[x]

The Solipsist's LotThere's something about yourself that you don't know. You probably don't remember the circumstances very well, but I do. If you enjoy things the way they are, if you revel in even the smallest speck of ignorance, you need not read ahead. I won't force you. But from what I know of you, you don't like secrets. Especially not when they are about you.

You see, when you were born, so at once was everyone else. Your mother, she sprang into existence, just like that, the instant your tiny infant brain achieved the smallest semblance of self-awareness. Woven out of the ethe

A Night at Pinetop's TavernSomewhere in the back alleys of the city's older section there was a crumbling brick building that had been around since before ragtime music was popular. Hanging above a faded green door that led down to the building's cellar was a wooden sign, and despite the peeling paint, you could still make out the bar's name: Pinetop's Tavern. Nobody really knew when Pinetop's first opened; local folks would tell you it had been there since time began, and the world had grown up around it. It was one of those places where the lighting was always dim and the cigarette smoke never dissipated and the cloud you were breathing now had probably been around

Never Told He thinks it's odd, sometimes, though he's not certain why.

A sense of dislocation, perhaps. Like cutting yourself on an unsharpened blade. He walks the immense aisles of the cathedral, footsteps echoing hollowly into the blue shadows of high vaulted ceilings and arches, stone figures watching him from above as he, in turn, watches dawn play across their carved and weathered faces. The grandeur of this place is oddly soothing in the solitude it affords him. A holy place, just hushed, here suspended in the silence after Mattins when most have shuffled out. It's a favorite moment of his, a favorite service to attend, and today it gives him p

my howls are silentI, too, see the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness. We are decomposing too early, our souls dying before our bodies can catch up. We are silently ravenous, a quiet craze in our hearts, not quite the same as your generation, Ginsberg. We do not shriek "Holy! Holy! Holy!" as we burn. We drown soundlessly.

The overeducated, proud products of postmodernism dissolve in a lukewarm soup of ennui, bored balloons filled with hubris rather than helium. Fragile dolls with flaking bones and hair and skin like flowers wilting, weighed down by indomitable wills and insecurities... these plastic girls starve to death and diabetes in the car b

The Price of Dying“I want to be interred after I die,” Mr. Peters said. He made that clear to his family while he was still lucid, before old age and illness rendered him unintelligible. Seventy wasn’t that old, but he recognized the symptoms that were creeping up on his ailing body – the aches, the fatigue, the feeling of helplessness and despair. Despite his daughter’s attempts to assuage his concerns, he sensed his own mortality.
The worst part about dying, Mr. Peters thought, was what happened afterwards. Even since he was a small boy, he had been afraid of fire. He could never forget the scorching heat of the orange flames searing his skin, the dark billowing smoke entering his nostrils. The time that his house burned down, the fire almost took him with it. How ironic then, to escape the fire only to be fed into it after death.
So one day, he sat his son and daughter down after dinner. “I want to be buried whole,” he said, emphasizing the

Across the Sea and Around the KotatsuSpring

Taco Rice

Mom starts with rice. Japanese rice, one, two, three Japanese cup-fulls of rice grains into the cooker, because Sis eats a lot of this stuff. It's one of her favorite dishes, taco rice, and Mom's always happy to make it for her because it's the only way Sis will eat her tomatoes. But back to the rice. "You want to rinse at least three or four times, until the water's kind of clear," Mom says as she cups her hand under the cooker pot, letting the cloudy water wash over her hand.

Rice cooking's easy though – just fill enough water to the point the rice's covered, punch in a time (or set it to "Quick Cook," which with our cre

for onceCold

blackempty

like the cavern where crimson vellum once resided

Drenched in reticence,
your empty blue eyes do nothing
but freeze the blood in these veins

surrounded by phantoms,
i lie in the dark next to your fading silhouette
between sheets that hold so many memories,
they are empty,

like the chestnut eyes that bore into yours

And as the rain falls harder
as it falls faster

washing down the streets
through deep alleys,
down endless roads,

for

once

just

once

i pray it takes me with

The Finest Casket (Complete Story)The chandlers, grocers, butchers, clothiers, and every other merchant in Chantsville was yelling in the streets outside the shop where I was studiously working. Their ruckus combined with the bleats and squawks of livestock wandering underfoot, creating a bustling racket that would drive the unfamiliar ear to distraction.

I was used to the noise, however, and I was so engrossed in my work that I would have sworn the world was silent save for the sound of my chisel biting into the oak box before me. Delicate curls fell from my worktable, collecting in small drifts upon the dirt floor.

I stopped to wipe sweat from my face. The pause gave me a

The Best is Yet to Comeif we grow old
there will be a sigh
an attention to the change
as your muscles slacken underneath
your faded, favorite shirt
the one that's threadbare, "holy"
in a sense less than divine
I'll have washed it for
the thousandth time
our eyes will crinkle, wrinkle
in ways that start to match
and we'll hold hands and ask:
when did the nerves and veins
begin to let our hands get cold?
-if we grow old

a second skeletoni. introduction

i was born 4425 miles away from here.
my heart still lingers there.
i don't want to have it back.

i go through the motions,
don't ask me for emotions.

i once thought i could be happy,
my mistake can be forgiven;
i was so much younger.

now i know better
than to expect anything.
because the only time you can lose,
is when you love something.

that's why i love myself.

Mono.One morning a black pillar appeared in the center of town, within the boundaries of the park and right outside of the library. It stood at least thirteen feet tall and was as wide as a mature oak. They deduced it was made out of some kind of polished stone. Some guessed it was obsidian; others argued it was too strong to be such a fragile stone. It could have been granite, but when was the last time you saw black granite in that quantity, and in that shape?

"We should knock it down and drag it away!" someone shouted.

But they were too afraid to touch it.

"Why not just leave it here?" another sugg

Ottumwa ShamanIn Iowa, weeping willows dream of
Tigers, born in pagan fog, their
Coat of stripes singing shaman
Songs; shrill symphonies of grief.
Heaven tilts, crashes, and we race
The dirt to get away. We drink the
Earth with bullets of air and grow
Dizzy, light-headed from breathing
Some far off flame. Perhaps a poet
Who braved the fog of Ottumwa, and
Caught fire. Every cowboy has his
Six chances before high noon, before
The fog forms wispy jackals to take
Them home again. Every son inherits
An empty gun, six voids to fill with
Answers, skimmed and guessed from the
Covers of books their fathers used
To read. There is no other way.
In s

Gnome Noir  "I did it for the money and I did it for the girl.
        Well, I didn't get the money – and I didn't get the girl."
::  Walter Neff - Double Indemnity
So I point the flintlock at the guy – and that's no easy thing, big musket like that on a little gnome like me – and I peer down the sight. Not many people know what it's like to stare at a man through a glass. But in those sacred moments, the whole world takes a breath and it's just you and him. I line up the shot, and I think about the girl, and--

What? That is the start. What do you want, Sheriff, my life story?

Alright, well, I'm Gniles Brody the Third – that's

i think we've got it bad.the long dirty road has wheels printed into it and buildings jutting from its sides, cars stopping completely, submissive to all the too-bright light. it's freezing but i feel okay, i feel whole. i feel like i could step outside of myself and the numbness of it all wouldn't let anything touch me. the essence of me. the idea of me.

you wait for me under the street signs with your heeled shoes and too much black smeared around your eyes. it makes you look sad but maybe you want to look sad i don't really know. your hugs feel like a mother's. we're going to a party, some great musician's with golden toilets in his loft that likes prostituted gi

Whiskey Laden DreamsBitter eyes and tears might taint a drink, but sitting in this bar alone with your stool pulled out next to me, and the Martini poured regardless of your presence still brings a smile to my face; despite the taste. I'm having a whiskey myself; dry. Yes, I know I don't drink, but every once in a while you need whiskey to solve an intricate problem, and mine is the distinct lack of alcohol in my life.

There are people everywhere and it amazes me how none of them are you, from the woman in the black dress coming down the stairs to the signing couple in the corner, laughing silently. They're not you at all, and that's what's amazing – in an

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The First TemptationDrop off the edge.

It's easier than you think, easier than you know and less tempting that was painted on your eyelids this morning. It's not what it's cracked up to be. Any madman could see through the lattice, connect those dots and slice through the lies and misdeeds, the burning fire where countless others have simply been snuffed out.

There.

You're getting closer, aren't you? It's not that you haven't seen the edge. It's that you were always tutored to believe the edge was the antithesis of an edge; that it was a wall; vast, bricked and inscrutable.

It never has been.

There's not much method to my madness; I'm a voice amongst ma

The Five Skin ThudI am flying.

My wings beat once, terribly. The wind shakes with its passing. All the while, my ankle slams down, making minute adjustments, preparing for the fall ahead. I hang, as the wind shrieks by my face and gravity waits to snatch me from my lofty heights.

Here comes the plunge.

Biceps curling in stress, they slash and hack at the moving air. Adrenaline blasts through my bulging veins across my corded arms. Across my legs too, though I can't see them. They are too busy pumping on, endlessly. Tirelessly. They are machines of their own, and I have no volition over them. I start them.

They stop themselves.

As usual, my eyes remain clo

Pier 19 One word after another has built him a pier of adoring actresses, handwritten invitations, red-carpet photos and intrigue. This pier has withstood the scandals and numerous forlorn mistresses, pretenders and contenders, but it has not withstood the insurrection of its own great support beams.

This pier stands ready to crumble.

There is no ship on the horizon.

***

It's the day after the viewing that he sprawls from the yellow, mud-splattered taxi. His suit is still stained; the champagne eating away at the usual taxi's miasma of cheap cigarettes and week-old vomit. One dance too many has turned his toes numb. They slip and slide thr

SeasideWaves crash outside the French window.

They stir up the dark polished wooden drawing room of the single-floored beachside cottage. Lace curtains pulled back to savour the salt tang and the cream-coloured dunes waver and shiver in a cold wind. The north wind is coming off the gigantic swells and wine-dark sea blackening with the fleet of clouds sailing over his house, over the still crystal beach.

There's a storm coming.

A table sits against the massive thrown-open window, darkening with the gloom. Such power! Such fury is about to be unleashed across the seashore! Even from

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Submitted: October 29, 2012
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The Last Song

by ~DodgingTheBeat, Oct 29, 2012, 4:23:15 PM
Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

Do you think we'll get a last song?

I'm not sure.  This diary I'm writing in is full of holes.  It's sopping like a wet sponge.  It reeks, but what doesn't in the filth and the mess?

Storm's passing.  Not like I've ever seen here.  Even the explosive storms of my youth; running in the fields, the junkyards, the rust-ravaged train tracks of old wasn't quite like this.

Something's exploded against the skyline.  Orange is reflecting off the glass; the spider-striped, near shattered glass I kicked two weeks ago while mowing the grass.

It might be the gas works.  Or the chemical sheds.  Weyrdstorms do this, you know.  That's what the warnings said.  Electricity and chaos and hellish atomic confusion mixed into an atmospheric slurry and let to rage.  I ask the question because music's the one thing I'm yearning for right now.  It settles me, helps me think.  Always has, though keeping my sister's sniveling furthest from my head might be an ulterior motive.

Do I think I'm escaping this place alive?  Not sure; my heart's trying to tug up my head full of figures.  No off switch in a head such as mine, more's the pity.  The tendrils of pure force will crush this place, this house full of creaking baseboards and tougher, fonder memories.  Then the creatures will come.  First the shambling wrecks of the storm, the ones the Army's been mentioning in the flyers.  I'm worried about the ones that come after.  The rain-coated family men with their shovels and weasel words.  No lie is too great with the demands of a young life, sandwiched between Red Cross blankets and the ruins and the horrors.  Nothing deserves that fate, I'll admit.  But I'm not going to hold my head up high when that world of mud and timber and ashfault and the slapdash helicopter's silhouette themselves against the pounding rain.

There's not much to do but sit.  Mom's away.  Dad's in the corner.

Do I want a last song?  Will it anchor my sweaty mortal form to the shifting, uncanny ground?

Probably not.  But there's an infusion of beauty in the notes between chords and words and atmospheres constructed in ignorance of any storm.

There's a beauty to it all.

A rhythmn.

My hands are fumbling the record.

God I'm cold.  Flip it.

Its-

The Last Songby ~DodgingTheBeat

Literature / Prose / Fiction / General Fiction / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

Written after reading of the weather reports on the Atlantic Coast- best of wishes, folks.

This is post-apocalyptic/speculative fiction after a fashion.

This is also the first piece I have EVER handwritten. EVER. This is a direct copy from my notebook.

Daily Deviation

Given 2013-02-18

From the suggester: "the writing and force of description leave nothing to be desired" in The Last Song by ~DodgingTheBeat. ( Suggested by *xlntwtch and Featured by ^neurotype )

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~oviedomedina Feb 18, 2013

Really captures tht "interrupted last diary entry" feel and mood.
Excellent!

~DodgingTheBeat Feb 18, 2013 Writer

Thank you!

~oviedomedina Feb 19, 2013

No problem!

~PaniCrusnik09 Feb 18, 2013

Eloquent and disturbing.

~DodgingTheBeat Feb 18, 2013 Writer

Thanks!

`JamminJo Feb 18, 2013 Photographer

Sensational Work of Art

Congratulations on your DD Feature

~DodgingTheBeat Feb 18, 2013 Writer

Thanks!

`JamminJo Feb 18, 2013 Photographer

You are very welcome

~Love-Strength Feb 18, 2013 Hobbyist Writer

This is very powerful, how the main character contemplates whether or not he will be recognized in the dystopia he lives in. The well written layout of the story only adds to the emotion and despair. Wonderful job my friend ^.^

~DodgingTheBeat Feb 18, 2013 Writer

Thank you!

It's weird...this piece just sort of came to me. As I've said below, it was a spur-of-the-moment reaction to a BBC article I'd been reading while waiting for coffee to brew on the horrible hurricane that struck New York City back in October. I sorta wondered...if the power was going to fail, and death was assured, what would your last song be?
I didn't plan this. Hell, the final draft of this was the original notebook draft, with two words changed. It just sorta...happened.

Anyhow, thanks so much for reading and commenting!

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