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Monkey at the Piano
May 17, 2007 in 299 Words, Family, Fiction, Flash Fiction, Life, Literature, novels, Poetry, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Joy, Memory, Music, Parade | by davidbdale | 11 comments
How I love the world in all its ripe green beauty and all the people on its skin who cheer me with their thoughtless kindness! The sun pours down like pancake syrup. The grass comes up like grass in a dream. Today is my birthday, again; I’ve never been older. I’ll celebrate with a vigorous parade as far as my legs can take me. This time I may never stop walking. March with me down the boulevard (the street, to be honest) and kick your knees high as we strut through the town of my childhood. Wave to the crowds on the sidewalks! Can you whistle? Do you own a bassoon? I want to make music that sounds like it’s coming from just down the street and follow it into the rest of my life. Whichever way we turn becomes the parade route. This was my driveway. This was my yard, where I lay out one night in a shower of stars and wondered if anyone would miss me. Left is the school where I learned how the Lord made the day and the night; right is the school where I heard He had died. Here is the boss who taught me that work is just work and in no way its own reward. There is the house of the girl who said yes and her sister. We’ve gathered a boisterous crowd: marching bands and dogs on stilts and a monkey at the piano. The shopkeepers rejoice to see us. The bells on their registers ring when we come through the doors with our elephants! Everyone sings: Oh, remember me when I’m gone! Put the town behind me and I’m gone so long! Never thought the feeling would remain so strong. Something’s terribly, terribly wrong. Something’s quietly, horribly wrong.
Copyright © May 17, 2007
Funny Pink Animals
March 24, 2007 in 299 Words, Fiction, Flash Fiction, novels, Poetry, Short stories, Stories, Very Short Novels, Writing | Tags: Animal, Beast, Beauty, Comedy, Cry, Eye Contact, Fantasy, Human, Laugh, Love, Mercy, Romance, Satire, Sex | by davidbdale | 8 comments
Let’s all have a laugh at humanity, while we still have a sense of humor about us. It’s getting dark out there, my friends, where we make what we call our livings, but here in the room, where our private movies are staged and we are stars, it’s blindingly brightly lighted by design, mirrored and multiply-reflected, white on pink on stark white sheets and shadows flee before us. Still. We’re funny. Could we be naked and not be funny? Seen in our entirety, with back-story and motives, we’re charming and slightly ridiculous. Our mismatched genes, those cross-wired brains, these farcical downward story arcs make us sympathetic supporting characters if not small heroes, certainly not villains, but from an individual angle, directly overhead from a distance of, say, here to the mirror on the ceiling, we look exactly like the funny animals we are, pink and poignant, poking one another. In the mirror to the side of the bed, I catch a glimpse of a creature that has no business in my fantasy. He’s not at all how I pictured myself just now with my eyes closed playing for romance and yet, he’s doing exactly what I think I’m doing to this gorgeous reflection of you, and yes, you look indisputably fantastic, identical and fine, here and in the mirror, so who’s that stand-in with my haircut, doing such an unconvincing impression of me? Tomorrow we take down all this diminishing glass. We’ll do what we’ve always done. My eyes will be your only mirror, yours mine. We’ll look at each other and find ourselves. And just before we start to laugh, we’ll catch a glimmer of how we’re loved and get a sense of why. Then when we laugh, we’ll laugh until we cry like no animal we know.
Copyright © March 24, 2007 David Hodges
Very Short Novels 