LX. Forward (In the middle)

Here. Here are my tricks. Here are the seams. Here are the things I should be hiding. I’m trying to show off. Look at all these things. I have thousands of them, I have so many I don’t know what to do with them. I think they are all great. I don’t think they are all great. But I like a number of them. They tickle me. I hope they tickle you.

Yes. It’s kind of a gimmick. Yes. It’s kind of an exercise. But it’s one that happened to me. I just started writing. But just the beginnings. And I thought they were great. Like that guy on a lonely stretch of road that can’t help but make sculptures of rabbits out of beer bottle caps. What else was he going to do with them? Throw them out. No. We’re going to make something in the secret place. And we want other people to see them. What can we offer but goggles with ways to see the world. And who wouldn’t want to try on the boots of the guy who makes yard art, or starts a bunch of stories he doesn’t finish, because he likes the gesture of an ellipsis.

A Story About the Wind

The wind kicked over the mailbox. It shook the awning from its moorings. It snapped a branch into a window which let loose Milton’s papers, covering the yard in a premature snowfall. He had moved the desk there for the light.

In his pajamas, Milton padded down the stairs to make coffee as he had for the last three months (finally having grown accustomed to the French Press), when he noticed a chill in the air, a lingering breeze. He stared blankly in the direction of the tree limb protruding into his makeshift office. He marveled how the world had shifted overnight. Milton wasn’t sure if his first obligation should be to the house, which he had promised to care for over the summer or his work, which was his work.

Retrieving the papers, some of which made it as far as the pond, seemed endless. He had been at it for an hour or maybe two when he found himself deeply hungry. Breakfast had been a muffin eaten while putting on his clothes. Even though it was only 10:15 he needed the sustenance of a second breakfast.