Orchid Explosion

Centerfold

June, 1986:

She was wearing a yellow rainslicker. It wasn't raining. Perhaps it had just stopped. Red lipstick, red boots. Nothing else. Nothing. Big brown eyes, and hair in brown ringlets. Among her likes were "rollerskating in the rain." Seriously. And this was written without a hint of cliche.


I hid them in the woods behind the backyard.

There was an old crate, resting on leaves and branches, turned on its side. It was big enough to sit in.  A perfect clubhouse. The wood at the bottom was slightly rotted, owing to the damp soil beneath.

It was for this reason that I had to use the plastic bags. I would carefully wrap each magazine in its own clear plastic Ziploc bag, like a giant version of the clear sleeves we used to preserve baseball cards.  The ones that had to be kept in mint condition, the McGwire Olympic Team card, the Ripken and DiMaggio rookie cards, and my collection of Don Mattingly cards, valuable not because they were rookies, but because it was Donnie Baseball.

They were all Playboys. That's the only of this sort of magazine I knew existed, because that's the only one my Dad had.

His hiding spot - buried in the middle of a stack of Popular Science, National Geographic, and Scientific American that rested on the back of his toilet- was elegantly brilliant, albeit flawed. Hidden in plain sight sure seemed smart. But in the end, a good part of his collection had been smuggled out, wrapped in plastic, and tucked underneath my wooden crate of a hideout in the woods.

On Poetry - Mr. Mojo Risin'

“Listen, real poetry doesn't say anything; it just ticks off the possibilities. 
Opens all doors. You can walk through anyone that suits you.”


“There are things known and there are things unknown
and in between are the doors.”

                                                                                 
                                                                                        ― Jim Morrison

But I Would Not Feel So All Alone...

People either get you or they don't. 

Like in this book I just finished, the woman the main character falls in love with describes listening to Bob Dylan as being "like a kid standing at the window watching the rain."

Later, he mentions Dylan to another woman he is with. She doesn't know him. So he starts to tell her, "He's like, standing at the window, watching the rain," but then he drops it. I imagine his voice trailing off as he sighs deeply: "He's a singer with a rough voice."

Out of Phase

(Midlife) Crisis is when the you that you are doesn't line up with the you that you thought you were.

Ain't no sports car gonna fix that.

Life's Funny

It's so funny that as I sit there paralyzed, worried that I am going to do something that takes apart my world, it splits apart before my eyes. Imploding from the inside out, everything that used to be me, collapses into fine shards of broken glass. It's not haha funny, of course, but funny, strange. You know what? It's not even strange. Just sad. Just cruel.

And after this long, there is no hope of getting unbroken. None. Eggshell everywhere. Like Humpty Dumpty.

* * *

Held down underwater in the town pool. No one else is there, and the water's cold. I stretch out my arms and legs, to get away, to surface, to live. But everywhichway I swim, I push myself deeper down. How is this possible?!? What to do, but laugh? But underwater, it doesn't even sound like laughter. And at any rate, why am I even laughing? None of it is funny. Not to mention that it makes it harder to breathe.

* * *

How is this fair?

"Life isn't fair." That's what my Mom always used to tell me. But I know she didn't mean like this. She couldn't have.

No fair.

On Short Shorts, Writing Flash Fiction

"In the short short the very idea of character seems to lose its significance, seems in fact to drop out of sight. We see human figures in a momentary flash. We see them in fleeting profile. We see them in archetypal climaxes which define their mode of existence. Situation tends to replace character, representative condition to replace individuality."

                                                                                          - Irving Howe, Short Shorts

Load Up, Engage Your Hips, and Swing Violently (Flash Fiction)

We got to the stadium early enough for batting practice.

He carried our mitts, one inside the other. As we walked inside, I put my hand around his shoulder.

Our seats were in left field. My son stood, shifting back and forth on the balls of his feet.

The baseball was hit on a line, a laser beam that carried over the fence, smacked into the facade, and bounced into the section above us. And he was off, bounding up two steps at a time. He ducked under a seat, and emerged holding the ball in his hand. He held it up over his head, a huge smile on his face.

At home, only a day earlier, I had walked towards him. He walked away and sulked. "I hate you Dad."





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

Here and There (Flash Fiction)

Here and There

His iPhone on the counter makes that blip-blop sound. A new Facebook comment or Like.

They sit on the couch, a few feet away from each other, but in different universes.

The kids' lunches still have to be made. Ziploc baggies of red grapes. And peanut-butter and jelly sandwiches.




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

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.