A maraca shook in the distance as the piano notes wove themselves around Violet’s heart. She had arrived in Havana only a day earlier, but the humid weather clung to her bones as if she had lived there a thousand years. She sighed as she accepted the embassy was another mile off. Then she’d be able to part ways with the locket that dangled around her neck.
A rope hung from the overpass above the water. A noose was missing at the end of it. It dangled in the wind— lightly slapping against the weary concrete.
Eerie as an afternoon moon and abandoned baking sheets.
Memories of her become something out of a dream. Running with the dog across an open field. Dark murmurs under moonless nights.
There’s something to the tangled knot of a loudly beating heart. The errant thump of anxious hope.
For a man named “Mad Dog” his every move was calculated. That made him the most dangerous man north of the Mason-Dixon Line.
His family originally came from Léon, Spain by way of Savannah, Georgia. But Mad Dog had resettled to the wilds of North Carolina.
Beric knew he had three minutes to stop the bleeding before the orca got to him. His father had told him he was a fool for fishing in the North Sea and now he would prove him right. Adventure always claims the foolhardy & stubborn, his father said. But that fucker wasn’t out on a piece of driftwood bleeding from his spleen. So, as far as Beric was concerned, the comments didn’t matter.
The dark waters were slack around a gently bobbing Beric. A gull screeched in the distance. Grey clouds covered the sun and any hope of warmth. Leaving a young man to sweat from fear as he held his side and peered into the water for absolution.
The clock is ticking down and I find myself asking questions that have no readied answers. Who knew the Kool-aid man was helpful for emotional break throughs? Who could have know that his bombastic energy could disrupt hardened internal boundaries?
“OH YEAH!” Goes the clarion call of a misunderstood giant. A swirling punch bowl of wisdom and daring.
I’m sitting in a middle school classroom waiting to hear about where I’ll live in Japan.
I sit here in an unexpected state. Because for all the thought of being a teacher, I never expected to actually make it to a classroom.
“Dare to risk failure. That is what you must ask of yourself during these brave new times. We shall all fail in some pursuit or menial task, but it is the effort that separates us from the fear.”
Cowboy proving ground-
The trials of the “Second Rodeo”
An elder confirmation ceremony to celebrate the accumulation of knowledge and experience
I slept half a day to dive into Friday the 13th. I’m marking the edges of what’s possible within time. Within remembrance of greater moments.
“Look me in the fucking eyes!
Good... now, what’s your favorite color? Because you’d look super cute in teal.
It would really go with your eyes.”
At the first sight of the church I smelled stale grass and saw a vision of my childhood. I stood before the tapered roof that towered over the street and wondered about the people that prayed here. There was something in the neighborhood that made it feel as though they hadn’t given up on being a community.
Breaking bread- but instead of a prayer before meals, it’s just karate kids hand chopping stale bread loaves.
The shrill cry of the car alarm woke the small house. The tired inhabitants waited at the windows as they watched foul beasts crawl over their vehicle, leaving dents behind to mark their presence. It had been forty six days since the meteor landed in Bogota, Columbia. Forty six days since blue waters turned yellow. Forty six days since the sky caught fire and jets crashed down like caterwauling skiers.
A wee beast named Beebo prowled the far shore of Durham. She was known to nip at the heels of the unsuspecting— and Hoover up any forgotten treats. Legend has it that her owner forgot her after a rosé filled afternoon. Ever since then, she’s attacked at the first scent of Brie & patchouli.
Outside of the castle grounds stood a weathered old man by the name of Bartholomew. On account of the king’s advisors, he was once a respected butcher and wiseman within the realm. It wasn’t until tales of dealings with dark creatures that he was exiled from the land.
“No good can come of his return, my lord.” A sniveling aide said to the king.
“A foul wind has blown him back across the Erg to us. We would be fools to let him enter the keep.” Another councilor said.
The king looked on in curiosity. He hadn’t met the man, but saw the strength that his weary limbs still possessed. The exiled butcher had the look of a man who balanced on the cusp of darkness— and yet— did not dip into the reservoir of depravity. Or so the king hoped. He had need of darkened men. The fate of the realm depended on it.
We parked in front of a house that whose design told you the inhabitants bi-weekly missionary sex.
“It’s not destiny, it’s Digiorno.” Read the news line after a young man stopped a home invader with a ice block of a pizza during the early hours of Saturday morning. The young man said he had planned on baking it earlier in the year, but had forgotten it due to the lack of appeal, taste, or general fulfillment it could offer.
The east answer was “curried mashed potatoes.” Not something anyone could doubt after Aisley kept on talking about them for weeks on end. However, no one expected to have them delivered to their mailbox sans container. Passive aggressive potato pasting.
Grey ash covered the ground. The sky had been dark for days. People began to forget what light looked like outside of their makeshift bunkers. No one had expected a volcanic eruption. Not the scientists, doomsday sayers, no one.
I had been out on the McKenzie river with Alan when we felt the first tremors. A mattress floated past us down the river before a wave of debris followed. The highway above the river was soon filled with cars racing away from Mt. Sentinel.