “You’re my hero.” I said, shaking my head. He grinned.

We had talked about shutting off the world many times and he was a few days and a couple details away from freedom. Tracking time in cigarettes and answering only to his bodily functions.

I changed the subject.

            “Stell?”

            “Sure, I could go for a cup of coffee.”

I made a right. We laughed at all the things we passed and listened to classic rock. Too soon we walked into the coffee shop. 

            “A mug?”

The lady got it right but today I was unusually optimistic. 

“A mug and a cookie, please.”

Saul ordered a beer and excused himself to the restroom.

Saul and I met in rehab. We got sober together. A few months after, Saul had jumped off the wagon.

Would they really take away cigarettes from soldiers? How would they cope with stress? I couldn’t imagine a soldier right after a battle also needing to fight off a craving. It was not likely to happen.

Our drinks slid onto the counter. I grabbed them and took a table outside. Saul came out, lighting a cigarette as he sat down.

I restrained my need for nicotine.

            “You still not smoking?” said Saul.

            “Yeah, but it’s a horrible feeling.”

He took a long drag.

            “Good for you man.”

Saul’s going to live off the grid. He’s winning the war.

end

⭐

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Be right back

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
825 words

Bob looked down at the floor. The shoes around him were new and pregnant with the identities of the partiers around him. His own shoes had no slashes or colors or stripes or patterns or loud brand names, only thick black soles and two Velcro straps creased perfectly around his feet. 

He looked up at the faces of the other guests. Nodding, smiling, winking, head-tilting, lip-biting, red cup sipping, arm touching, eye fluttering, eye fucking, and jealousy. Bob noticed it all in those faces. He took a deep breath and downed the rest of his drink. What was he doing there?

Looking around at all the tight-skinned faces, he was beginning to think he had overstayed his welcome. Nobody at the party would catch him slipping out the back. They were all too busy looking up at the sky. Bob had been that way once. Always staring at the clouds, scheming and dreaming. Dreaming of changing the world. The clouds looked the same. Never closer but never further away. He thought about all the things other people had achieved and perfected in his lifetime. The automobile. Telephones. T.V.s. Computers. The internet (apparently people spent all their time in the web, it sounded like a trap to him.) Faster food, faster service, faster payments, more nudity, less danger and sensationalized news. Working, making and consuming distractions. Everything was strange entertainment.

If he had slept for 50 years and woken up on this same day, he would be just as confused, disoriented and unsatisfied. To be honest, he felt cheated. All those promises and hopes for the future yielded nothing but more ignorance and more dependence. Hell, he remembered when a car would still start if you had enough people to push it.

     “Gads.” 

Bob startled himself. He looked around. Nobody spared a glance. The two kids he had met at the bar were now schmoozing at a couple of young ladies across the room. The girls were cute, sure, but they looked as if they would giggle at the news of their parents’ death. For that matter, so did the boys he came with.

He had met them at a bar when they started philosophizing with him. They bought his drinks, so he played along.

     “What do you think about Obama?”

There was no such thing as a free drink. He blew out all his air, pushing out his lips.

     “I’ve been asked that same exact question my whole life, just a different name at the end. Bush, Reagan, Roosevelt, Truman, Bush. The question is old. The name changes, the face changes, they die, soon I’ll be dead and something similarly different will happen.”

The two kids were impressed. Or at least impressionable. They invited Bob to the party, and he went. Maybe it was the free drinks, but Bob remembered when he was like them. He would have believed anything that came out of an old drunks’ mouth. He would have thought ‘boy, this guy’s been through the ringer, he must really know something.’ Now Bob was that old drunk and he knew that nobody knows and that’s the truth. Some are optimistic and others pessimistic. Some believe in god and others don’t. Some pretend and some don’t. Just having a mind is too much. Or maybe it’s not. Only a few wrinkles, a drowning liver and a bald head separated Bob from those boys.

Bob set down his cup and made his way over to them. He stepped up behind the two Romeos and clapped them on the shoulders.

     “You boys need anything?”

They looked at each other and looked back at the girls with wide eyes. Bob was a malignant tumor to them now.

     “I’ll be right back.” He said.

Bob walked off through the crowd and out the door. He looked up at the night sky. No clouds and not a visible star. That was another change. Edison eventually did away with staring up at the stars, now he looks out the window and sees the glow of television sets from every house, apartment, and trailer. He got in his car and lit a cigarette. He had only agreed to come because the party was a couple blocks from his house. The ignition turned over and the gas pedal felt like a pole in a tar pit. He pressed his foot down and the rest was mechanical: Left, stop, go, stop, go, right. Four houses down Bob slipped into the garage and closed it behind him. He put the car in park and cranked back the emergency brake. The window popped out of its crease as he pressed the button down. Leaning back in the driver’s seat, he dragged slowly from his cigarette before dropping it out of the cracked window. He pumped the gas pedal, revving the engine a couple of times. Then held it down at a low RPM, going nowhere. He closed his eyes. Maybe tomorrow or maybe nothing.

end

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

An err on Rowan’s meaning

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
574 words

“I wanted you to be the first to know,” Rowan confided in me. I think. Was Rowan his name? I’m not sure. I just walked into the break room and popped open a Fresca. Now this Rowan character, whom I’ve only ever seen in office meetings and the restroom is confiding in me. Was his name Jeremy?

He seems nervous. I sense he wants to tell me something weighty and I can’t even remember his name.

While sipping my soda, he continues. “The thing is, I’ve only ever wanted you to know.” I try not to let the bubbles tickle out a swampy belch as he continues. “But I know that eventually everyone will find out, so I’m telling you now,” Jeremy said? Was his name Jeremy Rowan? Or Rowan Jeremy?

Something like thirty cubicles span the space between me and this RJ character, so why is he unloading his life on me? His badge! I can glance at the name on his employee badge. I look down at the usual badge holding locations. Shirt pocket. Damn. Belt loop. Shit.

His eyes are staring blankly into mine. I’m only half paying attention to what he is saying but I understand from over thirty years of social cues that it is my turn to respond.

“That’s cool, man.” Balls. I think that was too casual. Maybe I don’t understand. I’ll nod a few times, press my lips together and blink slowly. That looks sincere, almost brotherly. Now he’s squinting and crossing his arms. Reremy Jowan is crossing his arms?

“I’m busting out of here.” Jowan Reremy laughs and lets his face relax into a smile.

Thank the gods of social situations, Wojarn Reemy is being facetious. This isn’t a serious conversation. I’m saved. I can call him ‘buddy’, or ‘chief’, maybe even ‘sport’. The point is, I’m free.

“Good for you, man.” I go with ‘man’, it’s utilitarian. 

“Excuse me?” Merry Najowe says, lifting his eyelids up and jutting his chin towards me. He presses a finger to his right ear and says, “No, sorry, someone in the break room is talking to me.”

Sipping from the can of Fresca in my right hand, I use my left to try waving Jarme Yerwo off with the old I-had-this-running-conversation-in-my-mind-and-at-the-same-time-I-was-trying-to-figure-out-your-name-while-trying-to-appear-sincere-because-you-sounded-serious-but-were-just-being-facetious-so-now-I’m-processing-all-that-and-casually-waving-you-off look.

I’m not pulling it off.

“I’ll call you back,” says Jeemy Roranw (maybe the “w” is silent?). Wanjo yemerr pulls his finger from his ear and focuses on me. Then the words that change my life forever, come forth from his mouth. “I’m sorry, I was on the phone. You probably thought I was talking to you. What’s your name again? I’ve seen you around, but I can’t remember it.”

So confident, straightforward and kind, he asked for my name with no excuses. Wenermy Jr. shows me a level of class my introverted mind has never fathomed before this moment. Aoeey Wjrrm blows my mind. He is a social genius. I take a loud sip of my Fresca trying to find the words.

With the bubbles still burning my throat, I force out a raspy whisper, “It’s Simon.”

“Well Simon, it’s nice to meet you. I’ll see you around.” He claps me on the shoulder and walks out of the room. Wanormy Reej leaves me with a foundational building block for constructing my retarded-above-average social IQ and my Grapefruit with Lime soda.

I think about how I’ll never forget Wanjo Yererm, or whatever his name is.

end

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Slice of life

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
696 words

Janine’s phone was off. It was never off. I only found out because eventually her father answered the house phone.

     “She cut her wrists with a knife or razor blade or something. Anyway, she’s fine she just needs some time away from everything.”

I could have crushed his frail ribs with my fists. That naïve–

     “Where is she?”

I didn’t care to filter my anger. Sometimes reality forces its hand despite our best efforts.

     “At the BMC”

I hung up. No more wasted breath.

#

I walked in the front entrance of the institution where crazy lived. Outside crazy was called normal. Inside it smelled like rubbing alcohol. In the waiting room, everyone’s hair was shiny and thick. The bags under their red eyes reminded me of how I felt every morning.

I walked up to the plate-glass window and spoke softly.

     “Is there a Janine Ibsen here?”

     “Yes, may I ask who is asking?”

I faltered. I imagined one of her parents requesting to see her and the nurse saying, “you’ll have to wait until her boyfriend is out.” I chose the path we had already paved.

     “A good friend.”

     “One moment, please.”

Janine and I had been dating for over a year, but the situation felt so foreign. 

     “Put this on, walk through the double doors all the way down the hall and when they ask for a number tell them 0147.”

I put the fluorescent green sticker on my shirt and walked.  I thought about what I might see when I found patient 0147.  Jesus! It’s Janine. I almost vomited at that thought. I pictured her feigning a frown at me after one of my farts. I really got a kick out of that. I should have treated her like a lady. Then I thought about her tiny wrists looking like raw hamburger meet.   I reached the locked doors and the buzzer spoke.

     “Patient number please.”

     “Um, hold on.” Shit. “Oh yeah, 0-1-4-7.”

The buzzer sounded and I jumped at the door.

Janine’s mother was crying in the hall. She looked up and came over to hug me. 

     “It’s okay.” I said hugging her back. 

I felt awkward for telling such a bold lie. I knew how she was feeling but I didn’t give a shit. Her sadness started to make me angry and I asked her where Janine was. She didn’t answer.

     “Can we pray together?” I ignored her and walked to the nurse’s station.

     “Which room is patient 0147 in?”

     “Her name?”

     “Janine Ibsen.”

Why give me the fucking number?

     “She’s in room 31 down the hall on the left.”

I thanked her and started down, passing her mom, I heard her again.

     “Can we pray together?”

What the fuck was pressing our hands together supposed to do? I picked up my pace acting as if I was anxious to see Janine. The pounding in my chest told me I wasn’t acting. Sometimes reality really has a way of forcing its hand. 

Room 27…

…29…

…31. 

I took a deep breath and knocked softly with one knuckle.  I didn’t wait for an answer. I brushed the door open. Their she sat, in a chair with her arms bandaged and facing upwards. Her black curly hair twisting all around her head. Her eyes squinting slightly, shifting back and forth. She looked as if she were trying to solve life’s mysteries. I melted.

     “Hi baby.”

I walked over and sat on the bed next to her chair.

     “I love you. How are you?”

I had asked this question in passing to thousands of people but for the first time I meant it.

She answered slowly. I was aware of my silence and touched her leg. She looked up at me, then right back down at the floor before making her thoughts audible.

     “All of the questions are just distractions. The deeper the question, the cleverer the distraction. What’s on TV? What should I wear? Who am I? Is there a God? If life were just a fart, would death be the wind?”

A burst of air shot through my nose. I squeezed her leg and realized that I had never loved anyone more.

end

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Murder, of course

by Marcus Jonathan Chapman
3,856 words

“So, why’d you do it?” Detective Sykes leaned over the metal table and stared at the murderer. Well, he had still to confess but all video surveillance and eye-witness testimony was pretty damning. Sykes looked at the two-way mirror, knowing his partner was on the other side. He asked again, “Why did you do it, Percy?”

“I do not know. He seemed like a pretentious prick. Or is it pompous? I do not know.” Percy answered. Sykes noticed he had responded genuinely puzzled, as if he were answering a different question, like “why’d you flip the guy off?” Or “Why’d everyone boo when the guy walked in?”

Down at the coroner’s office a medical examiner was inspecting the body of the victim. At the scene of the crime, the unlucky had on black jeans so tight the EMT’s had to cut them off. A short-sleeve button-up shirt with a famous cartoon mouse and round-rimmed spectacles, pieces of which were still mushed into the carne asada that was now his face.

Sykes thought about this face being cleaned up. The Diener picking out teeth, shards of glass, and chunks of carrot from the skull turned bowl now holding onto the pulp of the man’s features.

Blinking rapidly, Sykes prodded Percy for more information.

“Did you know the guy you killed before you saw him at Trader Joe’s?”

“I did not know him. I did not want to. He had been at parties and other events where the same crowd was. He always seemed uninterested in me and my wife.”

“What do you mean disinterested?”

“Well after a while, you see someone enough, you eventually introduce yourself, or at least give a knowing nod, you know?”

“So, he snubbed you. Is that why you killed him?”

“I do not really know. I do know that after a while of seeing him, my blood pressure would rise, he would consume my thoughts and, well, he just became more stress than he was worth.”

Just like that, thought Sykes, kill a man because you didn’t like his face? Sykes pressed Percy.

“You said he consumed your thoughts, with what did he fill your mind?”

“At first, just thoughts of telling him off—-well, no, actually, the first thought was of just walking up and asking why he did not say anything to me or my wife.”

“Why didn’t you ask?”

“Because the thought directly after that was, well what if he apologizes, maybe even profusely and then I have to deal with him walking up to me at every party. I would never be sure if he was genuine or not, knowing that I had once confronted him about not acknowledging me.”

“Do you always have such a hard time with social mores, social norms?”

“Yes, I do.” Percy said, as if answering the question, “do you have two eyes?”

Sykes leaned back off the table, he crossed his arms and cocked his head. He’d personally processed 27 murders in the last year alone, a comparatively slow year, but still. This guy sitting in front of him was genuinely puzzling. No passion, just annoyance.

“So that’s why you killed him, because you thought he’d never be a genuine friend?”

“No. Most people fall into that category.” Said Percy.

“What category?”

“People who would never be my genuine friend.”

“So, why’d you kill him?”

“I do not know, I just wanted him to end.”

Sykes could see that the conversation was getting him nowhere. He looked at the two-way mirror and scratched his ear. A signal to his partner that he was coming out. Sykes looked back at Percy, then started for the door.

“Why do you need to know why?” asked Percy as Sykes reached for the door knob. Percy continued.

“I mean you already know I did it. You have my confession; you have camera footage and you have a whole store full of people who will say I murdered him. Send me to prison, I’m hungry.”

Sykes stopped. “Hungry for what?”

“Hungry for blood!” Percy twisted his face and curled his fingers into claws. “I am kidding, no I am just hungry for food. I mean a burger would be nice, but I will start getting used to prison food. I am just regular old hungry, that is all.”

Sykes was starting to feel his blood pressure rise. Percy’s nonchalance and sarcasm were tapping at the mercury thermometer sticking in the area of Sykes’ brain in charge of temperament.

“Also, it is boring in here.” Added Percy. Sykes paused and took a step backwards into the room. He rolled his tongue between his top row of teeth and top lip, pressing it against the roof of his mouth before he spoke.

“Would you say this was pre-meditated?”

Percy didn’t answer right way. Sykes asked again.

“Did you plan this out and think it through before doing it?”

“No, I know what pre-meditated means. I am just trying to understand if you are truly asking me if I planned to kill him in the middle of a store full of people by beating his face in with a larger than average carrot. Is that what you think I planned?”

Sykes didn’t want to get further away from the point. So, he tried again.

“Had you ever thought about killing him before that day in the grocery store?”

            Percy furrowed his brow and used his bottom teeth to pull his upper lip into his mouth before answering.

“Sure, I thought about it. Little day dreams here and there but nothing like a step-by-step plan. I mean obviously that is not how it went down.” Percy paused then looked at the two-way glass, he pointed between the glass and Sykes.

“Are you telling me that as cops you guys never think about killing anyone? You know for the betterment of humanity, to serve and protect, any of that stuff?”

Sykes took a quick breath, it made him sound exasperated.

“Percy, we’re asking the questions. But I’ll answer one you asked earlier. Why are we asking you? Because we want to be able to give his family some sort of reason for their loved one’s death. No matter how unreasonable.”

            “Why? You imagine a satisfactory scenario in that conversation? Okay.” Percy raised his arms as far as the handcuffs would let him, but the gesture he made still looked grandiose. “I did it for the betterment of humanity! So that my son and his sons and their sons would never have to lay eyes on such a smug, pretentious asshole as he was.” Percy’s chains clanked on the table as he put his hands down.

“Is that good? Can I eat now?”

Sykes pulled the chair back from the table and sat down.

“I’ll bring you food if you tell me what I want to know. No sarcasm, no bullshit, tell me why you really killed him, and I will bring you a burger.”

“A Tommy’s burger.”

“A burger.”

“Fine, but you are not going to like the answer because you have not liked the answer so far. It is not going to change. I did not like him, and I saw him in the store, he did not acknowledge me one too many times and I saw red. I guess it is what people call a crime of passion.”

Sykes wiped his hand over his mouth. “A crime of passion is a lover coming home to find their partner in bed with another person and then killing one or both of them. A person taking revenge. Usually they know the victim, or the victim has done something. This guy you murdered was an acquaintance to you. Am I wrong?”

Percy slowly tilted his head left and then right before answering. “I did not know him intimately, but I saw him enough to where he was more than an acquaintance.”

“So, what was he to you?”

            Percy squinted and looked up as if the answer was on the wall behind Sykes. He sucked air through his teeth.

“I would say he was more of a nuisance. I read something once. I think it is from the bible.”

“Oh, you’re religious?” Sykes glanced at the two-way mirror, as if to see his partners expression.

“No, I just read something once about god saying you are either cold or hot but if you are lukewarm, I spit you out of my mouth.”

“So that’s what you did, you spit him out of your mouth.”

“Something like that. I guess god had his criteria, or standards or boundaries, whatever you want to call them. So, I guess I have found that I have my own criteria.”

“And what criteria is that?” Sykes had his arms crossed on the table and he was leaning forward. Percy raised an eyebrow and frowned. He swayed his head side to side slightly.

“Maybe it was just him, I do not know. Who decided that certain drugs were illegal? I was not involved in that.”

“You murdered a man. Are you saying you think you are God?”

“No. And how do you know what God is?”

“I don’t, but I guess the idea of God is that he makes all final judgement about life and death, right and wrong. Do you think you have that right? That power?”

“No.”

“But at the very least, you think you did the right thing?”

“Who is to say, in my own little existence, that I did not do the right thing. Are you god?”

“You live in a society and therefore you live by a social contract of written and unwritten rules.”

“I did not write them. To me, every birth is a revolution. A life is uncontrolled by the law’s others have created, though definitely others try to impose those laws. My current situation is a perfect example of that.” Percy made to motion with both hands around the room, his chains prevented it. “We have the right to exist however we wish.”

“But there are consequences, you may very well spend the rest of your life in jail.”

“So what? How is that different than your life now?”

“I’m not a prisoner. I’m free to move and do things as I please. I haven’t killed anyone.”

“You are being a prisoner right now. You think your freedom is about being able to move anywhere and touch anything, but your thought is restricting you.”

“I think I’m understanding why you killed him.”

“Because I could. Because my mind is uncontrolled by your legislature and other nonsense. You can lock me in a casket or put me in a field, but my mind is free.”

“You’re batshit. You’re rocketing way past Pluto with no sign of slowing down.”

“See, your mind is so tangled, officer, tangled up with the things others have told you, with the laws you choose to serve and protect, with tales of morality that either end with eternal damnation or eternal paradise. These are prisons because they shape a mind before it has a chance to shape itself.”

“So, you’re not religious. You don’t believe in god?” asked Sykes.

Percy smiled.

“You are still doing it. I either am or am not religious to you. There is either god or no god to you, but have you ever thought that is such a narrow existence?”

“So, what do you believe in?”

Percy shrugged and lifted his hands before letting them drop on the table.

“There is no point. You will write me off as crazy, if you have not already. You just want to know so you can tell your buddies this story later. Just lock me up in your prison and let us be done with this.”

Sykes smiled.

“You’re right, but why don’t you humor me. I’ll order you that burger from Tommy’s.”

Now Percy smiled. “See I cannot even escape myself.” He sat looking at the table.

“So?” said Sykes.

“I believe a virus infects us. It is a simple virus that plagues the brain and does not allow it to see things as they are, but rather forces the mind to create meaning.”

“Meaning?”

“Yes. I believe a virus of meaning infects us all. This entire conversation you have been wondering why I killed him, and you will probably always wonder why on some level. That is a symptom of the virus. You cannot simply accept that I killed him. You, his family, his friends, must know why.”

Sykes raised his eyebrows and looked straight at Percy.

“You never wonder why about anything?”

“Of course, I do.”

“So, you’re infected with the virus of meaning?”

“Of course, I am. Unlike you, I am simply aware of it.”

Sykes continued with his eyebrows raised. Percy finally shrugged his shoulders and went on.

“Because I know about the virus. Because I recognize I am infected, I recognize a flaw, much in the same way an alcoholic knows they cannot drink without control. If they do, the knowledge of their abuse of it taints all drinking experiences thereafter.”

“So how does that work for your virus?”

“Well, though I cannot prove a virus exists, I believe it does because no one has exhibited any evidence to the contrary. Everyone has to know why and even if they never audibly ask the question, the question gnaws away at their mind.”

“What’s wrong with questions?”

“Nothing, they are meaningless but symptomatic of the virus of which I am speaking.”

“You’ve asked me a few questions in the time you’ve been in this room.”

“I am sure I have; I am only human.”

“So, questions are meaningless?”

“There is a view, a popular view, that questions and inquiry lead to a path of understanding and enlightenment, but I think the opposite is true.”

“What?”

“Questions lead to doubt and confusion.”

“How so?”

“The more you know about something, the more that thing opens up to you, forcing you to recognize a whole world of information that you had no idea existed. That trail of information splinters off into an infinite number of paths. Like holding a flashlight straight down at your feet when it is pitch black. You might ask what you are standing on? Or, where you are? That question leads you to slowly lift your flashlight to reveal more information until you see as far as your eyes or the landscape allows but it is not enough. You may have answered your initial questions but now you wonder ‘what is behind those rocks?’ ‘what is behind me?’ ‘Where am I in the grand scheme of things?’ or ‘why am I here?’

“It’s part of human nature to ask questions.”

“Yes.” Percy pointed at Sykes “Yes but that nature is flawed, or as eternal optimists might say, there is room for improvement.”

“As people get older, they get wiser.” Sykes heard himself. Now Percy raised his eyebrows and stared at Sykes as if giving him the opportunity to correct himself. Sykes, out of pride or spite or maybe curiosity, remained silent. Percy responded.

“They do not. We do not because of the infinite paths of questions. The older we get the more questions we have. Our initial questions have to do with more practical things such as how to survive, what to eat, even how to treat others. But we get older and start becoming fixated on questions that either have no answers or yield yet more questions. An infinite loop of questions. For example, why did I kill him?”

“Why did you kill him?” Sykes asked.

Percy sighed and slouched back in his chair.

“I am trying to tell you that there is no why. You, his family and friends are upset because I took a question, an infinite possibility of questions and turned it into a statement. Instead of ‘what is he up to?’ now it is ‘here lies Shawn.’ That is, it. The only relief you or anyone else will get is when your own statement is written, here lies officer Sykes.”

Sykes wasn’t sure whether to take Percy’s last comment as a threat or not. He was more curious at the contradiction sitting in front of him. He asked.

“Earlier you pointed out that it was narrow of me to think dichotomously, god or no god. Now you’re saying that a living person is a question and a dead person is a statement.

“Did I say that?”

“Isn’t that too simplistic for your ideology? Isn’t it contradictory to your theory? You’re either this or that?”

“Yes. Our very questioning nature, or rather the virus, makes us hypocrites. We cannot retain all information all the time, so when presented with some information in a particular situation, we change. We adapt.”

            “Okay, enough. I’m tired of hearing this pseudo-philosophical crap. I’m going to order that Tommy’s burger and start processing you.” Sykes stood up and walked to the door. Percy stared at the wall; his hands folded on the table. He seemed to be concentrating.

“Okay.” He said.

            Sykes walked out of the room and into the cold hallway of the station. The lights buzzed and the drinking fountain hummed. For a moment he forgot about their conversation, as if getting up too fast had pushed it all out of his head. He walked a few steps to his right and entered the viewing room, where his partner watched Percy. His partner, a mustached, mousy man with just enough spine to drive a patrol car, but not enough to conduct the interrogations, asked.

“What do you think he was talking about? Some sort of cult? New age religious thing?”

“I don’t know,” said Sykes. “It’s not important why. We know he did it. Order the man a burger and I’ll start working his file.” Sykes grabbed a folder. He sat down at a desk facing the two-way mirror. His partner stepped into the hallway to call Tommy’s and order ahead.

Sykes heard banging and looked up to see Percy pounding on the table, both palms flat, the chain bouncing along with his hands. The expression on Percy’s face looked more like a snarling baboon than the calm man to whom he was just speaking.

Sykes stood and walked over to the interrogation room. As he was unlocking the door, Percy began yelling.

“Whyyyy? Whyyyyyy? Everybody wants to know why but I am not going to tell them. Fuck you Sykes. Fuck you man behind the mirror.”

Sykes stood at the door. He twisted the knob and walked in. Percy looked at Sykes and stopped pounding.

“How about that burger, sport?” Percy grinned.

“What was all that yelling?”

“I needed to vent. Blow off some steam as they say. You ever do that? Being a Cop is a stressful job.”

Sykes walked back out of the room and shut the door. He could hear Percy chuckling. The burger couldn’t arrive fast enough. He sat down and began rifling through the stack of paperwork. He looked up to see Percy staring at him or at least staring into the one-way mirror.

“Sykes do you ever get scared?” said Percy. “Do you have a wife? How often do you apologize to her or your girlfriend? Do you have kids? How old are they? What are their names and ages? Where do you live?”

Percy now widened his eyes and began tilting his head side to side. Something in his voice made his questions sound like mockery.

“What is your favorite food? What is your favorite color? Are your parents alive? Are they divorced? What did they do?”

            Sykes saw no signs of this stopping. He stood up and walked back out to the hallway. From the hall he heard Percy’s muffled voice. Unlocking the door, he stepped in.

Percy sang to the tune of Miss America theme song.

“There he is, Mr. America.”

“Your burger is coming Percy. You’ll eat and then be on your way, let’s just keep this easy, for both of us.”

            Percy smiled wide. “I am just trying to construct you Sykes. I am building my image of you. It is easier if you answer my questions.”

“No.” Said Sykes, quietly.

“Then I will have to use my fabulous imagination.” Percy announced the last two words as if announcing the title of a children’s TV show.

“Okay.” Sykes responded, walking back out and shut the door. He walked back to the table. Percy started up again.

“I did it. Here is my confession.” Percy was now staring up at the CCTV camera in the corner of the room.

“I pummeled his face in with a carrot, if you can believe that. At Trader Joe’s, they have these big ‘ol carrots. I grabbed one in my left-hand and the man’s collar in my right. Then I started beating him into the wine aisle. He asked me why I was doing it, of course, no one is immune to the virus Officer Sykes, but I didn’t answer because I was focusing all my energy into my carrot holding arm.”

Percy sniffed.

“I did it for self-preservation. He was eating away at a part of my mind and now I find that there is some relief. I have scratched an itch and feel relieved. You know, I probably just proved my theory. Perhaps that itch was the virus of meaning eating away and now it is, well it will probably take on a different form.”

Percy went on. Sykes did his best to focus on the paperwork though he read sentences over and over a few times. A photo of the victim before the crime was usually paperclipped to the reports. Sykes couldn’t find it.

“Ah, my burger!”

Sykes looked up at the sound of Percy’s sudden delight. Through the two-way mirror, he saw his partner walk into the interrogation room.

“Thank you,” said Percy. “I did not think it would really happen. Do they serve burgers in prison? Are they like sad McDonald’s burgers or do they have all the fixings? Do you like burgers, Officer Sykes’ partner?”

His partner set the bag in Percy’s reach and walked back out of the room, closing the door behind him. Sykes watched as Percy carefully unwrapped the burger and slowly smoothed down the corners of the paper.

Sykes was so lost in thought, staring at Percy, he hadn’t noticed that his partner had walked into his own room. and set down a burger in front of him.

 “I got you a burger with cheese.”  Sykes was startled out of his daze. His partner set down the burgers.

“Oh, and the front desk handed me this on my way in.” Sykes took the folder his partner held out to him. The smell of burgers telling his mind to wrap this up so he could eat.

He flipped open the cardstock and a photo fell out. Sykes picked it up and saw the image of a scrawny male, mid-thirties, Caucasian wearing a Mickey Mouse print t-shirt and small round spectacles. The victim before his murder, almost exactly as Percy had described.

Squinting his eyes, Sykes thought ‘he does have one of those faces.’

end

⭐

Rating: 1 out of 5.

Survive, Laughable, Sacrifice

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
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19 minutes left to decide. Do I smoke this J and risk getting caught? or do I risk my sanity by delivering another mind numbing sermon?

The danger in the latter is that I may really let them know how I feel. That I became a priest because it’s a cushy job with plenty of time to myself. Because everyone looks up to and reveres the collar.

Today is Easter Sunday. I won’t survive, however, if I can’t do this high or a little drunk. One of the two days out of the year in which the church is full. A fact about the faith so laughable I find I cry myself to sleep at the thought.

So I will eat this cupcake full of THC and if it’s the lords will that I expose myself for an unbelieving fraud, then so be it.

If I deliver my sermon as normal, then I’ll have to go through all this mental, emotional, and spiritual torture next Sunday.

For now, I’ll have a cup of wine while the cupcake digests, then maybe have an Easter wank.

Douglas, the little 9-year-old isn’t due in for another hour, so I’ve got time.

What if i talked about the devil as a loving, caring entity who is only misunderstood? That would be too far left to be funny.

If I touted the benefits to marijuana and tied it to the creation story, would that go over well? They would definitely know I was high.

Now I’m beginning to get the giggles.

What if I preached only the parts of the bible which have lists? The lists of ancestors going on and on about who begat whom. Or the lists of supplies and resources. What if I tied it to a ludicrous message that god wants his children to make lists, then read through all the lists and say something like “make lists and think of god because the devil is in the details.”

The infuriating part is that no one would question the sermon. Even those that thought it strange would simply leave and move on with their days. THAT above all things is the most frustrating part of being a priest, lack of accountability.

The members of the church believe the clergy answer only to god but the clergy really only answer to themselves.

There is no accountability from god, or those cunt-priests touching kids would have been fried by lightening by now instead of moved around.

Maybe I’ll just go out and talk about love. If I quit now, some asshole will spew hell fire and brimstone

Cold, Chase, Prevent

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

Without thinking she sneezed. A wave of terror washed over her body. The four-foot high cubicles, once feeling oppressive, were not hight enough anymore.

Though she didn’t move, Sara knew her colleagues were beginning to stand up in their cubicles, like Meerkats on the plain, suddenly aware of the threat of danger.

It wasn’t a cold, it couldn’t be. She had gotten the flu vaccine two weeks earlier than doctors recommended.

Reaching for a tissue, Sara noticed that the office had gone quiet. All but the hum of the water cooler and the clock ticking above the exit door. No one typed or shifted in their seats and definitely no one coughed.

Another wave of fear washed over her at the thought that she might be discovered because she remained the only one in her seat.

Through the tissue in her garbage, Sara slowly stood up, changing her eyebrows, mouth and chin to appear concerned.

“Was that you, Sara?”

It was Janine. Of course this bitch would ask me that, but she works in the cubicle on the other side of Greg.

Shit. Greg. he was out sick with something. Sara would be blamed for sure. Unless…

“No. I heard it from you. Weren’t you looking for something in Greg’s cubicle earlier?”

Sara needed to get ahead of this. Pin Janine and when the others gave chase, make her exit.

“Yeah,” continued Sara. “I know it was you because I got the flu vaccine and last week I heard you talking with Greg about not ever getting the flu vaccine. Something about autism.”

I could see more and more of my co-workers popping up. One walked to the emergency exit and propped open the door with a rubber wedge. Another colleague made his way to the emergency kit, not filled with bandages or Neosporin but with a plastic bubble to house the sick.

“I’m not sick. I didn’t sneeze. I heard you sneeze, Sara. You sneezed,” said Janine.

“You’re sounding quite defensive,” I said.

Then our regional manager, Dave, chimed in.

“Yeah Janine, me thinks the lady doth protest too much.” Dave looked around to see if anyone laughed but now was not the time.

The team moved toward Janine while she protested. Sara backed toward the open exit.

I might get away with this, thought Sara.

Just before reaching the exit, Sara heard Owen shout.

“Hey! There’s a used tissue in Sara’s waste bin.”

Sara thought quickly.

“Oh my god, Janine tried to frame Sara. Let’s get her.” Sara said, ducking through the exit while the group rushed at Janine.

Nifty, Manage, Call

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

There’s this nifty little device I have that manages all my calls. It’s a little 3D rectangle with a green light up screen that shows my messages. I can hook it to my belt and check my incoming calls.

It’ll beep whenever someone wishes to get a hold of me and then, if I recognize the number, I’ll call back to see what they want.

Sometimes I already know what the message is by looking at the phone number. I know what they want, how much they want, where I should meet them and what time I need to meet them.

When I’m in the park and it’s lunch time, I like to make a big show of being contacted. I’ll tilt the little sucker attached to my belt up at the angle of my face. I know I can simply look down and see it, but then no one would notice that I’m making it that I’m doing quite well.

Sometimes I’ll pull the thing off my belt and hold it up at eye level, not to admire it, but to make a big show that the message is bothersome. This is really impressive because it looks like having the device is no big deal to me, like a necessary evil in my line of work, “If I could get away with not carrying one of these things around (shaking head) trust me.”

You know, that sort of thing.

In my line of work, if done well, only my customers know who I am. They’ll never know anything else, not where I’m from, who I associate with, where I get the products, not anything.

That’s why this little chirping birdie on my belt is perfect. I can only contact others, they shoot messages into the dark.

And, I just remembered, I can turn off the beeps and it will vibrate. On occasion that silence is necessary. The people of this great community and their elected officials aren’t as open minded about the products I sell. So the ability to lay low–I won’t say hide–is occasionally necessary.

I never pass this feeling onto my clients. That’s bad customer service. I don’t ever want them to leave me feeling nervous. They should walk or drive away feeling empowered by their decisions.

Oh, excuse me, I’m getting someone now. See how people are looking over here? I’m a man to be respected, like a doctor or surgeon. I help people get better too.

Dusty, Bored, Thundering

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
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At the end of your life you are shown to a theater and given an accounting of all your stats. It isn’t some thundering proclamation from a white haired god. No, by the end of the presentation, most people find themselves bored to death. That is exactly the point.

In the beginning it can be quite interesting. You’re offered coffee, tea or water and shown to a small couch. In front of you is a man on suspenders poised to turn over a large paper flip chart. There is no preamble he gets right into it.

“These are your statistics,” he says.

“Boogers! had you saved all of them up you’d have a gigantic mound of mucus about the size of an elephant.”

(By the way in this scenario you’re 81 years old.)

“Instead you’ve picked, flicked and blew all your not into garbages, toilets, streets, and cars.”

“Earwax!”

He goes on very similarly about the earwax, except its about the size of an SUV, which you think is roughly the size of an elephant and he’s just trying to keep his comparisons interesting.

“Hair! You’ve lost 37,564 hairs from the top of your head BUT you gained 63 hairs in and around your left ear and 59 hairs in and around your right. You had an increase in your nose hairs, both in number of individual follicles as well as girth of each hair.”

“Nutsack!”

It did surprise me that the terms were not more scientific but then again he may be using language I can understand.

“Your has distended 3.73 inches!”

“Fingernails! If gone uncut and unbroken they would now be 53 yards, 2 feet, 4 inches and 7millimeters long.”

Eventually you tune out. The stats become more absurd and then suspenders opens a dusty book and things get interesting again.

“I will now read your language stats!”

“Fuck you’s! 759,000 even. Impressive!”

You think it could be more.

“Fuck offs! 33,542”

“Fuck! 3,259,117.”

“Son of a bitch!…”

“Cunt!…”

“Damn!”

It continues like this for a while and eventually you just sort of die like I said earlier, of boredom. Fuck.

Heave, Obey, Moult

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
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Nigel lifted the tablets. As he did, more hair fell from his head onto the faces of the rock slab he held. He’d been moulting more frequently, now that he was closer to the truth.

Above his head he held the words which were meant to give his life purpose, the words he was meant to obey.

Although his eyes were turned down, away from the sun he was forced to squint. The muscles of his arms were beginning to feel less like stone pillars and more like ropes. Sweat stung his eyes and his hair–it still fell. Now that he held the answers in his hands, tangible and cold, he felt more anxious than ever. He’d begged and pleaded with the sky, against the protestations of his friends and family.

“I need to find the truth!” He told them so while they ate, lounged, partied and laughed, he sought the truth.

Through valleys and deserts, jungles and mountains, Nigel looked for the truth. Every where he went the people asked him to stop and rest but Nigel kept on searching for that something.

The walking and climbing made his muscles strong. The obsession with truth, weakened him. So distracted by finding a clear obvious truth was he that he missed out on everything. It was not all a waste, however, when one day Nigel came across the tablets.

On stones shaped like markers for the dead was a list. On that list Nigel read things which he had to admit to himself were underwhelming and somewhat obvious.

He held them over his head, now nearly bald and standing at the edge of a cliff, heaving the stones over the side with the echo of a crash.

“I’ve wasted my life,” he said, then followed the sound of the crash.

Popcorn, Jar, Bounce

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

“Listen,” I told the cashier, “I need a tent but I’ve never been camping so I don’t know where to start.”

The cashier, who looked like he had just popped in to work at the Big 5 from a life of camping, stroked his beard while staring me up and down.

“Will you be camping alone or with friends and family?”

I cleared my throat and scratched my cheek. Just as I was about to say “alone”, Madonna’s Like a Virgin came on through the store speakers and I changed my answer.

“I’m a camping with friends.”

The man pulled a Mason jar full of water from below the counter and took a swig. His eyes bulged, his cheeks flushed red and he let out a puff of smoke before replying, “well, if you are camping alone, I recommend a pup tent.”

“Why’s it called a pup tent?”

He ignored my question and pulled a small brown sack out from the same place his jar had come from.

“This here’s a pup tent and I’ll give it to you for $25. That’s a steal kid.”

I looked at the sack, which looked like it had bounced around the back of a pick up truck full of ketchup, mustard, mayo, ranch dressing and BBQ sauce. That’s also what it smelled like.

“Do you have any other–” I began to say.

“No, thats it, the tents you see around are only for display.”

I glanced at the aisle marked CAMPING and saw boxes and boxes of tents.

CLANG! POP! BANG! POP!

I jumped.

The man stroked his beard and took another bug-eyed swig of his interesting water. Droplets rolled down his beard as he reached down and pulled up a camping stove.

“Popcorn?” he gestured with black fingernails. I could see dirt spidering through the cracks in his hands.

“No, thank you. Listen, could I speak to a manager?” I said looking around.

“Manager? Who do you think you’re talkin’ to little feller?”

“Oh, excuse me.” My face curled up unconsciously into disgust as he gently pressed big, damp wads of chewing tobacco into his left cheek, in between large handfuls of popcorn, which he maneuvered to his right side with his tongue.

Fire, Water, Plant

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

The scene was hazy, so I tried to determine which elements were present.

I looked down but could only see, well, I couldn’t see past my belly. I shifted my weight just enough to feel something solid.

Earth.

My lungs weren’t burning and I could feel that familiar habit of inhalation and exhalation. It was automatic. I couldn’t remember a thing but I was breathing. Air was present.

I looked down at my belly again, focusing on something dancing, a shadow bouncing around the rim of my umbilical cord. The shadow was orange and red.

I looked up and saw the source of the orange on my belly. I curled my hands around the cord protruding from my stomach and used it to pull myself toward the slit.

A deep red, orange, yellow wind brushed past my face.

I started to panic as the safety of my darkness was slowly eaten away by the colors.

Now I could see greens and browns leaping out behind the reds, oranges and yellows. I tried to retreat to the safety of the darkness but a weight pressed down on my existence. An apocalypse of my cocoon.

My hands suddenly forced to my sides my nose smashed against the walls of my home. My head bubbling in different directions.

Suddenly my being floated and my world of black exploded into a million pieces of light and color. I floated, my lungs burning. My eyes squeezed tight but the light still stabbing through.

The force accelerated my floating and I burst into an alien atmosphere. My face and body melting, my hands tried to curl around the cord at my belly button but nothing was left.

In shock my mouth sent a scream and all my senses came to life.

I was born.

Pale, Review, Expansion

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
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Peter sat on the dock, his big right tow the anchor for some fishing line. Although nothing was nibbling, the skin around his big toe was whiter than the rest of his body.

He dangled his feet and looked up at the sky feeling a sense of nostalgia. The smell of the ocean, sound of seagulls and feel of the hot sun seemed to be trying to pull out some distant memory.

Peter had seen something on TV where a guy used one magnet to move around another magnet that was on the other side of a wall. That feeling of nostalgia was like that, a pulling of something that felt familiar but wasn’t seen.

Peter pulled up his feet on the dock suddenly. He cut the dangling fishing line from his toe with a switchblade and stood up. He looked at the sky. Now black clouds were moving to block the sun.

The nostalgia remained but it was blending with a sense of dread. He tried to review the expansion of feeling inside him.

How could he feel so many things? What was that nagging sense of nostalgia bordering on deja vu really about?

Peter walked to where the dock met the sand and picked up a half empty 12-pack of beer. Every time these feelings began to wash over him, he would take a drink. Such a simple, effective cliche. Another thing he had learned on TV.

This time, however, the feelings remained. This time, Peter thought he heard the muffled ticking of a clock and the distant sounds of raucous, drunken singing; chanting following the low rumble of drums.

Peter turned his head to look at the spot where the water met the sky. He finished his can of beer and grabbed another.

The sky above was beginning to thunder. Peter stumbled toward a nearby outcropping of trees and crawled under the tarp he had hung between branches. Before he passed out, he winced at what he thought was the sound of jingling bells.

Remake, Iron, Easy

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by https://wordcounter.net/random-word-generator

At first it annoyed Henry. All the reports of micro aggressions that were making their way into the news cycle. Little things like a man or woman assuming the boss or doctor being referred to in conversation was a male. Or things like internet celebrities making videos of themselves destroying property and stealing while critics praised their “courage to take comedy to the next level.”

Frankly, Henry had no clue what a micro aggression really was but like a pressure cooker, we decided to let out a puff of steam once in a while so as not to blow up one day.

He started at the movie theater. The film was a remake of a movie that had already been made and remade five times.

During the movie, Henry would shout things out:

“Bullshit.”

“Come on, that’s ridiculous.”

“Why not film a turd in the toilet, it would be cheaper and more original than this crap.”

That’s as far as he got. The ushers escorted him out but in a sense, Henry fell liberated, a little steam had puffed out.

When he arrived home, the mailbox was stuffed with what to Henry amounted to a big wad of garbage. So, he kicked the mailbox off its post and threw it into the garbage, where he felt the whole thing belonged.

After a couple of days, he received a notice from the United States Postal Service stating that he would need to put up a mailbox or else the mail would no longer be delivered to him.

Perfect, Henry thought. It was easier than I imagined. Then he tossed the USPS notice in the garbage as well.

Then it was his cell phone. He stepped inside his house and heard his phone ringing, without looking to see who was calling, Henry threw the phone in the trashcan outside.

Henry began looking through all of his possessions, realizing that they annoyed rather than brought him joy. He deflated his basketball and football throwing them away. He snapped his golf clubs over his knees and threw them away. He did keep his 5-iron because he liked to hit golf balls at the top of the hill overlooking the freeway. Which, he decided, is exactly what he would do after his material purge.

After the golf session, about 15 minutes of screeching tires, broken glass and honking cars, he drove down to the nicest restaurant in town.

Upon arrival, he waited for a table, noticing the sign that said “no shirt, no shoes, no service.” After being seated, ordering and eating, he removed his shirt and his shoes. When the waiter came by again, he ordered dessert and got away with it.

Henry learned that if you’re already in the restaurant, you can break the rules, not a moment before.

Imbricate, Pongee, Zucchetto

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by Dad

In the museum I was mostly bored save for a few minor details that caught my attention. Supposedly, at one time there were these organizations, run mostly like clubs with memberships, that had the benefit of being tax exempt. Religious organizations.

Each one claimed to be different but after millions of years of doubt, questioning, corruption, and frivolous rules, the obvious simply became too obvious to ignore.

There was no catastrophic event, it was only a “last straw” sort of situation.

Now I was passing an exhibit that was part of the Catholic section (one of the largest section of the museum). The guide pointed at an old pink colored hat, just large enough to fit on the back of a skull, and said “Notice the pongee on this Zucchetto. Pongee the Chinese silk fabric on a cap traditionally worn by Catholic clergy. Quite the contrast of cultures and beliefs in one little cap.”

Indeed, the irony was right in front of their faces (or on their heads) the entire time.

We passed a display with all sorts of symbols. The Christian cross was pointed out as another symbol of irony; a torture device used by the Roman Empire became the symbol of a supposedly peaceful belief system.

The Jewish star, a symbol of the merging of heaven and earth, or to others, the merging of male and female. It turns out a symbol of tangled confusion. Most, if not all the symbols had more than one meaning, which, the tour guide pointed out, should have been another clue into the ambiguous nature of religious truths, if it could be called natural.

We passed by books that had been called holy but were now simply considered old and outdated.

We passed miniature cathedrals, temples, churches, synagogues, mosques, etc. All destroyed now and replaced with museums, art installations, libraries or public parks.

When the tour ended, I walked back to the section with miniature versions of the once erected places of worship. They must have been truly magnificent works of architecture and they were inspired by awe, wonder and a deep reverence for something they believed to be as real as the stones, wood and stained glass used to build them.

I stared at one rooftop in particular, the plaque read “This rooftop was built to mimic the imbrication often found in nature. Notice the uneven staggering of tiles, not like a snake or fish but more like that of a pine cone or blossomed flower.”

What was it all about? Who was it really for?

Evolution, Revolution, Patience

3 things to inspire 1 story written in 20 minutes. #story320
words/phrase provided by Dad

He’s still sitting there at Capitol Hill on the steps of the Capitol building. Eighty-something years old with a leather vest, jeans, and a red, white, and blue bandana. He’s still waiting.

He’s sat there through a couple of major wars and a few dozen minor conflicts. His sign never changes “give peace a chance” it says, but it would seem to the outside observer, that peace needs context and that context is war.

I heard people talk about the hippy octogenarian. They say things like “It’s easy to be peaceful when you never try to do anything” or “You don’t get peace without war.”

Is the opposite true? You don’t get war without peace? I’ve wondered. Is this man’s 60-year protest, antagonizing? While some men die, others sit and hold signs? Is that antagonizing?

I’ve thought about asking the old man my questions. I’ve thought about asking him how it felt for other men to have fought proudly for what they believe and die for it? How did he feel about protesting their sacrifice?

I’ve considered asking him about the evolution of man but I realized by watching him that man’s mind doesn’t evolve. It’s a stubborn and unbending thing, especially when the odds are stacked against it.

Evolution only exists in nature and not the unnatural minds of man, who question everything.

I’ve considered asking the old man many questions about war, foreign and domestic policy, the value of human life, and revolution. I haven’t because I think that when i look at that man, the questions only arise out of my own insecurity.

Do I have the strength of character to sit at the same step for 60 years? Could I stand for something so staunchly, even thought it doesn’t affect my day to day life? Is that man my enemy or am I my own?

One day I walked by the steps and the old man wasn’t there. On the local news that night a short segment was dedicated to him.

I watched and changed my mind, a little. It wasn’t about the forces to which he opposed or the forces which other men fought, it was about being a force. All protests come to an end. All war comes to an end. The only force is that he stood for something. It could have been war, it could have been peace.