It was 1993, and I was twenty-eight years old, still single, and living in student housing in southern Alabama. I was about to complete a bachelor’s degree with no real plans of what to do once that came to pass. One option was to keep working at the local airport and pursue my commercial pilot rating, the other to continue on to graduate school to get a degree I could actually use. Neither of those life choices seemed appealing at the time, mostly because my late twenties were to me what the teens are to normal folks: my formative years. Problem was, in those days, I couldn’t feign interest in anything…
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A (Last) New Year’s Resolution
As the new year recedes in the rear distance, at least every other advertisement I see is related in some way to weight loss: gyms, home exercise equipment, diet plans ranging from sensible to so drastic I’d need to swear off tasty food for the rest of my natural life. In that place where capitalism intersects with insecurity, everyone banks on everyone’s desire to lose weight, tone up the flab, and feel sexy. Or feel sexier, at the very least. I mention this because this is the time of year when I’m usually contemplating resolutions right along with everyone else, and they’re all at least marginally health related: lose weight,…
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“The Diver”: My Round One, Challenge One Piece in the NYC Midnight Flash Fiction Challenge 2019
Trystan squeezed the chilly water from his hair and pulled it from his face, wishing he’d worn more clothing. Thirty feet above, in the boat with Gwyn, it had been balmy; down here away from the sun, his fishing clothes did little to protect him from the cold. Blind, he reached down in the darkness to a wrapped leather pouch tied around his waist, out of which he extracted a charm. He whispered into his palm, activating the spell he’d borrowed from his cousin that morning. Light filled the cave, and Trystan’s heart sank. Other than the rocks in the cave he’d just risked his life swimming down to, there…
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Finding Happiness in What You Carry: A Bit About Mother’s Day
If you ask me, most holidays are much ado without any substance. Take Valentine’s Day. If you aren’t some kind of jerk, you’ve probably been halfway nice to the person you claim to love above all others. If that’s not the case, dinner and chocolate isn’t going to suddenly set it right. Despite soft-focus commercials about exotic weekend getaways and advice about the portion of one’s salary suitable for purchasing jewelry items, Valentine’s Day could just as well be called, I don’t know, Tuesday. How about Christmas? Whether we’re talking about its Christian or pagan origins, it’s hard to see how any of what happens today relates to any of…
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Snow Day
The whicker of wind outside my window tells me leaving the haven of my bed would be a mistake. No breakfast eaten or new day begun, no matter how delicious or auspicious, can contend with the loving press of a flannel sheet or the promised rush of anesthetic joy. Dreams pull me down, promising one more and one more and one more minute of bliss. So I stay.
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The Secret Plan
Recently, I’ve noticed a trend in fiction, including among authors I admire. It works like this: The protagonist and company have a plan that’s going to lead to the novel’s climactic scene, and they discuss the plan, but we don’t get to hear it. The reason for this device, presumably, is to surprise us when the plan is executed, but here’s what makes it especially problematic: The discussion of the plan doesn’t happen “off screen.” Instead, it’s perched right there in the middle of an otherwise packed scene, its place held by a little line that read something like “They discussed it, and everyone agreed.” And then the action of…
