After shopping

Once in the parking lot he peered down at his son’s little round face, into eyes that silently asked the world questions it couldn’t answer.

“Then what can I control, Dad?” His tone was pure and curious, without a hint of the whine in it so recently in the candy aisle.

“You can sometimes control where you walk. But you can’t walk through walls. You can control what you say, but we all blurt things out accidentally. The only thing you, and only you, have total control over in this life, is your attitude.”

The air tasted cool and sweet.

Hello To Everyone Sauntering Through These Stories And Poems

Just as a heads up:

1. Lara has returned to the United States, so she should be able to write more frequently!

2. Wyatt is mostly taking a break this summer, but keep your eyes peeled because he might make some stealthy bandit posts.

3. I will be off adventuring the next month in places with less-than-assured web connectivity. But I will be writing faithfully on paper and dumping it all here on the blog when I get a chance.

Thanks for reading, we really do appreciate it, and we hope you are enjoying.

Hey, that makes 100 words. Funny.

Yearbook

            “Well at least your nose is dainty.” She pointed at the Kleenex box on his windowsill, lavender and covered with flowers and hummingbirds. He grimaced.
            They lay down and kissed on the bed.
            When they sat up again, it had started to rain and he asked her, “Is this strange for you too?”
            She found his old yearbook on the shelf and flipped through it. Finding the picture of an Earth Club, she asked, “We were in the same club? I barely knew your name then. I guess things change in five years.”
            He nodded. “I kind of like it.”

To War And Peace

            There’s something when I hold you that makes me feel good inside, and it’s not because you make me look impressive in the eyes of others. I don’t know how an unread book can give me such an immediate, physical pleasure, but you do. Your wrinkled spine and innumerable yellowing pages hold the lifeblood of heroes and villains, but all my mind wants is to feel through my fingers as they flip each page and in turn release the potion-like smell of great books. Soon I will turn to scrutinizing my way through your story within, but not just yet.

Panning For Gold

            Day after day I pan for gold my own way, staying here the way I hear the others wear their pans down sifting the ground and shifting the water for the sounds of hotter nuggets lifting their brows until something suggests that the day has found nothing of interest, no yellow chest to hold to their chest no gold in its rest or older treasures of a measure too great to sate their unsure fates, while their dismal state declines to abysmal lines drawn in riverbeds, faces withdrawn from unfed wives while I stand silent, kneeled in the clear water.

Finding A Pen

I found a pen, so I drew a net and captured a butterfly. The butterfly whispered in my ear so I knew where to find a piece of wire. I twisted the piece of wire into a spring and jumped on it, shooting me to the top of a ridge. There I found several dandelions. I blew the seeds off the dandelions so that they spread across a valley, filling it with more growing dandelions. The valley attracted mice and the mice attracted hawks, until there were enough hawks to carry me away in the net I had first drawn.

We Searched The Lands Hand In Hand

            Tiptoeing among the cracks in glaciers, staying up entire nights on lonely park benches, we searched the lands hand in hand. In a three-calendar cafe, a one-eyed man told us, “It ain’t around here.” In the dungeons of abandoned castles turned tourist destinations, we saw hints of it scratched into the stone walls. Our search started on an undeniable impulse and lasted for years; it sent us gamboling, trudging, rambling, surging through innumerable unknown alleyways of distant cities. What were we searching for? We sure as hell didn’t know. And though she’s no longer with me, I’m still searching.

What it meant

“—wait for you!” is what I heard in the distance as I walked out the door. It’s been four months now, a long summer, and I’m still contemplating what drowned out words came before. We never made any promises, but before I embarked on my trip to “find myself” in Southeast Asia, we were quite happy. So it would’ve make sense that the prefacing words were “I will.” But we were also getting to be in our early thirties, and I could very clearly see (or rather hear) her saying “I won’t.” Any which way, I suppose I’ll be happy.

Pink Baby Hands

“What are you thinking about?”

He was turning my hands over and examining them as if he had never seen such things in his life.

“What do you want to do today?”

He opened my palm and slowly traced the creases with his callused finger like a map.

“Maybe we could go look at the furniture for the room.”

He traced around my fingertips then down around the outside of my hand, down my wrist, onto my forearm.

“I want our baby to have the same hands as you. Soft, pink, and strong.”

I pulled away suddenly feeling very hot.

Pockets of Paradise

Here lies a population entrenched in poverty, and roaming pups on every street, every dirt road, every beach. But despite this dirty, war-torn and invaded world, there do exist pockets of paradise, where simplicity, frugality, and natural beauty give people places of purpose and passion. You can find it in the powder white sands and aquamarine waters, in the lives of those who strive to make a living on 13 pesos a day, weaving hut shingles out of nipa palm fronds, even find it in the city, in the tamarind soup and steamed rice for the tricycle driver’s lunch break.

Mumbo Jumbo

            Your eyes still flash with mischief the way they did the night we first kissed. You giggle when we hold hands, and when I finally come home at night all I can do is scratch my head and wonder. Yes, you confuse me! But I am not looking for answers. I am looking forward to tomorrow when you will make me a daisy chain that will make me sneeze, and I am looking up at the ceiling and clouds beyond for someone to share my joy. My sleep is dreamless but I wake up feeling expectant; it’s because of you.

If The World Were Made Of Flannel

If the world were made of flannel the shiveringest Eskimo could wrap himself in the snow and be warm again. The leaves of the trees would change patterns before they became worn and moth-eaten and fall to the flannel ground. Car crashes would be a festive, tumbling inconvenience. Food would taste horribly if it weren’t for the delightfully sensuous way it rubbed against our flannel tongues. Flannel shirts would be the norm, and if it weren’t for the color and the pattern, pavement would be virtually indistinguishable from granite or the ocean floor. Flannel hugs would be the best.

The Fourth

            What does the moon think as she glides over the land, her underside barely illuminated by a patchwork of celebratory explosions? Is she jealous of the revelry, the self-indulgent, pyrotechnic insanity that covers the hide of the earth? Or does she delight in the multi-colored displays of retina-searing colors and spark trails crisscrossing the sky?

            Tonight she flutters and struts behind gauzy clouds, round and robust, bathing in sunlight that has long since forsaken the crowds below. Her glow is heavenly, healthy, and sensuous. The trees on the ground stretch their old kinked limbs towards her through the smoky night.

An Anthropologist Watches My Keyboard

            Here we see a sequence of buttons pressed by fingertips. Perhaps it is a ritual, a cascade of button-pushes flying up and down and all over the button-board. There is an indentation in each button because this has happened so many times. What determines the order in which they are pressed? What causes one finger to move at a certain time and not another? Certainly it cannot be random. It is near impossible to track which buttons are being pushed, let alone decipher a pattern in their rhythm. This will require further research; for now it is over my head.

Break out into a run when you fell some uncertain-ty

Just sittin’ on my bed

wonderin’ tricks up in m’head

thinkin’

when’ll life be lead

witha futures often read

Hey na kid what’s that ‘cha got?

Hey na kid not a whole lot? Eyyyy

So I take a walk outside (that’s whatcha supposta do, riiiiiight?)

Talk the walk. Walk the talk.

Who knows if it’s worth a rock

but

I guess this ship has gotta dock

soon

Hey na kid what’s that ‘cha got?

Hey na kid not a whole lot? Eyyyy

Break—break—

Jesus Christ it can’t be done

I’m sorry ma, I’m sorry son

I just can’t read my own fortune

Later

You’ll have a once a week social activity with some friends your age. You will sing old songs, eat some favorite foods, and eventually gossip about the weekly happenings. This will take long, because you will all have gone slightly deaf, but it will be fun anyway. You will forget you asked them the same questions the week before, but it’s okay because they don’t remember answering. And then for the rest of the week you will sit, with curlers in your hair, watching old sitcoms as the little dogs bark in the room over. And you will be content.

Why Oh Why

There is a porcelain salmon hanging over the doorway.

Why oh why is there a porcelain salmon hanging over the doorway?

There is a telephone with a cord that reaches to the ground.

Why oh why does that cord reach to the ground?

There is a blue door leading to the back door porch.

Why oh why is the other side tan?

There is a refrigerator that hums night or day.

Why oh why does that refrigerator hum?

There is a drawing of a ship tacked up on the wall.

Why oh why oh why oh why oh why oh.

A List Of Things I Have Eaten Today

Crunchy Nuggets.
Non-fat milk.
Lots of refreshing water.
Four farm fresh chicken eggs.
A disintegrating corn tortilla.
A dollop of refried beans.
Grated Monterey jack cheese.
Olive oil and garlic couscous.
Most of a bag of popcorn.
Baby carrots.
A handful of blue corn chips.
The remnants of a box of Wheat Thins.
Peanut butter.
Sliced onions.
Cucumber rounds.
Another round of couscous.
Two slices of nutty bread.
Grated Monterey jack cheese, again.
A smear of ranch dressing.
Several vigorous shakes of Cholula hot sauce.
Ground turkey.
Three more slices of cantaloupe, bringing the total to half of a cantaloupe.

Days

            “I mean, every day’s a new day, right?”
            “Not at all. I’ve decided that each day is not only the same as the ones before and after, but actually each day actually is all just the same day.”
            “You mean all the same things happen?”
            “No, every day in history is a single day repeating itself over and over. Infinite variations, but the same chord progression.”
            “How do you know?”
            “Look at me. Look at us. Our first goal is always to breathe for one more day. Nothing ever changes, time is a joke the universe has pulled on us.”

The Main Attraction

Ladies and gentlemen, the author talks to a pillbug!
 
Oh pillbug, let me curl with you. Together in our spirals we can be safe from the world.
 
And now, the author composes a scene!
 
Two grumpy old men have lived in this place for years. All they do is sit on a porch and tell tall tales. Their wives scold them daily.
 
And finally, ladies and gentlemen, an adage of housewifery that the author composed just today!
 
How do you eat a dozen eggs in a single day?
Eggs for breakfast,
Eggs for lunch.
Eggs for dinner,
Eggs for brunch.