100 Words - Daze

A sour note blown from a reedless saxophone startles me back to awareness. I don't know where I am or how I got here. At the end of the block the street signs tell me I'm only a few miles from home. Deep thoughts lulled me into a sleepwalk of sorts. The dogs are having a ball. New places to smell. New trees to mark. For a moment I consider calling for a ride, but figure the explanation would take longer than the walk. The old dogs are tired and take turns being carried. We get home just past midnight.

100 Words - Vegas

Rolling down hills like little kids. Falling off bridges like jilted lovers. Gravity's angels fulfilling their destinies. Imperfect lives connecting villains and heroes. Knowing which is which is the trick. Smiling faces telling lies. Angry threats speak the truth. Hearts hesitate then yield, at once regretting a choice that was the only option. Daydreaming of gods while trolling for fools. Walking down sidewalks at dusk avoiding the eyes of strangers. Wanting a quiet one, knowing you need a loud one. A flash of silver catches the eye. Loneliness shrieks in recognition then runs away. The night finds you alone again.

100 Words - Weeping

Where were they? I needed them and they weren't there. Or I needed them but I wasn't there. Why do they weep? I see them now in the mirror of nostalgia and see that I missed them and they me but such is life and we all must move on. Should I weep for them? Is that what the past is? Tears for the ones we should have known? Are they sad because they see me now and wish they knew me then? I wasn't this me then. I was a previous, inferior me. I had nothing to offer them.

100 words - God's Yo-Yo

Bob lives a palindormatic life. Every day finished the way it started. Evening spent retracing morning's steps. No conclusions, no revelations, no surprises, no changes.

The mighty hand of God playing Bob's life as a yo-yo. The holy string playing out and recoiling over the same trajectory with the same force. A divine vector bouncing off its own existence. Never finding the illusory Nirvana of walking the dog.

Bob tries to break the routine. He tells people to call him Robert but no one will. They know he is Bob and nothing can change that. The cycle must go on.

Nostalgia and Regrets

I regret almost nothing I did and only a quarter of what I didn't.

I was a traitor to the immortality of youth.

I failed to comprehend the true pathos of sex.

I drove too fast in cars alone.

I learned to dance too young and forgot how till I was too old.

I rebelled against the wrong people.

I drank puzzling beers on rainy days while women waited somewhere.

I never found out where.

Punkmuter

She was an aging punk rocker sitting next to me on the train

Orange hair spiked not out of rebellion or nostalgia but mere routine

Doc Martin boots made before they were hip

Leather and denim worn and comfortable

Her ginger perfume betrayed her rough exterior

She frowned at the words Mr. Grisham had written at her.

If I asked her what her favorite Bad Brains song was we could be friends

But that's not allowed.

I'm a man and she's a woman and if we aren't going to have sex we aren't supposed to be friends

Storm

Sheets of rain

Pillows of clouds

Alarming thunder

The monkey demon wakes

He hurtles to the ground

enters through your wall

and explodes in a crack of light and ozone

then is gone

You were spared

forgiven, pardoned

Lay down

Go to sleep