Trivia. They say Native Americans, and other native people of the World, believed photographs stole their soul, the marrow of their being. It comes up a lot in clever White people films and books, when they want to show Savages and Locals as ignorant and superstitious.
Actually, it is probably more true of the early photographers themselves, breathing Mercury fumes, day in day out, in producing their metal plate dageurotypes. The toxin building up, destroying the marrow in their bones, until they quickly faded as much in Life and Strength as their pictures eventually did. Easy pickings they were.
I...
"Even in a finite universe, a rock doesn't keep being a rock. Things are always disintegrating and becoming other things." Our Tragic Universe, Scarlett Thomas
There was once a rock, a very old rock, a rock which had laid low for a very long time. It couldn't remember how long that long time actually was but somehow knew without needing to remember that that long time was long enough. It was a rock that took great pride in its appearance, habitually watering its neat lawn of grass, combing its thick coat of moss, trimming it at least once a week....
The Delicate Chance
No one ever dared to push her too hard. She was robbed of all her real potential because everyone was so afraid she might break.
She had always had hopes and dreams like everyone else, but they stayed inside of her....
Was she really so fragile? Mickey dared to think otherwise. He spoke with Rachel often once she convinced him of how miserable her life was. He decided he coulnd't let her waste away any longer.
They never went anywhere--except in dreams....But their dreams had them soaring all over the world. Time was no obstacle, as they...
She ran off into the plants and tall grasses and let her body sway with the wind. She called it her meditation, the only break she had from the stresses of school and tests and parents and everything else that came with being a teenager.
The other two watched and smiled. The three of them were friends since the second grade. Nothing surprised them. They expected Andrea to do this. Jane and Nicole lit cigarettes and gossiped quietly while she moved back and forth, arms swaying, swing and shaking.
The wind picked up, the leaves fluttered and flapped. The gust...
What's this?
Dad showed me the picture of the orangutan splayed on the grass.
A monkey, I said.
It's you, he said.
Neither of us laughed.
Remember that time you asked me for a Coke and I stood at the soda machine filling it with Root Beer imagining Homer Simpson saying Mmmmm Root Beer?
Dad laughed.
I laughed.
It's silent most of the time now. I don't think to text and neither does he.
"Clung to" means everyone in the house knowing when I am there and when I am not. A friend is dropping off some cookies she made...
Fault. Whose was it? Lying on the ground like that. Cracks spreading out, damaging everything it touched. No one wanted it. It had to be dumped somewhere, though.
Suddenly, it seemed like the world shifted. The fault shifted, heading towards me. It opened up, and swallowed me whole. I fell into the abyss. Doubt and shame fell on me. I could have avoided it. Easily, too.
I fell and fell. The further I got, the more afraid I grew. The light above me shrank. I thought I could see people above, shaking their heads at me.
I spent so much...
I laughed the first time I saw the shirt. "I'm With Stupid," with an arrow underneith pointing to the right. It was funny because the star of the football team, who everyone knew couldn't add 2+2 together without serious help, walked next to him. I doubt either one realized what was going on, and when they saw me laughing, I have no clue what they thought I was going on about. Whatever. The arrow should have been pointing at the entire high school life anyway, right?
It wasn't until a few years later that I fully understood the significance of...
In hindsight, the solution was obvious.
Anyway, that's what I thought when I awoke, face and hands already sweaty, the dark and humid air beginning already to claw at my face.
There was no light. I didn't have one on me. Didn't think I'd need a phone, with no reception. No, that wasn't part of the plan. And I don't smoke.
So, unlike the movies where there is in-scene lighting when the hero is trying to claw his way out of the coffin, it was nothing. It was dark and moist and stiflingly, oppressively silent.
The plan had been easy:...
Phons and Ramon had worked this beat for awhile, all of Phons' three years on the force. Today was as beautiful as the tourists bobbing around the stores. The two strolled the sidewalk enjoying their usual eye-candy.
Ramon spots a nice blonde, and turns to point it out to Phons, but he's looking at something in the sky. Glancing back to the blonde he notices she too is looking up. He glances up and immediately gets a face-full of glare, quickly wrenching away and furiously blinking. He smacks Phons on the belly for a moment, "Hey..."
Phons doesn't budge. Ramon...
"Hello" Beth said.
"Howdy!" Jacob beamed.
That was it. The same greeting they swapped every afternoon as he strolled into the building. Beth gazed at him from the reception desk as he strolled past, holding her eyes steady with the cockiest of smirks.
He knew she wanted him. She want him like they all did, only she was cute enough to maybe consider. She had that dirty-librarian look about her.
Beth watched the man continue through the lobby, leering at her. She smiled her best at him, but really saw her knife plunging into his mouth and out the back...