Seattle

HoW 02-attendees

jagged, patiently, laughed, tense, and mostly

She laughed and laughed when they told her she would have to slow down. “Are you fucking kidding me? Life’s too short, brother, to wait patiently for something out of the ordinary to come along. I make my own excitement.”
I was feeling just a little tense. Why she always had to come off like a dockworker on payday was beyond me. She had everything she needed already without putting her release in jeopardy by walking the jagged filament.
“And what is it mostly that would float your boat?” I asked, all innocence. If she could just get this out of her system in a talk-it-out way perhaps she wouldn’t need the sedation. But really, the thing I couldn’t understand was why she had signed herself in. None of us could help her now.
When the nurse came to strap her down and dose her, my own tenseness was lessened a little. Perhaps she had done all of us, those who loved her, a favor, by ultimately making the right choices.
I still believe that at one point she knew how much we loved her.

circle, spiky, hours, small, and laugh

In the hours before the call came, she laid out her clothes for work the next day and fixed herself a small drink.
She thought about calling in and telling her supervisor she would take the day off, and then spend it with Jack. She would make sure he ate something. Perhaps get him to laugh at a little joke, although he didn’t seem to recognize humor anymore, and he rarely did more than nibble at the hospital food.
She was feeling a buzz while checking out her spiky do in the bathroom mirror. Her clothes were ready, the blouse, skirt, stockings, lay in a circle on Jack’s side of the bed.
She couldn’t remember ever having been on top, and the word missionary caused a little smile to curve its way onto her lips. It sounded so funny.
Then, the phone rang, and after she received the news, nothing seemed funny for a very long time.

table, since, first, sound, and talking

“Since you want us to write without inspiration,” Zack said, “I think you should go first.”
“What are you talking about? I thought you were the one,” Biff replied, “who shaid you could do anything. Why are you turning thish around?”
“You’re drunk, aren’t you?”
“I was getting inshpired.”
“Is that all you brought to the table?”
“I paid for the pizza.”
“Big woof. I’m the one whose reputation is on the line.”
“What reputation ish that?” and a small sound came up from under the table.
“Oh, man,” Zack said, “Was that entirely necessary?”
“It’s just a memory,” Biff said, “Sho, what’ve you come up with?”
Grey, coming back from the kitchen and waving his hand with a large sweeping motion, cried out, “Good god! Who died in here?”

paprika, argent, tidal, and In truth

The dinner had been chicken paprika, followed by three kinds of dessert. The S.S. Argent Star was our seventeenth cruise, but it would be our last. Twelve minutes after the last of the other diners had left the room, the first report of a possible tsunami came over the P.A. and we were advised the ship was making fast southward to avoid the consequences of trying to cross its path. In truth, we probably would not have made it had the captain been a more competent seaman.
When the tidal wave struck, I was holding Helen’s left hand, and in her right she held the diamond earrings I had gifted her for our anniversary.
Later, in the calm, floating and grasping onto driftwood, she sobbed that she had lost one of the earrings. I tried to calm her down by pointing out that at least we were alive, and we were together.
Then, like some sort of omen, bits of chicken passed us. She had thought at first that it was fish, she said, and wondered if would have to eat raw fish to survive until we were rescued.
“Oh, that’s rich,” she said, “I thought that chicken was overcooked.”

caresses, recluse, blond, and off-white

In the morning, Simone’s caresses meant half as much as they had the night before, and half of nothing is not a recollection. Rather, it’s wearing on the soul. Her off-white teeth spoke of all the licorice she chomped on. I’d tasted it on her breath. I thought of the luck of the recluse and how his social skills would never be called into question.
“Were you blond as a child?” I asked as she sat waiting for me to make the coffee.
“What makes you think I was ever a child?”
“Oh, c’mon. Don’t be obtuse,” I said, “The tentativeness in your responses to my lovemaking, the small noises you make in the dark…I could go on.”
“Have you got any anisette to add to the coffee?” she asked.
“Do you think this is a bistro? I have regular coffee, good, strong black coffee,” I said, “like grown-ups drink.”
“I used to have brown hair,” she said, “but I wanted to be Elke Sommer.”
“Have a cup of this,” I said, “It will wake you up.”

tenterhooks, obvious, disagreeable, and black

“I’m not seventeen anymore,” Landy said, “My birthday was last week. If you paid me any kind of attention at all you would have taken note.”
“Don’t be disagreeable,” Biff said., “I bought you something, after all. I just forgot to give it to you,”
“Oh, I’m all in tenterhooks. Where is it?”
“Er…er,” he started.
“Another black moment in the history of Biff and Landy. You’re lying, aren’t you?”
“Why do you say things like that?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I told you I’m not seventeen anymore.”

HoW 02

Blowing Rock, NC - Bastille Day 2011

We saw something in the trees and it remained stationary the whole time we were in residence. At night, we thought it was a bat, but in the daylight it looked like nothing more than a hanging clump of leaves. Someone claimed it was her muse feeling out the ambiance.

U2 at Estadio Azteca

MuDJoB Guest Writes: First Anniversary

Views

Two small people carry one large thing and an argument ensues,
It ends with the big thing left on the street when one of them blows a fuse.
A patient sues his doctor and the lawyer sports new shoes,
The doctor makes excuses, saying, “I’m always the one they accuse!”
Fans at the game are anxious to see the visitors lose,
Though the leading player rolls on the ground and rubs a swelling bruise.
Mom and Dad watch a crime in progress on the local news;
A hateful man in an interview hurts with the words he spews.
Three competing suitors are hoping the beauty will choose
Against a backdrop of music and hearts of pink in varying hues.
The tenants default on their rent with excuses by ones and by twos,
And complain of the neighbor who stinks up the hall with the garbage that he strews.
Eli propounds on Kate’s erroneous definition of clerihews;
In order to get her to see the light, he gives her a book to peruse.
The church falls short on worshippers who can’t sit in predestined pews,
And Masons turn out their membership for failing to pay their dues.
A husband abandons his wife in aborted attempts to amuse;
Her demeanor is drowned in pot luck casseroles, soups and stews.
A detective sifts through the ashes searching remains for clues;
He’s found an earring, a tooth and a nail, but he doesn’t know whose.
Teenagers wooing, say they aren’t smoking. They are. It’s only a ruse.
They’re thinking of eloping because her father is turning the screws.
Workers waiting for jobs are standing outside in queues,
While the hardnosed factory owner seeks alternatives to use.
Someone is at the zoo with a child his ex-wife would abuse,
And an old man who’s lost a fortune regains it by singing the Blues.

© Michael D. Brown 2011

Our One-Year Anniversary Together