1.31

[I must admit that I kind of fell behind this month. Oh, well. I'll be here, still.]

She lifted her head to look at him. She loved that; she had to look up to see into his eyes. There was no reason, really, why she liked his height, but it made him seem more secure, more masculine, and more dependable. Her ex was five feet and two inches tall. The boy before that was five feet six. Before that was five feet four, but he always told everyone five seven, just in case.
Five feet four (seven) was addicted to marijuana, five feet six was a car thief, and five feet two was an unrepentant pornographer.

Hopefully, six feet four would be an upstanding gentleman.

1.27

He looked like a pancake that had been squished flat. Too-flat, like the feeling of lying down in the shade on a hot day. She hated it about him. She wanted geography: rolling, tumultuous, violent. She wanted change of color and tone, a sense of texture and reality. What she got was paper. A coin left on railroad tracks. A road on a never ending plain, driving across Illinois and Missouri and Kansas and Colorado, waiting for the mountains the map said would be there.

1.26

The kid in the back of the class would rather live in Sparta. He cited "great men" as the reason. The jocks murmured in assent. I don't think they know that they actually disagree.
Sandra wants to turn around and ask him if he feels alone, but to do so would be to isolate him further. She wants to address his individuality, but to do so would be to expel him from the crowd. She wouldn't do that.
People spend their whole adolescence trying to fit in, and only realize afterward that it's probably better to stand out. She writes it on the edge of her notes, so that when she studies for her test alone in her room, trying to earn the same grades as her classmates so she can graduate with the same degree and go to work every day to the same job so she can buy a house in a subdivision full of perfect little white-picket houses and maybe, someday, retire to the same place as all her peers.
The poor kid in the back of the class. He doesn't know how lucky he is.

1.23

Tyrone Tyrone was at the end of his days. He looked around him and all he could see was prosperity. There was no reason why he should feel so content, though. He had killed men. He had slit throats in the city streets that were now whitewashed and pristine.
So he sat and died and tried to feel like everything he had done was right.

1.20

[Hemingway wrote a story once. It goes like this.]

For sale: baby shoes. Never worn.

[I want to write a ten word story (which was the challenge). I've got nothing. Let me try.]

I chose my first kiss, not my first time. (7:55)

[ . . . but it's cheap and manipulative and it doesn't tell a whole story. It's just a punch to the gut without resolution. I try again.]

Born straight. Died gay. In between was worth it. (8:04)

[Well, it's better, and it almost says what I want it to. It's not as good as Hemingway's effort, still. See, it doesn't really reach like I wish it did, though I suppose that could have something to do with the fact that I'm not gay. Still. Try again.]

For rent: old house. No kids. (8:08)
Please buy my ring. Price negotiable. (8:09)

[These occurred to me at roughly the same time. They follow Hemingway's model a little too much, I think. I recently had to work with a guy on a project. He was a funny guy and he had good ideas, but everything he did was derivative. He introduced a quote from another work. He spun off of my original ideas. He expounded on a previous thought. But he never quite drove new life into the project. I don't want to trap myself like that. These two are just exactly the same as Hemingway's (in spirit, not in truth).]

My mistress invited me to church. (8:12) I took my wife. (8:15)

[I like the first piece without the second, but the second piece tells an entirely different story, so I left it. However, it doesn't impress me. Try again.]

That's my trophy in the parlor. I was nineteen.
My trophy in the parlor. My life's work: varsity. (8:20)

[I left the first because it led me to the second. And I thought of another, which could be better if I find the words.]

I was so beautiful then. (8:22)

[That's probably the best. It means so much in so little. I like it. But, I'm not satisfied, so I'm going to keep writing. This is a fun exercise.]

Only she touched the end. His arm: no hand. (8:34)

[I know some people with gimp arms. I wonder if it works for them like it worked for Byron. Anyway, it's not as good as the other.]

Wave to say hello; don't kiss. I didn't choose this. (8:37)

[That one inadvertently rhymes. It's clumsy, but it works? I think it has more to say, but I'm tired of thinking about it because it resonates. So I'm thinking about other struggles/conflicts now. I hope you forgive me. I feel like I'm slipping away from the stories that say far more than they say. So I'll stretch out again.]

I love your son more than you. (8:51)

[I got distracted. Anyway, the ambiguity of that makes it say a lot more things than it would otherwise.]

More lipstick on his collar. I wish it was mine. (8:55)

[This is ok. It speaks a lot more than some of the others I have written, and it's more complex, too. For those things, it suffers by not being very relatable, I think.]

I was so beautiful then.

1.18

If it wasn't her hair, it was certainly the color of her soul. He didn't know what that meant, but he said it to her and she chose to believe it. After they fell apart she repeated it to herself like a mantra until it was how she introduced herself to men she liked.
"If it's not my hair, it's the color of my soul."
It worked a surprising amount of the time.

1.17

Everything here is beige: the sort of off-white of the eyes of a man left too long in the sun to watch his friends desiccate and blow away like dust. Everything here is old, tired, and used up. In this sad city made of mud on the edge of a great lake that reflects the white hot sky, we have the ability to use magic. Like with all magic worth having, wizards need the study of an entire lifetime to master the essentials and truly transcend the mortal realm into something truly useful. Scholars of ancient manuscripts, constantly trying to revive the ways of the man before them, these men and women push the limits of what I know is possible for a human. It's beautiful and serene. It's sensible and well-practiced. It's slow.

The only way to release the magic is through writing, either of the alphanumeric system of the present day, or the glyphs of the ancients. The glyphs have the benefit of being faster, easier, and more powerful. The lengthier spells have the benefit of being more precise. It's all very logical, of course. Just as you would expect, with complexity comes usefulness and reduced potency.

But.

There is a shortcut. I haven't told anyone that I found it. It involves no glyphs or calligraphy or tablets of unbreakable stone. It is a cloth of intricate design and infinite variability. I think it is the most colorful thing in the otherwise bleak landscape of the city. I have heard of colors, and I have seen every one and more in the twisting, gyrating color of the cloth. Moreover, the cloth never needs to retain a single shape or size. It is infinitely malleable, flying directly in the face of logic and good sense. The cloth itself has no power. However, in the hands of a wizard, it can unleash magic without the need for writing. The spoken word takes all the power of the written with speed and precision.

I would be a fool to think that the cloth is only perfection and no downside. The cloth is dangerous, of course. The only stories I could find of it were in a language generally unreadable--the language of the ancients, written in the glyphs of spells. The stories were terse. Abrupt. Obviously the writer had no time for flowing ambiguities, as in so many other texts. Danger. Caution. Sentience. The cloth had the ability to flow into a living wizard's mouth and command his tongue and will, rendering him or her to a mere puppet. Properly controlled, the cloth offered nearly unlimited power. Released, the cloth dealt catatonic any wizard in its control. The true terror of the cloth is that it would flee its host for a more powerful wizard, without warning. When this story was written, the cloth had been made, discovered, sentenced, and secreted away. Everything was past tense. Everything was safe. Its creation by the scientist-wizard Amesh led to a general condemnation of any mix of science and magic. Shortly after its creation, the cloth was lost and began running through the ranks of wizards. Finally, the cloth possessed the headmaster's son. It was within striking distance of the greatest of wizards. The headmaster blew the child's head off with a single stroke of the simplest, outlawed, most powerful glyph. Destroy. The cloth, unscathed, settled to the floor and was stapled down by a bystander with the sword Thanatos. The cloth reputedly fretted around the sword, but could not escape. The headmaster's mind broke from the raw power of the glyph through his body. The bystander who drove Thanatos into the temple ground, pinning the cloth, was never seen again. Many assumed it was Amesh, repenting his sins.

Thanatos and the enigmatic cloth stayed in the antechamber of the temple for generations. No man dared pull Thanatos from the ground or attempt to use the power of the cloth.

I did.

I spoke to the cloth yesterday. I am only twelve. Maybe they will forgive me because of my age, but I doubt it. I asked the cloth to free itself. It slowly shuddered from the crumpled wrap I had seen every day as I passed it, going to classes. It slid free from Thanatos, and the tear reformed behind the sword. Slowly, like a lethargic old man shaking off the last scraps of sleep, the cloth wandered towards my head. I snatched it from the air, and spoke to it again. It filled me with purpose and confidence. Using it, I escaped the city.

Today, I returned to the city in a brilliant flash of light. I hurtled downward towards the gate. I killed the two guards. They were well trained in combat, but no match for a wizard who could summon blades of air to quickly hamstring them without access to a scroll, palate, pen, or even so much as a pile of sand. They watched my hands when they should have watched my mouth.

As arrows from the walls whizzed around me, I demanded that the cloth be a winged horse for me. I gripped it tightly still as it transformed underneath my legs. The horse of every color took off into the sky, carrying me far from the militia and towards the wizard's tower where I knew he would be waiting.

The cloth and I tore along the coastline, watching the white waters beat the clay walls under the pale sky. The city skyline drifted lazily under me until I reached the academy, the temple, and the tower. Amplify, I commanded, and yelled his name again and again. I knew he was waiting for me. I had made sure to make sufficient display as I reentered the city. I saw the old man, portly and smooth, standing in the towertop, watching me with such sorrow in his face it almost made me hate myself. Cut, I said, and the cloth used the power in my words to blow the stones from the top of the tower like a chef slicing through the neck of dinner, dispassionate. The rocks dribbled away like blood, and the cloth and I closed our circle of flight. He stood up from the floor where he had fallen, and walked to a bench near the crumbling wall. The cloth and I turned tightly to dive at him and stop him from writing, but Bind the Arms was already on the paper, and I scudded as I slid across the floor at his feet. The cloth in my hand struggled to loose itself. I prayed that it did not. It did. It flew at my mouth, and

suddenly, the world burst color again. I had never realized the shades of intricacy at play in the single sky above. The whole view faded to a velvet red around the edges of the nearly perfectly white sky, punctuated by the intricacies of skycover. I rolled over and saw moss in between the edges of the rocks, green against the speckled brown of the wooden tower floor. The whole of my life seemed to happen in a single moment as my mind reclaimed itself and I watched the last of the cloth as it flew from my mouth. My hands still bound, I nonetheless tried to move to clutch the cloth in its flight from me to my waiting father who had never had any reason to read the old records of an heirloom of great danger and little redeeming value, who knew little to nothing about the workings of the cloth and its incessant  search for the most powerful wizard in the world, so it could subdue him and control him for whatever purpose it deemed necessary. The tool of ultimate ease and power flowed through the air like liquid falling from a great height. My muscles strained themselves against my unseen, magical bondage. My father's eyes grew wider in shock. His neck muscles twitched. His pupils dilated as his mind tried to keep up with the speed of the cloth as it rushed towards him. I wanted to scream everything I knew, to say anything as a word of warning to the man I hated and loved more than any other. The cloth hit his face like the force of a great gust of wind, and he fell backwards, the cloth slowly sliding sinuously into his mouth.

He hit the ground and twiched, to lie still. He had no chance. He had no reason to know or suspect the cloth. He had no reason to suspect that his only daughter would feel inadequate in his shadow. He had no reason to suspect that she would need his attention so badly. He had no reason to know how to deal with the force that sought he and he alone.

Arms bound, I inched my way to him, eyes flowing tears, shirt torn, happiness shorn off like the tower itself. I screamed for the cloth to hear.

"Take me! Want me!"

I attacked to prove my worth, but the cloth knew my worth was nothing compared to his. It took him instead.

His mouth slowly opened. The breath caught in my throat. Would the cloth leave him? Would I have a chance of redemption?
"Hilfe" came the quiet croak. "Help. Aide." He croaked the same word in every language. Words I knew. Words I didn't. Words no one knew. Words forgotten since the beginning of the world.

As the cloth slowly took him, his magic crumbled. The wards around the city dissipated. The golems of the city crashed to the ground. The globe in the temple started pulling the walls of the temple down and drawing them in as it grew. My arms loosened. I knew my only recourse. Crying so hard I couldn't see, I knelt to write in the dust left by my foolishness and wrote binding spells that clamped his mouth shut and his arms down. I used a pilfered teleportation spell to take his body and mine to the temple doors. The globe, continually growing, no longer contained, pulsed slightly behind us, giving everything a ghastly pale hue. I walked to Thanatos and loosed it from the stone where it sat for a thousand years. Walking back to my father, I laid my head on his chest one last time, stood, and drove the sword through the cloth and through my father.

I am only twelve. I hope they will forgive me because of this, but I doubt it. I am kneeling here by a corpse I will remember forever for its infinite patience and love. It is those that killed him, I know. When I cried for help, though I was a rebel and a killer, though I attacked him and meant to prove my worth by killing him, he heard my cry. He heard me cry for help and came to save me.

I don't claim that it means anything, but my father's humanity is what eventually killed him.

Everything is off-white here.

1.15

The lovely thing about tea is that you don't really have to steep it as long as you do, but once you have, my dear, well. Tea becomes a ritual, ten minutes in the making. Cups and ceramic and boiling water and tea not in bags and tiny spoons that leave just the edge of a metallic tang in your otherwise perfect tea, but you don't abandon that spoon because it's that edge that reminds you that you're human under the sugar and cream and silky hot of the tea.
And then, of course, once it's gone, you start over again with another pot.

1.13

"Stooge. Stooge. Stooge. It does sound funnier the more you say it."
"When I'm right, I'm right."
"Oh. Youth. Youth. Youth. Youth. Not as good as stooge."
"You win some, you lose some."

I read Marco's autobiography and tried, for a moment, to reconcile wheat I had learned to what I knew. Marco Polo was a famous explorer who went to China or at least made up really convincing stories about going to China. There are no other famous Marcos except soccer players, and the only soccer player I care about is Ros. So, basically, Marco is also dead and famous. Or an athlete, but I prefer dead and famous. It sounds better, like the smell of potpourri instead of socks and exercise. Speaking of, potpourri is a hilarious word.
"Potpourri."
"Excuse me, what?"
"Potpourri. It's another word to add to your list of words that sound funny when you say them out loud."
"I'll keep it in mind."
Well. That wasn't too bad. Now I just had to think of something clever to say, on Friday, in a café that probably never been witness to a clever thought before, while operating on fewer than five hours of sleep. Hm. Clever.
"Marco, I . . ."
"Where's yours?"
"My what?" I asked, though I knew the answer already. He wanted my autobiography. This was supposed to be a trade, not a steal. But I had written all night and I had nothing. Nothing to give him. Nothing to sum up my life. Nothing to let him get to know me. I knew his past, his secrets, his hurt, his victories, and I had thirteen pages of draft and zero pages of autobiography. So I deferred and dithered.
"What do you mean, 'My what?' You know."
He called my bluff at least twice as quickly as I expected him to. I got panicky and my voice went shaky.
"Well, you know how we were supposed to write autobiographies and how I'm not good at that? Well, if you didn't know before, I'm terrible at it. Just god-awful. I wrote and wrote and wrote last night and I have a million pages of garbage. I started over again twelve times, and I never once got past third grade, when I skinned my knee and got an infection and didn't tell mom for weeks, because I didn't want her to worry, but of course when I went to the hospital, she freaked out anyway, and I really hurt my mom and I cried last night and called mom at two in the morning and she didn't get it, but she listened and told me she loved me and went to sleep. I don't know. I can't write my life, because I've lived it and it has too much to think about. If I were writing somebody else's life, I wouldn't cry about a skinned knee and call their mother at two in the morning. I swear I wouldn't. But I did for me. So you don't have an autobiography from me and I'm so so so sorry."

Marco just laughed. "Well, the whole point was for you to get to know me, so I don't see anything wrong with it. Just . . . start at the beginning, and tell me things that don't make you cry. I'll listen."
"No."
"Yes."
"Seriously, no. I'm too embarrassed."
He just folded his hands and leaned back in the booth.
"Why are you doing this to me?"
"I'm working on having patience. It's one of my biggest faults. So I'll wait you out, until you tell me a part of your story, or die. Whichever, really, is acceptable to me." He smiled and settled into his chair like he had said his say and was proud of it.
"Ugh."
"Hmm."
"Fine, but just this, ok?" He just smiled. Infuriating. I should get to escape and not tell him my story. "Ok. Once upon a time in the year I was born, a girl was born and it was me. You told me about how you got your name, so I got mine from my aunt. She's pretty cool, "
"You say aunt, instead of aunt. You pronounce it funny."
"Don't interrupt." He laughed. "My aunt has hair the color of cinnamon. I don't know if that's important. Anyway, I was born, and my mother decided that one was enough and she would never again. She hasn't. My dad wanted more kids, or at least he must have, because the after of when mom said she didn't want any kids was when dad started cheating on her, hardcore. Mom's a patient woman. She didn't talk to him anymore, but she forgave the receptionist and the waitress and the saleswoman from Macy's. However, when the police caught dad soliciting a prostitute, mom said enough. When he was endangering me with his philandering, he had gone too far. She kicked him out and divorced him. I have no idea, to this day, why she put up with him as long as she did." I stopped, and shuffled his autobiography around in front of me. "I guess none of that was really about me. I am the worst storyteller."
Marco laughed again. I guess I was doing something right. He looked so right, even in the fake leather seat of the coffee shop. The orange seat and the old light through the window and the dust in the air and the odd stillness made everything look like an old photograph left on a windowsill for forty years in the sun.
He looked me straight in the eye. "Catherine, what are you doing here?"
"Well, I failed at telling my autobiography, so I don't know."
"I mean with me. What are you doing here with me?"
I paused. I was completely unsure of how to answer him. Make a fool of myself and tell him that I was just admiring how much like a weathered photo he looked, or tell him that when I first found out who he was, I thought I would never see him again, or tell him that I was completely unsure of myself and had no idea what I was doing? The last sounded good enough. I said it.
"I have no idea what I'm doing."
"Don't play games."
He called my bluff.
Self, what do I do now?
Well, me. I suppose I could just lie and leave. That's always worked for me in the past.
I know, I'm me. I don't have to tell me.
I don't want to lie.
"Marco . . ."
"Catherine."
"What should I be doing?"
"Well. I think you should be giving me your phone number so I can text you things I assume will impress you and make you like me."
"Well, I suppose there's always that."
"You should accept a date on Saturday, and then go, and have a good time. I think you should get to know me, and let me get to know you. I think . . . well. I think a lot of things."
I leaned forward and gave him a dry look. "You're telling me to hook up with you? You're not very subtle, are you?"
He leaned forward and said "Catherine, I'll write it on a big sign and hang it on the clock tower. I'm not in the business of being subtle. Go out with me."
It was about then that I realized we looked like people in a movie who have been apart for years but still love each other and come back to the hometown where they fell in love and finally kiss after so much time and then cue the music and roll the credits. There was no music, so he got up and went to the counter to order another coffee.
I mean, he was super cute. Cute is such a weird word for a boy. He wore jeans that made his legs look longer and shirts that made his shoulders look broad. Somewhere in me, I hoped his legs were long and his shoulders were broad, but I quashed that immediately. His smile was always genuine, and it always looked like if it didn't get out of him, he would just burst like a happy Marco balloon. His fingers were delicate and poised, and he never moved them unnecessarily. He spoke like he knew what he was doing, and he obviously liked me. That last point was a shocker. I don't think I ever said that before about anyone, except Darryl in second grade, and that doesn't count. Anything that happens before age ten is like crimes committed before age 18; it just doesn't matter. Dangit. He was just right, and he didn't even look like he would cut my skin off and eat it in his underground lair.
Why couldn't I say yes? What was holding me back? Why did he get his coffee black and why did that seem so right and why did he sit down opposite me, of all the girls in the coffee shop who would probably jump at a chance to date him? Why did I think I was going to say yes anyway?
"Marco?"
He didn't say anything, he just looked at me like he knew what I was going to say.
"One date. One. And if you don't kidnap me or feed me to your pet tiger, we'll see."
And there it was again: his smile, trying to explode him into a million tiny bits of light. Well, we'll see, Mr. Marco, if I fall for your charms. I like limes, and hanging out with Rosalyn, and the Internet, and cleaning, and sleep, and Marco. If it stays that way, I think we'll both be luckier for it.

1.12

The moon obscures my vision of the stars beyond. I really desperately want to see the stars, but always, the moon is in the way.
Perhaps it's like how everywhere I look, there it is, again and again. Go overseas. Be a businessman. Learn a foreign language. All I want to do is sit on my porch at home and see the stars.

1.11

The super part about being me is all the self confidence. I never doubt myself (not even in the slightest), not even when I do something that others construe as wrong. I'm basically infallible, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you'll realize the error of your ways and we'll get back together.

I miss you.

Love, Becca.

1.7

Let's pass out together
on the green comforter
draped over the couch.

We'll find ourselves
in the morning,
so stop looking.

We'll not get dragged apart
during the night,
worrywart.

I'll be here, silly.

But I guess the thought
never crossed my mind
that you might be the one
who leaves.

1.6

Jerusalem and I have been dating for a week. He asked me out; I said yes. We met at a bar. There. Nothing romantic. I think I'm dating him because it's good to know I'm wanted. I think he's dating me because it's good to have someone to show your friends. We're great together. Ha.

However, he just put his hand on my leg. We're at a party at his friend's house. His friend, Ryan, the attractive one, invited Jerusalem over, and did not expect me. It was awkward when he saw me at the door. I'm not quite a part of their friend group, but they can't kick me out. Now we're all sitting at the table, and I'm kind of an unexpected surprise, so I'm squeezed in between Jerusalem and Rodney, the gay guy (I tell you, everyone is stereotypes here) and Jerusalem just edged his fingers between skin and skirt. I'm not sure what we're eating, but most of the guests are guys, so the food is disappearing like there's a famine. It looks to be a cheesy concoction of something that looks vaguely potatoed. I haven't eaten anything, really. I drank a soda. It might have been diet. Nobody seemed to know or care. I have to watch what I drink, because I'm diabetic. The good kind. I say that to people, and they look at me like "There's a good kind?" Yeah. There's a good kind, but Jerusalem isn't even looking at me while his hand keeps trying to find Valhalla. I'm laughing at Rodney's joke. I think he has a crush on Ryan, but won't say it because it would ruin the group dynamic. I'm only kind of sorry for him. I have my own problems, because Jerusalem's hand is making it really difficult not to squirm. He's just poking around blindly. It's doing nothing for me. I stand up.

"Can somebody show me where the bathroom is?"
Rodney volunteers. He's a good guy. I grab Jerusalem's shoulder. Rodney gets it. He goes back to cracking jokes.

Jerusalem just looks up at me. "What's wrong, babe?"

"Can you show me where the bathroom is?"

"Sure. Down the hall, on the right. It's the door with the peephole." He laughs like he thinks he's clever. Anja, the girl across the table, is looking at him like she's already had him in her bed and isn't done with him. I'm disgusted and tired, so I just walk out of the dining room that doesn't want me, into the living room, and to the coat closet. I pull my shoes from the pile and put them on. I'm out the door before Anja has even the time to get up and move to my seat. I get in my car and pull out of the drive to leave tire tracks on the ground.

I'm angry, but I can't really feel it. I shouldn't be driving. The soda wasn't diet and it threw my sugars all out. Maybe he was abused as a child. Maybe his uncle touched him. Maybe he had sex too early and too often and doesn't know anything about it. Maybe he's never had sex. Maybe he didn't know that I'm a human, too, and he just want want wanted and didn't need to give back. The good news is that no matter how many excuses I can make for him, I made it out.

I pull over before I black out. A cute boy pulls over to ask if I'm alright. I think he's too young for me. We walk to the drugstore on the corner, and asks the pharmacist for help. I survive, thanks to him.

He asks me out on a date. I tell him I just came from one. We laugh. It obviously wasn't a good one.

His name is Andy. I think I'm dating him because it's good to know I'm wanted. I think he's dating me because he wants to.

Fantastic.

1.5

[I'm listening to Samuel L. Jackson read Go the F___ to Sleep. It is certainly soothing.]

Susan ate cereal just about every chance she got. She liked the taste. There wasn't much else to say.
When Bankolsolsi the cat met her, he knew it was a match made in heaven. She let him lick out the bowls.

[Yes, I just bought Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, why do you ask?]

1.4

You've never thought about hurting yourself. Congratulations, me neither. But unlike me, you hurt yourself (you do it anyway, despite not thinking about it hardly ever).

So what I'm trying to say is that (while I don't understand your motivations) I understand you. You fell off that swing in second grade just to get some attention. You went out with that boy in ninth to fill the hole in your chest. You crashed your car into a tree so your father would talk to you. See? You probably didn't know why you did it at the time.

But it's ok.

I've never loved you any more than this moment. Now, let's get you to a hospital.