{EAV:ec0e703690a27824} Bright yellow mustard gurgled its way from within the yellow plastic bottle lightly icing then smothering the hot dogs plump brown skin with its yellow lava. Dante stared at the salty yellow mustard overflowing the buns edges and beginning to cover his fingers, it was only then he stopped squeezing yellow plastic and took a bite devouring half the hot dog in one chomp.

Cheeks grimaced, lips pulled back in an exaggeration as the tangy mustard covering the deeply succulent hot dog filled his mouth. Anyone watching would have seen his shoulders lift toward his ears and his whole body briefly shake, he’d hoped for just this nostalgic reaction as the river of mustard painting the inside of his mouth slid down his throat.

Speaking in low tones of rapture Dante summoned a moment, a memory of leaning hard against a sea wall and awakening into self one summer not all that far off, he’d breakfasted on a hot dog overflowing with mustard that day as well. Curiously it all came flooding back, the last of the mustard licked from his lips.

Uncurling his white stiletto fingers beneath his brown sweater exposing them to the sun hovering above, and the spritz of an awakening Atlantic Ocean filling his lungs Dante genuflected in the mornings direction laying his fingers upon the thin layer of moisture glistening upon the concrete sea wall.“This is my altar” he said in a raspy voice, “I am the priest celebrating my awakening.” Leaning into the walls coldness his face filled with furrows, a brief shiver moved up his arms. Gazing far across the Atlantic as gulls rode late morning currents his eyes followed their effortless play while rhythmically sagging into and away from the damp wall.

Dante’s quiet was interrupted by a hand on his shoulder, “where are you,” she asked while tightening her grip. “I was just remembering our first night together,” Dante responded without turning around to look. “Want to get breakfast” she asked, “How about a couple of hot dogs” he said as he turned and put his arms around her.

In the midst of everything I was ignored. Daily I’d stand hand extended, the crowds hustling past shunning connection proffering false intimacy. Sullen and rejected I watched time accelerate, crowds thin and pass me by.

My life never amounted to anything, it was a momentary swirl of occurrence with me standing alone upon high cliffs wind in my hair watching sunrises and sunsets while breathing in infinite possibilities but never plunging into the abyss of those possibilities. What was it about about mortality I didn’t understand.

On my tombstone the words “he loved standing at the waters edge” are enough, no tones of black derision painting my life as a failure are needed. I want my simple marker to consist of allusions to what I didn’t do. Some among you will see between the words and understand how my existence fell short, those not reading between the lines will pass by neglecting the opportunity to know who I wasn’t, afraid to see their own defecencies.

I forgot, I’ve forgotten how everything changes from what we thought it would be.

No explanations presented themselves no ingenious stories were available no excuses came bubbling up to slow the disintegrating curtain currently lowering onto the darkening stage of our relationship. No resistance flowed from my heart my mouth opened to exhale only silence as she walked toward the door. Each step away reverberated with consequences flooding my mind with a dizzying tilt-a-whirl flurry, my chest tightened ferociously around my breath time dissolved into a candled frame by frame existence. She came to a stop and with her hand reached and grabbed the worn brass door nob we’d found together at a flea market, her innocently wrinkled fingers rotated the knob clockwise opening the door flooding the entry with gray light that rushed in from the rainy outside world quickly transforming the entryways warmth into a tabloid lining a pissed stained litter box. Immobilized with blindness I listened to her exit to the outside, and she quietly pulled the door shut behind her.

Salaciously puncture my rotting skull with your heel grinding my rebellious will into dusty submission, cast me out till penitent I crawl.

The razor’s dull blade chafed skin beneath snow white Barbasol mimicking the unevenness that marked my failed life. Each nick reminding me of dreams long ago blushing pregnant, with promise. Now I wished to join those vanquished hopes following them down the drain of my corroded mind. Routine has become a prison and I have become both inmate and executioner.

I ache to run, arms flaying at missed opportunities chasing their ghosts into outer space, forgetting I ever had dreams of big things, I want to forget touching your skin with ten fingers both rough and soft, pinching your flesh and kissing each inch of you, you telling me “I love your breath on my body, your tongue licking me, I love you.”

I want to forget memories bubbling beneath snow white Babasol as I scrape layers of time from my face, with this dull rusted razor.

Violet reached the fly swatter on her desk before I could rise from my chair and escape, quickly she exploded her furry forward swatting my face imprinting her admonitions deep into my psyche. I was stunned senseless and fell upon the hard classroom floor. As I laid crumpled like a brown paper bag the quiet portended the gathering storm.

I felt her toes nudging my cheek poking me for a sign of consciousness, they probed areas of my face kneading my skin like you’d knead a piece of fish pondering its freshness. I opened my eyes to see the sole of her open toe shoe come to rest on my mouth, “lick my shoe” she ordered in an otherworldly voice, “lick my shoe you bottom feeding scum,” I resisted and tried to gather my senses but slowly her toes pried my lips apart pushing the shoe into my mouth. “Suck my foot, show me how little self respect you have left.”

I could hear a low growl coming from her but I couldn’t see her face. Violet was standing straddled  over my paralyzed body with one foot in my mouth the other next to my head, my eyes followed her  stockinged legs till the shadow from her skirt terminated the view. I indulged for the briefest moment in the leggy fantasy when out of the blue feeling returned to my body, and I bit down hard on her exposed toes sending a shock up her shapely leg she would not soon forget. The room filled with a scream laced with cruel invectives and down right unpleasant words.

This was my chance and I took it, scrambling to my feet I fled out into the school hallway hung a left and ran. Running like an undernourished child gripped by shame I ran for my life hoping to escape from her reality. As I ran the words Violet had hurdled at me filled my head “It doesn’t have to be difficult or messy like pulling teeth with rusty pliers. It’s not necessary to always doubt yourself, to fear change.”

In the beginning the words flowed out with gentleness, I knew she cared about me, and wanted to help me crack my shell, more then my teacher she was my mentor, I wanted to please her but I seemed stuck in concrete unable to change, unable to meet her expectations. It was then I saw the light in her eyes fade, I knew she had given up, given up just like every other adult in my life and I knew the penalty would be painful and swift.

Violet careened around the corner barely five steps behind me, her breath on the back of my neck bridged the rage stoking inside of her, the skin on my neck blistering as she drew near. I was about to reach the safety of the cafeteria when her hands encircled my neck nails penetrating deep into the flesh, and she dragged me to the floor my head bouncing hard against the concrete.

There was no quiet for me to hear no storm about to rage, I laid still not moving not moaning. I laid dead while Violet stood and dusted off her skirt barely looking at my lifeless corpse. “ No one who gives up on themselves ever leaves” she said gazing out onto the quad bathed in afternoon sun, then walked back to her classroom to prepare for next period.

My father taught me it’s acceptable when outside to pee in any corner I find convenient, the only caveat, make sure no one is watching. Barely twelve when I received this liberating lesson, I often forgot the part about who might be watching, and one day the neighborhood crone and her sister caught me in the act. The two sisters summarily dragged me by the ear to stand  zipper open in front of my father. Dad stood looking at me with a barely disguised smile on his face and apologized, saying “I can’t imagine where he learned to do that.” Satisfied at my humiliation the crone released her grip on my aching ear and turned, walking away arm and arm with her sister.

Startled minds ramp into flaring comatose consciousness, jump starting sight, adjusting hearing, grabbing the one next to you, shaking her, wake up wake up something’s happening here.

There was a knock at the door, a knock at the door, there was a knock at the door.

Emotions spinning me into torrid thoughts, whirlpooling down a rusted drain into a river of out of control, running toward the back door ready to explode with fists and teeth, repulsing intrusive fears.

Yelling, belching, moving around screaming hitting extending rage with fleshy force.

Simon sat gazing out the window, the gray sky outside reflected deeply within, revealing no difference between out there and inside himself. Seemingly the color penetrated him in one long pendulum wave. From him to there and back again the gray traveled, becoming intense for a moment then easing, but the ease was shallow, he knew the color would roll back upon him, and knowing this he kept himself braced against it and against all of life.

Sometimes Simon felt it was tangible and he could step off the window ledge onto the gray wave, walking up to the clouds for a better view, but his courage would sag before he took that first step, and doing this he never discovered how deep reality really was. He laughed at the thought of possessing courage that waned in important times. “I have no courage” he’d say, then brace himself, for the gray wave surely would follow his mocking statement.

Kneading the back of his neck, Simon worked the gray around as a baker might work the dough, fingers poking and prodding muscles, caked in gray so thick he wasn’t able to turn his head. He kneaded and pulled to loosen it all, slowly like a lumbering elephant he would bend over to touch the floor, rocking his head upon stiffened neck back and forth roaring his trumpet under his breath. “Why why why” he spat, fingers flat on the floor, back rounded and stretched, no thoughts just quiet between his plaintive trumpet calls, “why why why.”

From his elephant pose Simon collapsed onto the dusty floor, it reminded him of the transience of everything, but fearing reprisal he resisted saying it out loud, instead his eyes watched his fingers draw shapes in dust. The dust would pile upon itself as fingers transferred thoughts till an unseen breath would even it out, in an etch-a-sketch moment. The thought of the universe being like a giant etch-a-sketch brought a smile to Simon’s forlorn mouth and then a chill shot through his shoulders and then another and another, till all the tension was gone.

Simon didn’t move, he didn’t disturb the space he lay in, didn’t tempt the moment to change position, he stayed exactly as when the smiled appeared, the smile that had released him from the gray. Simon welcomed the release by not doing a thing, he braced himself, fearing the next change to come, when someone decided to shake up, the etch-a-sketch.

I was hiding high up in a tree earlier this afternoon when this huge gust of wind sent me tumbling to the ground. I woke to finding myself in a purple building surrounded by discount books for sale, and feeling no worse for the tumble I got up and perused through the books, stacked to the ceiling in the purple building.

I walked out into the afternoon sunshine with my new purchases and wondered, if I buy books at a steep discount are they flash fiction? Realizing the thump on my head must have scrambled my brains more then I thought, I sat down to catch my breath and ponder what does it mean to writer when one of their books is sold for 70 or 80% off list price. Of course the writer does not make money off such steeply discounted books but they do get their work read and maybe the next book will sell more, though I really have no clue if that last statement holds water.

So I wanted to connect to the wrtiers by using a little link juice by adding a link to either the writers web site or to Powell’s, thus giving a little boost to their endeavours.   First I bought a promising book called Brownsville by Oscar Casares, next I picked up The James Deans by Reed Farrel Coleman and lastly I bought King Bongo from Thomas Sanchez…

8.98 for three books…. a nice find and even though I have yet to read any of them, I’m sure they will turn out to be worth the tumble from high up in the elm tree. And if you buy a discounted book give the author a link back to their web site as a way of showing your support for their work.

Spanky wondered aloud “ how can people be so clueless,” it was an age old question, one pondered by generations long before Spanky came on the scene and, one Spanky generously acknowledged he was not the original thinker of, still Spanky questioned, why do people need to believe the unbelievable and the indefensible. How is it he thought, that people can spit on empirical evidence and call it opinion, again he spoke for all the creatures in the wood to hear, “how can people not see what is front of their face?”

A little chipmunk nose wiggled out from under a bright green leaf, then eyes and mouth became visible and with one seemingly impossible jump, she was on the stump across from the pondering figure of Spanky. “The answer is easy and it is not easy” she twitted in a sharp chippy voice. Spanky was not surprised at all by this talking chipmunk, he just lifted his head and gave her the same rapt attention he would with anyone who addressed him. He asked with excitement and humility, “please tell me more Ms. Chipmunk if you will.” The little monk smiled back at Spanky, and after turning around three times, found her spot and sat down.

“People are like all of creation, they are frightened by the seeming chaos inherent in the unknown, so like the Blue Bird they scurry about building an ever tightening nest around themselves for protection.” Spanky now deeply in his listening mode, nodded and smiled as the little monk took a breath before continuing. “Unlike the Blue Bird, people use things like greed, distrust and fear to build their nest of protection, what they end up with is not a nest at all, what they end up with is a wall and what a wall it is.”

Spanky sat quietly his eyes were half closed listening to the little monk share her wisdom, From time to time he’d nod as he felt her words fill him to the brim, each nod would make a little more space within Spanky’s brain for another crumb of knowledge. Spanky was content and happy that this little monk would take time out of her busy life to share with him what she knew. Spanky thought to himself as the little monk took a breath, oh how lucky I am to hear such as this.

The little monk read Spanky’s thoughts and ceased talking, she looked at him quizzically, hoping he would notice her questioning gaze and answer for himself. Spanky didn’t disappoint the little monk, he saw the question her scrunched up nose and wide eyes were meant to convey and took a deep breath preparing himself to answer.

On soft cotton sheets, fresh with spring air, Franny dropped her robe, edging herself onto the bed.
With her finger tips she placed warm bacon upon her inner thighs, letting juices dribble to the sheets, letting the grease adherer each slice to her skin. Using her salty fingers Franny massaged the bacon with ice cubes, turning it translucent white, like her skin. Laying back upon the crisp sheets, Franny enjoyed the mingling of odors, the touch of meat. Beckoning me, she softly commanded, “Be my Trojan Horse, make me sizzle, devour me.” I emerged breathless, from the dark corner.

Prying himself loose from his plexiglas prison, Ollie jumped off the burger joint’s sign and sauntered toward the restaurants front door. For the first time in his life he felt alive and full of possibilities, no longer a mere two dimensional figure living the life of a cartoon.

At the front door Ollie struggled to wrap his hand around the brass door handle, he had never used his hands before, he turned plaintively looking for help. “Like this” said a little seven year old, reaching out she pulled the big imposing door open, she then smiled at Ollie, knowing what it was like learning to do things for the first time. Ollie gave her a big Ollie J. Burger salute and headed inside.

At first Ollie found himself disoriented, his new surroundings were a-jumble with clinking glasses and jabbering people. Everyone seemed to Ollie, to be talking at the same time, doing very little listening. Ollie had mastered listening, something he was very proud of, having lived for twenty three years on a sign, doing nothing but listening.

Waiters and waitress scooted by, smiling at his triumph yet frowning at his standing in the middle of the aisle. Ollie was slowing down commerce, the taking and serving of orders. With every whoosh of an employee Ollie would float like a leaf, being two dimensional didn’t prepare him for wind and commotion.

To protect his thin frame Ollie shadowed himself against a nearby wall, he watched the families and friends come and go, they ate and drank, laughed and chatted, all the while ordering and consuming many many Ollie Burgers. Upon seeing all this, Ollie noticed a small little warm feeling starting to grow in his two dimensional stomach, making it feel almost three dimensional. Ollie remarked to himself with great amusement, “why, I have a three dimensional stomach in a two dimensional body, how can this be.”

Not for a second had Ollie ever thought he could evolve into a three dimensional being, he was two dimensional and things like this just don’t happen. Again he remarked, only this time it was out loud and everyone in the restaurant heard him, “the possibilities be damned, this can’t be happening, it is just too wonderful, can it really be that I, Ollie J. Burger am becoming a real boy.”

Like a blow to the stomach the din ceased, every eye focused on the little two dimensional character shadowing on the wall. Ollie wished he could run away and hide but there was no where to go, he had climbed down from the plexiglas sign of his own accord, he now had to stand his ground, even if the ground was shifting way from his two dimensional existence.

Like all cartoon characters Ollie saw big bubbles above peoples heads containing their inner secret thoughts. What Ollie now saw shook his now three dimensional heart. Everywhere he looked words like outsider, foreigner, and wrong popped up above almost everyones head and then words became phrases and even whole sentences that made Ollie want to cry with dread. People’s thoughts became black with hate as they starred at the little two dimensional character now becoming a boy, they thought he was uppity for thinking he could fit in and worse some of them thought erasing his image altogether was the right thing to do. Ollie coward as he scanned the thought bubbles.

The silence was broken finally by the little seven year old girl who had taught Ollie how to open the front door, now she stood tall. Way far in the back of this Ollie burger joint she started walking toward the little image trying to become a shadow. At first her parents tried to stop her but relented, they knew her heart, they knew she was right.

Ollie could see her walking toward him, he noticed the little girl did not have a thought bubble but instead had a twinkle in her eye. Ollie knew the twinkle meant she was thinking from her heart and not her head, he felt his heart warm once again as the little girl got closer. The little girl reached Ollie, stretching out her hand she touch the little two dimensional character and peeled him off the wall. Ollie rejoiced at the touch and at that moment became a real boy, a real three dimensional boy.

Pandemonium broke out that day in the Ollie J. Burger restaurant as the little cartoon character became a human being with all the rights, privileges and responsibilities that go with being part of the family of humanity. People climbed on tables to cheer, waiters and waitress danced in the aisles and the little girl sat with Ollie as he had his first Ollie Burger with mushrooms and cheddar cheese, “hold the onions” said the little girl “there will be plenty of time for spices in your new life.”

Ollie smiled and knew that cartoon characters everywhere now had more then just possibilities to point to, they had Ollie J. Burger, a real boy.

My first thought when the letter
arrived was you. I wanted to
rush and grab your arms
shaking you with excitement,
as I’ve always threatened to do.

But your not here

Dear so and so we would like
to publish your story in our
journal next month. I looked
up from the printed words
wondering how I could share
this wonderful news with you.

But your not here

My first story I’d exclaim, in print
for gods sake, beaming my little boy
smile. Just a year today since I
picked up a pen to write.
I want to share this with you, I
wrote the published story for
you, do you remember it.

But your not here

Remember “where ever you are
I send my love”. You inspired it
as you always inspired me. My muse,
my reason for digging deeper into
my own vulnerability.

Where ever you are, I send my love.

I asked the monk why he always carried a tear in the corner of his eye, he replied “It binds me to compassion.” But I asked “why a tear?” He smiled and instead asked me a question, “why do you carry a gaping whole in your heart?” I was stunned and speechless but gathered myself answering “It reminds me to be vulnerable.” “Ah” said the monk, “the difference between my tear and your wound is?” We sat in a meadow back to back meditating till the sun went down.