Evolution seems to love a star. There are starfish, of course, little and big. And succulent plants that look like trippy stacks of stars. And of course dozens of flowers come in this shape. Radial symmetry rather than bilateral.
What if, for some peculiar but convincing reason (Hello Isaac Asimov! Howdee Octavia Butler! Greetings, Kim Stanley Robinson!), humans came to life along radial lines instead of our bilateral ones? What would be our center? Would our points be be feet or hands? Would we cartwheel along in the tide?
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I like a good mystery. An overactive imagination is kind of my stock in trade. People-watching is an exercise in making up fictional histories for strangers. This sign, however, stymies my every fictional effort.
I find nothing to add to this text to make a more vivid, surprising, or funny bit of narrative. It's already there: the stereotype and the inverted stereotype, the frustration and the showmanship, the transgression and the possibility of forgiveness. I mean, dam, it's a zen koan of a story. Plus two mungrel dogs. In the words of Natalie Goldberg, "It is odd that we never question the feasibility of a football team practicing long hours for one game; yet in writing we rarely give ourselves the space for practice." She goes on, in Writing Down the Bones, to explain that it's not important what a writer writes but that she does. In this spirit of writing about any old thing –– here's today's writing prompt. Story 1: Contra dance
She suspected that he might be a rather closer relation than she would hope. Her parents' generation being all free love and hey-diddle-diddle. How squalid it seemed to her. And these country dances, honestly ––! The sawing fiddle music with the caller sending dancers hopping and whirling before they'd even had the chance to make their introductions. Oh well, she thought, you had to join in or risk offending. When in Rome and all that. Story 2: Private Investigator Indoor dog out for a rare jaunt on the town. Street-smart but not out looking for trouble. Unexpected hint of asparagus. Flea powder not a week gone by. Lives with a cat (short-haired) and at least one child under 5. Castrated, poor bastard. Story 3: Seeing Eye Miguel could see only a little any more, cataracts shading every beam of light. Even in the piazza in the blazing sun, objects in shade were indistinguishable from the shade itself. Everything in the sunshine a blur in the sea of blurred light. Now more than ever, his was a black-and-white world. He had been making his way to Bertillo's kitchen door, the scent of sausage cooking reeling him across the sidewalks, when his path was blocked. It was one of the rambunctious youngsters who roamed the town, yapping at trucks and pissing on everything. Miguel couldn't remember the name, but thought it was one of his sister's grand-kids. A bunch of them wandered this part of town, tough and springy and full of bark, but raised right. They knew to respect their elders. It was a comfort to Miguel to know that when he was a young punk, he'd never shown a tooth to the old aunties and uncles sunning their old bones on these same pavement stones. Full circle, that's what it was. Now, that sausage... One of my writer friends (Hi Kathy L!) says that she doesn't understand how other people DON'T constantly make up stories about stuff they see or hear. Me neither. Story 1
The music pulsed and throbbed with a insistent beat that [content removed. Unsuitable, obvious, and clichéd.] Story 2 Pip's squad had been waiting for a very long time. It had been so long and they had grown so used to their position that they nearly missed the signal when it came. At least one of them would have given a bitter wheeze of laughter at that: all that time holding still and they miss the transport. Again. But no. They had by God discipline, and when the Sarge gave an order...they scrambled. Oscar mike it was: shocking slow and messy as hell, they emerged from their bolt-hole and formed ranks. They knew they must look bad, could see it in the sideways glances of the exfiltration team, but the CO just returned their salute and asked if they were ready to come home. Story 3 She knew Groot, a vegetable hero. She knew "I'll Follow the Sun," though she didn't usually entertain a kindness for beetles. She knew the scope of her reach and the resonant feel of cooked clay. She knew the soft warning of impending rain and the shock of hosed water, and the passing interest of passers-by. She knew her up from down, but until the last moment, she had not understood the brutal truth about gravity. A shrug, a ripple, a wayward heartbeat from the ground below, and she was airborne. The fleeting unpleasantness followed by a longer-lasting one: she landed on concrete, terra-cotta opening like a set of shark's teeth all around her tender underparts. Everything felt wrong: the sun shone sideways, burning where it had never done before, and carefully hoarded molecules of water drifted off in the little breeze. This is what is is to die, she thought, this is my end. And then: no, I will live some more. Telling stories and then trying to sell them is a little like trying to distract a toddler. You hold up a shiny toy and shake it, hoping that this will get their attention. And sometimes it does. This one did not attract the attention of the judges, but I enjoyed writing it for a contest last spring. It's unlikely to sell elsewhere, so here you go. Free fiction.
"Malibu" Vernon and Jeannette loved their place in Malibu. You never knew who you’d see around town – Ali with the big sunglasses in the cereal aisle, Bo in riding breeches, Kurt and Goldie having lunch like anyone. Plus –– the house. When taking hayseed houseguests on the grand tour, Vern would throw his arms wide and proclaim, “The sky and the water, and our neighbors the stars.” Always followed by that staccato laugh of his “Ha! Ha! Ha!” like something hard falling down three steps. The jokes never changed. Showing off their beach access, he’d add, “Watch out for that last one…it’s a doozy! Ha! Ha! Ha!” It sometimes made Jeannette gulp her Long Island iced tea a little faster. But who could complain? Vern was steady. Not a beauty, but he made his own money and didn’t bitch about what Jeannette did with hers. No indiscretions, no cruelty. That was worth something. Seventeen years together made theirs a legacy marriage. Some friends were hammering out the details on their third and fourth divorce settlements already. Jeanette didn’t like to judge, but –– honestly. She hated thinking about the spouses who moved away. Retreating to their flyover home-states or shifting bitterly into condos on Topango. Or Sunset, heaven forbid. It gave her a bad feeling. Not that it would be her, downsizing into something bijoux and brave, with the one good Aubusson draped over the loveseat. No, she had every expectation of living out her years right here. She loved this view, loved the cool, dark cement tunnel that led to the beach-stair, loved the sound of the waves. When Vern predeceased her (what with his blood pressure and the bacon every morning, there was little doubt) she’d probably join the flock of rich old birds that strode along the sand early in the mornings, all skinny legs and good bone structure. Maybe take up an eccentric hobby. Bird-watching, perhaps, or ship-spotting, something she could do from the deck between-times. No remarriage, that went without saying. Oh, who was she kidding? The whole thing was collapsing. No amount of replenishment was going to fetch the dunes back from the surf. And she might just as easily go first. Breast cancer, probably. She wouldn’t fight it. God. She hated the quavery, courageous sound of the word “remission.” They should sell. Cash out. As soon as the market came back a little. If it did. But it always did, right? Whenever someone admired their view – nothing but ocean all the way to Hawaii –– Vern would hitch up his pants (very community theater-esque, that bit of broad stage-business) and adopt a hick accent to say, “Ain’t nobody making waterfront any more. Ha! Ha! Ha!” What if you had only one view –– one view forever? Would you want to watch the sea? A river, constant and ever-changing? A city street from up above? An open field? Story 1:
He struggled to inch himself up the slope of pillows. His pajamas made a reciprocal slide downward, and when he finished yanking them back into place, his breath sounded harsh in that cool room. It was ridiculous how many pillows and things shared the bed. A bed-tray with a cup and a bell, two novels and a dictionary, a plastic bag of cut-up vegetables in case he got hungry. He couldn't remember the last time he was hungry. He counted the ticking of the clock and let the perspiration evaporate until his breathing calmed. Later, when he'd managed the slope –– and without losing anything overboard, which was a blessing –– he allowed himself to look out the window. The wind was blowing. He could hear it now that its bounding progress up the hill made sense of the sound. White clouds rolled above the bright timothy. A bird crossed the little slice of blue sky. Time for the hay to come in. Another bird flew by. Story 2: When it moved, the field rippled like the fur of some giant animal. When it moved, the earth mounded and fell as if an enormous mole was working its way through the fields. She held perfectly still, her feet drawn up from the floor to keep the sound of her pulse from echoing through the foundation of the house. She closed her eyes for a moment, but the images came back as vividly as ever. The monster under the ground had eaten everyone. She had seen it, and she knew that it eat her too, but a stubborn flicker of hope kept her frozen in place, surrounded by stone and glass with her feet pulled up and the sound of her heartbeat pounding in her ears. There were no two ways about it... Story #1 There were no two ways about it –– you could tell people by how they react to the reptiles, he thought, gazing at the crowd on the other side of the block wall. People were crazy about snakes or they didn't really care. If not full of hate and fear for them, the emotional ones adored Our Scaly Pals and went on about how wonderful they were, eating vermin and keeping Nature's precious balance, all that happy-slappy crap. The others were comfortable knowing nothing, standing around after the show, saying things like, "Oh, are snakes reptiles? Huh." He understood that. Hell, he couldn't give less of a crap about a lot of stuff. Re-baloting, stem-cell research, modern art, that shit didn't mean jack to him. He was a reptile guy. Was going to keep doing this gator-wrestling, snake-handling gig for the rest of his life. Unless the old place collapsed around him. He tapped a finger against the wooden handle of his hook, touching wood as the anxiety pinched at his guts. He didn't like thinking about the future. Too much to worry about. Enough to pay attention to right now. Story #2 There were no two ways about it...she was not going to walk this footpath again. She wasn't going to skinny-dip in the deep black water of the lake. Wasn't going to hop onto her bike and pedal forty-five miles on a whim, forgetting the sun-block and then guzzling sweet tea straight from the heavy glass pitcher in her gram's cool, dark kitchen before turning her bike around and rolling back home. The second opinion, this one sporting a rugby shirt under his white coat, as if he'd just scrambled off the pitch, was just as awful as the first. The same absolutes –– the same phrases even –– and no other possible diagnosis. A second opinion, handsome as he was, made it a truth. Story #3 There were no two ways about it...he might have tried again, but he had never been one for sticktoitivity. He wasn't cut out for the job. He knew that. He was good at starting, not so hot at finishing. A string of unconnected jobs, a smattering of half-baked skills. If he didn't know what made him unhappy about his own history, he was also pretty decent at maintaining a cheerful front. "Eyes front," his mom used to say. "Eyes front," and "Tomorrow is another day." The Florida State Fair takes place in February –– a fact that continues to surprise me, despite knowing full well what the weather is going to be like in August. Heading to the Fairgrounds, I find I have just enough intestinal fortitude to share a single deep-fried delight (A plain but weighty elephant ear this year. 2014 was the year of the maple-bacon funnel cake), but a perhaps endless appetite for the livestock aisles. There was a bit of drama among the fowl. Imagine the scene at home for this guy: Story #1
Setting: A modest living space, well-lit but with very sparse furnishings. Our hero enters in a state of greater-than-usual dishevelment and begins in a rush: "I'm ADOPTED?! Mother, how could you let me go to the Fair, knowing what would happen? You know what? I'm GLAD to be going to the slaughterhouse. You ruined my life!" Story #2 The scene is a long dining table. The murmur of voices diminishes, and from the head of the table, a deep male voice rings out: "So, it appears that Junior here is NOT a Cochin? Marge, is there something you want to tell us?" Story #3 And in the hot-headed world of the Telenovela: " 'Cochin' mi culo! Más como cochina!" Each writing day, I wonder if a ray of light will come down from on high to illuminate a Higher Truth –– complete with the sound of horns. Maybe Wynton Marsalis playing Haydn, or something like this: Then I snap out of my whimsy –– as if inspiration had a sound-effect! Oh for pity's sake, cliché alert! –– and buckle down to some warm-up writing. Warming up –– for me anyhow –– often involves a second helping of whimsy. For instance, I wonder what Saint John might possibly have been listening to on his iPod while writing the Book of Revelation?
Story #1 The music washed over him in ecstatic waves. Ear-buds vibrating against the cartilage of tragus and cavum, the thin white cord tickling his neck with each pump of his pulse. There were times like this when he thought music was the only thing keeping him connected to the rocky earth. Without the slim silicone-encased player, he might float free among the clouds. Like the eagle, he might stare into the sun as he rose, until vitreous humor boiled into steam in the sockets of his eyes and the soft conjunctiva dried into sand. But then the music faded, the four chords of the chorus gently shifting to outro and silence, and in the moment of stillness between songs on his unnamed playlist, and he felt again the rock under his elbow. He took a steadying breath and calmed his thoughts against the feverish images of devils and harlots, the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb. He dipped his pen into the walnut juice and held it over the page as next introduction began to climb into the bridge. Story #2 Revelation, he thought. You say you want a revelation, well, you know. We all want to change the world. He jotted the words on parchment and found the next line flowed almost without effort. You say you've got a real solution, you know we want to see a plan. The words, written, turned on him like a serpent. Doubt and the devil take this infernal music machine! He pressed the wheel-within-a-wheel on the MP3 player. Damn the Beatles, he thought, skipping the remaining tunes of the White Album to get to the first song from the eponymous Beau Dommage. Thank you Lord, he mouthed the words and focused his gaze on the clouds. Thank you for the future that includes Canadians! Where do ideas come from? This letter came cartwheeling down the sidewalk, with a few obvious stories already leaking off the page. Story #1
He wasn't sorry. He'd known that he was going to hurt his friend's feelings. Known it, and meant to do it again, and what's more, he was going to continue to shave the edge from his apologies by spelling it "sarey" as if he didn't know any better until well into his 20's. What he didn't know was just who was going to see through the ruse and plan a bitter revenge. Story #2 He still wore his Columbia U sweatshirt, still pushed his tortoise-shell glasses up his narrow nose when he concentrated. He continued to pile The New Yorker and The Economist and Smithsonian magazines on the mudroom table. He kept the boxwood hedge sharp-edged and neat, and left bags of leaves waited at the curb after a weekend of lawn-work. But the ruined Lexus was never replaced, and the big dining room never again filled with dinner-guests. He didn't read the magazines, and the home-health aid only ever used the microwave in that big airy kitchen, heating up his nightly meal from the stack in the freezer. |
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