Just looking at the name of the road, you expect some evil intention. And when you get there, you see strange beasts scurry behind the house. Someone lowers the shades. You think you see devil horns behind a tuft of grass. And those eyes peaking at you from the second story window remind you of the monster you used to imagine hiding under your bed. Is this house Pandora’s box? Holding all manner of evil inside? And are you the hapless Pandora, who will unleash horrors upon the masses?
You bite your lip, take tentative steps forward, and try to talk yourself out of your paranoia. But then you hear something as quiet as the rumbling of a hungry belly, as soft spoken as poverty. It’s a shushing that, on any other day, might remind you of wind rustling through trees in spring or the collective settling-in of an audience before a symphony. But today, it evokes authoritarian teachers and knees scraping on gravel. It’s gone now, but you heard it coming from within the house. You’re sure of it.
You cannot enter. You simply cannot. So you turn to go; you gaze out at that horizon of possibility and tell yourself that you can be anywhere else. And just as you’re pondering why any road would have such a horrid name, you realize your mistake. The door creaks open behind you. “This is not that road,” you say. And your friends shout surprise and jump from their hiding places. They’re carrying cake and paper plates and balloons and noisemakers. And now, funny enough, you don’t want to be anywhere else but here.
Above the farmhouse down on Highway C, a raincloud hovers perpetually. Old Mrs. Montgomery, who has lived there for as long as anyone can remember, falls asleep every night to the pitter patter of the rain. When she ventures into town for groceries or a haircut, she is met with a respectful silence from the [...]
I’ve learned that if you go to Radio Shack for an A/V cable of any kind, you need to take a visual aid with you. It’s otherwise impossible to communicate to Radio Shack employees what you’re looking for. When I walked in to the store today, the scene was typical: two employees, no customers. I [...]
Alvaro stood near the pedestrian bridge on the Avenida 10 de Agosto. Barely anyone noticed him. Cars whizzed by on the big, busy road. Drops of milky water fell from the bridge beams. Exactly three cats had crossed the bridge, and Alvaro was waiting for the fourth. Four cats never cross the bridge in one [...]
I’m at my first residency for Pacific University’s MFA and enjoying it thoroughly. We’ve gotten a few writing exercises that force us to stretch our writing boundaries a little. Below is the result of one of them. Somewhere in the woods, a twig cracked. Ryan held his breath. He lifted the gun and waited. And [...]
Well, I wasn’t quite as exploratory with new music this year. I went app-crazy, but we’ve been over that. I mention the apps, though, because one of the big keepers of the year was PandoraJam, which doesn’t do much besides allow you to listen to your Pandora radio stations. Oh, except it also records the [...]
What can I say? We are heavy sleepers. The tinkle of a glass ornament as it drops off the tree, the crackle of a tray of ice cubes, the scraping of soot in the chimbley — these things don’t wake us from our slumber. Our dreams are far too captivating to succumb to such distractions. [...]
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