Wednesday, April 18, 2018

AGELESS - Flash Fiction


AGELESS

I jammed my surfboard in the light tan sand and kicked up a kerf to hold it.  It was the half-century mark for me and the last day in the surf.  After decades of weathering and soaking in the ocean brine, I had to admit it was wearing on me. 

A promise is a promise.  Karen asked me if I would stop surfing and fix the aging the elements had wrought on me.   I stayed it off as long as I could.  I did all the right things that forestalled wrinkles and rough skin.  I didn't smoke -anything.  I didn't drink alcohol.  I ate with moderation; not quite a vegan, still mostly vegetables.  Yet, my jowls were sagging, the skin on my arms and most the rest of me looked like a dried-out mud puddle.

I sat and leaned on my board.  I already had a buyer.  Tomorrow I would deliver it with a case of board wax that I would never use.  I see no point going back in the water this late in the day.  I'll just relax and listen to the lap of the surf, the cries of kid’s body surfing and the toddlers being held by their parents, knee high in the retreating tide as they splash the water into an arc of spray with the beat of their tiny arms. I had done the same with my kids over the years.

I don't feel as sad as I thought I would.  I can still come and enjoy the sunsets as I do now where the light dims with each blink washing the color from the beach till only the red glowing sky gives up its light just as the yellow sliver disappears below the horizon with a hiss.  

Hey, it's been a good ride.  I don't have any regrets.  Even as I pulled my surfboard from the sand, I have to smile.  What a great day, I couldn't have asked for more.

 I lean my board against the garage wall and peek in the kitchen.  Karen is sitting at the table drinking a Smoothie.  Then she sees me. "Honey, you're home."

"Yes, it was a fine day."

I feel the love as she comes over and hugs me.  "Happy Birthday."  Karen hands me a bright blue envelope.

"What's this?" I ask as I dig out the flap and pull a card from the inside.

"Something special for you."

"Aha, a gift card to the Smoothie Hut."  I can't help but smile at her.  I'm not really surprised though.

#

At the Smoothie Hut and went in together.  She knows her way around as having been here a couple time before.  A perky young woman around twenty-five greets us.  "Welcome to the Smoothie Hut.  What may we do for you today?"  She eyes my face, I'm sure she has some grand design for it.

"I don't really know.  What do you recommend?"  I ask her.

She takes the card from my hand and glances at it.   “Well,”  the girl strokes my chin and pinches my jowl.  "I think it would be best to smooth out your face and neck first.  We can work our way down to the arms and torso next visit."   She suggests in her sprightly fashion.

I'm okay with that, I guess, as I look at her flawless complexion, then at her name tag.  It says JENNY age 71.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

The Wanderer - Poem


The Wanderer

The wanderer wonders am I a dispirited figure?
Why am I here, sitting alone in the mist of the elements?
Far far away from those things that really matter.

Looking up at the light pollution free sky
The wonders of Stars and solar bodies lights my mind,
But for wandering here, I alone feel the spirit, or

It could be I share the experience with other wanderers
In distant places.
If not, why am I here?

From my perch, my heightened senses hear a Coyote.
He sings his song in a wailing cacaphoneny,
The hair on my neck stands up, but I am not afraid.

Bare breasted I walk a Grand Canyon trail
Eight five degrees in the shade, when over the cliffs crest
Two inches of snow falls on me in a five-minute blast.

I have seen, felt and heard so much,
But for what good is it

If here, alone, I turn to dust?

by EJ Hall - All rights reserved.

Thursday, April 5, 2018

The Solar System Display - Flash Fiction


Intersections - Nonliteral by Jiri Horacek


Display

 

Taxis honked and jockeyed as always.  The wind blew up between the skyscrapers at a brisk pace and stole Bjorn’s breath away as he turned to face it.  A traffic light was out somewhere, the incessant whistle of the policeman blew directing traffic.  

Bjorn Andersen started up steps to the museum entrance and finished his climb at the polished brass framed glass doors fifteen-foot high.   They pushed inward effortlessly.

He stood in the front of the gift shop with all its miniature reproductions of displays beyond the reception desk leading to the building’s interior.  A man looked up from a computer screen.

He waved Bjorn over. 

“Dr. Andersen, how good to see you.  You are here to inspect the laser work?”

Bjorn nodded.  “Yes, I am happy to see you too, Dr. Dull.  I hear the wall is done.”  Alan Dull, Bjorn learned was to pronounce his name as Doll. Bjorn liked the unpretentious curator of the museum of all things known.  The museum rose twenty stories, a diminutive structure among the surrounding skyscrapers.  Yet, it held something for every science of human endeavor to understand. 

“The wall is finished on schedule, just as you said it would be.  I have to say it is spectacular.”

#

Bjorn and Alan stepped out of the freight elevator onto the Twentieth floor.  “Welcome back to the Solar System.”  Alan gesture with a sweep of his hand.  The area was littered with sawhorses, concert saws, nail-guns and stacks of quartz floor tiles, white with gray ribbons running through it, lying of amongst all the rest of the construction materials.   

Fifty strides later was the laser; its mount was nail-gunned to the cement floor.  Hydraulics raised and lowered it on the X-axis and a cross arm allowed it travel on the Y-axis.   Next to it was a bank of computers that controlled the sweep of the beam on the wall. 

Bjorn turned to the wall.  The Sun just a little off center, as planned, of the thirty-foot-high wall and the same wide.  The planets orbits carved in their tracks around the Sun represented a moment trapped in time.

“Ten men polished the granite for two weeks.  What do you think?”  Alan asked.

A lump formed in Bjorn’s throat.  He couldn’t have predicted this outcome.  The polish had added depth to the wall as though it went on to eternity.  The side lighting brought throughout the rock sparkles that twinkled as though there were real stars light-years away.

“It’s beyond words,” Bjorn finally croaked out.  He stepped to the corner of the wall and read the six-inch-high letters laser inscribed, inlaid with white enamel. 

THE SOLAR SYSTEM
EQUINOX - FIRST DAY OF SPRING
9:15 A.M. 20 MARCH 2018

Perfect, just perfect,” Bjorn mumbled to himself. 

“And, the statue is finished.  You want to see how it will look.  Of course, you have to imagine the floor laid in and all this debris cleaned up.  Anyway, here…”  Alan pulled a tarp from over a six-foot-high figure.  He wrapped his arms around the waist and hefted into place in from of the wall.  “It’s fiberglass, so not too heavy.”

Alan turned the figure in a long-hooded robe with an outstretched hand to the wall, so the hand rested on the third ring from the bottom and stepped away. 

Bjorn caught his breath.  Man is reaching out to the cosmos in search of understanding, to quale his need to know what his place was in the Universe; if only to stand in awe of a God capable of orchestrating a balance of forces that brought about our existence, gave Bjorn a feeling of humbleness.   Sure, he designed the laser and programmed it to capture the system at this point.  But the outcome, well it was way beyond his expectation. 

Alan grinned, “I think it lends a certain level of mystic tone to the display.”

Bjorn stared at him.  Really, that’s all you take away from this?    Then rethought it. “You know, it does.”  It will add an appeal to those that don’t believe in God.  Those that think all this, everything is an accident, a coalesced product of the big bang.  Yes, the figure will add to their pleasure of the display as well as those like myself.  
~~~#~~~
It took another six months to finish the 20th floor.  The walls were rimmed in displays of all the planets.  Each with descriptions and photographs from Voyager 1, now 10 billion miles away to images captured by Hubbell.   The wall of the Solar System was ribboned off to prevent an accumulation of hand grease.  The robed figure stood on the white contrasting quartz.  Bjorn realized his robe wasn’t black but a deep blue iridescence that added a magical tone.
Bjorn Andersen studied it for a while.  Nice, now what next?  Perhaps, the Milky Way.

Wednesday, April 4, 2018

To much like work...


Okay, I've finished my first book.  Now time to start another one.

 I just read a book on outlining.  I see a lot of value in it.  I pantsed through my first book.  In retrospect,  I've given thought, could I have outlined my first book.  I suppose I could have.  Yet, I don't see how.  Unless having a rough idea of what the chapters were going to contain counts. 

For instance,

3        Alfred Raznar----        Raznar is 25 years old and is hitching a ride on the trains heading to Portland when Ernest gets on the train.  They have a run in with two crooks and bond over it.
4        Mildred Ballard-        Ernest mom gets out of the hospital and is worried about Ernest being gone.  She doesn't know what's happened but figures it out.  She thinks Ernest headed south, when he is really going north.

That's chapters 3 and 4 that turned into six thousand words.  I suppose that is outlining of a sorts, but even then, I sometimes went back and filled in the chapter description after I wrote the chapter. 

I have an idea for the next book.  I'm trying to outline.  Oh my gosh, it's too much like WORK.

I want to write… I get an idea.  I write it down where I think I can use it in the book.  My mind floods with scenes, interactions, the tensions - just how I want it to sound and what I want the reader to feel.  If I don't stop and address that will I be able to reclaim those specifics later when I actually start writing the book?  I'm afraid I won't. 

It's like I do a mental dump when I write.  I've written blogs and emails and letters and have the computer crash or bump the wrong key and poof - all gone.  Then my mind goes blank.  I never feel I recaptured the essences of the original writing the second time around.   Sometimes, I don't even try to rewrite it.  I just move on aggravated with myself.

I have a fair idea where the book starts and where it will end.  The resolution and theme to be presented.  I don't know how many chapters it will be.  I have what I think is the first six chapters worked out on paper - in the outline.  Do I need to finish all the rest of them?  I suppose, but I want to write.  I want to start on the book.

An author said she started on her book.  Wrote six months and hated it.  Went back and outlined for three months and started over and got a wonderful book out of it in the end.  Three months… oh goodness.   

Sure, you say, then write some.  Take a break from outlining and write.  But, am I lazy because I'm fearful I wouldn't actually finish the outline and end up pantsing through this book too?  And then again, that's the way some good authors do it anyway. 

Perhaps, I'm over thinking it.  This blog entry could be a delaying tactic to outlining or writing on my book. 

What can I say, I hate work..  I've been working for over fifty years and no I don't have to.  I love writing, but this outlining thing is to much like work.  Dammit… I want my writing to be enjoyable to the reader, so if I can do better presenting a good book by outlining then I will. 

That's it, so much for the ramblings of a struggling writer.  What do you think?  How do you handle WORK?  Or do you even think of it in those terms? 







Subtlety - An essay

 SUBTLETY   Rarely, if ever, has subtlety been brought up as a topic of discussion during our writing group meetings. I haven't come...