Monday, January 30, 2006

 

swing

by Fred 1:41 PM

Friday, January 27, 2006

 

For the well-bred Antelian of sophisticated taste and not immodest means, travel amongst the ape-men colonies in orbit around Sol may very well be regarded as the very height of bourgeois foolishness, the sort of ill-advised activity of only the most desperate and penniless of thril-seekers. True, it is said that for a mere half Antelian dollar, one can buy one's own weight in roast or boiled human meat (no small feat if one is a male in the last stages of pregnancy) or see the so-called civilizations that dot the dirty planets. Gone are the days of sweeping from the sky to raid cattle herds or implant tracking devices within human craniums for scientific study. All that can be learned thusly, has. All those trills are gone. Yet there is still much for the traveller of refined taste. There is much to recommend even tiny Earth, following discovery of the Antelian presence there and forced first-contact with rhe natives. There are opportunities for the well-seasoned and even jaded traveller.

by Fred 6:33 PM

 

the science of language

by Fred 11:30 AM

Wednesday, January 25, 2006

 

Q: What did the old woman whisper in your ear?

A: Nothing, save what I knew to be the truth already. All she whispered, I had learned either in my travels or my studies. What she said held no surprises. I had heard that many men called her prophet, seeress, and lord knows she looked the part. But her prophecies were little more than common sense cobbled to the most obvious of truths.

Q: Such as?

A: Such as that, on a cloudy day, one should have the foresight to take along an umbrella. That one should never fear to rest along life's path to smell the roses. She actually said that. That open holes should be avoided and walked around. This was the sum of the knowledge she imparted, or at the least a good representation of its average.

Q: So she said nothing new?

A: She took cliches and clothed them in new words, but they were still cliches. It's not much prophecy to say look before you leap.

Q: Unless you will find yourself in the future at the base of a cliff.

A: Then tell me that. Tell my future. Don't give me generalities. Don't give me cliches. Tell me something new and specific to me. Be cryptic yes, but not trite.

Q: Did you ask for your money back?

A: She didn't want any. It's the root of all evil, she said. Again with the cliches!

by Fred 5:32 PM

 

What did the old woman whisper in your ear?

by Fred 11:43 AM

Tuesday, January 24, 2006

 

Please don't get me started
If it has to end like this
Don't leave me broken-hearted
Without so much as one chaste kiss
If it's fate we must be parted
If leaving me is heaven's wish
Then fate, I say, must sure be thwarted
Though it be an awful risk
For my only hope is now imparted
Don't let's start ending up like this

by Fred 5:55 PM

 

Don't let it end like this.

by Fred 1:39 PM

Monday, January 23, 2006

 

Don't get me started.

by Fred 5:05 PM

Friday, January 20, 2006

 

She stands on the shoreline,
and all the little fish swim in to meet her.
They risk the shallows to swim at her feet.
They risk not being able to breathe.
But they know her pretty well --
she used to sell seashells, after all --
and they're not worried she might let them drown in all that emptiness and air.
The lack of water can be a frightening thing to a fish,
though it's never made much sense to her.
Gills help fish pull oxygen from water,
yet they also make it impossible
for them to pull oxygen from the air:
blood from a stone but no blood from blood itself.
It seems terribly inefficient.
But this isn't her ocean;
it isn't even her shore.
She's just there to visit, dipping her toes.

by Fred 11:59 PM

Thursday, January 19, 2006

 

It's nap time in the future.
Everybody is well rested;
everybody gets the state-sanctioned eight hours;
nobody thinks bad thoughts;
nobody gets cranky.
The official word isn't mind-control;
nobody talks like that anymore;
no one cast aspersions;
no one says bad things.
People are perfectly happy to dream what they can;
more than that is asking too much.
The government has been very generous:
images, thoughts, memories, dreams --
everybody gets the recommended allowance.
Nobody's dream-starved;
nobody wants for anything.
It's nap time in the future.

by Fred 5:03 PM

 

letting the government fund your dreams

by Fred 9:23 AM

Wednesday, January 18, 2006

 

As a younger man, he experimented with laughing gas. It started off as a lark but you know what they say about nitrous. It’s a gateway gas. Soon after the experimentation started it became . . . something else. The aural hallucinations, the head rush and the euphoria was like food. One day he was at the headshop buying whippets and someone asked him if he’d like to take a hit off the helium tank. Most of the time, his already high-pitched voice sounded like Mickey Mouse on 78 rpm after that. No one knew how he got the job at Air Products with that voice, but he did. He sampled every gas known to man and even mixed a few himself. Eventually, he tapered off and started drinking Pabst Blue Ribbon.

by ArchHallJr 9:07 PM

 

He wasn't much like other boys.
He didn't care for sports.
He climbed bookshelves instead of trees,
Built weird machines, not forts.
His mother worried for his health,
But he earned top grades in every class.
As a young man he experimented
With lobotomies and laughing gas.
They left his mark and made his name
The envy of his peers.
Long would they recall the scars,
Long laughing, well past tears.
He went away one year to school,
To great Oxford or such like,
Where he studied all the -ologies:
Socio-, theo-, and psych-.
But never did his former glory
This poor young boy reclaim.
Good think the lobotomies and laughing gas
Had left him quite insane.

by Fred 5:06 PM

 

As a younger man, he experimented with laughing gas.

by Fred 7:53 AM

Tuesday, January 17, 2006

 

lethal farce

by ArchHallJr 3:43 PM

Monday, January 16, 2006

 

“You’ve got red on you.”

“What? Impossible! I hate red! Where?”

“It’s on your ass.”

“I don’t believe you!”

“Well, don’t. I hardly think you believe that I would deceive you about something so trivial.”

“Try me.”

“Okay, alright. You got me. I’m lying to you. You don’t have a large red ink stain on your right ass-cheek pants pocket. There. I feel so much better for coming clean.”

“I still don’t believe you.”

“Whatever. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you just go to the bathroom and have a look.”

“I think you just want me to go to the bathroom.”

“And why would I want you to do that?”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Einstein. I know you hate me and would do anything to get rid of me.”

“So my master plan to rid myself of you involves lying about an ink stain on your butt and some dastardly trap in the restroom?”

“A-HA!”

“Dear God.”

“You’re just trying to misdirect me!”

“Let me allay your fears. I don’t harbor any ill will toward you and even if I did . . . I still wouldn’t want to do away with you. Least ways in a public toilet.”

“Hmmm . . . maybe I’m just being paranoid?”

“Maybe you are.”

“I should probably go to the bathroom and try and blot this ink stain out, huh?”

“If it were my ass . . .”

“OK, OK . . . I got you. Thanks for looking out for me. That meeting in a half hour . . . well, let’s just say that it wouldn’t look too good if I walked in there like this.”

“See? I’m on your side. Wait, where are you going?”

“To the restroom.”

“You can’t use the one on this side of the building, remember? They’re remodeling it.”

“A-HA!!!!”

“Dear God.”

by ArchHallJr 8:27 PM

 

"You've got red on you."

by ArchHallJr 1:51 PM

Friday, January 13, 2006

 

I love her. By God and all that’s holy, I surely do. It wasn’t supposed to be this way, my feelings. I wasn’t even supposed to be involved. But as anyone knows, love has a way of hitting you in the face and screaming, “I’m here!” She is no angel. Her husband tells her this by his actions and words on a daily basis. Is this the reasoning behind my growing adoration? That’s funny; I used the word ‘reasoning’. Reason or not, who could say? And yes, she is married. But the marriage is a sham. A thing that only exists on paper. Neither one of them is faithful to the other. So why are they married? Appearance? They aren’t fooling anyone who’s watching them. If anything, it builds the cases against them further and easier. He’s a killer. She’s . . . she’s . . . I don’t know what she is but she is definitely guilty of something. But I will take her from this life and give her dignity, honesty and true love. Things she has never been accustomed to from what I’ve observed. But the husband . . . how can I get rid of him? The law I’ve sworn to uphold will not forgive me if I remove the testimony from this earth that the man will produce if I stay on the job just one more day. But if I stay on one more day, there is no guarantee that she will survive one more day. I cannot bear to see her yet have her not even known I exist any longer. I should be able to figure out a way to do this. No one will suspect. Just slip out the van door and put on a hood. The cameras . . . they won’t see me . . .

by ArchHallJr 11:59 PM

 

observational hazard

by ArchHallJr 3:05 PM

Thursday, January 12, 2006

 

No matter how you examine it, the conclusion cannot be anything else. There are those who will tell you otherwise but they have no clue from where they speak. I know crazy. There is no one you will ever come across in your lifetime who will be able to claim that and mean it. I know that you’ll ask yourself the question, “So you’re crazy, so what?” Maybe I’m delusional as well? Perhaps. Minds more intelligent than mine own have pondered this question many times over. Yet there is never a foregone conclusion drawn. Not in my mind. They are questioning the strokes of the master. There is no broad brush that I can be painted with when it comes to understanding how my genius interprets the everyday existence of being. Nay, I say rather they start their search from the wrong point of reference. To understand insanity, you must be insanity. One cannot expect to understand the complexities of a god’s mind by reading the words of mere mortals. And in being your creator, do I deign to allow myself to bring about your understanding of me? Do YOU dare deign to think I would? These are the circles that I intend to allow one and all to follow. Like the Worm Ouroboros until you tire of trying to discover the answers which you so desperately seek. Which, of course, you will not. You will search for meaning where there is none. You will look for tangible evidence where none exists. You will listen for the words which were never spoken. Somewhere between the mundane and the fantastic, the song remains insane.

by ArchHallJr 1:25 PM

 

the song remains insane

by ArchHallJr 1:01 PM

Wednesday, January 11, 2006

 

There wasn’t much left. All the good meat had already been eaten. There were a few choice organs left but for the most part you could say that the cupboard was bare.

“How does one prepare lung?”, thought Jeffrey, “I just can’t seem to find a good recipe.”

He had thumbed through every cookbook he had in his small apartment without success. Lungs just didn’t seem to be all that appetizing to him but he figured he had eaten worse, even recently. He decided to look through his spice rack.

“Bay leaves, parsley, cinnamon . . . hey! Lawrey’s salt!”

He put that next to the cutting board. He also set some rosemary out. He next went to the pantry. He pulled out a can of Campbell’s cream of mushroom. He returned to the refrigerator and rifled through the meat drawer one last time. Excellent! A half-open pack of Cudahy Bar S bacon. It certainly came in handy when he ate that toxic liver two days ago. It should help with these smoker’s lungs now.

by ArchHallJr 11:59 PM

 

Everything tastes better with bacon.

by ArchHallJr 3:02 PM

Tuesday, January 10, 2006

 

Before the new year overwhelms us I’d just like to say:

What the hell happened to 2005?!?!?!?

Seriously. Is there some law that states that as you grow older, the years must go by faster and faster? This is a trend that I have noticed since my mid-20s. It isn’t fair. Oh, the root canal I had back in March lasted what seemed to be the whole month but other than that . . . zing! Gone in the blink of an eye. Am I cynical about the perceived accelerated passage of time? You betcha. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that a year when I’m 40 to go by like a year when I was, say 7 or 8. Those were the days that if someone told you that a special event was going to occur next week you got very upset. “But it’s a whole week!” The sole exception to this rule of time passing very slowly as a child was summer vacation. One day school’s out. It never lasted long enough. But you sure wondered what happened to the last three months the day you walked into the classroom again.

This year is going to be different. I am going to wake up at the usual hour and go to bed at the usual hour but . . . I am willing myself to perceive time differently. Not by changing anything or doing anything differently . . . but by by merely psychically willing the towel to fall.

by ArchHallJr 11:59 PM

 

before the new year overwhelms us

by Fred 10:57 AM

Monday, January 09, 2006

 

Occasionally, fish is required to keep a body healthy and fit. The problem is fish tastes like, well, fish. In order for the fish to be good for you, does it have to taste ‘that way’? Does it have to smell ‘that way’? Why, oh, why do a lot of the foods we should be eating have to taste . . . so badly for lack of a better or worse word? It’s a funny thing about tuna fish, though. I’m like Nigel Tufnel. I love tuna fish. And can one get fish that tastes or smells any fishier? Or is it that we drown tuna in mayo, pickles, onions and spices that mask the ‘fishiness’. Orange Roughy? Can I have that? What about fish sticks with ketchup? Yeah, I get it. It must make me gag in order for it to be good for me. Like liver. What the heck! Now there’s something I haven’t eaten since I was a child. But my Mom, God bless her, let me drown that in ketchup. It had to be or it wouldn’t be eaten, no matter how much bacon grease and breading you cooked it in. Back to the fish . . . can it just look interesting?

"I'll have the flounder."

by ArchHallJr 11:59 PM

 

"I'll have the flounder."

by ArchHallJr 4:09 PM

Sunday, January 08, 2006

 

Life throws you curves, make no mistake. And if you haven’t had a hanger hit you on the chin thrown by the Almighty Himself, then you are either the most boring person in the world or a liar. If it hasn’t happened to you yet, don’t worry . . . it will. And you can’t prepare for it. Nor should you. It is the stuff of the spice of life. It is what fires the engines and creams the corn. It satisfies right away and eventually. You better not ask for directions, it will only ruin the experience. The rest of your life, that is. What is a life that is wholly predictable? A soulless one. The precaution against danger should be taken. It would be foolish not to. A little danger is unheard of in the overly circumspect. But to the lover of life, it powers the inevitability trap. That state of being where you know you need to be but could very well die. The exhilaration of the chase. The gamble, the payoff. It cannot be measured by any tangible scale, but you know when you’ve fallen into it. And it can almost always be escaped from but not until it’s over. You’re been there and are better for it, only to hunger for the next slip that brings you into a closer relationship with your true nature. It’s addictive, this thing called life. And there are modes of it that are addictive as well. Don’t plan on living beyond tomorrow or you will never fall into what you so richly deserve.

by ArchHallJr 11:59 PM

 

The Inevitability Trap

by Christy 2:08 AM

Friday, January 06, 2006

 

You ask what I miss the most. There is no way I can narrow it down to any one single thing. Fresh air. God, how I crave that. Sure, I walk along outside for hours at a time . . . but the air is heavy with sorrow, regret, bravado and contempt. Sweat. Hardly refreshing. Food. I miss food. Oh, I get sustenance; nourishment . . . call it what you will. But a nice pizza with everything on it? Steak and potatoes? Forget about it. It’ll never happen. Toilet paper that doesn’t dissolve on my fingertips the moment I grab it from the roll, fuckin’ a, I miss that. I miss a good night’s sleep. Awaking rested and invigorated from a sleep that entailed the most wondrous dreams instead of the horrific nightmares I now face every night after I lose consciousness. And I have no one to blame but myself for all these missing elements from my life. How I wish that I could close my eyes and awake to a more reasonable, independent world. But I am way past that now. I cannot be allowed to ever again worry about how I am going to dress myself for work ever again. There is no reason to. It is all decided for me now. For I made a decision for someone else long ago. A decision that irrevocably changed two families and numerous lives. All for my agenda; my selfishness. And I don’t think that I could tell you what that agenda was any more, it’s been so long. All I know is that at the time, it was the only thing that made sense.

by ArchHallJr 11:59 PM

 

What do you miss most?

by Fred 12:48 PM

Thursday, January 05, 2006

 

You know what? I started to write this really clever (well . . .) piece about this topic and I realized that I had written it before. Oh, the words had changed, but the premise remained the same. I pull a lot of misdirection in my writing and I’m not so sure that that was where I wanted to go with this particular topic. I mean, I kind of wanted do things a little differently than I normally do and if the truth were known, my new year really hasn’t started yet. As a result of various mitigating circumstances, I cannot see a clear end to 2005 just yet. It is really odd how this is the case, after all the dates have changed; the calendars have been swapped out. There is no time vortex in my home. But we are at a standstill. And this has gotten me thinking about various deep concepts related to time, change and habit. I have always been rather aloof from the New Year’s resolution. My feeling about it is that if I am serious about making a change, I don’t need to wait until the first of the year to do it. Or that if I want to start doing something that I should just start. So I am just gonna start doing and if I miss my marks, oh well. I’ll start again and do the tings that need doin’ first and gets to moving on the things I wanna do! And I’m pretty sure I need to write so . . .

by ArchHallJr 11:59 PM

 

In the new year, I resolve to write more often. I resolve to encourage others to do the same. (I will recruit others to do the same, if need be.) In the new year, my goal is to write for no less than one hour every day, seven days a week. It doesn't have to be any good. I can spend sixty minutes and get only six (bad) words. It will sometimes be, I'm sure, like pulling teeth. (See -- just a couple of minutes, and already out come the tired cliches.)

But I can give one hour.

In the new year, I resolve to develop some of the pieces I've already written here. I've combed through the archives and started compiling a list. Already, I've submitted one of these to be published. It may never be. It may not be any good. I may not know one way or another for months. But working at the craft and submitting stories makes me feel like I'm not just playing at this thing, that, when people ask me what I do, I won't have to qualify it with, "but what I'd like to be doing is writing."

I won't make real money right away, if ever. I'm not expecting to quit my day job in the new year. I may not ever be a good enough writer. (Sometimes I think I'm okay, and I like some of what I've written. But I recognize I have faults and know I probably have some I don't recognize.) That's not the point. If I don't work at it, it's not for real.

I'm not a writer unless I write.

So I'm working at it. One hour a day. If I can't manage more, I won't beat myself up over it. But I also won't let myself get away with less. It's a small but achievable goal. That's what matters.

We're only about five days into the new year, but so far I'm sticking to it. And I'd like to stick with this place as well. Some of the things I'm trying to develop had their genesis here. I like this place, I like the writers I (used to) see here. When it's good...well, it's still like pulling teeth sometimes, but the teeth, they come. The words, they get written. The craft, such as it is, gets honed.

I've said this before, but that's what resolutions are for. I like this place and resolve to be here more often. It's time to write.

by Fred 5:48 PM

 

In the new year, I resolve to _________.

by Fred 1:59 PM

Tuesday, January 03, 2006

 

Maybe you just need to ____________

by Fred 10:29 AM