Glint

The Glint of Light from the Tip of a Wickedly Sharp Dagger

“Be careful,” she whispered. “My love stings.”

I didn’t care what she said. She was about to fuck me. At that moment in time she could have said she was a time-traveling sociopath here destroy mankind with her paralyzing vagina. It wouldn’t even slow me down. Although they did turn out to be the most important words I would hear in my lifetime.

I fell in love fast, hard. Too fast, in retrospect it was stupid. I did love her, but more than that, I longed for love. So I was in love first. Apparently, that was a mistake.

She fell in love too, ostensibly. At least, so she told me. On numerous occasions. Sometimes with her ankles by my ears, sometimes while we slept, sometimes while we strolled along a path. She said it a lot of times, and fuck me if I didn’t believe her.

So, long story short, one day she said she didn’t love me. She fell out of love? I didn’t even know that could happen, so it was a bit of a shock. This concept alone is enough to give me pause, but the fact that it now applies directly to me rocks me, leaves me literally reeling. Describing the feeling would require the capabilities of a mathematical genius. Stephen Hawking could do it. I can’t.

I couldn’t understand it, but it sure as hell hurt.

Don't Vote with Magnets

I bought a ribbon. It was magnetic. It had red, white and blue stripes. With stars. And it said “Support our Troops.”

So I bought it.

Because it was so fucking ironic.

And it sits on my fridge today, to remind me. It reminds me that today, the definition of support seems to have lost some of it’s punch. I had checked into it. For the most part, none of the money gathered from the sale of the novelties actually went towards supporting the troops. Zero. Millions of ribbons sold, not so much as an extra condom and a packet of Sanka for the boys in the field.

It’s there because we support our boys! We support their right to go overseas and kill for policies they can never truly understand. Not because they lack the ability, but rather because they lacked a leadership secure and honest enough to say a true thing. In order to define the bizarre and darkened labyrinth that is the true world of international politics (or as some would call it, “oil”), one would have to coin a new word. This new word would have to somehow have to be cunningly. linguistically twisted to combine the word “Byzantine” with the term “google”. Byzoogantine would be my best guess. It’s that fucked up.

It’s ok, we support them! We support the right of our lower incomes children to die in foreign sand to keep safe the rights of the more enlightened, enriched classes. It’s that that we’re better, or anything, we’re just lucky. I’m just saying, would they switch places with me if I were in there position? Exactly.

It’s ok, we support them! The lower incomes, the disproportionately ethnic population. Blacks. Disproportionately high number of blacks, overseas, trading life expectancy for college tuition.

But it’s ok, because I have a crappy $1.99 magnetic ribbon on the ass of my gas guzzling SUV.

So some men died because they believed their leader wanted to right a wrong.

And some men died because they knew a wrong, but saw the rights it could do.

And some men died because they just like killin’.

And it goes on.

My fridge.

Don’t vote with magnets.

*Tap* *Tap* *Tap*

Hello there. Remember me? I used to have a blog here. Anyway, I know its been awhile, but I'd like to share something I'm working on. It's a collection of short stories (yes, Gary, you can stop reading now, its another short story) called "The Mourning Papers". Odd, weird shit that I like, but probably nothing that would ever become like, ummm, well read. :)

So here's one of the stories from "The Mourning Papers"

The Radio Was Never Played

It wasn’t a very special radio. Not at first. At first it was a small, unimpressive radio. Sleek and plastic, at home in any modern magazine devoted to the selling of office furniture. The same radio that sat on the same desk of every single sales rep/team leader/marketing director in the country.

It sat on his desk, utterly at home amidst the orderly chaos of an impeccably displayed desktop; a monument of achievement in the arena of conforming individuality. A statement of individuality so strong and undeniable that it could not possibly be made by any individual actually confident of his or her individuality. A tragic beast; the mundane that aspires to creative distinctiveness, instead becoming an object of some little derision.

Simply put, Derek was a sad, lonely, man. His dreams of creative expression – his novels, his poems, his paintings, his screenplays – had all fallen un an unappreciative world. The little critical notice he had ever gained hand been incineratingly insightful, and of decidedly low opinion. The word “sucks” had been bandied about much more often that Derek felt befitting of a legitimate critic.

The radio was never played. Derek was sure of that. He remembered unpacking it, and disposing of the neatly formed Styrofoam casings. He always felt a little guilty doing that; the Styrofoam packing seemed a marvel to him. Superbly formed, literally molded to do one job, and one job alone. Hold some little fragile thing safely. And when it was done, when it had performed its job admirably, it was immediately then crumpled up and thrown into a garbage bag filled with other debris.

He remembered plugging it in. He remembered setting the time, and the alarm time. And he remembered not turning it on. Because when he turned it on for the first time, he wanted Donna to be there with him. But after the radio was prepared, the telephone rang. It was Donna, telling Derek that she wanted a divorce. Fuck.

So the radio was never played.

Despite that, Derek slowly came to realize that the radio was playing. Not in any audible sense, but rather in a sub-audible sense – if that makes any sense. All he knew was, he could sense the music, faintly, as if heard from a great distance. The whisper of music, he called it. The ghost of song.

Derek found these thoughts strange, for the were strange, and unique. He could not remember anyone ever speaking these words to him. He couldn’t think of a TV show or a movie where the lines might have been delivered by a devilishly humorous comedian-turned-actor, to tumultuous audience appreciation. Not in any commercials, or song, or poem. Never spoken aloud before.

Oh, shit, Derek thought, so that’s an original thought!

The radio was playing, but only he could hear it. Sense it. Fuck it, you know what I mean. He sometimes hinted about the radio when others were in the room, but no one reacted. So Derek decided that either only he could hear it, or he was going crazy. And he knew, from knowledge gleaned from watching hours upon hours of televised psychiatrists, that if you were worried about going crazy, you were definitely not going crazy. And Derek knew he was not going crazy, so he was not even worried about the possibility.

So he turned it on, to see if the whisper of music would get louder. It did, but not in any way that could be properly understood. Given power, the ghosts of songs from the radio grew powerful, radiant! They swelled and burst, a torrent of creation too pure to allow comprehension. His receptionist described the sound as “fifty-seven cats, fed slowly, one-by-one, into a wood chipper”. Derek felt that 57 was a bit of an exaggeration.

All agreed from that the sound that came from the radio was unpleasant. So the radio was never played. But the whispers and ghosts continued to slide through his mind. Tantalizingly familiar and known, yet simultaneously elusive, ephemeral echoes. The aural equivalent of the faded photograph of a dead loved one.

Sometimes, the voice sounded like Donna.