"Let's Be Friends Instead"

Disclaimer: These aren't really called red-spider flowers, nor do they "behave" the way the flowers in this piece do, nor were spiders even the first thing I thought of when I saw them the other day.

Every spring, the red-spider flowers climbed over each other for the privilege of falling. It was an honor to be the one to initiate that sense of wonder in people by falling down first or, failing that, to later catch someone's eye by falling down alone, poetically. The red-spider flowers were always quite vicious to each other, trying to crowd one another out even as buds, except for a day one April when two blossoms growing next to each other in a cluster decided that enough was enough; life was too short, especially for something as beautiful as a flower. And so, unnoticed among the red petal rain falling in the park that day, two flowers tangled their stems together and took a plunge in the name of friendship.

"Kiss the Pavement"

Convention weekends and their aftermaths make for really short blog entries, it seems.

It was funny, at least afterward, the way time had seemed to slow for Brandon while he was falling. I like skateboarding, he recalled thinking as the ground came up close, I just don't think I like it this much. 

"Moving and Shaking"

 

The sign read "No Beverages," and Caroline knew she wouldn't be able to make it to the car and back before the interview. She poured the last of her coffee onto the lawn and then flung the cup into the can nearby. Instantly the ground began to shake. "Coffee," came a voice as deep as clay, "oh, my God, finally." And so began the morning.

"The Color Museum"

 

 

Before the Great Leaching, I used to love the color of a stone called rose rock. When we go to the museum tomorrow, I'm going to ask one of the curators if she has that color somewhere in the collection. I hope someone managed to find it and keep it safe.

"The Oddities Market"

 

She had heard that a lot of people-watching took place at the oddities market. Only when she stopped to look at the merchandise, and the merchandise turned to look back, did she understand what that meant.

"Oh, the Places You Won't Go"

Got a bag almost ready for C2E2! An 'Infamous' bag, no less!

Alex knew what she risked by running in the store, and she saw the look the old man in the "World History" section gave her, but she couldn't afford to be late. She turned so quickly down the hallway where the bathrooms were that she was running with her body at an angle. Only when she came to the spot between the door marked "Women" and the door marked "Men" did she stop. She stood in front of a third door, which appeared only once every month, tapped a precise and musical rhythm on its surface, and entered when it opened. Inside, next to a swirling, pulsing purple vortex, the gate agent sat behind his table.

Alex approached the table and emptied the contents of her backpack. Dried flowers, a picture of her house, a letter opener, a set of keys that worked with no lock that she could find, and one of her little brother's baby teeth came out of the main pouch. A towel, a bottle of water, a pair of socks, and a change of underwear came from the front. The gate agent almost looked amused, though it was difficult for Alex to tell for certain, as he appeared to be have been carved from onyx.

"I brought everything I need," Alex said to him. "Please let me through before it closes."

Was the gate agent still amused, Alex wondered, or had he turned sad? "I'm sorry," he told her, "but this isn't what I need to see. I can't admit you at this time. Please collect your belongings and move to the side."

Alex couldn't speak, even though her mouth was open. The gate agent tipped his head toward the stuff cluttering his table, and Alex, bewildered, swept it back into her bag with a huff. As she stepped away, she saw the old man from "World History" enter the room, an enormous hardcover in his hands.

He saw her, of course, but in the light of the portal his raised eyebrow looked to Alex no longer dismissive, but mischievous. "Had to go shopping before I came here," he said. "I mean, whoever heard of traveling without a book?"

The old man winked at her and faced the gate agent, spreading his book open in his hands, leaving her to run, run, faster than a whisper, back into the store with the hope that, this time, she could go somewhere.

"The Best Baker in All the Land"

 

The baker knew as soon as she took it from the oven that the bread was perfect. It smelled of honey and wheat and earth transformed; its edges were so golden and smooth that it made her think of her lover and blush. Without slicing into it, she could imagine what it was like on the inside--flaky, warm, light as a sunbeam. It was easily the best thing she had ever baked.

She sealed the bread inside a wrapper and shut it inside a cabinet. There was no way she could eat it.

But she could tell her friends and a few of her favorite customers about it. They noticed the sweetly lingering scent of the bread when they visited her at the bakery over the following days. She mentioned the new recipe to them, letting some of her excitement slip into her voice whenever she did. Each of them insisted that they had to try some of this marvelous creation.

In response, the baker would shake her head and wave her hand. "I can't serve that until I'm sure that I can do something that well again. Here, let me give you something else I've been working on." And she would set on a plate a fruit tart, or a slice of marble cake, that the person would sample and instantly crow over, saying that if this was how one of her regular offerings tasted, surely that special bread must be divine.

It didn't take long for the baker's reputation to grow, spreading throughout the city and into the distant countryside. Soon, people were tracking dust from faraway lands onto the town's streets as they headed toward the baker's tiny shop. Those who regularly enjoyed her apple bars and her macaroons swore that each day's goods tasted better than the last. Yet when asked about the baker's specialty, few could say anything about it, other than that the scent of it was rumored to be something out of Heaven's kitchen.

It was on an afternoon when the baker was baking more of the eclairs that had left the mayor in tears that she went looking in her cabinet for more ingredients and found the bread. Moisture had seeped through the wrapper; the green mold covering the bread made it look like a hill in a shepherd's field. For a minute, she grieved. Then she looked at the first tray of eclairs she had made and shrugged. She cut the mold away, threw the rest of the bread to the pigeons in the alley, and returned to the work she had yet to do, becoming in that quiet moment the best baker in all the land.

"Then It Will Be Safe"

 

Little Em could hear their yelps and screams all the way in the corner where he usually lurked. With sunset fast approaching, he figured it would be safe to try to sneak a look, so he crept along the wall and climbed up to the windowsill. He had just brought his eyes to the level of the glass when he felt a claw close around his ankle and drag him to the floor.

He looked up from where he had landed and saw his grandmother, bent like the moon, standing over him. "What did I tell you about going out before dark?" she snapped. "What did I tell you about the children? You know what they'll do to you."

Little Em rolled his bright red eyes. "They'll make me ride bicycles and eat ice cream," he dutifully intoned.

"Darn straight they will," said Gram. "Now crawl back through the cracks and practice scratching on the walls."

Little Em ambled toward the shadows while his grandmother marched behind him. He didn't tell her that, before his tumble, he had managed to catch sight of them, because then he'd have to admit that they were every bit as horrible as the stories made them sound. Yet despite their toothy smiles and their upright walk, Little Em still found himself dogged by the notion that children weren't completely awful. All those stories about eating ice cream had to be fake. Maybe, he thought, if no one was watching later while he played under the bed, he'd go see what there was to see. It will be dark, he told himself, suddenly feeling brave. Then it will be safe.

"Breaking the Rules"

I'll have to go back to get a better picture of this. But this is where a nearby creek continues into the rest of the town's drainage system. The cement walls at the entrance to the tunnel are covered with graffiti.

What makes me nervous isn't the idea that Leese has brought me down here only two days after we met; it isn't even the sound of the cans rattling against each other in her backpack. It's the sight of her littering. Two bags of chips and a package of trail mix have already been emptied into her stomach; the wrappers have fluttered to the ground like dead leaves; and I see them and wonder what kind of person I've cast my dice with. I bend and swing around her, holding on to the trees that line the creekside slope as if I'm looking for support up a mountain instead of picking up trash. When we get close, though, I feel those strange channels open up between us, and I remember why we were pulled toward each other, and what made us decide to try this.

"Aimee. Don't worry about those yet," she says, tapping my shoulder. "You should be eating something. I don't want you to get sick."

"I don't think I can eat." I tilt my head to try to see her watch. It's neon pink plastic, a fine accessory for someone trying to avoid being noticed. Again, I wonder. "How much longer until sunset?"

She brings her wrist close to her face. "Just a few minutes more."

"Stupid rules," I say.

Leese shrugs. "Some rules are better than others. Some are okay to break." I turn my body toward her, and it's like all of a sudden I've made a discovery, because she's kissing me, and it makes complete sense. It's as if I'm a scientist (oh my god did I really just think that how am I getting kissed) and I've just discovered some concept essential to how the world works, like photosynthesis. We're so bright that I imagine everybody on the planet is going to see us. I can't tell how much of this is something I feel because this is the first time I've been kissed.

"You really think there's a rule against us kissing?" I ask when we break away. "Or was that just your bad pick-up line?"

Leese smiles. "It's that I'm sure there's some rule against kissing next to a drainage pipe." She winks at me and reaches up for a nearby branch, which she grasps as if she's swinging from monkey bars as she begins to walk toward the tunnel. "Sunset," she says over her shoulder. "Start picking up the wrappers."

I stare at her. "Wait, all of that, and now you're going to leave me on garbage detail?"

"You're the decoy. If anyone comes looking. You're the concerned teenager doing her part for the environment." Leese has made it to the mouth of the runoff pipe and is pressing herself against the cement walls of its exterior, making sure she's hard to see from the road above, not that anyone has turned this way in a while. "Beats what I have to do," she says, taking a can of spray paint out of her bag.

It's a lazy Sunday evening, and most of the people who live in this subdivision are at home, preparing for dinner and contemplating the week ahead, except that I'm here, collecting junk from the undergrowth near the creek, and Leese is a few feet away, doing some graffiti work on an entrance to the town's sewer system. I try not to look at her, try to pretend she's not there, but it's hard. I keep catching sight of her twirling the cans, and I imagine her in the Old West with a pair of revolvers she keeps holstered on her hips.

"How's it going?" I ask after I pick up the last wrapper I see.

Two short blasts of air, and then I hear her laugh. "It's good," she says. "Quick."

I stuff the wrappers in my pocket and run to her across the low part of the slope, over twigs and shallow water. I arrive at her side and see adorning the cement the symbol we've spent the past two days studying. I take her hand.

"You ready?" Leese asks.

I give her hand a squeeze. "Probably not," I say, grabbing hold of a tree.

We recite the words we learned, the language scratching our throats as it climbs its way out of us. We each place a palm on the wet paint. A light appears in the drainage pipe as if from a door that just opened. Faster than anything, all the rules to explain the world that I thought I learned when Leese kissed me suddenly break and give way, just like the branches to which we've been clinging.

"The Hulder-Maiden"

 

[A good source of information about the hulder-folk is D'Aulaires' Book of Trolls, where I learned the story of hulder-women luring humans onto their mystical farms to live in exchange for their souls. This site also has some info about them: http://www.orkneyjar.com/folklore/finfolk/huldre.htm]

The hulder-maiden knew, as she walked into town from the hill under which she lived, that she would stand out among those surroundings and confuse whoever saw her. For one thing, she was gliding along serenely in her skirt, boots, and loose-cut top, while the people outside were shaking their heads with concern at the flood waters filling their town's streets. For another, her tail was showing. It kept slipping out from beneath the hem of her skirt.

A man standing with a camera at the edge of a deeply submerged playground glanced first at the hulder-maiden's tail, then up at her. She stopped in the street to regard him as he took her picture. When he lowered his camera, she saw that he was frowning. She was undeterred.

"It's been a terrible week," she said, joining him at the side of the playground. "I'm sorry for everything your town's been through."

The man's frown relaxed a bit, though he still held his suspicion in front of him like a sword at the ready. "Yeah, well," he said, kicking a stone, "I suppose we got off lucky here, considering everything that's been going on. But still. More and more, as much as I like this world, I just don't think I get it." Hearing that, the hulder-maiden hoped to snare his gaze, by which she would make him love her and then ferry him off to her home beneath the hill. She turned, though, and saw that his gaze had traveled ahead of hers and was stopped at the hairs of her tail, which swept over the sidewalk like the bristles of a broom.

"Can I ask why you're in costume?" he asked, his frown once again tight.

The hulder-maiden thought about how to answer this. "It's not so much a costume as it is... cultural wear," she said carefully. "I simply wished to call to mind thoughts of my homeland during these trying times. It's a lovely place. The fields are always golden, and the cows are always giving milk. The air is just cold enough to make you feel alive."

"And the women have tails," the man said.

The hulder-maiden smiled. "There are many differences between here and there."

The man narrowed his eyes, crouched, and, facing the playground, lifted his camera. "This place you come from sounds pretty incredible," he said. "Is it far?"

"Not at all," said the hulder-maiden. "You could likely walk the distance."

"You don't say. I've never heard of a place like that around here. Tell me, how do you get there?"

The hulder-maiden drew in her breath. "You simply give up your soul."

The man stood so quickly that the hulder-maiden imagined a whip being drawn into a fierce crack and was overtaken by the thought. "Okay, listen," said the man. "I don't know what you're playing at, or if you're making some kind of threat or what, but let me tell you this: you and I are here right now, and in this land, we deal with things like floods and bombings and whatever, and we come back big and strong because that's what happens to our souls when we carry all of that around all the time. So please, please don't tell me that you're some kind of terrorist or something crazy like that, because you are absolutely the most beautiful person I've talked to in a long time, and I don't want to think that someone like you has given up on this world, too."

The man stepped back. He brought his hands to his head and pulled his hair, as if he could pull himself up and keep from collapsing inside. "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. I don't know where that came from," he said. "It's just, this week--are you all right? Are you okay?"

The hulder-maiden backed away as well. "I'm fine," she said. "I'm sorry. Thank you." Then she turned and ran, thinking of the stories the old hulder-folk told, of the hulder-maidens who had married into man's society and were baptized, who along with the waters of baptism had been given souls. She ran all the way back to the hill she called hers, unsure of what the words spoken between her and the man meant, but feeling heavy and wondering if what she was feeling inside her was like flood water starting to rise.

"The Next Big Thing Is Here"

 

The sculptor ran his fingers over the words he had engraved onto the mirrored surface. Then, with a sigh, he took his screwdriver from the pocket of his vest, crouched, and began working to liberate his sculpture from the pedestal that had supported it for the past several months.

It was because each side of the cube he had crafted bore a mirror that he saw the two boys approaching from the other side of the garden. As long and lean as they were, he assumed that their reflections were being pulled thin because of the distance--"Objects in Mirror Are More Awkwardly Adolescent Than They Appear." Only when the boys were next to the sculptor, and he stood to acknowledge them, did he realize that the mirror had actually diminished their gangliness.

One boy said to him, "So did you, like, put this here?"

"Nope," the sculptor replied cheerfully, "I'm just looting and pilfering." The boys looked at each other sideways, and the sculptor eased his stance into something approaching friendliness. "I made this last year," he told them, "and then I set up here back in April. So yeah, I put it here."

"Okay, so," the same boy said. He shifted on the balls of his feet. "What is it?"

The sculptor let his shoulders fall. "Look, if I have to explain public art to you, it's already a lost cause."

The boys said nothing, confirming every little voice speaking out in the sculptor's head. But then the second stepped forward, his arms crossed in front of his chest like a shield. "You don't have to explain it," he said, "but is it, like, metaphor?"

As an artist, the sculptor sometimes felt as if he owed it to the world to look upon it with pity. He tried not to reveal this thought as he spoke. "Okay, here's what I was thinking about this work," he said, stepping toward them as if laying out a secret. "It's shaped like a box, right?" The boys looked at the cube and nodded. "With boxes, we're all taught to think about what's inside them. And with the words 'The Next Big Thing Is Here' on it, you assume that the Next Big Thing is inside, whatever it is." He raised a hand and lifted a finger. "But the whole cube is mirrored. All the world around the cube becomes part of the Here. And that means that anything we see around us can be the Next Big Thing. Even--" he folded his hands together "--the person looking at the cube."

The two boys glanced at each other. "So you're trying to get people to think outside the box," said Boy Number Two.

The sculptor's hands separated, and his fingers spread apart like the rays of a firework; suddenly, nothing was as it seemed in the mirror, which made everything around him wonderful. "Yes," he said, his eyes and mouth gone wide, "yes, exactly!"

"Nice," the first boy said as he and his friend turned to leave. As they walked away, the sculptor heard the second one say, "This whole time I thought it was an ad for something." And then the sculptor sighed once more and took his screwdriver to the base of the sculpture, because he didn't want to think about everything being screwed.

"One Big, Fat, Juicy Apple, Part Two"

 

[I wish I could do justice writing about the large events rippling through the world right now. Until then, I go with the little moments that I know. Hope you're all well.]

Nailah's mother knew things that Nailah herself did not. Nailah understood this fact perfectly and hated it. Something about apples in particular made her mother suspicious, and not even all the books in the library could distract Nailah from trying to find out what it was when they made their afternoon visit.

"Mommy," Nailah said as they entered the children's room hand in hand, "I like apples."

Her mother laughed. "I figured as much, since you made a song about it."

They made their way to a pair of beanbag chairs. "They're really juicy," said Nailah.

"So I've heard."

Her mother handed her a cardboard picture book, which she accepted but kept closed as she pondered what else to say. "I like how they're big," she finally offered. "When I hold them in my hand? They're big."

"That they are," said her mother.

"And hard."

Her mother glanced up from her novel.

"And..." Nailah rummaged through her thoughts for all the words that belonged to apples. "Crunchy?" she said.

Nailah's mother leaned forward. She took Nailah's picture book, opened it to the first page, and handed it back.

"Try reading this for a while," she said. "You know, if you had gone with something like 'smooth,' I probably would have had to ground you." She leaned back in her beanbag and returned to reading her novel, while Nailah, completely dissatisfied with the simple illustrations in her picture book, peered over the top of it at the pages her mother was reading, trying to divide those chunks of words into slivers, desperate to digest that tempting fruit, knowledge.

"One Big, Fat, Juicy Apple"

 

"There you go," Araceli said, setting the plate in front of her daughter, "one big, fat, juicy apple."

The apple had actually been cut into slivers better suited for Nailah's little pink petal fingers, but she didn't seem to mind. Nailah giggled and smiled, and Araceli turned to rinse an apple for herself under the kitchen faucet. When she glanced back, however, she discovered that Nailah's delight had little to do with the snack she'd been given.

"Nailah!" Araceli said. "What are you doing with Mommy's phone?"

Instead of placing the phone in Araceli's open hand, Nailah grinned and pressed a button. Suddenly Araceli's phone was transmitting a deep line of dance beats and bass notes, and Araceli's voice, heavily autotuned, was singing a club-ready ode to a big, fat, juicy juicy apple apple apple.

"Oh, lordy," said Araceli. "Honey, what did you do? How did you do that?" Juicy juicy juicy, sang the phone, and Nailah laughed. Araceli narrowed her eyes. "What exactly does it mean to you when you hear that?" she asked.

The music continued. Nailah shrugged and looked around the room, as if the answer were hiding somewhere nearby. "I don't know," she finally said, with a simple, timid smile. "That you have a juicy apple?"

Araceli took the phone from Nailah's hands. "Exactly," she said, marveling at both the depths and limits of her daughter's knowledge. "Now what do you know about uploading and selling music files?" she asked as Nailah reached for an apple slice with both hands' chubby fingers. "I think we just figured out your college tuition."

"The Crown Prince of Flowers and His Children"

 

As they grew, the young blooms turned away from the Crown Prince, preferring instead to face the window, as if they had eyes to behold the world, and what they saw with those eyes was a painting created specially for them. "Why do you want to bother with anything out there?" the Prince of Flowers scoffed from where he sat, high on a bookcase. "Our kingdom has everything we need." The kingdom encompassed the bookcase and the table below where the children were kept and included in its service a steward quite unlike the flowers who nevertheless knew when to bring them food and water. It was a fine place.

Yet the morning came when, before the Prince had opened his sleepy petals, the steward carried the Prince's offshoots outside, bringing them to a spot just on the other side of the window. It was so the young plants could grow up tall and straight, he heard the steward say. The Prince, being a proud plant, accepted this counsel with calm and stoic silence, even though it dismayed him. He thought of bees taming their hunger with the help of the young plants' pollen and ants climbing into the young plants' pots to make their tunnels among the roots. The Crown Prince of Flowers only wished to protect his children from the world outside, even if--and this he knew was true--that world was better with them as part of it.

"Bright Little Blossoms"

 

I think I noticed Dorelle and Keith at the reunion the same moment they noticed each other. Ten years after the last time we'd all been together in that gym, and there they were, looking at each other with new eyes and offering each other smiles that neither one would have had the chance to see the other wear before, given how things had gone in junior high.

It was like this: some trees start out in spring with a show of bright little blossoms, the kind with petals that curl under perfectly, the kind that make everyone who sees them feel lighter and happier. That was Dorelle. Then there are the trees that, instead of flowers, present buds at the tips of their branches, dull, difficult things all covered with scales. That was Keith, and he'd had terrible acne. Yet none of that mattered, not ten years later, when they both had had time to grow and flourish. You doing okay? I saw Dorelle mouth to Keith. I am, I really am. You? Keith said to her. And suddenly it felt like the end of summer, when no sounds were greater than the whispers between tree leaves, and everything was about to happen.

"The Pole That Wanted to Be a Windmill"

 

[Screw the hiatus. I want my blog back.]

The pole had never heard the entire story, just one element of the plot: that, once upon a time, a man had engaged a windmill in battle. For the pole, it was enough. Even the traffic lights complained about how boring things were, and their lives were among the most colorful in the neighborhood. The pole aspired to the knightly life of a windmill but wasn't sure it was an attainable goal.

"It isn't," a lamppost offered. "There is nothing knightly about you. Why, just look at your bearing, all stiff and wooden." The lamppost then flicked its overhead light on, just in case the pole was having trouble seeing its point.

The pole was given hope one afternoon, when a utility worker nailed a thin red board to one side of it. The board crossed the pole's body, looking a bit like a pair of arms. The pole was armed! Or it was marked, at least. After that, the pole waited months for greatness. But greatness never arrived, and the pole's hopes, like the thin board's red paint, began to fade.

Then came the night of the storm. The wind wailed and the rain clawed and bit, and the pole rocked anxiously in its spot in the ground. "Flooding at the north end of the road," the poles and posts along the street called, their voices becoming part of the storm's untethered groan.

"Flooding at the north end of the road," the would-be windmill repeated as part of the relay. A splinter of a moment after it spoke, it saw the headlights: a car was approaching from the south.

The pole knew what risks the car and its occupants faced if they continued north. It also knew that windmills, especially ones destined to engage in heroic battles, weren't supposed to fall. But the pole could no longer deny the truth: it was neither knightly nor a windmill, and it wasn't designed for combat. It was, however, capable of tilting.

"There was another thing from some other story I heard once," said the pole to no one in particular, "something about, 'It is a far, far better thing that I do....'" With that, the pole shifted its weight and sent its body crashing down onto the road, ahead of the car's path. The thin red board separated and dropped onto the pavement next to it, like a weapon dropped in surrender.

"Hiatus"

It's not something I'm thrilled about doing, but I've decided to put "I Can Almost Picture It" on hiatus for a little while, not only because I could use the time to finish up some projects I'm committed to completing, but because also because at some point I'd like to use my writing time to work on longer, more involved pieces, instead of just hacking out something short to meet an obligation, which is what I feel I've been doing with this blog the past several days. It may seem contradictory, but all the blog entries did take some time to work out--even if they ended up half-assed, heh.

However, I do like that this blog will be here whenever I'm ready to return to it. To anyone who's come by to read these entries, I am grateful--thank you! Is it too optimistic to look at this as the end of Chapter One? Probably, but let's go with it anyway.

For now, here's a list of the entries that, if anyone asked, I'd pick as the ones I had the most fun with:

"Lights"

"Stuffed"

"Automated Teller Machine" (someone at TumblrFiction actually shared this as one of their favorite pieces of fiction on Tumblr for the day it was posted--weird!)

"Safe from Dragons"

And the one that started this whole project, "Pedals"

Going through those almost makes me not want to go through with this hiatus. :/

But I'll come back when I can do this right.

"Growing Pains"

"I swear, all I did was try to stretch my neck muscles!" the woman said as she accepted the bottle of painkillers with one hand, the heating pad with the other.

Her husband shook his head. "See, that's where you went wrong," he informed her. "You tried to stretch all willy-nilly, like a thirty-three year old. You're thirty-four now, wild child! Time to start acting your age."

The woman popped one of the pills, wishing the ibuprofen could make all of the pain go away.



"AED Speedwagon"

 

The volunteer guide finally caught up with the drummer and the keyboardist, and just in time. They had been about to set up in the building's main hall when she directed them to the auditorium, where a sign inside would confirm that that was where the '80s hair-metal tribute bands were supposed to be.

"The Wind and the Sign"

 

"You've got to be kidding me," the wind said with a laugh as it read the sign that had been placed on the corner.

Like a tyrant emperor riding through the lands to survey all he called his, the wind returned throughout the following seasons to torment the metal sign, battering it until it rocked on its post and hurling dirt at its face. The sign remained where it had been stood, even as, with the years, it acquired pocks of rust along its edges and its paint began to fade.

"Don't you have anything else to say?" the wind demanded once, while it beat dents into the sign during a vicious storm.

But the sign never offered the wind another word. Even on the day the wind finally brought it down, crashing onto the road with the brittle clang of old metal, all the sign had to say was what it had been saying since the day they met:

"Stop."

"Pen Rest"

Technically, this picture shows a stylus on top of its rest. Oops.

"And that's it for tonight," I said aloud. I tipped my head backward against the couch and closed my eyes, and laid my open notebook across my lap like a blanket.

"Another story?" I heard a voice say.

I opened my eyes. My pen was spinning between my index and middle finger as if I had gotten bored and begun twirling it myself. "Story time?" it asked.

"I think I need some rest," I said. "I'm imagining talking to my pen, for crying out loud." 

"But you can rest later," the pen protested. "You're already dreaming now." 

It was logic I found difficult to argue down. So I cradled my pen between forefinger and thumb with the gentleness I might have shown a child, and I drew my notebook close to my chest, taking comfort between its sheets.

"Green River Float"

 

"And now," said the guide, herding his clanging, jangling tour group onto the lean metal walkway of the bridge, "we're coming up on the Chicago River. This, as many of you know thanks to movies and other entries in our pop culture dialogue, is the waterway that's dyed green every year as part of the city's Saint Patrick's Day celebration."

"Green river," said an elderly woman in the middle of the pack. "Like the soda."

The tour guide turned and broadcast his approval with a high-beam smile. "Yes, for those of you who remember it, Green River soda is a classic that's actually still served in some of the hot dog and hamburger shops you'll see throughout Chicagoland."

The elderly woman wrinkled her nose as she glanced over the bridge's railing at the dark, colorless water churning underneath. "Is it still polluted?" she asked. "The river, not the drink. I used to have a a girlfriend who lived up here. Every March she'd tell me about the green river." The woman leaned close to a younger man next to her. "Used to make jokes about what you'd be drinking if you ordered a green river float," she said.

"Okay, let's move on!" the tour guide called with a blink of his eyes and a widening of his smile. Their footsteps echoed like hammers on anvils as they crossed the bridge--at least, thought the guide as he pinched the skin between his brows, that's how it seemed.

"Hot Booties"

I love the "As Seen on TV" display rack.

"Oh, no," he said with a laugh. "No, you don't. How much chili did you have tonight? And you think you're sitting anywhere near me? No. No!" 

He leaped from the couch and dashed around the coffee table while she chased him, wailing, "But you said your feet are always cold! I love you!" on what truly was to be another steamy Saturday night.

"It Grows Sideways"

 

"Let me tell you a little something, kid," the merchant said, with a glance to one side and a step to the other. "These bean seeds are special. But you can see that already, right? Of course you can. You're smart. You see how this stalk is growing straight out to the side?"

Over and just past the lip of the clay pot he carried reached a tiny young sprout, which pointed toward the next stall as if it were a finger.

"Not only will these beanstalks grow sideways," said the merchant, "they'll grow as far as the eye can see--no, farther. This little guy you see here?" He tipped his head toward the pot. "Why, I just planted those seeds this morning!

"Ever hear stories about the great oceans of the world? Ever dream of crossing them?" With his free hand, the merchant dug in a pouch that hung from his belt and came up with a handful of beans. "What better way to cross them than on your own magic beanstalk bridge? No need to spend your gold on a ship or crew. What'll you say, kid?" He grinned. "Feel like having an adventure?"

Jack looked away from the merchant and drew in air through the spaces between his teeth. "Yeah, see," Jack said, "there's actually another guy who's got something similar going near the entrance to the fair." Like the merchant's plant, he pointed, though not to the adjoining stall but instead across the throng of villagers, to a man in clothes as dark as dirt.

The merchant slumped.

"To tell the truth," Jack continued, "his pitch is a little better than yours, too. I mean, maybe if I had more than one cow to trade, sure, but for now...." Jack backed away with a shrug and said nothing more, leaving the merchant to set down his potted plant and roll up his dusty sleeves, ready to storm across the market square and have an adventure of his own.

"A Bunch of Burned-Out Bulbs"

 

As the five-fifteen train leaves the downtown station, the passengers tip their heads back against the seats and close their eyes--or most of them do, anyway; some of them allow their heads to sink to the side and let their gazes flatline out the window. Their books lie shut in their laps, or their newspapers folded; they hold their phones but are too tired now to use them.

The conductor shuts off the overhead lights so that the commuters can rest, and the car grows even dimmer.

"Ribbon"

Imagine if it had been a belt that made me call Jormungand to mind, and what that would mean for the poor sap who unbuckled his belt on the way to the washroom.

 

In Norse mythology, Jormungand, the Midgard Serpent, grew so large that he was able to wrap  around Earth's fat middle like a belt and bite his own tail. According to the Norse, the world is bound by Jormungand's body; the day he releases his tail is the day the world will end.

Oddly enough, it wasn't the sight of a belt that made me think of Jormungand. It was a picture of a ribbon tied around a package, holding in the surprise, and the idea that someone, upon receiving a beautifully wrapped gift, might think of Midgard and hesitate a second before undoing the bow.

"The Road Less Traveled"

 

For a while, I thought it was the one I saw in front of me, stretching from left to right like a smile and crossing my entire range of vision. I observed only one car moving along the road the whole time I was there. It motored forward swiftly and steadily, its pace like that of a hawk approaching prey.

Then lights came on above me. I saw them reflected into lanes across the rolling sky. A large bird rose from the top of a telephone pole and traveled west along that overhead highway. It was just a trick of the eyes.

Yet knowing that it was a trick--does that really make a difference?