He was a peaceful baby with a face like Buddha who grew into a sensitive toddler: enormous eyes that took in everything and missed nothing. When he fell he cried, but he always recovered after the usual spell of tears.
What a precious child, we thought. Life will be hard on him.
Jean-Pierre had been an engineer of Swiss watches. He had retired at forty-five after a very successful, brief career of twenty-two years. The thing on his arm looked like an aqualung. It weighed enough to make him feel it resisting his movements. Its face was extra thick, and the chunky bezel shone like a chrome grille. He had puzzled out its inner intricacies himself; he had made it as complicated as he could do. That had been his goal: the most complicated watch I can make—for no other reason than that. Just to do it.
“What are you in for?”
“Nothing…”
“Same.”
I had a feeling we would become friends.
This is a story about insanity. Well, about my attempt to stay sane inside insanity. No, the story about me battling insanity. No, about my victory over the insanity of life. No, still not right… or true. It’s a story about me. Hi. So buckle up. It’s going to be a bumpy ride!
When the two teenage hot dog vendors laughed at Brandon Viktor, he saw their tongues stick out. The thin, stoop shouldered 21 year old took the wiener from its bun and bit a huge piece off. Everyone in Princetown thought they could make fun of him, but he still had a powerful chomp.
Continue reading “A Major Error in Judgement by Harrison Kim”
A NOISE THE HOUSE MAKES ON ITS OWN
Alone with his longing, he lies down on his bed
and sings a lament; everything seems too large,
the steadings and the fields.
Beowulf
Continue reading “A Noise the House Makes On Its Own by Jack Caulfield”
The worms are hook shaped, tiny translucent segments with black antennas and bulbous brown eyes, specks floating.
I can see them in the corner of my eyes, wiggling and multiplying.
They have to come out.
The doctor thinks I’m crazy. I tell him about the worms squirming away in my eye, swimming in my tear ducts. I see them, whether my eyes are open or closed. I feel them, the same way I could feel a bug in my ear, a spider in my mouth. The relentless whisper of antenna against my eyelid makes it twitch nonstop.
Peter crouched in front of the attic window and gazed down on old man Mueller’s cornfield. The plow, unhitched beyond the stalks, turned north like he meant to continue but got interrupted. Peter looked toward the barn, no sign of Mueller’s horse and buggy. The Amish and Mennonite neighbors, with their peculiar ways kept to themselves. Mueller only talked to his pa when he accused Rufus of killing his chickens, or a year ago, the day his brother’s mind broke when Gabe went screaming from the veranda twisting his ears as he ran into Muller’s cornfield. That day Mueller shot out of the house, the top of his unsnapped overalls flapping as he sprinted after Gabe, Mueller’s wife and five children dashed onto the porch, the boys still in their pajamas.
This is the story of a girl who became a goose.
It began with a broken heart. Eloise found herself crying in unexpected places at unexpected times. In the grocery line, when a clerk with kind eyes asked with such sincerity, How are you today?, her eyes brimmed. The answer swelled in her throat. She had to look away and mutter Fine, I’m fine. She was not.
Continue reading “The Girl Who Became a Goose by K. Barrett”
I’ve been thinking on insecurities and what fun they are to write about. You can have a laugh and rip the pish out of other folks and you can do the same with your own but that isn’t funny.
I would rather use it as a self-help exercise, ’cause lets be honest, if you can write about them and put them out there, you will never need to pay a therapist.
Now paying a therapist seems to be something people in other countries do. We don’t. Us Scottish people would never dream of doing this and that has sod all to do with the very false stereotype of us being mean.
We wear our madness as a badge of honour. To be sectioned is the top accolade but it very seldom happens. The only way this can happen is if you sexually assault a lamp-post and it complains to the authorities.
Continue reading “Week 120 – Insecurities, Placebos And Goosing Lamp Posts.”
Buzzzzzzzzzzzzz…..
My alarm clock rings. It wakes me up. I sit up in bed, and run my fingers through my hair. I have such pretty hair. Everyone thinks so. They’re all so jealous of it, they never tell me how much they like my hair, but I can tell. I can see it in their eyes.
literally stories 