Our Last Midnight Snack (Flash Fiction)

Our Last Midnight Snack

I remember the sound of my pajama feet padding on the linoleum floor. The house was dark, but the kitchen light was on.

It was the night that my brother left us.

I remember rubbing my eyes, squinting up at him. "What are you doing?," I asked.

He just grinned, opened the freezer, and scooped out the Breyers mint chocolate chip into two glass dishes. He lifted me onto the stool and placed a spoon in my chubby fingers. We sat next to each other, eating silently. And afterwards, he carried me back up to bed. Like a sack of potatoes.



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A first attempt at micro-fiction, AKA"flash fiction," a form of ultra-short story, described here and here and here.

Art, Music and Poetry

“The best musicians transpose consciousness into sound; painters do the same for color and shape.”

― Haruki Murakami

"Painting is poetry that is seen rather than felt, and poetry is painting that is felt rather than seen."

                                                                                          ― Leonardo da Vinci

       

              

   

                                                                                            

How Do You Take It?

"How do you take it?" she asked.

I wanted to say, "Black." "I take my coffee black."

    Like that line from the movie Airplane. The one where the little girl says she likes her coffee black.  Like her men.

    Or like that hypnotizing Ella Fitzgerald jazz-blues number. Where she's feeling alone on a Monday: I'm feeling mighty lonesome/ Haven't slept a wink/ I walk the floor and watch the door/ And in between I drink.

    Or - pardoning the transition from soulful Music with a capital M to something else entirely - that bee-boppy Squeeze song.  Where he's wistful for those days of drinking coffee in bed. Black coffee, of course: With lips full of passion and coffee in bed.

    (Are all songs about black coffee about goodbyes?)

Or if I could tolerate bitterness better, I could cooly say, like Neil Gaiman, "Black as night, sweet as sin." 

    I thought about that. 

    

   That would be a pretty bad-ass order. 

   I would deliver it like Clint Eastwood. Intensely. With a gravely voice, squinting my eyes.  The Barista would be looking at me, and I'd gaze directly into her eyes. She'd just look away with a coy half-smile.

But I didn't say that.

Because, the truth is, I just don't take my coffee black.

I'm more of a light and sweet guy. Which - unfortunately for me - is not very tough sounding. But, I mean, what are you going to do? Drink bitter coffee?

"Light and sweet, please."

So You Want To Be a Writer?

"if it doesn’t come bursting out of you

in spite of everything,

don’t do it.

unless it comes unasked out of your

heart and your mind and your mouth

and your gut,

don’t do it.

if you have to sit for hours

staring at your computer screen

or hunched over your

typewriter

searching for words,

don’t do it.

if you’re doing it for money or

fame,

don’t do it.

if you’re doing it because you want

women in your bed,

don’t do it.

if you have to sit there and

rewrite it again and again,

don’t do it.

if it’s hard work just thinking about doing it,

don’t do it.

if you’re trying to write like somebody

else,

forget about it.

if you have to wait for it to roar out of

you,

then wait patiently.

if it never does roar out of you,

do something else.

if you first have to read it to your wife

or your girlfriend or your boyfriend

or your parents or to anybody at all,

you’re not ready.

don’t be like so many writers,

don’t be like so many thousands of

people who call themselves writers,

don’t be dull and boring and

pretentious, don’t be consumed with self-

love.

the libraries of the world have

yawned themselves to

sleep

over your kind.

don’t add to that.

don’t do it.

unless it comes out of

your soul like a rocket,

unless being still would

drive you to madness or

suicide or murder,

don’t do it.

unless the sun inside you is

burning your gut,

don’t do it.

when it is truly time,

and if you have been chosen,

it will do it by

itself and it will keep on doing it

until you die or it dies in you.

there is no other way.

and there never was."

-- Charles Bukowski

Moon Watching - Dripping With Honey

I gazed up at the night sky

The moon was the sun

Rising

A fresh dawn cocooned within the night

Poolside 1.0

The two towels are lined up, end to end.  Mine, the All American special, its reds, whites, and blues, sun-soaked and faded.  Hers, black with pristine orange and yellow stripes.

I sigh, and roll onto my back, both hands resting on my stomach. And just as I was beginning to give into a lazy drowsiness, she changes directions and goes skipping off in the other direction.

She shifts onto her belly, pops up, and starts to run towards the pool. Her water-slicked hair bounces over her shoulders, and I hear the bottoms of her feet alternating against the ground. Left behind: one rumpled towel. And me.

Inside of a second later, I'm up. The cement looks harmless enough, but I know better. Baked by the sun all day long, it was now fire roasted. So hot that my little bare feet could only handle it for so long.

I hop from the hot cement to a nearby towel and then to a shallow puddle of water, lukewarm islands where I gather myself, before dashing back onto the cement. I zigzag from "Ooh" "eeh" "hot-hot" to brief pauses of "Aahh," until I reach the edge of the pool and slip into the cool water.

I plunge underneath, a trail of little bubbles floating up up up.  She is opposite me. Already under the water. Waving her arms and legs, in slow motion blue.

Haruki Murakami - Interview Snippet - On Writing

MURAKAMI

When I start to write, I don’t have any plan at all. I just wait for the story to come. I don’t choose what kind of story it is or what’s going to happen. I just wait. Norwegian Wood is a different thing, because I decided to write in a realistic style. But basically, I cannot choose.

INTERVIEWER

But do you choose the voice that it’s told in, that deadpan, easy-to-follow voice? Do you choose that?

MURAKAMI

I get some images and I connect one piece to another. That’s the story line. Then I explain the story line to the reader. You should be very kind when you explain something. If you think, It’s okay; I know that, it’s a very arrogant thing. Easy words and good metaphors; good allegory. So that’s what I do. I explain very carefully and clearly.

INTERVIEWER

Does that come naturally for you?

MURAKAMI

I’m not intelligent. I’m not arrogant. I’m just like the people who read my books. I used to have a jazz club, and I made the cocktails and I made the sandwiches. I didn’t want to become a writer—it just happened. It’s a kind of gift, you know, from the heavens. So I think I should be very humble.

Wordplay

slowly. & also all at once.

at the same time. & it becomes a part of me.

and -

and -

- & then, on and on and on.

Reflections

Curves snapped straight, into lines.
Crossed over, criss-crossed, crossed up.
The layers spin off and collide. They touch and explode.

Built up and taken apart. And back again.
Square angles break into circles upon circles.
A pebble in a pond.

In the mirror.
The shapes repeat.

In the mirror.
An empty frame returns my gaze.

Setting Images to Words: Dark Skies

"The sky grew darker, painted blue on blue, one stroke at a time, into deeper and deeper shades of night."   

                                 
                                                                                                            - Haruki Murakami