Scraps of Memory

These are just a couple of thoughts from a personal narrative that I'm working on. Still figuring out what I want to say and piecing together the emotions and the words, but I figured I'd share a little bit.

You never take enough pictures of people when they’re there, and then they’re gone and you search everywhere to find something to substantiate their existence, to make them seem real again. And you think that maybe it was all a dream but you can remember all the things you did together and you mouth to yourself their favorite phrases or close your eyes and picture their faces just to remember. And then you think that maybe it's just a really bad joke, but then you go to his house and his mom cries and Melanie won’t look you in the eye.
...
I’ve always wondered what it’s like to really cry at a funeral, and I still don’t know. When grandpa died, I cried, but that was because mom was crying– I didn’t really understand what it all meant. Death is, at first, a stranger in the corner, and you don’t really get it at all. You just start to not remember anymore, and that’s what death is for you. It’s not the bullets or the bombs or the cancer that they show in all the movies: it’s just a not-there-anymore, an absence.

Lords of Earth and Sky

A short story/creation myth about the rise and fall of dragons. Let me know what you think, because I would love feedback on the good the bad and the ugly. Confusing parts? Leave a comment! Thanks!

Lords of Earth and Sky

My people were once a noble race, a kindly sort, but were brought to anger and destruction by the acts of man or fate. That is not to say, of course, that there were never so-called bad eggs among our lot– that I shall yet demonstrate–, but it would be folly to suggest that any significant portion of the world’s evil was, at least at first, bottled up within our ‘draconian’ hearts. We dragons were a proud race, and though, as time passed, my brothers grew more and more prone to fits of jealousy and rage, we were, at least to begin with, a peaceful sort. Indeed, perhaps more so than any other creatures to roam this earth, we were a happy people, content with our simple pleasures. I was young and strong, back before the wars. Oh, how my scales gleamed, sapphires against the emerald seas, and my wings beat in powerful strokes that carried me high above the clouds to airy roosts. Indeed, our early days were ones of magic and wonder and peace, but then something changed inside of us. Then the world changed around us. And then we lost the magic.

I, Marak, am the last of my kind, and I alone remain to tell our tale, of dragons, the Lords of Fire and Earth and Sky.

Redemption

Another short short that I've been working on. I'd like to flush it out to about 1200 words, where it's at only 750 now, so let me know what kinds of things/events you think could emphasize the ideas better. I have some ideas, but I'd love to hear your suggestions, comments, etc.

Redemption

          She says to me, “Why don’t you come in for a little bit?” and I say okay because I think she’s just being nice and all. And then she keeps looking at me all sexy-like, and she scooches on over real close to me, and I’m thinking that she’s not really interested in buying a Bible anymore. I mean, she’s pretty and all-- prettier than just about anyone I’ve ever seen. An’ I woulda liked to give her a kiss or something, but I haven’t sold anything today and I need the money, so I tell’er I ought’a go, and manalive she wants me to stay, but I leave anyway.
          Then I get thinkin’ about how Mom used to send Beth off to bed when the sexy parts would come on in movies, and I always thought it was kinda funny how that stuff was bad for Beth but not for Mom or for Gary or me.
          The next door’s tall and red, and when I knock, a raspy, lady’s voice says come in. The house smells like sweat and Mom’s lavender Febreeze, and I kinda tiptoe past piles of junky ol’ antiques til I see this big ol’ lady sitting in a big ol’ scarlet throne or something. She’s got these enormous bosoms that just kinda loll around on her big ol’ gut, like Bacchus in our textbooks at the community college, and she’s got these porkchop legs that kinda dribble out from under this dress of hers. Big ol’ kielbasa fingers tap-tap-tappin’ on her chair, and little chocolate chip eyes look me up and down all hungry-like from behind her marshmallow cheeks. “What’ve you got for me, boy?”

Red Berries

This is a short short that I wrote recently. I'd love to hear your comments, impressions, suggestions!

Red Berries

We’re reading stories, and Philip is growling under the table like a tiger, and Lily is giggling, and I am sitting in my green, dinosaur chair, and Teacher’s face is all red and scrunched up like a balloon with a hole in it, and it’s because Philip won’t sit down and Jacob is talking and Teacher has been baking, because I can smell the cookies. Soon, we’ll go outside and take off our light-up shoes and wiggle our toes in the soft grass, and you can still smell it, because Mr. Teacher cut it while we were doing sharing time, you could hear it. Lily’s hands will be dandelion yellow and sticky from dandelion milk, and Teacher will go out front and then come back and smell like smoke. I will feel the sharp sand on my hands, and Philip will eat it even though we can smell cookies, but it’s because he’s poor and doesn’t have a mommy, that’s what my mommy says. Teacher’s face will still be red because of Philip and because she smells like smoke, and Jacob and me will find swords under the bushes or pull them off of trees, and then I’ll be a knight and Jacob will be a pirate, and I’ll kill him or he’ll kill me and then Teacher will call and we’ll be friends again. And then Philip’s hands will be red, and his lips will be red, and his tongue will be red, and Teacher will scream and Mr. Teacher will have to stay home from work to cut down the berry bush, and Philip had to go to another school.

"A Bunch of Phonies"

I read The Great Gatsby this week, and that's got me thinking a lot about the ideals that we construct for ourselves. See, Jay Gatsby isn't really Gatsby at all. His name is James Gatz, and Gatsby is just his constructed persona-- the summation of all of his 17-year-old aspirations of money, influence, sophistication, and charm. The thing is, everything that he lives for-- everything that he is or represents-- is an empty shell, an arbitrary abstraction of what he is to become. He spends the entire story trying to convince himself that he has, indeed, attained that unattainable dream, reached that great summit that he had so long before imagined, but in the end, the dream falls apart; the reality of his situation is brought to light, and he is left all alone.

I've asked myself often, 'For what and/or whom do you live?' and I find myself answering differently each time. I guess you could say that at one point in my life, I had my own Jay Gatsby that I had built up for myself: he was quick-witted and dagger-tongued, cynical yet a hopeless romantic, a perfect intellectual, an overt critic, a part-time philosopher, and an aspiring novelist. He wrote lots of first pages of books and told people that he was writing a novel. He knew all about Kant and Jung and Heidegger-- that, perhaps was one of his more real faces. He read every long book that he could get his hands on and made a point of informing everyone that he not only had read them but also thoroughly enjoyed each and considered it one of his favorites. And it's easy to sound smart when you know a little bit about something to which others are entirely ignorant. It's like the kid in your 9th grade class who is fluent in five languages because he knows how to say three sentences-- that is, until someone who speaks Portuguese shows up, and then he's only fluent in four languages.

I think I first saw myself one day in high school when my friend, Abigail, asked me for help on a homework assignment. I remember that she turned to me at one point and said, "Greg, don't take this the wrong way, but you can be really condescending at times. That's why we don't usually ask for your help." At first I was kind of taken aback, and the holographic image that was ever before my eyes lost focus for a moment; all I could see was a little kid who was kind of afraid and pretty lonesome, but then the stabilizer came back online with a string of self-justifications, and the image was back again.

I've changed a lot over the past six or seven years, and while I can't say that I'm free from hypocrisy or unkindness or pride, life has had its way of peeling back some of the dragon's scales. It's never much fun at first, but then the hologram comes down, and you start to see things in color again. Sometimes, you can distinguish a faint shimmer or a quiet whirr about others-- as if they have some little hologram generator as well--, and you think to yourself about what you once were and what you've become. And you're glad for who you are, and you feel, if only for an instant, that that little kid inside you has grown up a little bit. He's learned a lot, and he yet has a lot to learn before he becomes what he is truly meant to become... but he realizes above all that it's always better to be you, with all the flaws and weaknesses and sorrows, too...

Baby Steps

A lot of times, we limit ourselves by our own self-doubt. We think, 'Oh, I shouldn't even try, because I won't be good at it,' or we excuse ourselves, saying that we've tried before and it turned out poorly. And there are a thousand writers and a thousand singers and a thousand architects who aren't writing or singing or building because at one point they said to themselves, "I can't."

The thing is, when a baby takes its first steps, they're wobbly and they're slow-- honestly, they're not very good at all. But we shout for joy and we tell the neighbors and we call mom and we write about it in a baby book because baby took his first steps.

When a child is learning to play the piano, we hear tons of wrong notes and endure hours of what can only be considered noise, and yet we urge them on: 'Keep trying. You'll get it soon! Just keep working at it.' And soon enough, baby is walking and running and little Timmy is playing Stravinsky and Rachmaninoff, and we're thinking to ourselves how amazing it is that they've come so far in what seems like such a short time. And yet... in the back of our minds... is a lingering 'I can't. It won't be any good.'

The only thing keeping us from our dreams is the wall that we erect within our own minds-- the compulsion to self-criticize and self-abase and to discount any little bit of progress that we make. So maybe you're not a writer yet, and maybe you've never even been on a stage; maybe you don't know the difference between calculus and a calculator, or maybe foreign languages 'just aren't your thing.' But that's not what really matters. We get so discouraged at our perceived lack of progress when we might, with the same vigor and excitement as at the first steps of a small child, rejoice in our little triumphs, our own baby steps. They're not bad just because they're our first... or our second... or our hundredth. And in the end, if we keep at it, things'll work out. "Keep trying. You'll get it soon! Just keep working at it!" And soon enough, you're running and you're writing and you're doing differential algebra, and you're marveling at how far you've come in what seems like a such a short time. And so... in the back of your mind... is a triumphant, 'I can!'

I wonder...

I wonder sometimes where I'll be five years from now, what I'll be doing and with whom... I wonder if I'll be married or if I'll have kids, and I wonder what their names will be if I do. I wonder sometimes what tomorrow holds-- who I'll meet and who I'll find again. And I wonder sometimes how many somebodies you have to go through before you find an everlasting friend... I wonder sometimes about what goes on inside of people's heads and wonder if, in the end, we're not so different as we maybe sometimes like to think. Because I think that in end, you probably wonder, too. And that means that we're probably not so different at all...