Not a good ice breaker...

I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. No description could adequately express my delight at that moment, my apologies to any writers who wish to tell my story one day. A fascinating tale, one of suspense and derring do, but at that moment my troubles threatened to jeopardize my safe return. I had woken up, dazed, surrounded by the dreams of spelunkers worldwide. It had taken me days to reach the light. At last, as it approached my stumbling legs, I collapsed. Wait, it approached?

“Hello! Have you seen the end to this tunnel? I’m trapped!”

Moonstruck

The moon is lovely on days such as these. Sure, the landscape is barren and scarred by an eternity of travel through the continuum of space, but something about the muted colors gives the rock a unique charm. Sure, the inhabitants might only exist in amateur fiction, but solitude is seldom experienced on Earth. Looking up at the sun, I’m reminded of my youth, when seeing the moon and the sun simultaneously confused me tremendously. That’s what piqued my interest, one I still hold today. My dream was to live on the moon. I hope I never have to leave.

A Dry Lack of Wit

A sky, blue yet still parched. Sand, more than ubiquitous. A man, carving a slow path between the two. A vulture, patient and nonchalant. Heat, oppressive and draining. The goal, out of reach. Hope, a mirage as real as the others. A groan, weak and fatalistic. Memories, far away and all that remain. Emotion, long lost in the battle with exhaustion. Night, cold and dry and stifling. A dream, welcome but oh so painful. A snake, sliding and gliding and the only witness. A cactus. A pillar. A tombstone. Last words, too choked to escape. Life, circular yet ever ending.

Saturday

That's right folks, I have more than one friend. Our newest guest is a good friend and an even better enemy, the one but not only Michael. When he isn't busy coming up with futile arguments, he's a writing machine. Luckily for me, he stopped at 100. Here it is:

My chair is padded, but not enough to make it super-duper comfortable, although on the other hand, it is reasonably so. At any rate, I'm sitting on it trying to decide what to do. I do have my computer. All its original Apple sexiness is basically gone, now its just another fixture in my life, not unlike my reasonably comfortable chair. I think to myself of the 1,000 things I could do, and I don't do any of them. Instead I tool around on my computer, flitting from one pointless website to another. Ah, the faded joy of Saturday mornings.

Heading Out

He loved to turn the world upside down. On warm, humid nights, he wandered the fields, drifting between the border of humanity and nature. A stone bench was a cold reminder that the city’s influence stretched far beyond his own limits. A bench will have to do. He sat down, slowly but calmly lowering his back. His world shifted, the horizon fading into an endless black. He couldn’t name the stars before him, but it was comforting to know that they still existed. He was slipping, slipping away from the world. As his head hit the floor, he passed out.

True Story

Never had terror paralyzed me so completely. This paralysis was metaphorical, at least until the deluge of water came crashing down. I was pinned, stuck between a rocky surface and the veritable wall of liquid. Oxygen was minimal; it was all I could do to stay alive, clinging with what little strength I had left. Without warning, a shadow cast down, adding darkness to my list of problems. I was being shoved, pushed by giant phalangeal masses. I was brushed aside, but before I could prepare for death, I was flying. Free at last! I buzzed away a happy ladybug.

Pardon me, only interjecting. Terribly sorry.

“I really hate quotations.” “Huh? What brought this on?” “Well, you know when there is more than one person speaking?” “Yeah...vaguely.” “And they go on and on about something?” “Yes, just like you” “And suddenly a third speaker pops in?” “I know what you’re talking about! Get to the freaking point.” “Anyway, I just get annoyed when the third guy talks, but you think it’s the first guy, so when the first guy talks, it sounds like the second guy, and then there’s a fourth guy, and what am I talking about?” “I have no idea.” “Who are you?”

Out of Film

She had this vague notion, an idea gnawing at the back of her mind, that the world was larger than people said it was. Of course, she would never remember it. She walked around in a haze, a timeline with a future but no past. She spoke in a whisper, cogent while distracted. She was both present and distant simultaneously, mumbling thoughtful answers as her mind wandered the far reaches of who knows where. I bumped into her, and after we exchanged hasty apologies, we shuffled off. Afterward, I had this vague notion, that she had already forgotten our encounter.

The Blues

You look up to see the cloudless sky. You’re past the age of asking why it’s blue, but you’re still fuzzy on the details. Something about the reflection of the ocean, you think, before remembering it was just what your mother would say to make you go away. She spent too much time with her nose in a magazine to care for any problems beyond her periphery. So you believed her, despite living miles from the nearest puddle. And here you are, staring at endless oblivion, without knowing why the whole damn thing is blue. Oh well, it doesn’t matter.

He was out of Lucky Charms.

As the blaze cascaded from my palms, I felt immediate regret, as well as third degree burns. “Hot hot hot hot!” The life of a wizard is no walk in the park. I prefer to hover, anyway. My bread sufficiently toasted, and my hands recovering with an ice pack, I perused the morning newspaper. The local baseball team had won. This came as no surprise, as I was present when some mysterious errors had occurred. My magic was not very practical in important matters, however. After years in a dead end job, I wished I could disappear. So I did.

Trepidation

Thunder claps abruptly. My heartbeat quickens. Loud noises have exaggerated implications. A strike of lightning becomes the apocalypse; fireworks turn into a gunman on the loose. Returning to my book, the kind that gives me these unconscious fears in the first place, I start counting. A few seconds from now, the blue flash will light up the room. Coincidentally, it takes about that long to realize my stupidity. I give up on locating the storm’s proximity, and get up to drink some water. Pitch black, yet I still think an intruder would find his way around seamlessly. Time to sleep. 

Here's what happened...

She was privy to the killer’s identity, but with her editor stressing new material, she could wait. After all, serial murders are good reads. Research was her favorite part of being a novelist. The myriad crime shows could not replace the feeling of being at the actual scene. She could see it now. Her dashing protagonist, a detective by day, author by day as well. He was not a night person. A line both humorous and dark popped into his mind. A perfect opening to the perfect book. He could see it now. “She was privy to the killer’s identity...”

Help! I've already read Goodnight Moon three times already.

One sheep, two sheep, three sheep, four. Jump, jump, jump? Since when do sheep jump? Five, six, seven. Surely there must be a faster way of counting sheep. Well, actually, the brain can’t just create a herd and expect to count it objectively. I’d just be coming up with some arbitrary number already determined by the preceding conjuration. It’s much easier to fall asleep when I have nothing to think about, but then I start thinking about thinking, and it would just save us a lot of trouble if I took some sleeping pills. Wait, why is it bright outside?

This Leaves Me Winded

Today I tried to follow the wind. I wish the wind had a color, but it likes to hide. It is shy. Maybe I could pour food dye so I could see it, but my brother said that you can’t put food dye on a gas. I don’t know what he meant by that, but I’m sure the wind wouldn’t like it, anyway. The wind is very important. It pushes the rivers, and helps sailors reach their destination. My dad has to point the sail so that the wind knows where he wants to go. That is what he said.

Elementary...

The blood pools onto the rug, blotting out the intricate geometric patterns. Scanning the room, I notice signs of struggle. She had fought admirably, but this was a poor ruse for an accidental killing. Efficient placement of the solitary bullet points to a seasoned assassin, or at least someone comfortable with a gun. My deductions are on par with even the well-known detectives. I have the mind of a criminal, that’s what it takes to be the best. I notice the marks of a handprint. No gloves! My smile fades to intense focus. I have a lot to clean up.

The Prelude to a Midafternoon Nap

No matter how much you love the song, you’re already sick of it after hearing it blaring into your ears every morning. You tell yourself to change the alarm to something less memorable, but you will inevitably forget. Despite your propensity for disorder, breakfast is always routine. You horribly botch the English muffins, cutting one side too thin, but you have learned to love the taste of crunchy bread. Someone used all of the butter, yet you still scrape away at the container’s fat laden edges. You never flinch when you realize that your day has no plans, none whatsoever.

Untitled

 At this point it would be a valid jump in logic to say that Dana might be my only friend. Sometimes, I wonder. She has now swept the podium of guest submissions with her third installment in three days. Chalk it up to her insane passion for 100 words, people. Here we go:

oh, darling.
you have become quite used to being talked at
in this strange and circular manner-
haven’t you?
you must sort through terrible metaphors,
badly formed and hardly representative of a whole.

what I suppose this is
what it must be classified as
is a sort of apology, a mangled mea culpa.

you deserve complete sentences,
the kind with nouns and verbs and thoughts.
baby, I don’t have what you need.

I suppose it doesn’t help that the only inroads you are afforded
are disjointed/ unintelligible.
I suppose you must learn to embrace incoherency.
It's all i really have.

Time Well Killed

‘Darn, I still have thirty minutes until my appointment. Waiting sucks. Waiting. Waiting. Waiting? What does that even mean? Who decided to make those two syllables, those two guttural utterances, mean such a thing? Utterances, now that is a crazy word. No matter how many times I say utter, it always sounds like udder. I wonder if people think I’m weird. Am I weird? Then what is normal? Is that generic painting normal? Jesus, lady, nobody wants to hear your sob stories. Wait. Normal. Normal. Tangent? Circle? Sir? Sir?’

“Sir? Are you all right? We’re ready to see you now.”

Long Distance Gestures Never Work

Gosh, I'm being more prolific than I first thought. This entry is not mine, but yet another guest submission. Now now, please hold your wild applause. This time, our guest is...oh? It's the spectacular Dana, once again! Read on:

A curious thing about living in the middle of nowhere
Is that road trips become commonplace,
and you never complain about sitting in cars for a long time.
I always felt this was one positive side effect
Of living thousands of miles away from Real America.

But now a thought occurs
if I loved you, and you lived in some far locale,
and I drove all day so I could spend the night with you-
would the fact that I have so often spent my day driving
steal the sincerity and drama from my gesture?

sadly, I think it would.

And...Action!

Bang! He surprises himself at how quickly he can run in skinny jeans. As more gunshots rend the foggy evening, he imagines himself in a comic book, with onomatopoeias accompanying his every heroic move. He trips from lack of attention, and he curses this momentary lapse in focus. His pursuers surround him, shady characters to be sure. Thinking quickly, he leaps, flailing into a somersault out of their range. “Shit!” he thinks, “Why didn’t I try harder in gym class?” Exhausted, and lying sprawled on his back from his failed escape attempt, he tries his last trick. “I give up?”

A Gripping Tale

Sluggish would not be the best word to describe him. Considering the heights he was about to ascend, his careful approach meant the difference between a successful climb and a disastrous one. A less experienced traveler might be stunned at the dizzying view, but he was sure of his grip. Sheer cliff faces are a daunting task for anyone, and the hard, red stone posed a challenge beyond average ability. There were no footholds, but it was a matter of little consequence to him. Hours passed, perhaps days, but finally the intrepid slug reached the top of the brick wall.

Jumping the Shark

Yes, readers. Merely two posts into my ramblings, we have our first guest submission! Claiming first prize in this competition of one is the lovely Dana, who is no stranger to imaginative writing. So, without further hesitation, here it is:

And there you go,

wobbling crazily as both of your legs are completely asleep.

This is probably because you like to sit with your knees crushed up under your chin, though in all honestly, you like doing most things in this position.

Something about the fetal position reminds you

that this would make it very difficult for someone to shoot you in the stomach.

These are the things you think about.

“fuck the whales,” you scream, waving your fist around wildly.

“and save the sharks, instead!”

you do not care deeply about whale welfare.

You’re just that sort of person.

Well Wishing

I woke up to an indescribable scene, mostly due to the unshakable darkness. Paralysis prevented me from feeling my way around, but a glance skyward confirmed my suspicions. A shaft of moonlight appeared on the well’s rim, nowhere near enough to shed any light on my situation. I did what any rational person would do at this point. I yelled. Screamed. Hollered. Yodeled. To my surprise, a reply echoed back. “Hey, are you alright?” The tenseness of the moment made the voice clear. “If I’m going to die in this goddamn well, at least let me do it in peace.”

Should I do it...again?

As my eyes glazed over from lack of interest in the barren wall, my mind occupied itself with the subject of time travel. Perhaps triggered by the end of summer, I wondered how a trip back in time would unfold. Yet, without a machine, my thoughts drifted back into obscurity. That is, until I remembered the fictional nature of my being. As I stepped forward into the past, I paused. What if I was merely rewinding life, remembering the trip only once it was complete? Needless to say, that wasn’t the best time to have a moment of déjà vu.