A Short Story

“I wish you wouldn’t talk that way, Sap.”

Thrush stared at Sap’s back pointedly. Sap sat on the edge of the cliff, his legs dangling over the sudden drop. Feeling Thrush’s eyes on him, Sap shifted around uncomfortably, looking down past his feet. The turquoise waters down below shimmered and sparkled as the gentle breeze dipped to skim the surface. Sap leaned back and propped himself up on his left arm as his right hand groped around in the dirt.

“Yeah? And why not?”

Meandering

If you know me, you probably know that I’m a romantic.  I prefer to believe that I’m a romanticist, so if you took “romantic” to mean someone who’s interested in romance novels or something of that nature, I’d sternly reply that I, in fact, hate romance novels.  I also dislike most romance movies, as it were.

But I’m a romantic through and through.  Excessively sentimental and prone to bouts of imaginative wandering through the labyrinths of my mind.  I don’t know if it’s my particular blend of Myers-Briggs components, but I am who I am.

Some memories

Take me back to when the days tasted like Big Stick popsicles and 7-11 oatmeal raisin cookies.
Take me back to when the nights smelled like dew and lawn clippings, and curfews were fences we scrambled to secretly climb over.
Take me back to when we kicked it on scooters, when I tried to drift on my bike and blacked out.
Take me back to when summer days were spent in the pool, and summer nights in the hot tub with pizzas.

mini-travelogue 2

"Osaka, it is.  I'm going to plan, then hit the hay.  Good meeting you both."  K stands up and walks over to a nearby table.  His mellow tone paired with his Australian accent informed me that he's as soft as he looks.  Not weak, not reticent; just gentle, easygoing.  Before too long, he gets up to instead lay on a bean bag and tatami, finishing up his research.  Meanwhile, I continue to talk to B.

Dimly

Today is one of those days, one of those exquisite, extraordinary, exceptional days.  When I look into this dim mirror on days like this, I can make out the silhouette of a man. And if I squint hard enough, he looks like me, but unlike me. The man's appearance flickers like a birthday candle; dim upon dim. But the longer I stare, the more I begin to remember and feel.  A warm light, a gentle laugh.  Like transparent images stacked together, there am I and not I.

On other days, even if I squint my hardest, I can't see anyone other than myself.  Recently, the other man looked like he'd been fading away.  For now, it is only in part.  But one day it will be in full.

And so today is one of those days.  One of those exquisite, extraordinary, exceptional days.







P.S. Happy New Year, ya fantastic beasts.

Hello again.

It’s been a while.  Sorry about that.

The days have been blurring together the way that everything outside of a car window does unless you try really hard to focus on one place.  And even if you do manage to catch a glimpse of something, it immediately vanishes and is replaced by something else.  And so the days melted into weeks and the weeks into months and here I am, grasping at vapors to make sense of what’s been happening.  But before writing this post, I resolved to make this something more like a stream-of-consciousness piece.  So I don’t know if it’ll make sense, and I don’t think it’ll sound much like my posts before.  But if you’re okay with that, please read on.

久しぶり

Tonight is the first night I can hear the cicadas.
They buzz like tiny generators,
lining the two-lane expressways here
in these gentle green hills.