A Moment In My Life

            Sitting on the toilet I briefly realized the beauty of owning a mind. I was reading a bit about Tolstoy’s life, how he broke with Church dogma and rewrote the Bible to exclude any reference to the miraculous nature of his conception and resurrection. Based on my background and the place I was raised, I should have an automatic reaction to reject this as heretical or even lunatic. But instead I wanted to know more. My mind felt like it was a sunny meadow where any ideas could come like bighorn sheep and chew the grass or spend the night.

Breaking News: Shots Fired, I-5 Closed

            The police crouched behind their patrol cars, knees stiff from staring into the college campus for so long. Newsmen anxiously peered around the police perimeter, trying to find any bits of information about the suspect or police activity. Twenty or more shots had been fired around 9:45, probably from a large automatic weapon. Somewhere between the police on the freeway and the unknown area was a notorious homeless camp. Snipers, SWAT trucks, and officers ran in continuously. The men and women on the news channels stammered as they tried to figure out what was going on while they reported it.

Bam

Bam chicka chicka BAM boom boom rat tat tat tat tat ch pa sh pa sh sh sh ch pa sh pa sh sh sh BAM chicka BAM BAM pffffffffffffffffffffffft kitcha kitcha kitchhhh boom boom bam zsssssst
“Well that was impressive.”
“Bam bam BAM. Bam.”
“Are you quite finished?”
Bam chicka chicka BAM boom boom rat tat tat tat tat ch pa sh pa sh sh sh ch pa sh pa sh sh sh BAM chicka BAM BAM pffffffffffffffffffffffft kitcha kitcha kitchhhh boom boom bam zsssssst
“Son, this is great and all, but I need to—“
“Shhhhhhhchicka chicka boom boom BAM.”

OCD With Mind Powers

            Ripping cracks from the pavement isn’t so hard as it seems. See, I want the roots of my feet to be connected to a simple, unbroken expanse, and that starts on the sidewalks. If I can just tread without the pervading sense that I may step on a juncture, a crack in the world below me, at any moment, my movements will glide and swoop freely. So I use my mind to rip the cracks from the pavement, leaving the weedless, formless, undulating expanse that I so love to imagine beneath me. Anything seems possible with my perfectly simple mind.

Bats

For all your philosophizing, you’re just like a bat. When you venture out to fly, you touch nothing but air, and for all you think about things that might be incomprehensible or life-altering, you cannot see them. Your system of thought is nothing but echolocation; you sound out the objects looming around you but never alight on them to explore them with your delicate wings. When you tire of flapping blindly, you return to your cave and the roost you’ve been using your entire life. And the crazy thing is, despite my cynicism, I’m a bat too, just like you.

My favorite kinds of epiphanies are the kinds that aren’t epiphanies at all

My favorite kinds of epiphanies come at a time when you least expect them to, and when it happens they aren’t cathartic. But by definition, epiphanies can’t really be subtle, either. And they aren’t. They hit you like a splash of water on a hot day, the shock--an aftertaste. And it’s funny because you’d been searching to find some sort of light, any light. You’d even turned your back on it, hoping to stumble upon something grand. But it’s the moment after you think you’ve given up that the epiphany trots over to you, wagging it’s tail in welcome.

Some Ideas

Stereo system is short for system of stereotypes

If each word coming out of the radio plastered itself on our faces, we’d be tattooed unnatural black

The latest television shows, like all the ones before, won’t allow us time to think

That’s why television is short for vision without telekinesis

We’re lucky we have food and a skin system to remind us of our corporeality

Though the media marginalizes us, you still exist

What things could we build with our minds if they were unconstrained by ideas injected into us

Carefully pull the programming needles out of your head, soon

Guest Post: David Roxas

Dear Monitor,

I have George Michaels's "Careless Whisper" on my mind. Why? Lara wouldn't stop singing lyrics from the song when I saw her. She would also dance to it, so now, there’s an additional image attached to the song. I say additional because two of my classmates from San Diego apparently love to have sex to this particular song, in which they decide to tell me about it due to the fact that I’m the only one, teacher included, whose ears haven't started to bleed due to their tales of angry depressed, shoes-always-on sex to "Careless Whisper".

Writer,

Mitch

The Infamous Slightly Disembodied Keyboardist

            Ya know my distended arms stickin out of my sockets reachin to the keyboard and tappin out some monstrous rhythm for the singer to sing on top of. Its life on a stage man. My disembodied body comin up with these ridiculous brilliant pieces of sound all put together in a sequence, its like im traded my completeness for a body that does everything automatic. Come on rhythm come on listeners lets hope the arms know what to do since i cant even say theyre my own fingers any more. Ya lucky for me theyre attached to me somewhere tho.

A Certain Unruly Piglet (Pt. 2)

            I’ll leave some of the story out, my friend, but when we return we find that the straight-tailed, somewhat confused piglet has grown into a pig, and he has escaped the pigsty! A lot has happened, that is sure, for there he is, grazing among the horses with his tail straighter than ever. The old hogs still sometimes poke their noses through the slatted fence and then shake those noses in consternation as they peer into the pastures. But the piglet is happy, and his moral is our moral too: sometimes the only thing to do is to escape!

A Certain Unruly Piglet (Pt. 1)

            You see, my friend, there once lived an unruly piglet with a peculiarly straight tail. The wise, fat hogs all said the same thing to him, to concentrate his tiny tail muscles on the beautiful art of curving and if that didn’t work, use a curling iron. But the more the piglet tried to follow their advice, the more he started thinking maybe he liked his straight tail. In fact, it became very useful for fly-swishing. The piglet wondered and blundered around the pigsty each day with his straight tail while the hogs conjectured solutions from their muddy old minds.

On a field in summer

It had been a year.

Maybe two.

And now ‘twas the afternoon.

Warm sun, patchy grass, a gingham blanket

and territory just newly discovered.

It was like

Taking a first drink after parched throats and--

No, it was like coming up for air

And—it was like falling,

Falling into mouths and noses and smiles

So familiar, but so new and refreshing.

Like coming home again.

Without time or purpose or end.

They laughed.

Smirked, even.

It was right under our noses,

he said.

And it took us this long.

Eyes closed, they smiled in the shadow of their figures.

Plum Perpetuation

            When the space aliens came, they were especially interested in plums. “So you’re telling me,” one said to me as he wiped purple juice off his mouth area and held up a pit, “that this has everything it needs to create a tree that will create hundreds more of these?”
            “Yes,” I replied.
            “It’s astounding and unbelievable! With such an exponential plum growth rate, the whole planet should be plum trees!”
            For hours I tried to explain reproduction.
            Though they still didn’t understand the concept of plum perpetuation when they left, planet earth now has a lively interstellar plum trade.

Red Sun

There were no other words to describe it—that the sun was red. It was red and glowing and big. It stood, hanging by the horizon, waiting to engulf the world with everything in it. To swallow all earthly life in flare and flash. The world was scared, as it should have been, but it was not the apocalypse, nor was it salvation. It was just heat and life and death. And as they drove on into the burning amber sky, they thought, how wonderful it is to be with these people in this space in this moment. To just be.

Ode To Simplicity

Simplicity, you are like a stone.
You exist, and that’s all.
Simplicity, you are the knowledge
That I am the world
And the world is me.
You don’t ask any questions.
You don’t answer any questions.
There are no questions.
Simplicity, you are my daydreams
When existence really means
Simply to exist.
I know the world,
With its systems and diversity and people,
Is really a simple place.
Simplicity, you know it too.
You’re never hiding,
Just floating like oxygen molecules,
Expectant and unchanging,
Leading me through each day.
Simplicity, you are like a stone.
You exist and that’s all.

Declaration

            I’m so surrounded by pure, simple beauty, why would I cloud my life with false beauty? People tell me with their actions that here is something worth chasing, but I’ve chased you and I’ve caught you and now I will release you. You distract me from the simple, ancestral ways of experiencing life. No more, I’m free! Today I can be content alone, walking down the sidewalk as morning sunrays warm the city around me. I need nothing more, for I am impervious to your labyrinthine ways. You may be sex, possessions, fame, power, or status. It does not matter.

Things We See In The Clouds

Herd of buffalo
Charging rhinoceros
Trumpeting elephant
T-rex/Fire-breathing dragon
Piglet with a long snout
Pac Man
Tidal wave rolling over the hill
Stegosaurus with a mouse head/Snail looking at us
Pinocchio laying on his stomach
Kangaroo giving us the stinkeye
A marshmallow invasion
Man throwing invisible javelin
Two T-rex’s in a row
Octopus/Tent
Jackrabbit
Cuba
Running Mexican with a sombrero and long white beard
A train with its smoke flowing behind
Cinderella’s carriage/Crab
Calvin and a Venus flytrap/Evolution drawing
Turkey/Sneezing snail/Flying brontosaurus
Ripples/Genie lamp
Stampede of mustangs
Gorilla holding a laser gun

The Tunnel Poet

            Maybe music is the key to life, she sprayed onto the tunnel wall. Maybe children. Maybe love. Too-bright headlights suddenly invaded the tunnel, and she turned so that it looked like she was smoking.

            The car had stopped. She peeked over her shoulder, and the policeman was reading the wet paint, shaking his head. “Did you write this?”

            “Yes officer.”

            “Unfortunately, this is illegal. Have you finished?”

            “Not yet, officer.”

            The stood in silence for a long time.

            “This tunnel needs a poet, sir.” And she sprayed as he watched, Or maybe we should all forget about keys to life.

A Children's Story (Please Imagine The Illustrations)

Louise found a string lying on the sidewalk.

She picked up the waiting end. It was wispy and purple.

It was a long string and it led her down the sidewalk.

She followed the string into a park.

Around an old statue.

And up into a tree with a round tire swing.

Suddenly the string was yellow.

It led Louise through a crowded city square.

Without the thin string, she would have gotten lost.

Today Louise is still following the string.

Hand over hand.

It has changed colors many times.

And led her into more fabulous places than she can remember.

On the run--an 800 (approximately) word preview of a short story I am writing

Sorry I haven't been posting 100 words. I've been writing a short story though, and here's a bit of it:

Fiona Wiffenberg was the daughter of Elisabeth Wiffenberg, who was the daughter of Priscilla Wiffenberg, renowned haute couture designer of Wiff. For generations, the Wiffenbergs had lived in Los Angeles, California, for they disliked volatile weather conditions, especially wind. Wind was the worst element. Because of their fortune, Priscilla—and subsequently Elisabeth, had brought up their daughters in the most protected conditions. This was not to say they were sheltered, oh no. Fiona had traveled all over the United States by the time she was ten-years-old and to Paris, France and London, England where they had summer homes.

Currently, it was nine o’clock in the morning on the 25^th of May. The weather was sunny and hot, a perfect 78 degrees Fahrenheit. Fiona was bleach blond this month, a ripe age of twenty-six-years-old, and freshly showered from her morning yoga class. She practiced yoga every morning at the same studio that Elle S., the famous popstar practiced at.

Elle S., born as Lisa Kristin Smith, was originally a mousy-looking girl with streaky hair from Lodi, California—one of the more hick places on the Western coast of the United States. Five years back, she had won a weeklong trip to Morocco on a radio show contest. When she came back, she died her hair a luscious chocolate brown, refused to wear anything but what she called “harem pants” or the traditional belly dancer garb. She started practicing yoga, having weekly appointments with an acupuncturist, and giving talks around the world about her new found mysticism. The fad caught on and she became the spirit and mystic of botox bimbettes and nouveau riche everywhere. Not to mention the giant deal she just landed with Stopper Records, owned by none other than Fiona Wiffenberg’s fiancé.

Fiona decided to stop at her apartment before going to work (she was busy making a new lingerie line for their dear family friend Coco Chanel), perhaps to have a wheatgrass shot with Eric—Eric Stopper, that is. They were due to be married in the three months. It was about time, too, thought Fiona, as “Moroccan Goddess” blared on her car stereo. They had been dating for two years already, and she couldn’t bear to think of still being single at thirty.

She loved him enough. He did things for her no other boyfriend had done, things that made her little diamond-encrusted, 24-karat gold heart melt a little. He would buy her something the instant after she expressed any interest for it and have it delivered to her office with roses, always yellow for forever. She also found that no other man had really been able to satisfy her sexual thirst. Fiona had been sexually realized from a very young age. Ever since she could remember actually.

She was quite surprised to see Elle S.’s periwinkle blue hummer in the driveway. Don’t worry though; it was the smaller, more “environment” model. Elle S. had recently made a public statement against cars that looked like boxes. Bad feng shui.

“Eric, honey, I’m home! Want a wheatgrass shot? I just thought I’d stop by before work,” Fiona shouted as she stepped into the very modern and very white foyer of their luxurious flat. Their two chow chows, Dolce and Gabby, swarmed around her feet, barking hysterically.

“Hello munchkins, please don’t step on mommy’s toes, they’re freshly pedicured.”

Hm. No answer. Maybe he was in the recording studio. She went downstairs to check, noting the picture frames by the stairs, perfectly portraying their love for each other. They had just had a black and white photo shoot the week before as an engagement present from Annie Leibovitz.

Before Fiona opened the door, she knew. Eric was in the recording studio indeed. As was Elle S. Both going at it like their perfectly groomed chow chows on the velvet covered floor. She had to admire how high the bitch could arch her back—must be the years of yoga and meditation, but oh god, is that was Eric looked like when he was screwing her? It was like watching a crippled dog miscalculating a piss on a tree. She almost chuckled at this, but was immediately brought back into the moment as the two loveshits (Fiona loved birds, but hated their byproducts) finally noticed an intruder into their steamy activity.

“Oh God. Fiona, it’s not what it looks--”

But unfortunately Fiona was also PMSing quite badly, so there wasn’t really enough time to even talk about what she thought he looked like. Instead, she took the closest blunt object (a lamp, in this case) and bashed her fiancé over the head. Eric got knocked unconscious, Elle S. screamed and ran upstairs.

Fiona was slightly aghast at what she had done. Would she go to jail for this? Surely her mother and the rest of the civil world would judge her for eternity. It was then she decided to flee. But to where?