211

I was always envious of bands that shot to stardom.  Comics who landed on Saturday Night Live.  Actors who won an Oscar on their first movies.  Assholes.

I realized later that these "overnight successes" weren't really.  These were people who worked and slaved unrewarded for years, decades before finding fame and glory.  The "sudden" part was only my perspective.  I began hating instead people who made home videos that went viral, lottery winners and fortune inheritors.  Those were the undeserving twats.

I mostly hated them while I was in my slaving away years.  Who every knows if your unpaid work will ever pay off.  A creative art isn't like working your way up in a company.  In a company, you get paid no matter what you do.  When you're working in a creative art, you practice and practice and work at your craft completely unpaid and unrecognized without any inkling if it will pay off eventually at all.

Standing in my crappy apartment surrounded by crumpled notes and a beat to hell drum set I was the asshole.  All my parents' disheartening advice was sneaking back into my brain, this time betraying me even more by using my own voice to say it.

210

Angel Harrison was my best friend and she was the toughest, most independent girl I knew.  We were four.  During naptime, we'd edge our nap rugs closer and closer to the toys on the floor until we were playing, heads close together, whispering behind the wooden dollhouse.  The nursery school teachers would shush us, and I'd pretend to sleep, but Angel would keep playing.

The next year, in kindergarten, we were in the big school--the elementary school--down in the round rooms at the far end of the building.  Three rooms opened off of a round, central play area that held the big toys: climbing bars and mats and slides and balls.  It was in there that Angel announced to me that she was leaving.  "I'm leaving," she said.  I protested because that was how I was.  "You can't!  It's school."  As if that were explanation enough.  Angel's fat, black braids swung and clicked their beads together as she shook her head.  "Nope.  I'm going, and I'm going right now."  True to her word, she headed for the door and was down the hallway before Mrs. Panagopoulos raced to drag the five year old back.  What I will never forget is Angel's small figure, standing tall in her floral, little girl dress and Mary Jane shoes, walking confidently out that door.  "Wow," I thought.  "I could never do that."

I found out later I could, but it wasn't for another three years, and by then, Angel was long gone.

209

The silence of the warm evening after driving for so long ran in their ears, and the natural cacophony of crickets and frogs slowly became discernible, as did the clarity of the night once the lights from the car went dark.  Soon, the lightning bugs were the brightest points in the dark.  The stars above shining brighter and brighter as their eyes adjusted.  They picked their way carefully into the field, he tucking the car keys carefully into his jeans pocket; she carrying the picnic blanket.  Silently, they agreed upon the spot, and helped each other lay the blanket over the tall grasses.  Their bodies flattened the blanket into a square room, walled and roofed by nature.

208

Time flies.  Time crawls.  I feel it like a wind on my skin, getting under my clothes and lifting my hair.  It gives me goose bumps and, sometimes, it pushes me, makes me hunch against it and draw up a collar or button a coat.  Then there was the day I sat, and I controlled time.

207

Shirley created a life sized reproduction of Stonehenge in her backyard.  It was by no means approved by the community planning board.  Her neighbors whispered nervously over hedges and fences, wondering what was going to come of it.

206

Living on a street like this in a fast-deteriorating part of a declining city was less difficult than those not acquainted with the neighborhood would think, but it was more disturbing.  Sheila's house had been broken into twice, but nothing had been stolen.  The first time, the man left when she screamed, and she thought maybe he was a squatter rather than a burglar.  The second time, she came downstairs, baseball bat in hand, to find the burglar passed out in a puddle of vomit on her kitchen floor.  Sheila made coffee, working around the man's snoring form, and sat, watching him, baseball bat across her robed lap, until he woke.  He cleaned up his mess, had two cups of coffee, and left before dawn.

205

How dry, how dreary, how hopeless it is to see the same view day after day.  No, I revise that.  It is only hopeless to those who wish to see a new view.  Those who wish sameness and consistency and predictability revel in the same view and come to cherish it.  Those who wish to view alternative vistas, however, are slowly killed by sameness; their hope drained away, and replaced by a cold death: resignation.

To pluck oneself from the sameness takes greater and greater effort as the dreary days drag on.  An object in motion tends to stay in motion, while objects at a standstill need greater effort to budge.  Or something like that.  Sameness ossifies.  Consistency creates deeper and deeper ruts.  I will be dried, stiff and buried before I am medically dead.

204

The wind whipped Dash's hair into his face, and he tried to push it back but it wouldn't stay.  The wind seemed to have fingers that pulled at him and fingered his coat and reached into the holes to make him shiver.  Dash shifted from foot to foot, trying to move his blood back into his toes, but it was no good.  The temperature had definitely dropped and there was no warming until the ceremony was over.  Dash found his mind drifting and he forced it back to his task.  As apprentice, he stood with the ash wood staff and wished on his bones that he wouldn't have to use it.

203

It was the only road that still went under the canal.  There had been another, two counties over, but that had been filled in years ago.  Unsafe.  This was the last remaining.  It was a single, lumpy lane under a stone arch that dripped in twenty places.  It froze up good in the winter, but even at the height of summer, it was a cool as a tomb in the shade.  Though it flowed, the canal above was eerily silent.  Cars did drive on the rutted road, but not many and not often.  Some of the stones had fallen along the sides, and some old beer cans lay crushed among them.  The sky was blue, but when you got to the middle of the tunnel, you couldn't see it from either end.  The tunnel echoed and could turn any voice into a looping lament.

202

It should have been the easiest question in the world: What do you want?  I don't know.  Money?  Happiness?  Love?  Two nice pieces of thin, buttered toast cut into quarters and a glass of pulp-free orange juice?

Turns out, what I want wasn't what I thought I wanted.  I went through my thoughts and kept going back to the money thing.  They say money can't buy happiness, but it can make sure I have a nice home and a working car and food and medical care, so what the hell, money makes it so much easier to be happy.  I thought I wanted money, but that wasn't it.  I wanted to recreate the feelings of my past.  Doesn't that sound like some psychologist's b.s.?  It did to me, so I ignored it and went back to wanting money.

201

"What would you have me do?"

"Nothing."  The report spun onto the desk, stopped only by the other piles of reports and research notes.  Jonathan sputtered and Dr. Schwartz knew he was in for another round of whining and pleading.  It had been this way from the start when the board sent him his unwanted assistant.  Babysitter.  Spy.

The anger that rushed into his veins surprised him.  "I said nothing!"  At least the outburst silenced Jonathan, whose mouth snapped shut.  "Now get out."

200

Not for the first time, Natalie wondered why she was still teaching.  Not for the last time, she gave up grading to simply wander around her apartment, wishing she were less concerned about her students.  It took her days to grade a simple group of essays.  Every time she received a new set of assignments, she promised herself that she would comment lightly and get it done fast, but that never happened.  Natalie commented and explained and gave pointers at every step.  She couldn't help it, and it was killing her and reducing her salary to less than minimum wage.  She thought, not for the first time and not for the last, that being a waitress might be more profitable and less stressful.

199

The rest stop ladies' room smelled like piss and flies clustered around the bare fluorescent blubs over the cracked sink.  The bright light hurt after being in the dark for so long and her tired, oh, so tired eyes watered, but she stared at the marvel of artificial light anyway.  Marcia hovered over the filthy toilet as best she could while drip-drying and wished she had thought to bring in some napkins from the car.  The sink knobs just spun, dry as the wells around this part of the world, which, Marcia reflected, was lucky because the cloth loop provided as a way to dry clean hands was beyond disgusting and edging on to, perhaps, sentience.

Why she even bothered to try rest areas when going into the woods would be cleaner was subconsciously clear to her: it was a sign of human life.  A rare thing these days.

198

     Mary was washing dishes when she thought she had let enough time pass to sound casual.  "Sara's reaction last night after dinner bugged me so much, I had a hard time sleeping.  You know, I still don't quite understand why she'd be so mean to me.  I know I shouldn't let it bug me like this, but, what do you think..."
     "Goddamit!"  The blue box of Honey Oats slapped against the wall between the microwave and the sink.  "You don't get it, do you?"
     "No.  What?"
     "It's not her; it's you."
     "Me?  I..."
     "Don't give me that 'I don't know what you mean' crap.  You do."
     "But I don't!"
     "'But I don't!'  Of course you do.  You're nothing but mean to Sara."
     "I'm mean?"
     "You're always making fun of her.  You can't keep your mouth shut for one second without something snarky coming out of it."
     "I like Sara!  I might tease, but she knows I'm just kidding.  I..."
     "You're always like this.  With waitresses, too.  You sound so superior."
     "How?  How do I sound superior?"
     "You speak to them all snotty and are so picky about your orders."
     Mary's mouth worked open and closed, her wet hands limp on the edge of the stainless steel sink.
     "Forget it.  You don't understand.  You can't understand because you're so much better than everyone else.  Everyone else living in your shadow."

197

That's it, she thought.  This is how I am going to die.  Tara was detachedly surprised at her own calm acceptance.  She was miffed by her lack of anger, denial, fight, determination, lust for life.  Down she went, arms raised, for the second time.  Once more.  We only ever get three.  Tara saw the sun, the sky, the distant palm tree line, and, most of all, the water.  Where before they had vibrant color, now they were shades of grey.  There had been the sound of waves, calling, laughing, a whistle, the breeze, but now there was nothing.  Up, arms outstretched.  Time became tangible.  Tara thought she should feel regret, sadness, sorrow, guilt, but she was fascinated instead by the new knowledge that a "moment" was real and could be touched and stretched and felt on the skin.  I should say something nice.  Down again, time's length shrinking into a width as wide as the ocean, and as deep.

(This was my try at "micro fiction", a.k.a. "flash fiction".)

196

The Universe is pleased to announce that Karen's mortal body has passed so her immortal spirit may inhabit the entire cosmos, that is, when she isn't performing her promised haunting of friends and loved ones.

Karen had a bunch of different jobs, but she loved performing improv comedy the best.  She also liked to write, play and listen to music, read good books, draw, create, occasionally vacuum, and eat chocolate.  The chocolate eating she managed to do every day.  Karen also managed to have fun every day and would like to remind you, from beyond the grave, that fun is all we should have in life.  If you're not having fun, cut out whatever is dragging you down and go have that fun.

Speaking of fun, please join Karen, her friends and loved ones at her memorial service.  You may certainly dress up if you like, but you can also wear an awesome t-shirt and your favorite jeans or even comfy jammies.  Required is that you bring your slippers no matter what else you're wearing.  A few flowers are okay, but maybe bring toys or books instead.  They will all be donated to needy kids who could use more of the aforementioned fun.

The next time you find an odd piece of cool junk or have a ridiculous thought for no apparent reason, perhaps Karen has chosen you for haunting that day, so you should pick up the cool junk and laugh your fool head off.