The Stories

‘He didn’t respond, although he turned slightly without looking at me and waved his arm. Around him were the papers that had accumulated during the day, during the week, during his whole life—requests and complaints and clarifications and revisions that had to be prioritized, addressed, resolved, each issue begetting new issues. With the wan light from his computer monitor shining in his face, now drawn, and the dark circles around his red eyes, it almost seemed to cause him physical pain to do his work. I saw that the day, with its beers and lectures and idleness, had taken a toll. His life had taken a toll. A half-filled coffee cup stood near the keyboard.’ (Read more...)

‘In the distance, hanging gas lanterns illuminated the flaps and tall frames of tarps and tents. Expletives of victory and ruin comprised the shouting voices. The roving headlights of pickups and SUV’s (presumably those of the cockfight’s VIP’s, since Gerald and I had had to park so far away) gave the scene the drunken atmosphere of a prison break-meets-family camping trip. Bodies materialized in the light next to Gerald, and I moved among their odor-saturated auras with an increasingly light head. I did love to gamble.’ (Read more...)

’Friday, after I closed my cupboard, changed again the lock password on my PC before powering it down, and set my ball point pen at a 43 degree angle on my desk (according to a protractor I’d taken from one of the designers in graphics) to test whether anyone went through my things while I was gone for the weekend, the dramatic, almost ecstatic, understanding that it would all end soon fell onto my shoulders like hammers, vibrating out of my fingertips in tingling static electricity. Despite what the counterfeit schedules said, or what was written on the request to purchase forms, or who put what into the timesheets, and no matter whose signatures those senseless scrawls for verification and authorization might look like, it would all lead back to me. If only one person bothered to double-check what was apparent, they would see that what was apparent represented a projection only, a non-existence.’(Read more...)

‘The drunk on the ground saw only an enveloping blackness as soft as the ground beneath his back and wanted nothing but to surrender, to let go of all the shit he’d been through this night, all the shit of his entire life—he had at last made it beyond the point of love and rage and if only this could be what life felt like from now on he could bear it, he could even excel. As it was, it was too hard feeling so many things all the time, it was too hard not having the people around who might have listened to what he had to say. Sleep now and he could forget, and start completely over in the morning.’ (Read more...)