Microwave Oven on 7/12/2017 at 03:00
Dan stared in shock. It was so obvious now. The squirrels! It was the damn squirrels!
Mr.Duck on 7/12/2017 at 09:27
I picked the gun. It was, after all, the easier choice.
McTaffer on 15/12/2017 at 00:25
Hello dear reader
Some haikus are meaningful
But this one isn't
Queue on 29/12/2017 at 00:30
I refuse to let this idea die, though in hindsight it should die a horrible death...screaming in agony...pissing its self...coughing up blood....
Hemingway's Ghost
Here they are. They come to my house, come to seek me, come to profess their admiration for my work and celebrate my life; celebrate my contributions to literature. Contributions to literature—if I had to do it all over again I would have been a pig farmer, at least they would have left me alone to do my work.
They run roughshod through my house, phones in hand, are they even still called a 'phone' now? They run amok through my house, my home on the corner of Whitehead and Southard, the little place Pauline's rich uncle bought for a wedding gift, the place where I went to get away from them all to work and fish and live, the place at the end of the country where I was able to warm my bones.
They all love me. They all love my work, because they all love literature and reading as much as I did. So groups of them cram into the rooms of my house, the house I built a brick wall around to keep people out, and climb the narrow steps with the now loose and rickety ornate handrail that wobbles unsurely from all those whom come to seek me out because of my work and how much it touches them and how much it means to them, electronic devices in hand; and all I can do is sit back and watch.
I watch from the shadows as one tour guide after another tells their same slightly inaccurate portrayal of the thing over and over to jammed groups of people whom have each paid $16.00 dollars a pop to see where Papa lived and worked, though discounted for kids, though kids don't come, they have better things to do. Day after day they come, each one with $16 dollars in hand, and extra money or lines of credit for the gift shop to buy my books, because my writing means something; to buy books about me, because I meant something; to buy trinkets to give as gifts or to sit on shelves gathering dust.
They take they tour, barely listening to what the tour guide has to say unless there is a cat involved. People always give their fullest attention to the cats, especially the Asians and Europeans who have traveled across great oceans in the lap of luxury to be here, disembarking in Mallory Square where street performers draw applause and walk away with hats full of cash and coin, and bums sleep in the shade without enough cash or coin to get the drink they so badly need. They come here because they love reading so much, and take pictures of the pictures on the walls, never once reading any of the captions. They're here because of me. My mug hangs down from every wall, yet I somehow feel as if I were fading away. They photograph themselves and each other and the cat on the bed. They photograph the non-existent walkway to my writing loft. They photograph the tour guide as he gives his tour. They photograph yet another lizard that can be found everywhere on the island. They photograph the pool and the penny and the signs about people I knew and the things I did. They photograph the toilet.
They view whats left of my world through an uninvited lens instead of the books I wrote; and yet, somehow I'm more popular than ever. My image looms down large at Sloppy Joes, and both Joe and I have been gone for years.
But they all love my writing. I overheard a couple of ladies ask a man in the giftshop, "Do you actually read his books? We never have." They were a couple of older ladies, older than the man they were questioning. They were shocked that he actually reads my work. He must be a misogynist.
All I ever wanted was to be left alone to do my work, and for people to read my work. And because of that, I'm more popular than ever. I'm still the most popular writer in the world whom no one reads.
And people still wonder to this day why I killed myself.
(end)
Tocky on 30/12/2017 at 01:48
Death is over rated. I enjoy your writing. Here then is a companion piece.
There is no Bradbury's Ghost
Here is no one and nothing. Nobody comes to see the house where so much imagination was poured into every line of spare prose. There are no lines of gawkers at his desk so full of the memorabilia there was hardly a place to type. All the emotion invested in each piece is swept away to dusty college bequeathment. All his life an investment in emotion. From the shear joy of being alive in "Dandelion Wine" to the courage of letting go that precious gift in "Endless Summer" his fans tasted their own mortality in all it's glory and wonder and wanted more as well they should. As well he meant they should.
But no feet tread the path his wife planted her roses by. No buses unload legions of passengers seeking a taste of his life, some trace of magic left on the things he touched, to take home. And there was magic by the bucket, by the bushel, by the truck load. It came to him every morning as he rose from his simple bed that none will now see. Ideas lit upon him like the loving rays of an endless sun. He accepted them as one would the morning paper and sat down to work.
Complex notions of every variety to win him awards he graciously accepted but set aside in search of the next notion. Things he never cared for except as those things brought out the best of us. And now there are no things. No pipe with faint odor of an evening smoke where the idea of burning pages drifted out and away to stain all humanity with warning. No veldt outside the living room window to draw ones sight and senses. No kite in that sky to strain it's own will against the pull of a young boy named Nightshade.
There are no ghosts for the one who wrote of so many and was haunted by them in every deed and depth. No faint impression marks the chair where a thought came to him too horrible to mention and he could not wait to mention it. No worn place in carpet where he paced wishing for one last hug from his father so much that he would take one from the grave. All that he was is gone.
All that remains where his house stood is the hole created by the monumental vanity, itself a hole in the man Thom Payne, that wiped away the vestiges of his life. We have his words and they are enough. More than enough.
Sulphur on 4/5/2020 at 16:07
I hate poetry. Here is a product of this very hatred, uncomely and misbegotten.
noctis
in the quiet it's the things most wretched;
what is night but liquid dark and lustrous
welling from a weeping wound inflicted
by the plain forbearance of the day.
i'm afraid of all these little plays
a thousand deaths by a thousand cuts
i'm afraid of what my wife doesn't say
i'm afraid of what I want, alone
there's not anything to be done
or so I believe; yet this unpleasant
need wracks me in sweat and worry
to be told pain is a concept, non-existent
we had twenty-four hours to the day once
eight to somnus, ten to ex machina,
six to bookend helen and paris
before we settled for willy and linda
now with our days undivided, I
fear for our dreams that somehow
united into something lesser
than the sum of their thousand parts
i'm afraid to talk about this
i'm afraid that when I turn to speak
after night has run its rivered stain
across twenty centuries of stony sleep
that when she wakes up, head pillowed in her arm
and sees by her side not someone who could have been
and wasn't,
but worse --
never was.
rachel on 5/5/2020 at 12:08
I've started a micro-story based sci-fi thingy on Twitter based on the #vss365 prompt word. Basically you get a word every day and try to write a micro-story using this word that fits in a tweet. I call it Embarcadero. Today was Chapter 25. :)
<iframe width="500" height="280" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="" src="https://embed.wattpad.com/story/220724855" ></iframe>
Mr.Duck on 6/5/2020 at 05:43
Dog bites man. Man gets rabies. Man bites dog. Both die. Cirle of Life, baby.