Bitter – 100 words

Standing on the peak looking down at the fogged-over city. Headphones blasting. Patti Smith Pissing in the River. The holiest of the holy punk prayers. Feeling inadequate.

I see the beauty. Hear it. Know it, but have no passion for it. An emptiness of creativity. I’m not living up to my subversive potential. It says so in my permanent record. Formalism missing that final spark. A weeping frog. A misplaced pencil.

Only following, never leading. Always fear, never folly. Finding, at my best, only mediocre otherness. Hiding from horizons of triumph. Never daring. Rejecting, in my youth, rebellion’s bitter tit.

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Liquid Mind – 100 words

Raoul was an adventurer of the liquid mind. The phrase was invented by his mother because she hated when people called him a drunken lout. She created an entire imaginary world around the idea that he was a mendicant poet and philosopher.

In this world he sat drinking his muse juice and after a series of long quiet meditations he would share his wisdom with the world. Usually something along the lines of, “Screw the mayor!”

Of course the proles, as she called his drinking buddies, missed the subtle sociopolitical message behind the words. Only she recognized his unique brilliance.

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Intimacy – 100 words

Photo by spader

“Craig, My blue shoes are green.”

“Ben, the moon is almost Mort Sahl.”

These statements are typical of the nonsense that roommates Ben and Craig say to each other instead of admitting their love for one another. Intimacy expressed as non sequitur.

“Only you can prevent Forrest Tucker,” means “I want to kiss you.”

“Non-dairy grilled cheese is toast,” means “I want you to go down on me.”

Every night they sit at opposite ends of the couch complaining about their lack female companionship. Neither pointing out the other’s lack of effort in that pursuit. Never meeting eyes. Forever alone.

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Ronnie – 100 words

Ronnie was the kind of boy the nuns spit on. Sometimes for nothing more than ending a sentence with a preposition. Which he only did to piss off Sister Mary Syntax. He was an angry boy channeling the hatred of his father onto the proles that surrounded him. The petty tyrants who could not see his genius through their accusations of stupidity.

He knew he was a superior being. Only he knew why he failed to understand what was so far beneath him. Common knowledge. The false truths. The lies of his teachers betraying his grand vision of the universe.

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Bruce Music – 100 words

Bruce wandered out into the night. Too drunk to go home. Not drunk enough for the cat house. A warm breeze blew from somewhere. Nowhere. The senses lie when the spirit is unfulfilled.

Bruce listened to the empty darkness. Distant music played.

Bruce walked north, trying to shoo the pied piper image from his head.

Alley after alley the music grew louder. A thumping beat with no rhythm. No harmony. Just a symphony of industrial instruments pounding out product.

The greasy old factory pulsed with music and light. The doorman wouldn’t let Bruce in.

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Sleeper – 100 words

George saw the woman crying. Not his problem. He didn’t make her cry. Then the ghost of his mother’s guilt grabbed him by the ear and dragged him towards her.

“You OK lady?”

If George was any less a man the look she gave him would have been fatal. She put her head down and returned to her sorrow, then jerked upright. “George?”

He looked carefully but did not recognize her.

“No, you don’t know me.” She said. “I used to sleep in your car.”

The bus came, she got on. George, frozen in shock, waved as she rode away.

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Ted Moving - 100 words

One day when Ted was a teenager he tried speaking entirely in song lyrics. It was a total failure. First, the only lyrics Ted knew were from punk rock songs. Punk rock just isn't as conversational as, say, opera. Second, Ted's family thought he was skitzo and assumed this was just another symptom.

Years later, sitting in an empty warehouse loft, waiting for the moving truck to bring his furniture, he remembered that day. Laughter, tears and vomiting followed.

The truck arrived and the rickety elevator kept working as load after load of his stuff was scattered about the room.