Brief Lies

Micro-Fiction on hiatus for March

2005-03-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

I have all the rest of my Saturdays off for this month, so I doubt I'll be able to update as well (though I realize that it's not a huge burden, really; just a lot when added on top of everything else). So, I'm putting the weekly micros on hiatus for the month of March. I'm going to try and dig up some more writer-types, so we can get a bigger turn-out, and thus more motivation for me. The next stories will be posted on April 9th, and I'll put the subject up at least a week beforehand. Keep in mind that if you think of a subject you think would be interesting, feel free to email them to me at brieflies (at) gmail (dot) com. The last two subjects were suggested by someone else, and honestly it saves me from having to choose things I worry everyone will think are dumb.

We didn't get any stories for the emo-music subject, which I blame on schedules more than anything (I personally had some good ideas for the topic, but no time to write them down). Hopefully this will be rectified somewhat if we get a larger author pool to draw from. Everyone have a good month, and I'll catch ya in April.

- Ahniwa

Microfiction #5: Robots

2005-02-26T16:57:00.000-08:00

Only two stories this week, though I'm quite taken with both of them. One of them's mine, and I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I do like it. The other story belongs to Chuck, who's a swell guy and a great writer, so I'm glad he finally got around to writing something for our little micro-hour. Thanks Chuck!

Next week's topic is: Emo Music

On to the stories. Enjoy!

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Robot Party
-Chuck Fisher

"A Horse Mark XIV walks into a bar. The human bartender looks up to him and says, '11101000111010001110001010111000101011100001110100101012!'"

The others began to laugh. The joke teller paused for a moment before belting out, "EXECUTING LAUGHING ALGORITHM! HA HA HA!"

One robot did not join in on the laughter. Instead, variables began to be passed to an annoyance algorithm which began to execute. The LEDs that made up his eyes began to go from high to low causing the eye displays to look like they were rolling around in a circle. Douglas Model 23X8943J29A, Serial Number 349-384393-2013 (or Doug for short) found the William model to be rather annoying, pretty odd, and definitely creepy. It was common knowledge that when William's parents had programmed him, they left in several of their debugging lines of code causing him to narrate what he was doing by informing the others when he was running his algorithms. Odd fellow.

Doug began to send voltage to the wheels that served as his method of transportation and began to wheel away from the conversation before William started in on yet another joke, which he was sure to do. He stopped when he reached his cubicle and sent a soft sigh to his speakers. He looked to the small poster that hung on one of the walls of the cubicle showing a cat hanging from an electric line. It read, "Hang in there NeCoRo."

"You can say that again," Douglas thought to himself. As he stood at his cubicle, he picked up pieces of conversations as they floated through the air.

“Yeah, I interfaced with her! I interfaced with her all night!”

“No way, R2-D2 could win in a fight over C-3PO any day!”

“Hey Doug!”

“Have you seen Mary? She’s gotten fffaaattt.”

“HEY DOUG!”

It was only then that he became aware that there was someone calling his name. He spun around to face the robot and regretted it almost instantly. It was one of those newer models, Jimbo…Jerry….J…Jason, yes, Jason was the name.

“Doug, my bot! What’s going on?”

“Not much.”

”Doug, man, dude, you’re missing out here! This is one wild party. Who knew the ladies around here had naughty functions. You’ve got to get in on this.” He took a swig from the bottle of oil that he held to his side.

Another well known fact around the office was that Jerry couldn’t hold his oil. His robotic body began to shake and his eyes looked into Doug’s eye display.

“ERROR! INTEGER DIVIDE BY ZERO!” He fell to the floor. Doug looked around for a moment and set his wheels into reverse, backing away from the robotic heap on the floor and from his cubicle.

Unfortunately, he ran right into someone. It was William.

“EXECUTING BEST BUDS ALGORITHM!”

Doug sighed.

“Doug! It’s great to see you!! I’ve got this great joke for you! Have you heard about the Mark XIV horse that walked into a bar?”

This was going to be a long night.

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Bring me a dream
-Ahniwa Ferrari

Megan looked at the barren town over the rims of her sunglasses, eyeing the shop-fronts warily. A small cloud of dust rose from the street as her partner, D-Rock, pulled the car to a stop alongside the abandoned curb. The door of the Montclair swung open easily, and as she stepped out onto the sidewalk, a gust of wind blew against her face and pulled against the wide brim of her hat. D-Rock swung his door shut and walked up to stand next to her. He held out both hands, offering her a choice between the shotgun and the baseball bat.

“Such a gentleman,” she said, laughing, and took the bat. Today she preferred getting a little down and dirty.

D-Rock lowered his shades and eyed her up and down. Satisfied, he smiled. “Let’s rock this apocalypse.”

Megan gripped the bat, feeling its weight. She smiled back. “Let’s rock it twice.”

Having completed their mantra, they turned to the first antique shop on the street. Though outside the sun was bright like a spaghetti western, through the window the shop looked like it was covered in dusk. Old lamps rested fitfully, clothes hung on rusted wire hangers, and box upon box of old records lined one of the walls. They couldn’t see any movement inside, but that didn’t mean anything. They were used to this gig by now.

D-Rock lined up by the door and Megan stepped in front. As he began to nod to her, her foot was already through the door, cracking the frame and knocking it off one hinge. He raised an eyebrow at her, grinned a little, and pushed it open the rest of the way.

“Not bad for a Viscountess.”

“Yes. Well it’s not all social dancing and finishing school.”

“I guess not. Damn.”

He chuckled as she entered the shop, shook his head slightly, and followed her in, shotgun up and ready as his eyes adjusted to the murky light. They proceeded slowly, eyeing every garment and item suspiciously for movement. Megan sniffed the air, scowling.

“It doesn’t smell like death in here. Something’s wrong.”

“Maybe somebody already came? Did the job?”

“Don’t be daft. We’re the only zombie-hunters in the Northwest right now.”

“What about Dahlia and – oh right … they died.”

“They always were a bit careless. We’re not. Still, I don’t like this.” Megan frowned into the dark, rear of the shop. “This is the Viscountess Megan W. O’Leontiv the Second, and my partner Double Rock Apocalypse. If there are zombies in here, come out so I can knock your fucking heads off.”

“Language…”

“I can’t be a lady all the time. Not in this line of work.”

A sudden movement from behind the counter took them both by surprise. A man bobbed up and down slightly behind the register, the skin on his face half-rotted off. A few broken teeth hung limply from his gums as he opened his mouth and tried to form a word. The only word zombies seemed to know, “B … rrrrrrr … aaaaaiiiiiiiiii … nnnnnnnn … sssssssss.”

D-Rock pumped his shotgun and took aim, but too late. Megan’s bat was a blur as it swung through the air and struck with a sound, slightly metallic “THUNK” against the side of the zombie’s head. The head ripped off from the force, sending wires and bolts flying, and then glass as it crashed through the window and rolled onto the street outside. Sparks sputtered out from the vacuous neck-hole, and metal wires waved about like errant tentacles. Out on the street, the head mumbled another half-hearted "B...rr...a.......iiiii...eeeeeee-" and went silent.

“FUCK! Fucking hell! I knew it smelled wrong, D. It’s one of those fucking amusement park towns, forgotten about and abandoned, and they left all their little gadgets and toys here to rot.”

“So no zombies?”

“Nope. Nobody to zombify. Just a bunch of robots.”

“Well, fuck.”

“You said it. Let’s get out of here. Hey, what are you doing?”

“We’re here, we might as well make the most of it. Hey, check it out, a Chordettes LP.”

“Yeah, great. Bring me a dream. Oh hey, nice shoes …”

Microfiction #4: A well

2005-02-19T15:04:00.000-08:00

Three seems to be the lucky number, when it's not one like last week. I particularly enjoyed the submissions this week. A giant thanks to everyone who contributed!

Next week's topic is: Robots

Enjoy the stories. Catch ya next week!

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Untitled
-Emily Jindra

“I don’t make wishes,” Lana said matter-of-factly, true to her usual inflection. “My father had a saying. ‘If wishes were horses, beggars would ride.’ My father was a very wise man.”

They passed the fountain that provided the pigeons of the park with a 24-hour birdbath and doubled as a wishing well to the city’s superstitious demographic. Each morning the two women walked past it on their way to work, and Maggie, the younger of the two, would toss in a coin and a tacit supplication to some unknown mystical force. The God of the Wishing Well. “I hate that saying,” she thought to herself on this particular morning, digging her hands into her pockets in the hope that she might make another offering. All she found was lint.

“It’s not like I’m tossing coins into the well and thinking seriously that the hand of fate will retrieve them and cause the wishes to come to fruition. It’s just…” Maggie searched for the words that would justify this frivolous action to her friend. She knew it was a lost cause even before she started to speak, but she tried anyway. Lana was someone who trimmed her fingernails three times a week, counted out a hundred hair brush strokes each night before bed, didn’t play cards, and never drank to excess. Frivolity was not a word in her vernacular. “Haven’t you ever wished that things had gone differently? Haven’t you ever wanted to feel the grass under your bare feet in the dead of winter? Don’t you dream?” Agitation was registering in Maggie’s voice and she cut herself off before she offended her friend.

Lana quickened her pace, pulled her collar close around her neck against the cold, and pursed her lips before making her reply. “No,” she said after a moment’s thought, but it wasn’t a convincing answer. The two walked the rest of the short route in silence.

The question repeated itself in her mind all day at work, like a needle skipping over the same broken record track again and again and again. “Don’t you dream? Don’t you dream? Lana. Lana. Don’t you dream?” The copy machine churned out a rythym that gave a sickening sense of life to this phrase that had taken residence at the front of her consciousness. At five o’clock she put her coat on once again, headed back to her studio apartment, and went to sleep.

When she woke it was past midnight. Lana hadn’t been outside past midnight for ages, but on this night she got up, dressed, and fumbled around in the dark for her purse. Once the bag was found she stepped carefully down the stairs to the front door. When she got to the well she had a coin in hand.

“I…” She looked around to make sure she was alone. The pigeons were her only audience, but her tone was hushed anyway. “I wish that tonight, I would dream.”

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The Well
-Theo Porter

Jose Cuervo meandered down the side of the road, his thumb in the air. The dusty desert highway rolled out in front of and behind him and on either side tall cacti mocked his desperate hand motions. He knew that he wouldn’t be able to survive another day like this, out on the road with no water. The bandolier he wore around his shoulder was starting to chafe but there was no getting around that. Being hired for a job means seeing it through to the end and there wasn’t any getting out of this one.

His left hand jerked up again at the distant sound of a car engine. He fingered the leather strap that kept his 45 Schofield in its holster around his waist. The car was a candy apple red convertible driven by a luscious brunette who he could barely see in the broiling sunlight as she approached at top speed. It skidded to a full stop on the gravely pavement, missing his knees by mere inches. Without a word, he got in, making sure to keep the edge of his duster over the gun. Together they drove on down the road.

A small village appeared out of nowhere and again, the brunette skidded the car to a stop in the middle of the town. There was no one, anywhere. The town was completely empty and void of life. Tumbleweed blew down the board sidewalk in front of the saloon. Still dying of thirst, Cuervo sauntered over to the town well, lifting the bucket to his lips and taking a draught. He kept his shifty eyes on everything that moved, which wasn’t all that much. He knew this was the place but his target didn’t seem to be anywhere around.

Cuervo knew he’d been shot before the report reached his ears. A sharp pain went through his chest, just below his left shoulder. He knew instantly that his heart had been torn through and wouldn’t work much longer. Taking shallow breaths, he turn, using the lip of the well for support. The brunette was sitting up on the back of the car, a smoking rifle lazily resting in her hands. Cuervo started to laugh.

She stood and hopped out of the car, landing lightly on her feet with a slight bend of the knee. She walked coyly over to the now convulsing cowboy. She grabbed his collar and lifted him to his now useless legs as if he were a feather. His moustache twitched as he smelled her cheap perfume on the dirty wind. She leaned in and kissed him gently on the lips. With that, his body slumped against hers, all of the life draining from it in a pool of blood at his feet. Deftly, the woman toppled Cuervo head over heels into the well and stood with her hands on her hips looking down into the murky blackness. Satisfied he was gone, she turned and drove off into the scorching afternoon heat.

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Wishing Well
-Ahniwa Ferrari

“Hey, guess what!”

“Didn’t I ask you to stop following me an hour ago? Scram!”

“Where ya goin’?”

“None of your beeswax. Now get lost before I tell mom about how you like to climb around on the roof.”

“No way! I’d get in trouble! Besides, then I’d have to tell her about how I seen you sneak out the window to go kiss Angie near the pond.”

“You don’t sleep enough, ya know? Fine. Just be quiet, okay? You really are a pain.”

“Where we goin? Hey, you never guessed what!”

“Alright. What?”

“Chicken butt!”

“You suck. I swear you were adopted. From aliens.”

“Was not!”

“Whatever. Be quiet. We’re almost there.”

“Where?”

“Ssshhhh.”

“Hey, what’s that?”

“It’s a well, Einstein.”

“What’s it doing out here in the middle of the woods?”

“Dunno. I think there used to be a house out here or something.”

“Huh. Is this where we were going?”

“We’re here, aren’t we? Now be quiet and pull up the rope.”

“What for? What ya gonna do?”

“I’m goin’ down there, that’s what. Stop asking so many stupid questions.”

“But what’s down there?”

“George Bee told me that it used to be an old bandit hideout, and that they stashed their loot there. But then the cave collapsed on them, and they got caught inside and all suffocated to death.”

“Whoa.”

“Did you get that rope pulled up yet? Good. You might be worth something after all.”

“You really goin’ down there?”

“Don’t be such a chicken-shit. It’s just a well.”

“But it’s dark! How far down does it go?”

“To the bottom. Duh. I brought a flashlight. Look, it’s rigged so that even you should be able to help lower me down. Just pull and don’t let go.”

“But you didn’t want me to come. How were you gonna get down there without me!?”

“George was supposed to show up. I figured he’d skip out. I bet he’s down near the mill with Angie right now.”

“But I thought –“

“Yeah, well you think too much. Stop it, will ya? Once I find this loot, no way Angie will like that clown more than me. You ready?”

“But what if –“

“Shut up and hold on to the lever. Here I go.”

“…”

“Hey Ben? … Ben? … Hey Ben, how ya gonna get back up?”

Microfiction #3 : Being Invisible

2005-02-12T16:29:00.000-08:00

I got fifty-nine submissions for this week, but unfortunately they were all written in invisible ink (hahahahahaha), so I'm afraid it's just me. I hope you enjoy it!

The topic for next week is: a well.

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The Morning After
- Ahniwa Ferrari

Brandon woke up slowly, and lay in bed staring at the ceiling for a long time, blinking at the bits of crust rubbing against the corners of his eyes. Finally he threw off the covers, stumbled naked into the kitchen, and opened cupboards to search for coffee. He found some beans, ground them, and yawned as he filled the coffee pot with water to pour into the machine. His eyes drooped a bit, his nose felt all snotty, and he tried to remember what he had done the night before.

The smell of coffee made him smile a bit. He poured himself a cup before the pot was done brewing, making coffee drip directly onto the heating-surface and give off an angry, burnt smell. Some splashed onto his foot, and he shook it off as he and his coffee mug made their way into the bathroom to take a shower.

It took two minutes for the water to get hot, which was ironically enough time for his coffee to cool down enough for him to drink. When he stepped into the shower, he got scalded, and he cursed as many things as he could think of before he got the temperature right. He leaned against the wall of the shower so that the showerhead was right over him, and let the water make rivers down the creases in his skin.

Famously groggy in the mornings, he felt awake after twenty minutes in the hot spray, and turning the water off he stepped out of the shower and reached for his towel. He dried his hair and waited for the steam to let go of the mirror so he could brush it to a fairly reasonable level of control. It wasn’t until the mirror cleared that he remembered; everything that had happened the night before, the week leading up to it, thinking if he just fell asleep he’d wake up and it would all have been a bad dream. But he was awake now – he was fairly sure of it – and it hadn’t been a dream after all.

He glared at the mirror for eight minutes and thirty-one seconds exactly, counting in his head superstitiously, but it did no good. Finally he grunted, turned out of the bathroom and back down the hall, muttered, “Fucking invisible…” as though it were something that might happen to anyone at any moment, and went back to bed.

Microfiction #2: Food / Cooking

2005-02-05T13:17:00.000-08:00

Only three stories again. Thanks to everyone that submitted this week. My big goal is to get ten stories a week, or so. Here's dreamin'!

The topic for next week is: Being invisible. Either metaphorically, or literally.

Enjoy the stories!

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-Anne Jindra

Val comes in wide-eyed like usual, sporting her gap-toothed grin and maniacal (and always unprovoked) laughter. She sits down in one of my wooden office chairs, then immediately gets up to look out of the window, then sits down again and laughs. She smoothes out the folds of her worn wool jacket, tames the fly-aways in her hair, and finally rests her hands in her lap. I watch as she goes through her ritual, noticing that her fingers look like a Diego Rivera painting, and I stare at them.

A brief silence follows before I remember that I am her social worker, and she helpfully reminds me by offering, “I’m in a lot of trouble,” which she follows with another cackle.

She had been receiving unemployment for almost three months – she lost her job cleaning rooms at the college inn. Recently though, she got a letter in the mail from the Office of Job and Family Services telling her that she has to pay back her almost $2,000 award because they didn’t really mean to give her anything to begin with. After she relates all of this to me she says, “and I know I can trust you because you didn’t tell anybody about the other thing,” but I have no idea what she’s talking about.

She gets up again, looks out of the window in my door, stands for a moment, then sits back down in the stiff chair. She cuts right to the heart of the matter, with a swift decisiveness, “Do you have any cereal?”

To which I reply, “Yeah, we have Cornflakes.” She mulls this over and eventually decides that cornflakes are acceptable. She proceeds to verbally go over a mental list of items that she needs (chocolate chip cookies, toothpaste, sugar, potato chips, pudding) and I jot each down on a drab yellow post-it, my pen racing to keep up with her stream-of-consciousness. When she finishes, she rolls her eyes back and tries to recall if that was everything she came for.

She fixes her gaze forward again, and looks me in the eyes for the first time since this visit began. “I am tired of this shit. God. I am tired.”

I offer back a smile, and get up to procure her needs from the shelves of our emergency pantry.

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Sustenance
-Theo Porter

Martin sat on the couch and thought about food. He couldn’t help it. There was a poster opposite him of a perfect French crème Brule and the more he stared at it the more drool collected in his mouth. He arched his back, reaching into his back pocket for his tattered wallet, trying desperately to run over his monthly budget in his head. It was useless. He was a gadget guy and if the purchase of a mediocre doohickey for his home theatre meant he would starve for the rest of the month, it was worth the sacrifice. As he separated the corners of his wallet and peered inside, he imagined a little cartoon fly zipping from its empty interior at full speed. Feeding the habit had taken on a whole new meaning. The poster on the wall had never seemed so far away.

The need to eat filled Martin’s head. He knew how to cook, that wasn’t the problem. There was just nothing to cook. Anywhere. He rose from the couch, sighing heavily. “Old Mother Hubbard,” the old nursery rhyme, ran through his head at full volume. His own mother loved to repeat little rhymes while she cooked and Martin had taken up the wand when the beloved family matriarch was hospitalized for being too old to live on her own. Shoving loving nostalgia aside, Martin searched the empty cupboards for even the ghost crumbs of a forgotten loaf of bread. No such luck.

He pulled out his wallet again and there, at the very bottom, was his lone credit card. Fund management was a foreign concept, but somehow, probably through the influence of a micro-managing father, Martin had paid off most of debt owed on the thin, unobtrusive piece of plastic. Though he tried never to use it for technology, maybe food was worth it. Yes, it definitely was. Survival is paramount and these were dire circumstances. But, standing alone in the kitchen of his apartment, he couldn’t help but feel that if he was going to dip into the irresponsible jar, it needed to be for a good reason. He pulled out his cell phone and began to make phone calls. The friends lined up like bowling pins the moment he said that he was cooking. Several agreed to bring salad, bread, wine, dessert, and it was set.

His heart skipping a beat, he walked down to the store around the corner. It was a cool, clear night with the moon sitting just above the horizon in perfect counterbalance with the ruby red sunset. Martin couldn’t help but break into a smile. He could see it in his head: good friends, good food, and good music; it would be perfect. There was a perfectly good shopping list in his head and he went over it again in his head as he picked up a little red shopping basket.
The little card in his hand felt lighter as he exited the store. It hurt, but when it comes to sustenance, sometimes one must go to extremes.

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Tacos aren't romantic at all
-Ahniwa Ferrari

So last night my roommate’s girlfriend came over and they made tacos and I had some and they were amazing like tacos of divinity or ambrosia or something. So we were sitting around eating our tacos – mmmmmm – and I’d had some ice cream earlier and that was good too but not like a heavenly taco, and I was telling them the story of the Summer of 2000 when I walked across town in a state of pure romantic distress. I was also distressed because I had no tacos, mind you, but also flustered by romance. I like tacos but I don’t find them romantic. They’re sexy though, but I wouldn’t bother buying them champagne or taking them on a moonlit walk on the beach. They’re sexy and I’d just use them and then leave before they woke up, and I wouldn’t be able to respect them anymore afterwards.

So I was walking across town, all the way across, from the west end to downtown and then up the hill to the southeast, to see my friend who’s my roommate now and whose girlfriend made tacos last night – coincidentally he knows this story already – and about halfway there I was like “Well fuck, I’ve walked a lot, and if I turned around I’d have to walk a lot more just to get home, and that’s where I came from so I’ll keep walking forward and get to my friend’s house and then maybe he’ll drive me somewhere and we can have tacos.” So after like another hour or something I made it to his house and he wasn’t in his room asleep like I thought he’d be so I could easily wake him up and make him drive me somewhere. At first I didn’t know where he was and stood outside wondering how I might be able to find a taco at two in the morning walking – I’d be walking, not the taco – and as I was wondering I saw the light flashing in the upstairs window like you see when someone is watching a movie, all blue and the dark and then flash and flash and from outside it seems so bright you wonder how someone could watch it without going blind.

So I’d found my friend, but he was upstairs and I was on the ground outside and I couldn’t just walk in because he was living with his mom at the time and I didn’t want to get shot or hit with a frying pan or have anything else violent happen to me. I warily eyed the fence that ran around the little house and thought that if I could get up on it I would be nearly at eye level with the window upstairs and then I could throw little twigs at the window and get my friend’s attention, because surely he’d prefer my company and tacos to whatever movie he was watching. So I climbed up the fence, and then I fell off but I landed on my feet, and I had to climb up again, which I did. Then I could see my friend, but throwing little twigs at the window didn’t seem to be having any effect. There was a tree that loomed over the fence, and had branches that extended very nearly to the window, so I grabbed a branch and shook it so that it hit the window and made a big motion which my friend wouldn’t be able to miss. And so I guess he was watching a really scary movie and the branch hitting the window on its own – because he couldn’t see me – really freaked him out and he screamed. But then he looked out and he saw me, and we laughed about it and he drove me to Denny’s at three in the morning until five in the morning while we drank coffee and ate food.

But not tacos, because Denny’s sucks and they don’t have tacos, and I was bitter at first but then I got all strung out on coffee and cigarettes and romance and lack of sleep so then I was okay with it, and I had a sandwich instead. Sandwiches are okay, but they aren’t as good as tacos at all.

Microfiction #1: Dance / Dancing

2005-01-29T13:14:00.000-08:00

Only three stories this week. I hope more people will get into it as we progress, but I'm not going to twist any arms. If people want to write stories, that's excellent and I'll enjoy reading them. And if it comes down to just me, putting up one story every week, that will be okay too.

The topic for next week is: Cooking / Food.

As you can tell from this week's stories, adherence to the topic is lenient, though I think it more fun to challenge yourself and try to write about the subject. Length restriction, it turns out, is fairly optional too.

Without further ado, stories!

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Two Sisters
-Emily Jindra

"I quit smoking," she told me in passing, and I tried to bury some of my excitement. The fact that she said it nonchalantly meant that she was readying her mind for a relapse and didn't want to get too excited, lest she fell off the wagon. I was happy, though, and have never been very skilled at hiding my emotions.

"That's great," was my reply, probably delivered too quickly and genuinely to mask my eagerness for her to be successful. "When did you decide to do that?"

"Well, I've been wanting to for awhile." She sighed. Paused. Looked at the ground, probably hoping that the words to express what she was thinking would somehow materialize on the earth beneath her. My family has never been very skilled in the art of communication. Dialogue with each other is the dance we all fumble through awkwardly, like pubescent teenagers at their first mixer. She looked at me and I met her gaze.

"Do you ever think about death?"

I scanned my brain for a frame of reference, a precedent by which to make my response, some clue that would explain how and from where this question had come, and where she was taking me with it. My older sister and I don't often get beyond the weather when it comes to conversation. The brain scan was inconclusive, and in a moment of resolve I decided to stop being so reserved around my own sibling.

"Yes," I offered. "Sometimes I think that death is the only worthwhile thing there is to think about."

She paused for another moment, trained a sharp gaze on some far-away object, and began to speak. "I was covering part of someone's midnight shift last night. It wasn't a full double because I only had to cover until 3 am, but I was pretty tired when I was driving home." She stopped and once again searched the ground for the words to accurately build her recollection. "I try to take the back roads when I'm coming home that late, to avoid the drunks. I was on Oberlin Road, about to turn onto Russia when I saw it. I couldn't make out what it was from the intersection, but the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end and that damn cop instinct we all got from Dad kicked in. I turned left instead of right, my impulses taking the reigns from my logic. First it was just a cracked side view mirror glistening like a beacon in the other lane. Then there was glass, pieces of chrome, and the crimson. God damn, to think about that awful color painting a picture all over the road..."

She shifted her gaze and looked me directly in the eye. "I hope that you never see anything like that. It isn't at all like what you think it would be. The smell was," but she stopped to clear her throat, and the far away object called her gaze back. Another moment and her face was emotionless again, but there was a new franticness in her eyes, something akin to desperation, the urgency of sustained hunger.

"Libby..."

"It was an accident scene, and I was the first one there. Discovered the body I guess you would say. He must have been going over 100 to smash the bike up that badly. The trail of scattered motorcycle parts stopped at the telephone pole that served as the object to prove Newton's first law of motion. The bike was wrapped like a pretzel around the base of the pole, I had to blink several times to convince myself that this was tangible reality I was looking at, and not something from a dream. The high tension wire must have then grabbed hold of the bikeless driver, because it stood sentinel over the bifurcated corpse. It was a cold night, and the wounds were... they were steaming."

She looked down again, but this time with closed eyes. "Everyone says that life is so short, but it's not." A pause. She opened her eyes and that wolf-like desperation was even stronger than before. "We spend eons squandering it away, placating ourselves with the vacuousness of daytime T.V., tax deferred annuity payments, trips to the mall and low interest rates. We hide our true feelings, argue about meaningless bullshit, wait like idiots for greatness to happen to us, wait for meaning to one day magically appear. We spend our entire long ass lives waiting, and then in an instant the wait is over and we're lying in two pieces on the side of some stretch of abandoned road. I'm going to live, Emily, every second that I draw breath into this body." She looked at me. "Waiting is a game for a fool."

She held the gaze a few moments longer, and then returned to her hawk-like surveillance of the distant horizon. I didn't turn my eyes away from her, for fear that this fragile and tender moment between us would crack like an eggshell if I dared even breathe. She stirred suddenly, got up, and walked back toward the house. My eyes were transfixed and followed her up the familiar steps, and I noticed for the first time how strong my older sister is. She has yet to light another cigarette.

------------------------

The Dance
-Don Ferrari

“You’re a very special person.”

“Take’s one to know one.”

There was a pause as their eyes held, - similar to the two or three times before in the last hour – only this time it wasn’t from across the room – wondering if they were together or if you were reading it right – this time you were close, as it felt it should be.

“You make me want to touch you.”

“Yeah, I know.”

The eyes remained one, both open and vulnerable. A hand moved up of its own accord and laid itself gently on a cheek, remaining motionless while 2 sets of I’s sang songs that children sing.

“Phew.”

"Bawaack – I got the little ones,” a voice called forth and they both suddenly regained note of where they were. The tavern was crowded this Sunday night, yet no gaze was upon this meeting and faces once more turned to find hand still upon cheek, - then hand held cheek moved down and met a hand in hand and the tavern had two less people.

A silent journey thru the night – pine tree crest met starlit sky and air of breath for both to see. Soon they were making fire in the cabin on the rim of the mountain, the wood smoke sweetening the fragrance of this life.

A hand held cheek once more reached out and gently took a coat from form – Fingers weaving – dancing thru a land of button – Thru this hole to the other side, and you - and you, and then a turn.
Plop on the floor and flesh met touch and eye.
This hand of mine, on myself it seems
Then both, a dance of flickering flames,
Two foreheads touched
And eyes
And nose
And tongue traced patterns new unfolding,
Then hands moved down and pulled the final bit of name to none,
And both wide-eyed souls met dancing.

------------------------

Dimmer Switch
-Ahniwa Ferrari

Cal leaned against the wall and made an effort not to squint as light danced across the room and fake smoke drifted past his eyes. He’d heard that the parties senior year were bigger and better, but he’d never imagined they included light shows and smoke machines. Still, he knew that to the people who threw these parties image was everything, and the expense was the equivalent of pennies. In any case, he hadn’t come to see fancy special effects. He had a purpose.

Liza was the kind of girl every boy in school had dreams about. She was head cheerleader and valedictorian, and had already spent a year studying in France. She’d come back with a certain savoir faire that made her seem mysterious and unattainable, and an accent that over time had faded until you could only ever hear it when she got very emotional. It was fate’s cruel joke that her locker was right next to Cal’s, but he doubted that she had ever really noticed him.

If you asked someone at school what they thought of Cal, most people would sum his character up in a single, concise word: “Who?” . He wore clothes, ate food, walked about and talked, laughed, smiled and joked with his friends; all in such a way that no-one but his friends were ever inclined to pay him any notice. How he’d ever gotten friends in this state is a mystery, though could most likely be attributed to the fact that they’d been his friends since the third grade, before he’d realized that he was destined to a life of inexorable obscurity. He went about his business like a shadow, was never called on in class, got straight ‘B’s, and avoided school activities or doing anything in which he might stand out like the plague. Even his senior picture in the yearbook had turned out fuzzy, as if he were blurred around the edges; a ghost.

Tonight was different. The dimmer switch of Cal’s personality, halfway down his entire life, was now in the full “On” position. Dressed in a suit, he had a distinct outline, a physical presence that dominated a particular space. His hair, usually a bland brown and neatly parted, seemed to change in the light, one moment wild and the next, keenly sophisticated. His eyes, usually brown, were now hazel and chestnut and cedar, mahogany and driftwood, and they sparkled as they set upon Liza Anne Hartley and never strayed.

Liza had noticed him, too. Noticed, but not recognized, despite having the same lockers for the past four years. She laughed as a friend told a joke, excused herself, and let her feet follow Cal’s gaze across the floor. As she reached him, the music changed from a loud beat to something slow and intimate. She wasn’t used to being shy, but her breath caught in her throat and she was held transfixed by Cal’s presence. It was years of natural social instinct that allowed her to ask, “Would you like to dance?”

Cal smiled, his teeth flashed pearls. His brown eyes engulfed hers, blue, and the music flooded out the world.

As he left the party, all he could think was that if he hurried, then he and his friends could have a good long party themselves before the night was over. He ripped off his tie, threw it out into the night breeze, and grinned as he remembered his response:

“Sorry, I don’t dance with cheerleaders.”

Smidgeons of un-truth

2005-01-25T14:51:00.000-08:00

Microfiction is rollin'.

The topic for this week is: dance / dancing.
No longer than 500 words, if you can help it.

Drop them at brieflies (at) gmail (dot) com.

Stories will be posted here on Saturday, Jan 29th.
Get 'em to me before then!

Happy writing!

Two short stories

2004-12-15T22:08:00.000-08:00

The First Time
- Ahniwa Ferrari

I swung by your flat in Charlestown, shuffled about on your stoop before I tap-tap-tapped lightly on your door. My legs were jittery, my heart striking double-beat against my chest (snare on the even beats). The door, swinging open, revealed your face glowing in a soft electric light. We smiled in tandem, shyly hugged as you stepped aside to let me in. I led myself down the hall, turned right into your living room: soft colors and light plush with the stories you've spun, hanging in the air like whispers, just loud enough to get an idea, quiet enough to leave a mystery. You made a b-line to the kitchen, came back shortly with refreshments; cookies and milk as though we were in a black and white movie. I'd play Astaire to your Rogers.

We sat quietly for a moment, unsure of ourselves. I'd never done this before, either.

"So, is this your first time?" I dipped a bit of cookie into my milk, watched it absorb the white and cold and wet, drew it back before it dissolved and let it melt in my mouth.

Your hands clasped together, knuckles white, you watched my mundane cookie ritual. You stuttered a bit at first, "Ye... Yes, this is my first time. Is it your first- Oh, that's a silly question, isn't it? Of course this isn't your first time."

I finished my cookie and hopped out of my chair, trying to harness my nervous energy for what had to be done. "Actually, my first time teaching, one-on-one ... yes." I motioned for her to join me, standing in the middle of the room.

She stood up and took my hands as I offered them to her. Unsure where to look, her eyes wandered around until they decided that her feet would be the safest place. "Where do we start?" she asked, never looking up.

"Don't look down. Your feet will just distract you." She brought her head up, looked me in the eyes, smiled slightly. "We'll start with the basic step; you on your right foot, me on the left, like this: step-step-rockstep. There you go, not bad. Just don't look down."

---------------------------------------------------------------

Dance, Ad Infinitum
- Theo Porter

I sat for the first few minutes at the side, waiting to jump into the whirlwind of sliding shoes, sweaty bodies and touching limbs. My mouth watered at the sight of a luscious brunette hamming up the finish of a spin. I felt like a child that is told he can only have one piece of candy from a large bowl. I tapped my feet, watching.

After a while, the music itself started to get under my skin. Not in a bad way, but rather it became a part of me. I found myself whistling and sliding down random hallways at work. It's a visceral experience, something that is absorbed, not imbibed. I always appreciated beauty, but I didn't consider myself an esthete until I went dancing. The ability of the human form to become art amazed me; but when that art was in full motion, gliding across a floor, spinning and jumping, experiencing it became sublime.

I couldn't stand sitting still anymore. I bounced to my feet. Rock step, kick-step, kick-step, and, kick-step, repeat ad infinitum. At one point I even closed my eyes. The lead singer was crooning about drinks and I understood. He screamed it, "Whiskey!" and I thought of how the Irish call whiskey the water of life. That's when she touched my shoulder.

The Brunette was wearing glasses that highlighted her eyes; her extended fingers beckoned and seduced me; and her smile parted slightly as she asked if I wanted to dance with a person. Oh dry wit! I tried to halt my knocking knees and spun out onto the dance floor, wishing it would never end.

Welcome to Brief Lies

2004-11-20T13:40:00.000-08:00

Welcome to Brie Flies, home of flying chee-
Oops, let me start over.

Welcome to Brief Lies (that's better), home of flying chee-
Oops again! Okay, bugger the welcome, then.
You're here, great. Let's move on, shall we?

This is a blog started by me as a space to be creative, to encourage creativity, and hopefully to collaborate with others in some creative works. When I say "creative", for now I mean writing, but who knows what may happen in the future. Mostly, I'm interested in using this blog as something of a microfiction forum. Years ago, I started a microfiction email group. It was a small but fun group, and good practice. Every week, people would write a piece of microfiction (500 words or less), centered around a specific theme or topic. At the end of the week, I would send all the stories out, along with the topic for the next week. The stories were always a lot of fun to write (and low-stress, under 500 words!) and even more fun to read. Unfortunately, people get busy and writing falls by the wayside; our small group dwindled and story submissions were low. Eventually, I called the micro-group quits and moved on to other things, though not without some remorse.

Lately, I've been blogging quite a bit, because writing daily just feels good, and today I remembered vividly how much fun the microfiction group was. So I've decided to start something similar, here on this blog. It may take awhile to get the ball rolling, but until then I'll be posting some of my own creative work (as well as whatever I can finagle out of friends and family), links of creative interest, news and other noteworthy reads.

If you're interested in submitting anything, joining the microfiction group, posting on this blog (and/or helping me to run it) or just in contacting me, please feel free to drop me an email at brieflies(at)gmail(dot)com.