Jack Posner, licensed clinical psychologist, PhD. from Berkeley, serviced corporate lawyers and stock and bond traders from his private plant-filled smoke-free office on the fourth floor of the Paulsen Building downtown. He consoled guilty consciences with a phrase he muttered under his breath for his own benefit as well as his clientele’s: EVERYTHING’S O.K., GO BACK TO WORK, over and over, like a Vedic hymn, until even he was fooled by it.
The benches in the New York City Clerk’s office were hard and uncomfortable. The wood was worn and shiny from nervous and impatient squirmings. The room was dim and shabby, wearied from processions of the city poor, eager to pay the few dollars for the privilege of marriage, or not eager, but complying with demanding families, resenting the notices of do’s and dont’s, murmuring to the indifferent walls. And behind barred windows, clerks in funereal voices, never calling names fast enough to spare the nervous couples the glances of others. The eyes that have seen it all before; waiting, birth, death, the history of in-betweens, waiting.
Here we are folks at the end of another seven days and the usual Saturday round-up for Week 91.
Before I begin, I need to thank Adam Kluger for giving me my inspiration for this week. I was commenting on one of his many excellent stories and ‘Team building’ was mentioned. I felt a cringe, a growing anger and a prayer that this abomination / humiliation / waste-of time, pile of nonsense, will one day, cease to exist.
Continue reading “Week 91 – Team Building, Genitalia And A Plea.”
“You nearly beat me that time William.”
“You’re very good Sir.”
“Sir…I like that…Tell me why you’re here?”
“I’m not sure Sir. I love this place. It’s just that, after you came to my house that night, I knew that I wanted to be with you. And I thought that you felt the same way.”
I have been using all my writing skills this weeks folks. I have been creative, sparse with the truth, fantasised and down-right lied. Nope I have not been writing a novel or a new short, I have applied for a job.
It is always a difficult balance to get right. You do need to write yourself up but you don’t want to come across as an opera singer twat. (ME, ME, ME!!) However I think being the twat actually works when I look at some of the folks I have worked with over the years!
Continue reading “Week 90 – Interviews, Scripts And Unrelated Diplomas”
Bernie wheezed his way into the pub. He looked over and saw his pal Jamsie sitting at a table in the corner with a half drunk pint of lager. A full pint awaited him. He walked over, slumped down and gulped his drink.
Continue reading “The Girl Of My Best Friend by Hugh Cron – Strong Adult Content”
“Whatcha reading?”
“Moby Dick”
“Yeah, I like that one… read his others?”
The pain jerks me up from the dark, spills bright red across my memory, shakes me in time to the artillery shells exploding around us.
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Voices, mumbling medical jargon, the hum, and clicking of some electronics, antiseptic smell. Bright, bright too bright, I close my eyes tight.
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My arm. They amputated my left arm below the elbow. Shit. I reach across my body and touch my new left forearm and hand. A prosthetic, but it feels, feels flesh like, like dead meat.
Yet again, our hearts go out to those effected by events in this sick world!!
***
Something strange happened this week. I laughed and was filled with an ambition. I want to visit Iceland. (Sorry Diane, Adam and all my English friends!!!) I am petty, childish but grateful that this narrow-minded thought came to me as it gave me an idea for this post. Continue reading “Week 80 – Emotions, Pygmies And Paddling Pools”
All around– the city coughed up scorched reminders of life’s inevitable costs. The walking dead. The rag-tag homeless. The diseased and displaced stationed themselves strategically at major corners– and watched the miserable faces of the business suits as they scurried about in the broiling hot sun. New York City rush hour–only the tourists were seemingly immune to the heartless magnetic draw of the subway staircase as they stopped to hear a tale of woe and fish through their pockets for change.
literally stories 