The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy

Indeterminacy #428

2009-01-20T06:28:00.006-05:00

He spoke to her, glancing up from the wheelchair. "This is my plan. You will take the roses, much like the one you see in the vase, sneak out after curfew, transplant them in the locations I told you, then slip away, hours before the dawn reveals your work. My underground greenhouse has a capacity to produce several dozen specimans a week, ripe and ready for the subversion. With a full night of setting the plants, you can instigate enough chaos to paralyze the authorities. They will not know what to do. There is no contingency for such a situation. Someone will see the roses. And the idea will be born. The regime can't stand more than two weeks of the resulting affection before it finally collapses."

"I love it!" she exclaimed to him, using the forbidden word. "And after the collapse, it will be as it was before, like in the stories you told me?"

"Yes," he answered, "you will look at a boy, he will look at you, you will sense an expectation, moments when the mere act of breathing becomes an exhilaration. He will feel the same. Somehow, mysteriously, inexplicably, you will find yourself holding hands. Oh, don't laugh, it will happen. It always did. No one could explain how. It was all quite innocent - nothing wrong in it at all, despite the official ban on affection, despite your parents' fear to practice anything else. It was the motor of our lives, before the era when love became a forgotten idea."

"Will you tell me that story again," she asked him, "it is so sad, but I always like the way you tell it to me."

"There is time until dusk, before you can begin with the roses, so why not, though it is sad for me, too, to tell it to you. I suppose it begins with the simple idea, 'A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.' But who could have known that such a simple truth could be subverted? What if no one knows the name, what if the rose gradually becomes anonymous, completely unnoticed, forgotten. And that is what happened. It began with the regimentation in school. The continual studies, each hour planned, each afterhour filled with an assignment. It continued into the university. No time left for breathing, for a quiet meadow, for the holding of hands, for a rose. We kept everyone on a treadmill, and once the studies were completed, each was assigned an employment completely automated. No colleagues, only mechanisms and electronics to deal with. It wasn't intended, but soon it happened. Every human being was completely isolated. No one knew or had time for anyone else. With so little contact, the concept of names grew dim. Names were no longer needed, no longer thought of. Affection was the next to wither away. As this reality grew into the status quo, everything that was not this status quo became forbidden. That in itself is completely natural - regardless of what the status quo might be. People were afraid to think of anything else, afraid to break the years of conditioning that allowed no other alternative. So they continue in their established pattern, with no impetus to ever break out of it. Alone, so utterly alone, in a collective completely blind to its parts."

"It's like a dark rose the way you tell it to me," she said, an affectionate look in her eyes.

"I am the only one who can tell you this story. I was the only one who stood above the process. Fourty years long I ruled this society. I had to be aware, even if I did not consider the implications, or even understand them. But it was all my fault to have let it develop as it did..."

"I see the tears welling in your eyes, grandfather. Don't worry. I will plant the roses."

He smiled. "I know you will." Then he winked at her, and she smiled. Soon she would leave with the roses, soon they would be rooted in the public earth. They would be seen, and the pattern would break. Those who beheld would find a name for the roses. And what he did not tell her, but what he knew would be. Some boy, somewhere, would find one of the roses, would find her, and return the flower to her as a present.

Story #428

Happy New Year, and a Happy New Age! Note: This story was written last year, but seems to me to fit well to the occasion (Inauguration Day). This day, more than any other in my memory is a the beginning of a New Age...

Vote Twice then Write a Story

2008-12-05T01:31:00.015-05:00

A story will be posted shortly, but first.....

Mayuko Fujino, whose artwork you may view here and here has an online exhibit at the House of Scratch in Toronto, Canada. Truly, I am fascinated by the colors and the intimate delicacy of her artwork. If you agree, please vote for her in the juried competition at this page (scroll down to find her works).

Update: Mayuko has won the competition! Thanks to everyone who voted! Please check her new Website: www.planetplatonic.org.

Letters Home to You is a blog that I have seen grown from unknown domain into a highly frequented Website, due to the unique and intriguing perspectives that are always spot on. The blogger is Ian. Read some of his posts, then vote for him: Canadian Blog Awards - Best Personal Blog.

Update: Ian unfortunately did not win the competition, but as far as I'm concerned, he has the best Canadian blog in the world!

Last but not least, the literary journal Greenbeard has a writing contest called The Symmetry of Flaws. There are cash prizes, and everyone is eligible to submit, so what are you waiting for?

Indeterminacy #427

2008-09-30T07:20:00.008-04:00

One of the missing legends of archaeology is that of the Mauktika Niila, Pearl that is Black, an indestructible statue carved from material unknown with a technique equally mysterious, and an origin lost to recorded history. The statue is so named for a chain of pearls adorning the neck in the inexplicable unity of sculpture. The pearls shine like black suns against the whiteness of the stone body, though there is no clue as to how these two opposing hues could originate in one instance of any natural substance. The hair, too, is black and the eyes retain a vivid color no one can define, as if a living woman were photographed in stone. She may have decorated the Garden of Eden, or earlier gardens beyond the grasp of memory. We gave her a Sanskrit name because it would be profane to describe her with words familiar to modern times. Only primal syllables were worthy of her conception. Many times she lay buried in the rubble of destructive wars, herself unmarred, only to be uncovered again by new civilizations sifting the ashes of earlier eras. She survived earthquakes, fires and the subtle erosions of time. In this manner she forged a path through history, appearing, then vanishing in the daze of some cataclysmic event, as her undisclosed destiny designed.

We deduced all this by looking in her eyes. In fact, there is no known mention of the Mauktika Niila in oral or written communication. No poems of passion. No paintings on temple walls. No evidence of her substance, except for the Mauktika Niila herself. Ancient Greece knew her, banning her from its mythology out of fear. Of this we were certain. We concluded the same of the ancient pharaohs, and of conjectured civilizations even before the pharaohs' time. There was reason for this. To gaze on the statue in solitude is to press one's face through the fragile film separating reality from the supernatural. The pale, white stone floods with the warm tones of flesh, as if blood had suddenly condensed in her stone veins. Her breasts reflect the scarcely perceptible motion of living lungs beneath and her eyes turn to the gazer to subsume his reason into her biology. The gazer is found later, if found at all, wandering, no memory, his identity irretrievably lost. And the Mauktika Niila, undocumented archetype of that which cannot be understood, submerges again into the unobserved chaos of time.

But I am not afraid. We know now, if two or more souls are present, the statue presents itself only as an artistic wonder. It is safe to stare, to study the form, to explore the surface with the touch of one's fingers. To assure that the unspeakable would not occur to us, we approached her over the past few weeks, my colleague and I, in tandem presence. Many fascinating clues emerged, written meticulously in our journals, clues scratching dust from the window of divinity. Our record of her would be the first the continuity of mankind had produced. We studied the pearls under magnification, excited about a nuance we detected as the spotlight shone upon her. Then, without warning, my colleague slumped to the floor, seized by a sudden asphyxiation. It is sometimes natural to die. I am sure it was natural, the death that descended upon him. What else could this have been? I stand alone at her side, appraising her eyes, unable to relax my gaze, unable to attend to his rigid form already seconds beyond the threshold of rescue. Her form glows into life, her inanimacy dissolving like a moon flaring into a sun. I cannot turn away. I dictate these words to my hands to write, but my hands do not respond. I see them hanging limp at my side, see them through her eyes. I perceive my facial features surrender to an eternity blacker than the blackest pearl. As my colleague and I had counted the pearls, a subsequent inventory, however many generations later, will show their number increased by one.

Story #427

This photo appears by kind permission of Mila Divine. Anyone wishing to contribute their own story inspiration to the photo, please feel welcome!

2008-08-26T07:37:00.011-04:00

My first job was in the t-shirt factory. The thesis to my textilian studies was on the fine art of t-shirt removal, so I was immediately placed in charge of the testing department. The cotton garments, newly seamed, must be worn once, then removed, to assure proper function. This was the process I oversaw. The models, men in the morning, women the afternoons, paraded single file past my station. Each took a shirt from a fresh pile, tucked it on, turning and pausing before me, awaiting delivery of my contribution. I certified the tautness of the cotton coverings on bodies not much younger than mine. When satisfied, it remained for me to remove the shirt and, if no complications ensued, add a sticker - "inspected by 1." Then the slightest lull - my voyeuristic limbo: before waving the model on I stole a glance going from navel to neck, admiring the disclosed magnificence of bodily form. Men by morning. Women the afternoons. By lunchtime the flesh had me stimulated. After an industrious day, I walked home aroused into breathless gasps. It was fine while it lasted.

The cutthroat world of t-shirt manufacture left its scars on this paradise. Layoffs ensued, to ensure competitiveness. Beautiful models, no more than twenty years old, took early retirement. It was demoralizing. Now my workdays were spent at an assembly line. The shirts came by, flung onto showroom dummies, my job to undress in the measured seconds they wobbled into reach. I pulled the garments from plaster torsos scarred and scuffed from industrial use. It was a steady, repetitive rhythm, like an eight hour copulation that fails to arouse.

Soon the dummies were gone, too expensive to clean and maintain. Costs cut everywhere. Lights dimmed because of bulbs so costly. I stood alone in the factory, like a visual soliloquy, testing the shirts, pulling them on, peeling them off, a work that tires the arms, but the quota required my constant motion. After a few hours I could no longer stand, arched myself onto the floor. Dressed. Bared. Dressed. Bared. And on and off and on. Dazed from a day of this, and oblivious to anything touching my numbed skin, I walked home, my bare-breasted physique greeting the evening breeze.

Story #426

This photo appears by kind courtesy of Jonas Skerra. In the next weeks you may enjoy more of his photography at his new site: Photorama of Jonas.

Waiting for Ian

2008-07-19T02:54:00.006-04:00

This is a photo I took waiting for Ian. Ian and I meet sometimes for lunch around the corner from where I work. I just stand there and keep a watch out for his bicycle. Ian's a nice guy with an interesting blog called "Letters Home to You" featuring solid and well-written viewpoints right on the pulse of the times. A guest post of mine is up at his site, called "North American Expat Germany survival guide: the pancake edition." If you're hungry, I invite you to stop by.

P.S. This is a repost of a guest post at Sar's, whose blog is sadly no longer with us.

2008-06-17T09:34:00.008-04:00

In anthropological journals you will find occasional mention of the "Hooded Ladies of Lanslund" -- In footnotes, implicit innuendos, little more than hearsay, vague tales quoted from legends. Direct information, however, remains sparse. Most accounts are little more than flowered renderings of the footnoted statements, statements which themselves do nothing more than hint at existence of the ladies. Whether this existence is tangible or fancy is left to speculation or even to faith. Are the hooded ladies a race of arctic Amazons, muscular and stern in their interactions with the hard environs of the Lanslund region? Are they tender like melting snow warming on Spring blossoms? Do they like to kiss?

If I could answer these questions I would be assured a doctorate. I jetted to Scandinavia, took a train to Kolari, as far north as Finnish rails were lain. From there I trudged the tundra, ever further, north by northwest, camping under the Aurora Borealis, long nights of exhausted sleep - and days of relentless treks through uneven land.

Finally I reached the lake country, an uncharted region with no official name, but in the mind one knew it could only be Lanslund. It was nearly dusk, and the Northern Lights began to flare. I stood before the threshold of Lanslund as one of the hooded ladies appeared out of the glowing shadows and stared at me. She did not blink. She stared in a self-assurance that needed not a word.

"Lady of Lanslund," I answered her Nordic silence, "I want to know you. I want to know all about you."

She did not speak, though she moved her head slightly in acknowledgement of my request. She extended a hand towards me, a universal expression of "join with me." My hand was in hers as she drew me into the timber surrounding the lake, then deeper still, past sleeping trees, into her abode, a tent of animal skins, warmed inside by the heat of our breaths.

In her tent she taught me. Gazed into me without a sound, pasting complex sentences into my mind, that I could never speak in words. I became dazed, I felt numb and saw only her, soon like a dream, where faces loom the size of novas. It is all I remember.

My next recollection is walking back with her the way we came. She led me to the Lanslundan frontier. I turned to look at her, encountered again that unyielding gaze, as immobile and inviting as the slabs of Stonehenge. I turned and traversed the tundra back to Kolari, to the train, the airport and ultimately back to the desk where I performed my studies. Still the same person, but different. Now I knew. I knew how to write footnotes.

Story #425

Anyone stopping by is invited to post his/her spontaneous story and/or impressions given by the photograph above...

2008-06-05T14:07:00.005-04:00

Lips looking ladylike she smiled like always, then pouted, the rapid metamorphosis wrenching my reason from a grasp already unsure. We worked together, side-by-side for months. Businesslike. Official behavior, the way that colleagues do. I stalked her secretly, saw the URL she visited once, and noted it, repeating the address intensely to myself until I could write it away: an online beauty contest she'd won: "Loveliest Lips on a Lady" contest. Thousands of males lustful and lusting came voting for that facial detail of hers, some sharing comments imaginative in ways to make lipstick blush. She read every one. But I could enjoy her lips anytime I wanted to, at least the view of them. She was much too involved with her work to notice my rapt appraisal of that lower hemisphere of the face. There were moments, though, that she suspected. The sight of her then sent me spinning away. I'd blurt out words I knew could make no sense. Lorelei lips. Slashdotted lips. Anything but subliminal. And then it all went black. Then suddenly light, as she pressed my reboot button to call me back. This was the finest moment. As she waited, and I booted, those lips formed words at me: "Damned Vista!"

Story #424

Since I kept you all waiting so long, I think the least I can do is post the next story right away with the photo. I check my logs occasionally and see some of you stopping by from time to time, hoping maybe to find a new post. Thanks for the compliment.

Anyone who feels like it is more than welcome to post their own story to the above photo as a comment, but don't feel obligated. I guess I owe you all a few for the long wait.

Important message: Greenbeardmag.com is back! New format, new stories. Check it out!

Six Word Memoir

2008-05-16T02:24:00.003-04:00

"I rarely smile - I'm so serious."

Miss Pansi tagged me with this meme in which you write six words about yourself. I think Miss Pansi will like this picture because I am wearing a designer jogging jacket. We visited an outlet mall during vacation. But somehow it feels strange to have someone else's name on my chest. Maybe that's why the jackets were so cheap.

I get to tag five new victims:

1. Aral Peppermint Patty Pez (who also hasn't posted in a while, so I hope she will do so now!)
2. Cooper (because we know so much about her already, and every little bit is gold.)
3. Jamie (who is too young to write a memoir, and if she weren't, it would be more than six words!)
4. Ian (because I know he hates these things *snicker*)
5. La Delirante (because she's cool, and blogs from Malta)

Here are the rules of the meme:

1. Write your own six word memoir.
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like.
3. Link to the person who tagged you in your post.
4. Tag five more blogs with links.
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

Greenbeard

2008-04-11T07:01:00.006-04:00

Those of you who haven't yet heard, there's a new literary e-zine on the scene, called Greenbeard, featuring an illustrious anthology of poetry, short stories, reviews and artworks. One of the main contributors is Angela Meyer with several reviews and a story in the best tradition of Virginia Woolf's Orlando. There are film reviews by Batul Mukhtiar, who herself is a filmmaker, and one by Greenbeard's editor Mariana Sabino. Mari reviewed "Sedmikrasky", which is one of my favorite films - and thanks to her I finally understand it! You'll also find pieces by The Observer, Sherriff and The Sylphidine. The only way I can list all the highlights is to copy and paste the table of contents. One of my pieces is in there too, and I feel quite honored about that, seeing the quality of the other contributions.

I will begin posting here again soon - I have just been lazy, enjoying life as if the Internet didn't exist. I do apologize to all of you who keep stopping by here. It was a great vacation, and we just missed a second snowstorm on the way back. Really. A few hours after we flew out of Chicago they cancelled around 500 flights because of a snowstorm.

Indeterminacy #423

2008-03-08T15:23:00.005-05:00

I am away for a two week vacation in the gentle, snowstorm-covered plains of Ohio. Until I'm back (around March 25th), I leave you with this wonderful work of art by Mayuko Fujino entitled "Dia de los Muertos Georama" which I playfully combined with a song from the 1930's. You are all invited to contribute your stories and impressions to this image, and when I'm back in two weeks or so, I will post my own story. In the meantime, you're also invited to enter and enjoy Mayuko's fascinating world of art spanning paper cutouts to shadow plays. Here are her sites you can visit:

Homepage: cohac.com/m
Myspace (videos): myspace.com/georama
Photo Galery: flickr.com/photos/mayuk

Note: The song I used is "My Unfaithful Cowgirl" by the Swift Jewel Cowboys (found at westernswing78).

Here is a static version of the image:

My tip: Load this photo in your full screen, play the song, and look at the picture. It's so much fun!

----
Another Note: A warm thank you to Cooper for featuring Indeterminacy at Shouldbefamous.net. With your help, Cooper, I really might be famous someday.

2008-03-07T10:36:00.002-05:00

It wasn't like a deluge, with buckets of rain descending as if poured from above. It happened so fast we didn't even have time to get wet. Wetness only exists in the presence of that barren realm of empty air which is hardly better than a vacuum. But that was gone, replaced. The ocean was simply there that morning when we woke up, all-encompassing, a rich, briny substance for us to move through. Surprisingly, no one drowned. It wasn't so bad breathing the aquatic thickness into our bodies, only a slight irritation of the saltwater as each inhalation reached it's maximum of expanded lungs. But you got used to it quickly. "Ocean? Ok, ocean," everyone thought, then went about their routine as if it were just another day. And actually, it was. The stock markets opened. The buses ran. Everyone could go to work, school and other planned elsewheres, all as if nothing had happened.

Not that I loved my everyday rut - it had gnawed at my being just like everybody else goes through with their personal routines. But how can you escape that lobster's claw of responsibility that in the end demands movements that even a zombie could fulfill, mindlessly, monotonously, like waves moving back and forth? Sure, I wanted out. That thought skirted my mind like a floating balloon that never soars, just hangs there at waist level, lolling back and forth, a kind of a taunt, because you have to keep on walking past it, but never forgetting that it is still there hugging into your personal space, and always will be.

I thought that fleetingly, as always, and then her presence segued into the trailing thought. There she was, right across from me in the sea-filled bus. I glanced over quickly, catching her eye for a moment, noticing the silent acknowledgement, as always, but this time, not interrupting it. This time I did not turn away to glance at the ads or the other people. I held my eyes steady, beaconed tentatively with my hand. Somehow, magically, hers was in mine. With our two free hands, and the steady rhythm of our legs, we took off though a window of the bus, and swam upwards into the sunlight.

Story #422

A long time ago I promised Colored Clouds that I would use one of her photos for a story - but somehow I never got around to doing so. So I paged through her beautiful blog called Creations of Another Nature and found the photo I posted here. I hope it will be a pleasant surprise for her!

2008-03-02T00:33:00.007-05:00

Bethy built a boy trap. Part of it was a metal frame stuck in the ground, two legs on each side (V's turned on end), and a connecting bar on top. From the top bar dangled two chains, ending at a black rectangular seat down by the ground. In fact, the construction looked exactly like a swing. And since it looked exactly like a swing, Bethy decided she didn't actually have to build that part herself but could borrow the swing at the playground on her way home from school. A boy trap is, of course more than just that. It's a complex merging of chemical, biological and psychological elements that are as easy to understand as why no sometimes means yes.

On Monday at 3 o'clock in the afternoon Bethy walked past her trap. The trap was empty. On Tuesday she walked by again. A boy lingered nearby, snapping twigs he'd torn from one of the bushes. On Wednesday as she passed the swing, there was the boy, caught!, hanging by his legs from the top bar, waiting for the girl to free him. Bethy walked towards the boy, to help him out of the trap and onto his feet again. The boy saw an inverted Bethy walking in close, smiling up at him, ready to turn his entire world upside down. This was the ineveitable result considering his belief that he had just caught Bethy with the girl trap he had built.

Story #421

This was the third in a series of sketches by Tabita. If you'd still like to contribute your own story, please feel welcome to. You can see more of Tabita's work at her Danish gallery - the series of self portraits especially caught my eye. Tabita and I plan on collaborating more in the future: stories to pictures and pictures to stories, like this very sweet surprise for Indeterminacy #205 (page down to see it).

Postscript: Tabita asked me to thank all of you on her behalf for your stories and comments. I'm happy she let me borrow her artwork for a set of stories. So thank you, too, Tabita!

2008-02-25T06:00:00.003-05:00

Striped socks, checked socks, striped socks, checked socks
coursed Theta's thoughts, as she stood before the mirror.
The skin of her soles touched the floor – the planks of the wood were happy.
Checkers make the boys go blind, spinning cubes before their eyes.
Stripes might make them lose their mind, wondering what is hid behind.
Blind boys. Crazy boys. Blind boys. Crazy.
She dressed in stripes for today she was lazy.
Now she waited, staid in the park, wond'ring if crazy was what she'd want.

Story #420

This wonderful sketch appears by kind permission of Tabita.

2008-02-22T22:34:00.003-05:00

Annique and Lila lay in the grass, a chessboard resting between them. They were as silent as the sun as they concentrated, eyes fixed on the board. "Checkmate!" called Annique, after moving the queen two squares away from the empty edge. Lila searched out her king. She found it prone in the grass, stoically tickled by the green blades. She placed it on the vacated square in direct line of the queen. The king was surrounded now by fatal fields that dared not be touched. In response Lila allowed one of her pawns to take a diagonal retreat. Annique added a bishop directly in that square, and Lila backed the pawn away a further space. This time Annique slid the queen a few squares down, with Lila placing a rook in the regal woman's wake. Back and forth, more and more pieces appearing. With each turn, the population on the board increased - the pawns, rooks, bishops and knights falling back into their original constellation, like an explosion seen in reverse. Finally the pieces rested on two opposite sides of the chessboard, in two solid rows each. "We won!" Annique and Lila exclaimed together. "Now let's play again!" Lila suggested in a delighted tone. "Yes, let's" Annique agreed, as she turned the board 180 degrees. "But this time," Lila continued, "I will be white, and you will be black."

Story #419

Thanks Tabita for sharing your drawing with us! And thanks everyone for contributing stories! Tabita is a new friend I made at Redbubble where I reposted some of my older stories. I saw some of her drawings in a style I really liked and asked her if she would post more. A few hours later she posted a new drawing, this one you see above, with the comment that she didn't have more, so she had to draw one first. There's an enchanting charm to Tabita's sketches that I can't help liking.

2008-02-21T23:01:00.001-05:00

Clop. Clop. Clop. Clop. Never since The Battleship Potemkin, that moment in film on Odessan stairs: soldiers, civilians, blood and a baby carriage rolling unattended to its fate - never had such a scene of revolution presented itself, albeit in the category of humoresque. Three donkeys on three stone steps, each clopping from one end of the step to the other, meticulous tick-tocking, a synchronized trio. As the donkeys reached the end of their walk, invariably at the same moment, they twisted around with a flurry of hops and clops, landing about-face and beginning again the slow clops to the other end. Synchronized swimmers are less of a marvel, lacking, as they do, elongated ears, furry tails and the shaggy fuzz of burro bellies.

A crowd built as steadily and rhythmically as the beasts of burden paced their narrow gangways. These were pack animals, so it wasn't surprising that the movements of the creatures held up and carried the pulse of time, became the new ticks of time, the space between clops defining the new second, and delineating these new seconds from other, subsequent seconds, the turning-in-place defining the minute. Faces watched and continued to watch, not without impression. Hours slipped past. Then it happened. A birth. A zeitgeist carried by lightning not seen but felt in the mind. The next day throughout the land, the new way of fashion was there, the result of instant incubation. Fabric was thrown off. Discarded. Passé. The mysteries of bodies male and female gave themselves from breast to pelvis through shaggy fur pasted in place, ears like big furry almonds, a bushy tale hanging behind, and shoes that went clop.

Story #418

Banno, whose site is called Banno, Dhanno and Teja, invited me to borrow one of her photos for a story. Not this one, actually, but I just fell in love with this picture, taken by Teja.

2008-02-13T16:40:00.019-05:00

John heard a legend about the Valentine's Day hitchhikers - two sexy lady-girls just turned 18 who appeared once a year, on a road out of Clay County, in a wild zone of Kentucky. John screeched his car to halt when he saw them posing at the roadside.

One had auburn hair, tanned limbs and a one-piece blue-splotched dress, modernly abstract, ending tangibly above the knees. The other was blond, hair braided in a ring crowning her head, like an unofficial princess. She looked tasty in the two pieces she wore, one black and daringly high, the other pink and daringly low. The girls had curves like zig zags never existed.

"We just turned 18," Auburn stated with a no-nonsense look at John.

"And we're going to our birthday party," her blond friend continued. "Would you like to take us?"

"Sure ladies," John said, "hop in."

They took the back seat for themselves, dangling and bending legs so that knees reflected in the rear view mirror. John was euphoric to have two such sweetnesses in his car. He turned the wheel, and pulled back onto the road.

"Where is the party?" John asked.

"I don't know," Auburn said.

"Neither do I" said Blondness.

"This is quite a dilemma!" John replied, hoping they had a fun solution.

"We'll just have to find it, won't we?" Auburn imposed.

"And don't be late!" said Blondness.

John drove and drove, unable to concentrate on the road. All his thoughts were with the female population of his car. He took turns, drove up slopes, drove down slopes and took more turns. He had no idea where they were.

"Do you have any idea where we are?" asked Blondness.

"Are we getting close to the party?" Auburn wondered.

"Nothing to worry about ladies - it's still Kentucky," was all he could think to say.

More driving. Every time he peeked into the mirror to glimpse his guests he saw their eyes studying straight into him, and the kind of mischievous smiles that any moment might spill into giggles.

"We're getting tired," ahhhed Auburn.

"Yes, take us to a bed," suggested Blondness, just as the car shot by a sign for the Lonely Hearts Hotel, 5 miles ahead.

In a few minutes, they were there. John checked them in quickly. There was no trouble. They entered a room with a table, a TV and one wide bed.

"Wow! There's room for five of us on that bed," Blondness noted.

"Yeah, too bad there aren't five of us," Auburn added.

John was weak with excitement. He sat on the edge of the bed, smiled 15 smiles at once, and gestured them to join him. Auburn and Blondness smiled steadily back at him, then approached.

"Close your eyes," Auburn requested with a wink.

"Yes, we want to surprise you," added Blondness.

"Whatever you ladies desire," John said, as he shut his eyes and covered them with one hand while propping himself on the bed with the other. He waited, heart beating like the drums in "Sing Sing Sing." He sensed a tender touch on his lap, then another. Hands sneaking into pockets. His mind felt like it was spinning in place. He waited. And waited. Not a sound. Not a breath. Finally he had to open his eyes. Because nothing else happened. He looked around. The girls were gone, but in each of his pockets he discovered a candy. He squeezed them out of the wrappers and into his mouth. Tongue playing over both candies at once, he tasted a mingling of honey and cola.

Story #417

Previous Valentine's Day stories:
Story #160 (2005)
Story #334 (2006)

And here is a news flash from Creative Crabbing:

Story Contest Canceled
by Kizz Myass
for The Crappy Times

The Great Valentine's Story Contest (see post below) has been canceled due to fear of the wrath of Brittney and/or lack of interest. You're still welcome to submit a story if you wish but there is no longer any competitive factor. Yam Man would be proud!
Kizz Myass

If you're feeling playful, why not go over and make Brittney change her mind! There are some cool stories posted there already.

2008-02-11T23:29:00.003-05:00

I sit gazing at the most beautiful girl in the world. It wasn't easy making the arrangements for this to happen. It took months in quest of her mere existence, months of walking the streets, lurking on corners near beauty salons and hair studios. Ironically the girl who caught my eye walked a straight line past a salon without even turning her head. She was completely natural. Exactly what I wanted, needed, desired for my purposes. A girl of lesser aesthetics, touched up cheaply to hide her imperfections, would not be satisfying to me.

Once I had spotted her, I had of course to arrange a chance meeting, and to make it appear as chance. I could not in the slightest way pursue her. That would be all too familiar to her. Pursuit. That boorish behavior of the conquering male. It would frighten her away. Our contact had to come about in a way that made it seem as if she were the initiator. I trailed her to her apartment, noted the address, then arranged rooms across the street from her. From there I could observe her routine, and once I instinctively felt every regularity and variation of it, could blend myself into it, producing the mutual proximity that would lead to her noticing me.

After a week of observation I had her routine, and constructed my habits to match hers. We saw each other in the same bus, in the same stores, at the bank. My appearance is tall and distinctive - it wasn't long before she began to notice me. And finally, in a sudden moment, when we found ourselves catching each other's eye, a hint of a smile formed on her lips. Then I knew - that it was time. I began a conversation with her, "You live around here, don't you? We always seem to run into each other."

"I live around the corner on N----- Street, next to the tobacco shop," she told me.

"Ah, that's why we see each other so often - I live right across from you. I was sure you couldn't have been stalking me!"

She laughed a disarming laugh of childlike charm, not sensing the irony of what I'd stated. It was progressing beautifully. Soon we found ourselves immersed in conversation that flowed like rivers flow: swiftly, madly, wildly. All the while, in back of my mind, the knowledge of what was to come. Soon I would take her. I would take her, and have her as long as I wanted. But now I must make my move. My instincts told me she would not refuse a drink at a neutral location, the corner cafe, for example. To invite her to my apartment, now, for the drink, would have created too direct an impression, and possibly ruined my entire plan. She would not invite me to her place either, not this soon. But the location was inconsequential to me.

I am very good at card tricks, the sleight of hand necessary to hide objects and make them appear. It's all done with misdirection. And so, when we sat across from each other, flowing in words, it was simplicity itself to slip the drops into her drink. She would not become ill or lose consciousness, rather she would become highly relaxed and susceptible to my hypnotic attentions. I began swaying my head slightly as I spoke to draw her into the rhythm, and as I picked up the glass to drink a sip, I held it suspended, creating the pendulant motions that would open her psyche to my suggestions.

My gestures and movements drew her deeper and deeper into a pleasing passivity. When I was finished, she trusted me implicitly, as if I were her own father, a father who had never damaged that trust. That was the look she gave me - a culmination of all that was pure and honest in her. I made a good note of the way she looked at me, because that is the look I needed to memorize while she was able to give it. After the drink, we said goodbye, with the nonchalant suggestion of doing it again sometime. She left, but did not return to her apartment. In her mesmerized state, I had subtly instructed that she lived in my apartment. Some more sleight of hand had exchanged my key for hers. She entered my rooms, removed her clothes, stretched herself onto my bed, and slept - with the oblivion of a stone. I followed her upstairs, with my second key, entered the bedroom, and began. To take her.

I know no other word for what I readied myself to do, so I say "to take her" because on a simple level, it is analogous to the taking of a picture. I brought out the gel, a gel of my own making, and began to massage it onto her body, front and back, over her entire form, her neck, her face, the work of art that nature had made of her flesh and her limbs, until she was completely encapsulated. The gel hardens swiftly and can be pulled off with no pain or consequence to the real skin. This I carefully did, giving me the parts of a mold. When I was finished I sponged the traces of my work from her slumbering physique. Next I returned her keys to her purse, and whispered the suggestion that would thaw the sleep into a state of vague wakefulness. She rose, reclothed herself, returned to her apartment, still in a trance, still in a daze, but with no remembrance of what had occurred from the time she first smiled at me. She will have lain down on her bed, sound asleep, while I, at the same moment began the intense work with the molds I had taken, to construct the perfect symmetry of her, lifelike and desirable in every way, down to her ruby smile and trusting eyes, pearls of finest agate. So real. So real. The hair to ornament her head I stitched into the scalp strand by strand, hair selected to match her color and length as if it had come from a twin. I placed the finished model in the corner, shone a light upon it, the likeness so close to perfection that it seemed to possess an aura. Now I am old, and the living girl's beauty and trust have given way to the erosions of time and experience. But her original youth and exuberance are completely, eternally mine.

Story #416

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Consider this a Valentine's Day story, even if it is a little early. Thank you everyone for your patience, and for the stories and comments you made. I will answer them in the next days. For now, I hope you enjoyed this story, and Story #414, in case you haven't noticed, has also been posted a few weeks ago.

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Mavin gave me and a few other bloggers a nice surprise for Christmas, which post I'll be answering in the next days:

Thanks, Mavin, for the very kind thoughts! And Happy Birthday (Jan. 2nd)!

2007-12-24T03:07:00.000-05:00

It was dark. The creature of the night lurked among the shadows cloaking the village. One word permeated every nuance of thought. Blood! BLOOD! He must have blood. But the empty streets yielded no opportunity of fulfillment, no chance encounter to satisfy his hunger. How long had he been this way? Weeks? Months? A hundred years? His thoughts no longer retained the proper order to reflect upon these unclarities. But a feeble awareness seeped into the sea of crimson that was his single obsession. Christmas. Yes. Christmas. That is why the streets were deserted, why the hunt remained fruitless. Everyone was indoors, huddled with friends and family around a warm fire, or a table with candles and a feast, communing with one another, sharing remembrances with one another. Christmas. That was so long ago...

He continued creeping along, the blood lapping anew into his thoughts. With his acute sense of audition he perceived voices in song, a choir, a congregation of a church, no doubt. He turned towards the origin of the sound, and began to move closer. He passed as a shadow through a graveyard, some of the stones marking the final resting place of those whose blood he had taken. Of this he was scarcely aware. The church stood hulled in the thick tar of night. As he approached, it loomed ominously before him, surreal in its proportions. But he did not shy away. Where there is song, there is also blood. BLOOD! He stood before the massive door, pulling it open just a crack. He could not cross into the consecrated bounds of this sacramental location. But he waited, eyes turned downward, and listened. An organ toned the notes of a new melody, drawing a multitude of voices together into a sincere and unpresuming unison: "Silent night, holy night...." the peaceful words flowed to where he stood, and for one moment he forgot the blood.

Story #415

This photo appears by kind permission of Michael Spry. Please feel welcome to browse his flickr gallery (Mickal) and his Website (michaelspry.com).

Previous Christmas stories:
2004: #118
2005: #323
2006: #384

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays and a Grand New Year to Everyone! I will post story #414 in the next days - still not satisfied with what I wrote - thanks to all who contributed! Contributions are welcome for this photo too, but I felt I should post first this time. You've all been so patient.

2007-12-17T13:19:00.000-05:00

Claus had a rainbow tucked away in his attic. Of course everyone wanted to touch it. "Keep the line moving!" Claus called to his friends on the spiraling stairway. "No crowding! Everyone will get to touch the rainbow!"

But they did crowd. And teased as the line ground along, starting and stopping like traffic at Friday rush hour.

"Stop pulling my scarf!" Sally shouted at Todd. She had donned an ensemble of midnight blue, with a smattering of green and yellow accessories to catch the rainbow's eye.

"Ha! Purple is the Bow's favorite color!" Todd kidded her, "Just like I have on."

"I think he'll like me best," said Karin, pointing to her flaring orange blouse.

Sounds from above silenced the conversation. All heads turned upwards to see the flashes. It was as if someone had whipped roman candles into the Northern Lights, but even that was insufficient to describe the illumination that echoed down to them. Mysterious ohhhhhs and ahhhhhs seeped from the realm beneath the roof and careened down the stairs to the excited ears that waited, tones they had never heard before.

"How'd you ever catch it?" Maggie asked Claus who stood atop the landing, guiding the line of visitors to the final destination. "Left a window open, a dish on the table, sugar cubes dipped in paint," he confessed with a shrug, and winked, causing everyone to believe it wasn't true.

At the stairway's end stood a ladder eight feet up into a gaping hole in the ceiling. All eyes watched the lucky person whose turn it now was to ascend. That was Tim in tie dyed jeans and psychedelic t-shirt, his eyes a yin yang of hazel-green. He was a walking rainbow himself.

Everyone froze as Tim mounted the ladder. They allowed their consciousness to drift into his, to experience firsthand what would unfold. "Eyes are upon me. First rung. Second rung. Higher. Higher. Scurry through the opening into the rainbow's room. A swirling pool of fireworks floats before me. I dive into it..." The thoughts paused. "Ohhhhhhhhh. Ahhhhhhhhh" he said as the glut of colors dissolved him.

Story #414

Thanks to everyone who contributed stories!

2007-12-16T15:33:00.000-05:00

Well sir, softball's my game. I admire the shape of a graceful gal dancin' a ball through destiny, runnin', jumpin' and slidin' like a ballet lady doin' square dance. And them postures! Like poetry writin' itself! I been goin' to these games ever Saturday since I been a young'n - before you's born, I suppose. I could tell you stories. See that pitcher down there? Reminds me a Bruna. That was afore all these gals here been born. She was a legend. A marvel in form and skill. I reckon I saw ever one a her games. The stories I could tell you bout her! I seen her hit a ball out a the park with her bare fists. That's how tough she was. And fierce! Used to play baseball. Talk was she'd killed a man in Kansas. With a home run. Ball come down a mile away and beaned him into the Great Beyond. They made her leave the state and promise never to play baseball agin but she started right back up in the next state playin' softball! Ain't nobody could hit one a her pitches no matter what size ball she throwed.

Now a gal got a reputation like that it gits talked around and Bruna's got talked clear outta the galaxy, all the way to Alpha Mango! Them critters out there loved softball. They'd watch her games via asteroid straight on into Mango. They couldn't play softball themselves, mind you. Ironic. Cause the entire planet was like one huge softball field. Red clay dust and sun shinin' gentle like a daylight moon. Well sir, they almost could a played it but their heads was too big to hold a softball cap. And was like to pop if'n a ball'd ever hit 'em. So that was out. They just watched Bruna. But you understand, watchin' games via asteroid ain't the same as bein' there. So these Mangonians, they decides they's gonna take a trip to Earth and right in the middle of a game, while no one is lookin', they's gonna girlnap Bruna, her team and the entire other team they's playing against. Then they's gonna whisk 'em off to Mango and shunt 'em around the planet playin' softball the rest a their lives - to Mangonian masters!

That's a gawd awful thing to happen to a team a fine atheletes like these gals was, but they didn't know it was gonna happen. Not until them Mangonian hyenas come ploppin' down outta the heavens like pigs what couldn't fly. They was 18 a them, one to a gal. At first everone was stunned and silent like, the way they might figurin' out a firecracker gone off in church service. Then everone a them Mangonians lunged towards a gal and there was screamin' and a runnin' and mayhem worse'n dawgs in a cat kennel. Then I saw what I guess I admire most about atheletes. They can look at a situation they done never seen before, size it up, know what they wanna git out a it, and then do what it takes to make that happen. Bruna had the ball and she precisioned up the mightiest pitch I ever seen. I wished I could a seed it in slow motion. That ball left her hand like a atom bomb out a airplane and bing'd right off a Mangonian's head. That head popped like a soap bubble and gook streamed out like butter meltin' off a hotcake. Bruna's coach was a quick thinker too and he started hurdlin' buckets a softballs out onto the field. Bruna caught one and she pitched one after the other a them balls and didn't stop 'til them Mangonians was 18 headless autopsies.

Well sir, after that the umpires come in and restored order and had 'em clean up the field and after the field was all virginned up again, set the gals back to playin'. But nothin' much else happened in that game, ceptin' that Bruna pitched another no-hitter.

Story #413

Thanks very much to Ctoner for donating this photo!

This is an hitonious video of me trying to read the story....

The joke is on me - despite this video being incredibly bad it made #92 in the category comedy - Germany (which may just be the easiest category in the world to break into). If you have a youtube account you can help put me in the top ten :-)

News:
- Cooper has started a fantastic new site called Should Be Famous.
- Western Swing on 78 is a fantastic old-time site with lots of music to explore.
- Last and least: I finally posted Story #408.

Indeterminacies

2007-12-05T13:06:00.000-05:00

Thank you everyone for being so patient with me while I try to get started again. I've finally commented the stories for Indeterminacy #410, which was a photograph of my muse. And I reposted all the stories at the companion blog Indeterminacies, along with links to the contributors. They really deserve their own place somewhere.

For those who don't know, Indeterminacies used to be the blog where I reposted visitor stories (when there were fewer of them, and i had more time). Feel free to browse the archives and enjoy the various perspectives arising out of a single source.

2007-11-08T09:31:00.001-05:00

- A stitch in time saves nine.
- Time is of the essence.
- Time is wine.
Giggles.
- I made that one up.
- I like the stitch saying best.
- Why?
- Because they couldn't have known.
- True.
- But as a metaphor, it comes quite close to the truth.
- Surprisingly close.
- And if anyone had realized, truly realized, they'd be here now.
- Yes they would.
- So here we are.

It wasn't often that Marcus Meticulum, while making the rounds of the time corridor, chanced upon two Oriental girls sitting before one of the temporal portals, coquetting over the nature of time. Marcus had been Oriental once, but that was a long time ago. Time, to those who'd attained awareness, was so much more than a linear chain of instances, each the cause of the next. No. Every single moment stood in relation to every other moment that ever existed, or ever would exist. These met at intangible intersections woven into the fabric of existence. But once the concept was grasped, to reconcile it with the idea that the chronological second was nothing more than an arbitrary object - that was enough to boggle a Buddhist. What could you expect, when a single second held more infinity than all the other seconds combined? The very measurement of time was a concept that only the gods could comprehend, hovering as they did, above the idea, like clouds over tumbling raindrops.

Marcus halted before the girls, sizing them up. One was elegant in style and apparel, the other had the rough-hewn glance of street-wisdom. They might have been snatched from a rush of early 21st century commuters. Snatched by sudden awareness. It went with the territory of Eastern mentality. He felt an immediate affinity towards them, but could not say why. "How did you arrive here?" he asked, bowing before them.

"You know that already," spoke Street-wise.

"I suppose I do," he answered, a gentle smile imposing itself over the puzzlement he had shown in the first moment. To comprehend was to awaken into the center of time. That is what had enabled them to pass through one of the portals.

"And now?" Elegant intimated.

"We traverse the corridor together," he concluded, not as a demand, but as a statement of the inevitable.

And so they strode along, trading sayings about that inexorable object they had all come to fathom.

- Time heals all wounds.
- Time will tell.
- Time is on our side.
- My, how times flies.
- Third time's a charm.
- Time is relative...

As they vanished around the passageway's bend, their voices faded along with the footsteps, footsteps that sounded oddly like the tickings of a clock.

Story #412

Thank you everyone who wrote stories, and for being so patient with me in posting this one.

News:

Madeleine has a couple of interesting new sites: Limilines about a new type of creativity and The Picture Plain with really cool photography.

Live@theGrouchoClub has a story "Locked Out" appearing in the Feel the Word magazine.

The Reverend Gisher has posted a story for Indeterminacy Photo #411.

Ian at Letters Home has posted something destined to become a classic: A Desiderata For Bloggers

2007-10-31T00:09:00.000-04:00

Svetla always got invited to parties, especially to Halloween parties. There she sat, cute in the corner, backed by the flowered wallpaper in style those days, sketching the shapes just as cute as she on a paper she held in her lap. At midnight the squiggles slipped from the paper and slithered along the floor until sensing the warmth of a human body. They inched upwards along the human obelisk, slowly, dissolving like tattoos into the skin. Deeper they went into the blood, and soon the victims saw those very shapes floating before their field of vision, following wherever they turned.

I am a psychiatrist by profession and had treated several persons of this curious malady. All had had to be locked away in a room cushioned with mats, the sound dampened, so as to stifle screams as disturbing to us as the figures obviously were to the sufferers.

I noted the following conversation with one of my patients. She was brought to me fully subdued with the mind-stilling medicines we use. This was an opportunity to satisfy my curiosity about the phenomenon, so I began to question her. She spoke flatly, without emotion, and despite the extreme dosage, there was no relaxed smile.

Doctor: How did it all begin?
Patient: I felt a breeze upon my ankle, a transient touch, a sensation that vanished just as quickly as it was placed. I was not alarmed because the shapes appeared sweet somehow.
Doctor: What happened next?
Patient: They flirted with my skin. Their touch was like warm vapor blown onto a single circle of flesh. I wanted them to continue. It was a new sensation, one that the touch of a hand or a tongue's caress could never create.
Doctor: What made it so?
Patient: The touch pulsated ever deeper into the skin, first the surface, then to the buried nerves, then to the surface again.
Doctor: How long did this continue?
Patient: Not long. I don't know. At last it submerged into me. Strange, I felt the substance of it expanding into my veins, and squirming upwards towards my brain like mindless bits of larvae.
Doctor: What did you feel as it moved closer to your brain?
Patient: It was like a prelude. I knew not of what. But something would happen when it reached my consciousness. It might be wonderful -- or unspeakably horrid. I did not know.
Doctor: This foreboding, can you describe it?
Patient: THEY EAT MY THOUGHTS!!

She shrieked this suddenly, and stood up, taking violent swipes at the empty air before her, a surprising reaction under such sturdy sedation. Finally after about ten minutes I could calm her. She sat down once more, and her emotionless voice resumed.

Doctor: Please continue.
Patient: I cannot go on. They are not sweet anymore.

This was not an easy condition to treat, but after weeks of therapy I finally reached my patients, worked my way into their dreadful fantasies and pulled them out dripping as from a fall into the dead waters of a stagnant lake. Soon after, I could convince them that the figures were harmless. In time the patients could safely return to the perils and stresses of actual life. The special rooms and straitjackets were no longer needed for them.

That was my occupation during the day. But I also had a personal life. On occasion my path led again to one of my former trusts. On a Halloween night of new moon darkness I saw her glance up from where she sat, surveying us, the evening's celebrants, as we stood side-by-side chatting in arbitrary cliques. Most were in rapture from the drink, the company and the mood of the night, but I was also one to observe. I stared at her a moment too long. She noticed and as our eyes met for that one sacreligious second her soft features hardened into severity. The others felt it unconsciously. All around, the conversation coagulated into silence. At that she returned to her task, sketching the figures she had seen. Something inside me began to shudder.

Story #411

Anyone who would like to contribute their own terrifying inspiration to the above photo is very welcome to do so! Thanks everyone for being so patient with me during my absense, and most of all, thanks for coming back.

Past Halloween stories:
2006: #378
2005: #301
2004: #64

Things to do:
1) answer my e-mails of the last weeks
2) answer all your comments
3) write a story to photo 408
4) read and comment the stories to 408
5) read all your blogs

Thank You

2007-10-19T06:15:00.000-04:00

Once again I say thank you for all the stories and get well wishes for my wife. She is home now finally. The last weeks were very difficult - and I was sick last week with a severe cold, not unlikely due to the stress of the weeks before. This week and next I'm off work on vacation. Already after the days of this week our lives seem to be returning to normal. My wife has to take it easy in the next months, but has enjoyed a recovery seemingly against all the odds. We have so much to be thankful for.

I feel able to write again, and will start soon, posting the missing story for photo 408.

2007-09-09T10:54:00.000-04:00

My Muse.

Story #410

Thank you for all the wishes and stories to the above photo. The stories have been reposted at the long dormant companion blog Indeterminacies.

The photo was taken in Trier in the ruins of the Roman baths, passages that were excavated in 1962.

At Shitkl you can see a video of my son reading some Shtikl cartoons - really sweet because most of the time he will only speak German - and here he is reading English with almost no practice at all.

Also, I have a guest post, written about a month ago, at Mindful Mimi's.

2007-08-29T16:30:00.000-04:00

Unfortunately I have bad news to share. My wife was in a car accident today. She is in the hospital under observation. They haven't found anything seriously wrong and she should be home in a few days. Our son was in the car also but not hurt. I will have to postpone writing for now.

About Creativity

2007-08-26T15:56:00.000-04:00

Over the course of the years, and based mostly on my experience with the Indeterminacy blog I have developed several ideas about creativity and the creative process. At the very least, they seem to apply to me. This is what I've learned...

1) When you have an idea or inspiration, act on it immediately. Act on it five minutes later, and it will already be too late. Once I find my inspiration, the process of writing the rough draft goes rather quickly. But if I wait, the flair seems to go out of it. Photos have been a wonderful catalyst for immediate inspirations, usually some devious idea that I want to follow through to the end. However the more I do this, the more difficult it becomes to find a photo that stands out in ways that others before it have not. The first 100 or so stories went fairly well in this respect. Examples where the photo delivered strange and powerful associations might be Story #6 and Story #23.

2) Spontaneity plus afterthought is a powerful combination. On rare occasions a story will come out perfect the first time. Of all my stories, there were only a handful that were completely spontaneous. One example is Story #30 written in just about the amount of time it takes to read it. I didn't change one word of how it came out.

But usually, the result needs a little twisting and tweaking to add dimensions that bring it past the ordinary and into the extraordinary. During the period that I posted daily I would write the story on the train home from work (I carried a few potential images around in my head to ponder over during free moments) or at home in the late afternoon or early evening. The next morning I'd take the rough draft with me in the train, read through it again and again, fine tune and polish until I thought it was ready to post. At lunch I'd type in my edits and post. Most of the time my edits made something that I thought was boring into something that I was satisified with.

Story #19 was actually a complete rewrite of the original draft (which you can read in the comment section). Story #385 was one in which the initial version was written rather quickly, but which I polished quite a bit afterwards. The sequence with the "99 Bottles" song was something I put in quite late, as an afterthought.

3) If you write something good, it will seem better to other people than it will to you. You know what is coming, the others don't. They have the pleasure of watching something unknown unfold before them for the first time, whereas you can only read and wonder, will it work the way you intend it to. This is my conclusion from the positive comments I received about stories that to me were fairly ordinary. It's the only way I could explain it. Also I've read stories, posts, etc. by others and been truly impressed, whereas they in turn seemed surprised. I thought my Story #43 was rather simple, but I got some nice feedback from some people I showed it to.

4) If you are true to your art, the process of creating will become more and more difficult, the more you have created. I do not want to write the same stories over and over again, so I find myself discarding ideas because the intended story is too similar to something else I've written before, or is too similar to something I've read elsewhere. I want to create something completely new, but of course I'm aware that this is extremely difficult to do - some claim it's impossible.

To avoid repeating myself, I've allowed the stories to become more and more extravagant. In the beginning my ideal was the one paragraph short story. The first stories were probably more like synopses for what could later be written out in more detail. There was little or no dialogue, just densely packed plot description. Two earlier stories that broke out of this mold were Story #81 and Story #158.

A few other stories were new in the sense that I hadn't read anything like them before, not to say that something similar hasn't already been written and I just didn't know about it: Story #128 (Adam and Evelyn), Story #204 (Solomonic Wisdom) and Story #327 http://indeterminacy.blogspot.com/2006/01/all-of-sudden-it-became-light.html (Extreme Poetic Justice). In any event I strive to be original to the best of my knowledge.

5) Spontaneous creativity vs. planned creativity. Which is better? This could depend on the person. Or maybe it's a matter of taste. I think in general, a spontaneous basis for creativity will win out. In the stories beyond #200 and up to #360, when I stopped posting daily, I found myself having to stay up later and later to find the right idea. The best stories, I think, were written when I was very tired, and unable to reason clearly. Story #377 and Story #359 came into existence when I was half asleep and hardly knew what I was writing.

6) Read great works and allow yourself to be inspired by them. In other words, if you reach for the stars you may not reach them, but you'll reach higher than you might otherwise have been able to. For example, when I was in high school and college I used to read Stephen King. Somehow I got tired of him, but now, in that genre, authors like Edgar Allan Poe and Gustav Meyrink are my idols.

7) If you get stuck, take a break, watch a TV show, do something else, and then return to finish the writing. Many of my stories were written in two parts. I wrote a beginning, got stuck, watched a Dark Shadows episode, then went back to write the conclusion. One of my non-Indeterminacy stories, "A Fairytale for Elves and Clouds" was written over the period of several weeks. I wrote the first two paragraphs, got stuck, then came back later with a sudden idea of how it should continue. I think the break forces one out of the rut one might have been in, and allows a return with a fresh, completely unrelated idea.

---

I've probably learned more, but this was all I could put down on one Sunday afternoon. For the interested reader, I point out two pieces I've posted with advice about writing / blogging out of the mouths of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and Mark Twain.

Note: My muse has published her own statement about blogging, indepedent of this one, and I really like what she wrote. It's called "I am not a good blogger"

Note 2: Viruswitch has posted a piece "Write in concepts or write in pictures?" and Shtikl writes "You don’t need a plan, you need skills and a problem" - both posts have bearing on the creative process.

Now I remind myself that I still owe you Story #408. It seems I do put myself under pressure to write something that is better and different than anything I've written before. Wish me luck.

2007-08-20T00:02:00.001-04:00

Kate looked into the mirror, but the face looking back was not hers. It was one she had ever seen before. As she stared it woke out of a reverie like a match igniting. Then came a nasty grin.

"Not what you expected, is it?" the voice of the face lashed out at her.

"It's impossible! You can't be there! You have to be me!" Kate answered spontaneously. Of course the statement changed nothing. The face continued not to be Kate's.

"I got tired of being you, so I became me!" the face answered, and folded arms asynchronously to Kate's, which hung limply, in stunned immobility.

"Mirror, mirror, on the wall?" Kate tried in desperation.

"Nah, that won't work. I'm prettiest. Men will smash themselves on the glass trying to get to me. You can sweep up the mess though, deary" - the visage grinned meanly.

"This is turning really weird," Kate thought to herself. Out loud she spoke to the mirror: "Wait a moment, please." She stood up, left the room, returned with a cloth and some window cleaner which she sprayed straight onto the face.

"I'm melting!" the voice screamed as Kate wiped the reflective surface. As the thin film of water evaporated Kate saw her own face again, smiling back at her, eyes blinking at just the right moments.

Story #409

Coming next: an introspective post about the experience of writing these stories over the years. I've been putting that off since story #360, which I had intended as the final story.

Thank you everyone who contributed a story for this and for the last photo (#408). I'll also post my #408 story sometime this week - but it's not written yet - and then read and comment all of the contributions.

Mindful Mimi is a new blog that linked to Indeterminacy during vacation. I found her posts to be thought provoking and nice to read. She has a contest going which you can participate in. The prize is a copy of "A short history of tractors in Ukrainian" by Marina Lewycka. It's supposed to be a wonderfully funny book. I've read the reviews.

Important message:Madeleine left a comment about a new literary magazine she is involved with which is looking for submissions. For more information please read the post from August 20th at ragdoll-millenium.blogspot.com.

Other Extremely Important Breaking News: Shtikl is back!

2007-08-03T15:38:00.001-04:00

Marla was a girl, but she was also a seed. She had limbs, hair that tossled and flowed, and all the anatomy that boys found so tantalizing. Yet she was also a seed, body enclosed in a bulbous capsule, room only to stand and to sit and to walk in a circle. It was snug. She had a peephole to look through, to watch for the rain or the germinating dew. Thin strands grew from her, thicker than hair, but slight - they pushed their way through the skin of the capsule, bursting it in places - they shot outwards where the sun was known to while. Their one thought was to hurdle into the sky and wrap their tentacles around the warmth of that illuminative body. But their attention was diverted by the boy lying in the meadow, watching the spot in the earth where the plant suddenly appeared. He emanated warmth, as well. The stem advanced, leaves unfolding, and bud appearing at the end of the stilt-like extension which grew at a visible pace. The bud swelled and burst with petals, and in the center of those petals was an eye that sought the depths of his brain.

Story #408

Thoughtful Blogger Award

2007-08-02T17:59:00.000-04:00

Originated by Christy at Writer's Reviews:

For those who answer blog comments, emails, and make their visitors feel at home on their blogs. For the people who take others feelings into consideration before speaking out and who are kind and courteous. Also for all of those bloggers who spend so much of their time helping others bloggers design, improve, and fix their sites. This award is for those generous bloggers who think of others.

Seiche was kind enough to award me the Thoughtful Blogger Award, as I've mentioned previously. I can think of enough instances of thoughtlessness to disqualify myself, and I hate memes, unless they're for a good cause, like this one. So here goes...

1) The most thoughtful blogger I know is The Lady at Not Quite Love and Light. You might notice that this blog is fairly new, but The Lady has blogged before, and is the first person to find my blog on her own in its first days, and to encourage, advise and support me in ways too numerous to list. She made me feel at home at my own blog, as well as at hers. The sense of community and sharing at her own site was a shining example to me, and it is she who made the one suggestion for Indeterminacy that so many people tell me they like the most: the open participation. For The Lady, the Thoughtful Blogger Award needs to be the size of a movie marquis.

2) Santiago Nemec of Mundo en Llamas is a blogger I don't know very well yet, but I saw a beautiful comment he left at a blog I adore, a comment that struck me for its thoughtfulness and personability. Santiago is from Argentina, and his site is primarily in Spanish and Engish. I hope to get to know him better in the future.

The Big Three of Creative Blogging: Doug, Mrs. Weirsdo, and Tom (& Icy):

3) Doug has to be the master of building community and making his visitors feel at home. Just look at any one of his posts to see an example of this. Additionally Doug has taken a lot of time to help me with feedback and advice on a number of issues, not all of them blog related, so I say he's a thoughtful blogger.

4) About Mrs. Weirsdo I can say pretty much the same. She's created a blog which is homey and gemütlich all in one, a very pleasant place to visit and stop a while. There used to be some rather thoughtless characters there like Pansi and all her friends, but Mrs. Weirsdo has shipped them off to other bloggers, and now it's even more thoughtful than ever.

5) Tom is a master of putting other people in the spotlight, as you can tell by some of his various blogs, which create something of a meta-universe:
Icy's Playground
Asinine News
Asinine News 2

It's not unusual to find oneself making a cameo appearance in one of his posts. In addition Tom has given me and others valuable advice and feedback about blogging, and as a graphics guru has gone to the trouble of creating icons for all of us. Icy is thoughtful, too.

6) Cooper is another blogger who has done an impeccable job first of all, of posting thought provoking content, and second, of serving as the moderator of the discussion that invariably follows. She takes time to draw attention to other interesting posts she has seen, and has always been there for me with valuable advice on issues I couldn't decide for myself.

7) I've known Mushroom since I began blogging but for a long time he didn't blog, so it's hard to call him a thoughtful blogger. But has been extremely thoughtful and helpful with just about any technical issue I've had. His site, where he does monthly posts of found photos along with his own captions is Laughter is the Spackle of the Soul.

I think I'm only suppose to do five - so I should stop now, but when I think about it, I only seem to know thoughtful bloggers, so where do I stop mentioning them. Just click any one link in my blogroll and the chances are you will find yourself visiting a thoughtful blogger.

Here are the rules, if you'd like to repeat this meme yourself:

1) If you have received an award simply choose either the dark or light background image and save it to your files, then post it proudly on your blog!

2) Pass the award on to five other people, you can choose any of the awards from the series, you do not have to pass out the exact award you received. Choose whichever of the awards below that you'd like to give out. You can give out one of each or five of the same one, whatever you prefer.

3) You can change the size and color of awards to suit your blog, that's up to you, it's your blog, just leave the titles the same.

4) Please link back to this post so that people can read these rules and so that the meanings of the awards will not be lost.

5) If you feel that you or a friend are deserving of an award and no one has given one to you yet then email me at sayhitochristy(at)hotmail.com and tell me about your website.

2007-08-01T07:36:00.000-04:00

It was destined to become an urban legend. Maybe it was the matter-of-fact way the two girls invariably crashed even the most secretly held parties, barged their way to the kitchen, where they sliced themselves one piece of cake each, and then, instead of nibbling the tasty dessert, proceeded to rub their faces in it. Afterwards they fled, leaving a fog of bemusement behind. The continued evening of wine and what remained of the cake resulted in the wildest speculations as to what this all could have been about. A Duncan-Heinz publicity stunt? An over-baked post hypnotic suggestion? Last survivors of a flash mob decimated by starvation? The new cult of Marie Antoinette? Some suggested they must be possessed by demons not diabolic but diabetic.

No one knew.

In a related incident which was never connected with the relevant pre-occurring event, an officer in a top secret military installation tested the new satellite night-vision zoom technique. He watched mystified as two ladies in the new moon darkness of a park tenderly licked cake from each other's face.

Story #407

Thanks for the stories! And of course more are welcome! Anyone landing here is invited to leave a story, caption or impressions as a comment...

Postscript: Some random surfing led me to this extremely delicious photo by Donavan

Interlude - Thoughtfulness - Great Blogs

2007-07-28T02:53:00.001-04:00

I've finally posted story #406 (post below this one).

Seich has honored me with the Thoughtful Blogger award. I'll work out a post for that in the next days. So stay tuned...

A couple of weeks ago I went through all my comments, and searched in technorati for all the new links, and compiled a list of blogs which I want to stop by and get to know and to incorporate into my links. I wonder how, though, as there are more then 150 urls in that list. But over the last weeks I've noted a few of them, and wanted to mention a few here:

1) My Pseudobackpack
"One Blog. Five Restless Souls. Countless Adventures"

This is a blog by five lovely ladies who just finished grad school and are now traveling the world independently of each other, but using the blog as their meeting point to share with each other and with us. They hope to reunite in some remote island paradise in one year's time, but I am hoping I can convince them to do it Hamburg instead. The concept of the blog grabbed me right away - I think it's turning out very nice.

2) Half Dentist
"Stan Johns' Fictional Blog"

It's a fictional blog about a fictional UK dentist called Stan Johns - probably the name is made up too. The blog follows the adventures of Stan himself, Bessy (his dog), Cookie (his nurse), his friend Felix, his 60ish receptionist George, and the wife Margaret. What the writing lacks in non-fiction it makes up in wit, humor and hilarity. Maybe this is the ghost of Jerome K. Jerome blogging?

3) Madeleine in the Shade

This site has some incredible writing, a style that is intricate, intelligent and compelling. You will find prose and poetry, cultural reviews and some photography - a creative scrapbook. Madeline herself is very mysterious - she has not written much about herself, except that she is in Prague (for the moment) and is a teacher/screenwriter. I suspect she may be a professor of film and have written classic film that we've all seen. Her review of the Czech film "Sedmikrásky" especially impressed me - it went beyond anything I'd ever read about the film (one of my favorites).

4) Lorena's Blogbilingue
"Two languages, two cultures, the door opens. Dos idiomas, dos culturas, la puerta se abre"

This fantastic site features bilingual posts (English and Spanish), short stories with a wonderful fairy-tale like quality about them, poetry, observations, and occasional photography. I haven't explored everything yet but her story about the moon A Story / Un Cuento and her post Faces in the Stones are good starting points.

5) Things Look Like Things
"Blogs and photos as fable, fairytale, fiction and fact."

What can I say about this site except that I'm waiting for God to start commenting here.

2007-07-20T05:54:00.001-04:00

Exhausted she lay on the bed, eyes pried wide with fear, her thoughts like waves of tempestuous ocean. She thought what would happen if they caught her. The violin sensed her dread and began to hum the chords of a Brahmsian lullaby, counteracting the turmoil that held her awake. Her eyes flickered shut as she slipped into a troubled dream of what had transpired...

She saw herself scurry up the tree, the violin secure in a small knapsack strapped to her back. There was just enough time to conceal herself in the branches before they came.

"She went this way."
"Follow the tracks -- Over here!"
"There she is! In the tree"
"Bring the ladder."

They'd have her down soon - she knew that, so she removed the violin and started to play, that melody without words, the melody that coaxed primal peace out of the depth of feeling. And it worked. Those who would destroy her talent stood like totem poles that had accidentally touched heaven. Hate, rage and the will to destroy became an altruistic love for one's fellow creatures. She sprang from the tree and vanished quickly into the brush. But their rapture would soon dissolve and the next time they caught her they might be wearing ear plugs.

She awoke on the bed of the motel room, the violin beside her. Men's voices penetrated the glass of the closed window. They had found her, and this time she was cornered. They would smash the violin, she knew. And she would be next. Why did the desire to hate perpetuate itself so savagely? But that's how it was. Not everyone welcomed the affects of her music, but she could at least stand for the principle. She decided to face them. She arose, opened the door and confronted faces hardened by the hours of pursuit and the lust for destruction. The burliest and roughest looking of the men stepped forward and spoke, moisture welling into a tear drop at the corner of one eye. "We'd like an encore," he sniffed.

Story #406

THanks to all who contributed! I'll answer leave my comments later tonight! So many stories to read and soak in! It's the part I like best.

Note: I've been having trouble with my spam filter - lately I've found several non-spams marked as spam. If you've written to me and I haven't answered, it could be I never got the message. I'm checking carefully now, but I can't help feeling that some mails got lost.

2007-07-19T01:00:00.000-04:00

Ten year old Max was cleverer than Swatches in a cuckoo clock. He tackled IQ tests in ten minutes flat, obtaining perfect scores with one hand while beating the last level on his Nintendo DS with the other. He was so clever there was really no way to tell how clever he was, because no one had ever seen the likes of it before. So they gave up trying. "I want to invent things," the wunderkind stated one day out of the blue.

"He's clever," they said, "Give him everything he wants." And so they gave him a laboratory. It took him twenty minutes to work out the principle of time travel and prove it with a device that could transcend linear chronology.

"Wow!" everyone exclaimed.

The principle was simple: a perpetual motion energy field influenced by variably poled magnets.

"Aha," everyone said, quite confusedly, "But It's cute how he built it in the form of a 1920's Buick."

From his first journey in the years he brought back two of his future, older selves, one 15, the other 25. He dressed them up like Chicago gangsters to match the car.

"How sweet," everyone commented, "let him do it!"

He also set his future selves to work, each building a new time contraption and journeying off to snatch back further twins from the timeline who in turn began the process all over again.

"Ohhhhh, ahhhhhh," everyone noted with astonishment, "it's exponential."

By now there were hundreds of thousands of Maxes, each a unique instance from some point in time, population doubling and trebling by the moment.

"Hey," everyone noted with sudden consternation, "maybe this wasn't such a good idea after all."

But it was too late. Max opened up a dead end milliminute in a skipped chronological beat and transfered every man woman and child that wasn't him smack dab into the middle of it.

"Hey," they all nodded, "this looks very much like a cornfield."

But it was the beginning of the end. The youngest Max hadn't yet discovered girls, and as his elder versions explained them to him, it flustered him so, that he lost all his cleverness. Soon the Maxes were little more than a lonely, lustful mob with no place to go. They floundered around a few decades, lamenting the loss of ladies, then vanished into the timeless stasis of extinction.

Story #405

2007-07-13T23:26:00.000-04:00

Carrie and Carl played volleyball at the lake, bopping the ball back and forth. The sun wanted to play too so in a twinkling of an instant blew a diversionary cloud of dust. The couple blinked, not noticing the momentary flash as the sun switched places with the ball. They continued their ritual of fun, slapping the solar disk form hand to hand until it was time for the sun to go down and the two to go home. They stopped, smiling at the incognito sphere, holding it between them.

"How did you know?" the sun asked.

"The tan," Carl answered.

"Yeah," Carrie continued, "our palms have a nice brown tan after playing with you."

"So what happens now?" the sun asked.

"We put you back," Carrie stated matter-of-factly.

"I'm afraid we'll have to," Carl went on, "we have plans tonight, and it rather involved it being dark."

So Carrie and Carl placed the glowing orb back onto the horizon. The night was one they never forgot. The horizon they'd chosen was the one in the East.

Story #404

Thanks for all the stories! I've finally commented them!

I'm off the front page of Blogsofnote.blogspot.com now so traffic has dropped down a bit. It's been a very rewarding time for me, as I've met so many new and interesting bloggers - which in itself has been a great source of inspiration to me. Most of all, so many of you have shared your creativity in producing these fantastic mosaics around the photos I've posted. I hope that you will all keep coming back, in spite of my strange stories. German untranslateables of the day: schräg and skurril.

Let's play another round of Russian roulette with some of the bloggers, artists and musicians I like. Take your click:

[eins] [zwei] [drei] [vier] [fünf] [sechs]

2007-07-08T06:44:00.000-04:00

It looked like a simple washing machine but in reality it was a transdimensional anti-phase fabric interpolator. For the less technically inclined, this means you turn it on, add soap, and clean clothes appear out of nowhere. Nowhere in this case is an identical palimpsest of our dimension, with the exception that clothes on that side are constantly disappearing - the way umbrellas do in our dimension. Bob got a shock one day when he reached into the machine to retrieve his new wardrobe. He selected a fresh pair of dress Levi's, but as he pulled on the leg a door on the other side of the machine opened and there was his completely naked parallel twin, pulling on the other leg, refusing to let go.

Story #403

Thanks everyone for all the stories! I've finally commented them and will now concentrate on the story for #404. Anyone still wishing to write their own story to the above photo, please feel welcome to do so!

2007-07-07T18:45:00.000-04:00

Balloon: Which came first, the girl or the balloon?

Girl: I came first, and none too soon.

Balloon: You were a wish that I created!

Girl: You are a thing that I inflated!

Balloon: But I can float to outer space!

Girl: With a few quick squiggles I drew your face!

Balloon: I can prove that it was I.

Girl: Whatever you prove will be a lie. But please, let's hear you certify...

Balloon: It was like this: One day, floating along the shore, I spied a boy alone on his towel wishing for a girl. Since wishing for girls is what boys do best and since issuing wishes is my finesse, I hovered to the boy and presented him his complementary wish. Well, of course he wished for you! I dipped into the sea, patted some jellyfish together, added some seaweed for hair, some salt for preservation. And there you were! End of conversation.

Girl: Jellyfish!? Seaweed!? Salt!? My softness and huggability have nothing to do with jelly! And my hair is perfectly the opposite of algae! And last and never least, I am sweet, not salty! Your ravings are nonsense times triple and double - you're but a stick of gum I chewed and blew into a bubble!

Story #402

Note: Today's found photo is a self-portrait by Jenny Snow, an Austrian photographer with galleries at Deviantart.com Englishsnow and Luxemburger-Queen where you'll find many sensitive images of femininity and an Alice in Wonderland kind of charm. Stop by and tell her what you think of her photography! And thanks Jenny, for your kind permission to repost this lovely photo.

You're invited to post your own spontaneous stories, captions or impressions to this photo here in the comments section. Sunday morning I will post a new photo for stories.

Second Note: The form of this story was inspired by Doug's delightful audio post "The Bath" at Waking Ambrose. I listened to that and had to start rhyming things.

2007-07-02T21:34:00.000-04:00

The crack squad of philosophers paused after a violent dispute with the enemy. They'd discussed the meaning of life and war, but no one could agree to die. So they withdrew in a stalemate and waited while their sergeant consulted the magic 8 ball. "Does war have a meaning?" he asked. "Maybe" the 8 ball said. The sergeant tossed the black sphere wide into the air. It landed in a ditch some hundred yards away, exploding in a cloud of inconsequence and colored confetti. The philosopher-soldiers rested cross-legged on the ground, waiting for abstract orders. None came, but the enemy marched forwards now, carrying a banner bearing the large letters and digits: "Error 401"

"Now what does that mean?" one of the soldier-thinkers asked the soldier-thinker next to him.

"Damn! Why did you interrupt me?" the soldier-thinker answered, "I almost had what war meant!"

"It's all making nonsense to me too!"

They watched as the banner bobbed in nearer to their position. The enemy soldiers halted and bowed slightly in a show of respect, then brought out the t-shirts they were selling, complete with date and time of the battle ironed on in red, white and blue, a wonderful souvenir to take home to the family. And that was the revelation they'd waited for: There's no place like home, especially during a war. Now they could all go home and celebrate Independence Day.

Story #401

Happy Fourth of July! And thanks for all the stories you guys posted. I'll comment on them tomorrow. Ready to sleep now.

2007-06-29T20:11:00.001-04:00

Photo by Myca Angel

At first I did not know where I was or what had happened. Everything was a dull blur, and the throbbing in my head made it difficult to concentrate. But the feeling faded and my senses began to differentiate themselves. I lay sprawled on the stone floor of a subterranean chamber. The water flowing down one of the walls caused a steady tinkling sound, not deafening, but loud enough to mask the ambient stillness. Last of all I noticed the light, the steady fluorescent glow of the blue rocks forming the walls around the spot I lay. It was a dead light, with none of the warmth of the sun, but nevertheless the temperature was comfortable.

In a flash the events of the last days passed before me: Exploring the cave. The mishap. Tripping and sliding down the incline. Losing my way. The flashlight giving out. Inching along in darkness until the blue illumination appeared in the distance. I might be miles below the Earth's surface, had no idea of how to return.

I heard the sound of bare feet splashing through the puddles where the water had paused on its way to the center of the Earth. I saw the feet, the legs and body of a stunning feminine creature. Her skin caught the glow of the rocks and reflected a sheen of pale emerald. She stood near the streaming water, collecting drops and rivulets upon her hair and shoulders. The splashes clothed her flesh in a costume of glistening wetness. I studied her in my prone position, too weak to rise, though I felt an intense desire to embrace her.

All the while her eyes never met mine. She might have been oblivious to my presence, the way she held her head in shy aversion while continuing to bask in the falling water - a sight I could not turn away from.

She revolved slowly under the gentle cascade, revealing every aspect of her physical form, ended facing me again. The deep blue of her hair, the green shimmer of skin and the pale red of her lips combined into beauty I'd never seen before. She took notice of me as I thought this, and began her approach with measured steps and motions. I wanted to rise to meet her, but still I could not. Soon she knelt beside me, placed her moist hands upon my shoulders, and bent intimately close. I thrilled at feeling her wet hair touch my skin. I felt her tongue exploring my neck, felt how soft her lips were and then the pressure of two sharp fangs as they painlessly slipped through parting skin. As she drew my blood into her mouth, the sensation was one of dizzy ecstasy, that wound the center of my entire awareness. Unable to contain the pleasure I began to moan and turn from side to side, and she continued to drink from me.

I became numb with pleasure. My vision began to cloud. I saw her rise from me, her lips much redder than they had been before. She backed away with those same measured motions that had carried her to me. But this time her eyes were fixed upon mine, in her expression a mixture of sadness and desire. As she backed into the dripping water she inclined her head shyly, invitingly. Then my head began to throb and my senses succumbed to darkness.

Story #400

Four hundred is a special number, and deserved a special photo. This photo appeared by very kind permission of Myca Angel. Myca is a hobby photographer and extremely photogenic young lady from Chile. You may enjoy her photography, and her poetic writing (in Spanish) at two Webpages: [Myca Angel] and [Siko My].

Possibly this story might be taken as a sequel to another story written to a photo by Myca - but it wasn't intentional. This only occurred to me afterward.

Thanks to everyone who contributed their creativity here!

2007-06-28T14:10:00.000-04:00

Pleasure cruises, those rendezvous of the young, rich and beautiful were extremely expensive, so there the cruisers all were, dancing on the deck, ladies and men mingling and lingering with the one they had found among the waiting willing. As Gerry and Yvonne meshed into each other's arms it was like two electromagnetic surfaces pressing together. They danced in oblivion of the others, of the ship and the waves it hurdled through. The beat of the new-found partner was all that mattered.

Captain Rogers viewed from above with deep satisfaction. Half of the couples would begin a new time together, a seed sprouting into the fascinated intertwinings that initial attraction enjoyed. For some this would last a lifetime, others, merely a night, after which they'd return to the deck for the next dance. The captain was satisfied with his contribution to society, and proud that he had made the experience affordable. All the feeling of a Caribbean cruise and none of the expense, by building the open air ship's deck right next to the downtown.

Story #399

German word of the day: mittelprächtig (see above). Thanks to everyone who contributed a story/caption!

Now let's play a game of Russian Roulette. Six cool bloggers:

[one], [two], [three], [four], [five], [six]

Take your click...

2007-06-27T14:14:00.000-04:00

Between missions Agent Double D'Lemon dined at the Golden Dragon to receive his new instructions. He was the organization's most dedicated employee. The orders, as always, would be passed to him via fortune cookie. The last message "You will climb high mountains" directed him to a breathtaking deployment in the Himalayas, where he single handedly defeated a gang of goat rustlers. "An enemy will succumb to your persuasiveness" had been a coded order to arrest the dangerous Doktor Mabuse, a fictional character best described as an evil German incarnation of Professor Moriarty. That task had proven itself immensely difficult.

Now D'Lemon finished the final bite of nasi goring and awaited his instructions. Waiter Chang lay a plate with the cookie before him. But the Golden Dragon had a new kitchen boy, and he in turn had a sweet tooth. At a sudden impulse the boy had devoured a plateful of cookies meant for the guests, including the one for D'Lemon. Double D'Lemon broke the two halves of the wrong cookie away and read "You will discover happiness with a dark haired stranger." As he left the restaurant he scanned the faces. There she was: dark hair, dark eyes and stunning midnight complexion. He smiled. She winked. They talked. He lingered. They married. And lived happily ever after until the day they died. Mission accomplished.

Afterword: The message in the original fortune cookie, "The Aliens are among us," was a false alarm. The Aliens had been among us, but they took one look at "The Synchronicity of Indeterminacy" and left.

Story #398

Thanks everyone for making this a great round! More stories are welcome, of course! My comments and the next photo will be posted in a few hours...

If you can read Polish, check out this great translation of Story 396 by Joanna "Rotten" Banana

2007-06-26T15:29:00.000-04:00

Since the invention of the bubble combustion motor or the Bucomo, as it was affectionately known, oil was no longer needed - except for sensual massages. Cars now ran on dish soap. All the world's problems were solved and even pollution became a fun event. The occasional soap tanker that floundered off the coast led to wonderful spills of bubbly suds, all of it pH neutral. The lemon-flavored beachside air drew crowds eager for fun and cleanliness. Saline bubbles floated back and forth, volleyed by carefree frolickers while bikini-clad beauties, legs sunning in suds, enjoyed the peace of sand and detergent. Often a boyfriend or hubby trotted back from the seashore to his freshly bathed girl, sparkling dishes hugged in his arms.

Story #397

Thanks to everyone who wrote their own story/caption to the above photo. More are welcome. I'll comment them tonight, and post the next photo too.

Special note: Today is Roachz's birthday! So go wish her a happy birthday - and while you're at it, read her wonderful blog!

2007-06-25T12:30:00.000-04:00

I'd heard they were a mixed couple, but that didn't bother me. I always try to keep an open mind. I knocked. He opened, and there was that fleshy smile of his - and those eyes that followed wherever one went. It unsettled me. He stood beaming and beaconing me to enter. I did.

"She's in the library," he explained, "reading the Kamasutra."

I followed him into the library. There she waited, a wooden monument next to his random build. Cedar she was - I could tell by the scent - or perhaps just the limbs were of cedar. I suspected a torso of oak, the noblest of woods. As I looked upon her we shared a meaningful glance. Her steady gaze put me at ease, for I did have slight inhibitions about the visit, considering their relationship.

"Did you bring the tools?" he inquired, expecting, perhaps, that I might have forgotten.

"They're in my case," I told him. "But could I ask you to leave the room while I work?" I knew it wasn't ethical in my profession, but I wanted to be alone with her.

"Is that necessary?" He seemed surprised. "After all, I am paying you for your services. I had thought to watch."

"All right," I acquiesced, but his continued presence was a source of unease.

We carried her to the bed. She was heavier than I had imagined, for her petite design.

"I'll remove her clothes for you, if you wish," he offered.

"No," I told him, "I'll continue from here."

I undid the clasps and zippers of the ankle-length dress covering her shapely form. But as I slid the article away I saw how blemished and raw the wood beneath had become. Secretly, I wondered what he had done with her to get her like that - I could tell she had been a careful work of art when first she was made. Wood should never be treated with neglect!

I activated the power sander and set to work. Sawdust sprayed from her midriff as I smoothed the roughened area. When I was finished I ran my palm across the midsection. How warm the wooden skin felt after the sanding! With a chisel I accentuated the navel, then I turned my attention to the remaining anatomy, sanded arms, legs and the artfully carved back. Soon the surfaces were restored, and the grain of her skin seemed to glow in the dim bedroom light.

I studied her intensely to see what work remained. There were still the erogenous areas to complete. The breasts I would have to do by hand - they might be ruined otherwise. So I selected the finest grain of sandpaper I had and began, slowly and steadily, to rub. It would take a few hours, but my hands and arms were firm and I was confident of their endurance. All the while I massaged those oaken orbs our gazes were locked and her smile never changed. And as I finished the delicate work below the waist I could tell she was completely satisfied. Then I was done.

I was sorry that my visit must finally end. But I had attended to the job conscientiously and well. She was a masterpiece to behold, as I was certain she had been the day she was created. We dressed her and returned her to the library.

"You may go now," he said, "I'll call you again if I need you."

As I left I could feel his roving eyes upon me, observing me with the condescension that creatures of flesh reserved for us beings of wood.

Story #396

(Read this story in Polish - translation by Joanna.

Note: Thanks everyone who contributed their own story to the above photo - more are welcome! Just leave a mini-story, caption or other impressions in the comments section. Tuesday night, NY time, I'll post a new found photo for a further set of stories.

P.S. I was tempted to caption this "Behind every good man there stands a woman." :-)

2007-06-24T11:48:00.000-04:00

Grego had a dream: mad, daring, passionate love with fifteen ladies at once. He had a plan too: download the latest pre-release fileshared Brad Pitt film and present it to the ladies on his wide-screen plasma TV. The ladies were seated in his makeshift theater, breathless in anticipation. Their eager eyes seemed to press the screen flat onto the wall. As their gorgeous masculine heartthrob appeared, salivary glands performed marvels to please a Pavlov. One could sense the building of erotic tension. Grego saw. Then he switched in the subliminal soundtrack he'd recorded himself in his rather shy and squeaky voice to bombard the feminine psyches with indecent salaciousness. But contrary to Grego's expectations, the ladies dropped into an immediate and impenetrable slumber. Grego, it seems, was an incredible bore, even subliminally, but when the ladies awoke, they recalled with a creepy shudder that the movie had been about him.

Story #395

Thanks to all who contributed a story! I'll comment on them tonight when I'm home from work. The next photo will be posted in a few hours.

P.S. Here's a cool photo-story one of my blogging friends put together using a series of photos I took recently. (I mentioned this already, but those who haven't seen it - it's really funny.)

2007-06-23T12:28:00.000-04:00

His heaven was formed entirely out of plastic. He poured the substance from an oil can, molded and patted the molten mass, until it hardened into diffuseness the color of fleece. He stood back and saw that it was good. Then he exhaled shadows and light which flew over the surface in a kaleidoscopic dance, raging and flowing like seas at high tide. When he cast his stare towards the finite walls of his holy realm he found they had merged with infinity. If it were possible to fall he could have done so perpetually, never leaving the universe that contained him. But he did not ponder this. He sat cross-legged in the center of his creativity and waited.

He saw that he was alone and it displeased him. He patterned angels out of the nothingness. They formed before him, aesthetic outlines clothed in a costume of fine alabaster thread softer than silk, if it were possible to touch. The angels wore skates which bore them through the unwalled realm. They moved with a steady grace transcending the physics of motion, like falcons in an endless glide never needing to flex their wings. As they passed his field of vision he admired their details which lingered in an afterimage quickly filled by the next of the heavenly forms.

Behind them fluttered a cloth, transparent red, created by the meeting of shadows and light. With a dexterous flip of the wrist the passing angel let loose of the cloth. It hurdled net-like, closer, upon him, invisible as it wrapped his body. The cloth vanished into his skin just as the heaven's walls had merged with a blurred infinity, or as a single snowflake vanishes in warmth. With each new layer he felt his thoughts wander ever further beyond the steady hand of controlled thought. And soon he drifted into sleep.

This was his last resort since counting sheep had lost its effect.

Story #394

This photo appears by the kind courtesy of a fascinating young visual and photographic artist called Cylixe. You may view her video collages at Youtube, or her photography at Flickr. I think you'll see why I was so fascinated by her art. The black and white photographs are poetry for the eye, which is not to say that her color photos are anything less. Please visit her galleries and tell her what you think. And Thanks to everyone who contributed a comment or story here.

June 23rd: If you've clicked in via blogger's "Blogs of Note" - welcome! And thanks Blogger, for this honor! What a stunning surprise it was to notice all the sudden traffic. This blog has been around since 2004 - but lately my posts have not been so frequent. To get a feel for the idea of spontaneous stories written to found photos, I invite you to try the "Random Story" link under that awful profile photo to your right in the sidebar.

Note: One of my short stories has been translated into Spanish at the E-zine Ediciones Efimeras (# 112). Click the green icon and look for the story entitled "Mecánico"

News Flash Interlude

2007-06-08T07:20:00.000-04:00

My best friend Vince, whom you may recall from my "Here's How, Sniff" story has just released a new single entitled "Working A Lot." I'm very happy for him, as this is his first release under his own name. Vince has otherwise received quite a lot of recognition as lead guitarist for the iconic avant garde musician Gary Wilson. I met Vince back in 1984, as the department I worked in moved a few desks down the aisle. Vince took over my old desk, and I found myself going back to pick up my messages - but those conversations got longer and longer as we talked about all the music we had in common, such as The Velvet Underground, Captain Beefheart and other classics I was just discovering. We quickly became friends, and I'm very glad we kept in touch. There are so many great memories hanging out with Vince, for example, the story behind the above photo.

So do check out Vince's new single, with the tracks "Working A Lot" and "Driving Into New York" - you can listen to samples at Vince's myspace page. You'll find the single at the Itunes site (if you have the Itunes software installed) or at Ruckusnetwork.com. P.S. The tunes are cool and funky!

Other news: Tom & Icy have posted a really funny photo story using a set of photos I took recently.

Last and least: I'll post a photo on Sunday for you all to play with next week - I will be gone then until Friday, somewhere in the wilds of Barcelona.

2007-05-25T00:38:00.000-04:00

The party was starting to drag. The problem, quite simply, was that none of the boys could dance. The girls all could, sure, but that's always the case, and the girls who never could looked good faking it. Party hosts Bill and Lil danced obligatorily - but it was the female of the two who had taught the left-footed oaf all he knew. Sally, Malli, Molly and Dolly, lovely and single, wheeled the beats with each other, moving in dazzles of rhythmic rotation, pausing for occasional deep kisses that caught the boys' attention as they sat like flesh-eating wallflowers, backs hugging the wall, feet planted in a stew of yearnful frustration.

This described the general scene at Lil's and Bill's parties, but tonight would be different. At midnight Lil brought out her surprise, a secret weapon she had trained intensively in numerous nighttime sessions while Bill worked late at the office. Her secret appeared at the door, looking quite germane and urbane in the hand-tailored, long-sleeved apparel she'd knitted, and as all eyes perceived, it was a real, live octopus twirling it's way into the room. He danced with Sally, Malli, Molly and Dolly, all four at once. Afterwards, when the lights turned low, he disappeared with his partners, silently, discreetly, but one at a time. Everyone was happy - except the boys, whose arms hung limp and motionless by their sides.

Story #393

2007-05-15T01:45:00.000-04:00

- I walk along a corridor. Girls are seated on a bench to my right. They are all pretty, clothed in varied tones and cuts of black material. I glance at the faces and forms as I walk by. I join with them mentally, bathing at once in the wild mixture of curiosity and skepticism their eyes betray. I desire them. Each of them. Sometimes the face is partially covered, a dark scarf concealing the mysteries beneath. Lovely banditas. The wall behind is lined with photographs and posters - an occasional face there reminds me of one I saw perhaps thirty seconds ago, but when I return the way I came, I cannot find who it might have been. So I move forwards along the wall of femininity that tempts me with each and every facet of color, form and expression. I attempt to speak to one, than another of the girls. Variations of "Where is this place?" or "Wasn't that you in the photograph I just saw?" Eyes turn upwards to view me. I feel them study me with interest, but the reply is another language whose syllables I cannot decipher, and there is no revelation in the girl's features as to what my questions mean to her. So I continue. Walking. Walking. Walking.

- Describe the corridor.

- It is a corridor without end. Or maybe this is an illusion created by a slight lengthwise convexity of the inner wall, matched by an equal concavity in the outer wall. But if that is so, the walls curve as the surface of the Earth curves, so minutely and negligibly, that it is impossible to perceive. It might be a corridor along a ring of Saturn. But all this remains a vague nuance. It is the girls who command my attention.

- Now I want you to concentrate. To think. This next question is vitally important. Let us say there are four phenomena of the mind. Four categories, antiseptically distinct. There are real perceptions. There are hallucinations. There are daydreams; and finally there are dreams of sleep, perhaps even nightmares. Each of these mind-events leaves indelible traces: memories, the documents we turn over in our hands later and examine front to back for details determined by the intensity of the phenomenon. Look closely at that document you hold now and trace its lineage to the source.

- It's no use. I've tried again and again but I can't. I am terrified that this memory lives, and that I cannot determine its origin. I close my eyes to conjure it forth again. I search for the slightest clue. I dream the memory at night and approach one of the girls to ask if she is an hallucination. But her reply is as meaningless as in the memory.

- Still I feel that we are much nearer now to the truth. But I'm afraid the time is up. We must end the session for today. You will think of these questions, won't you? And we'll continue again next time?

- Yes. I will. We will.

She rose from the plush leather couch that had embraced her form. The therapist watched her. She might be 15. She might be 20, or even 25. Oh to have lain on that couch with her, he thought, instead of this mere exchange of words! He gave a noncommittal glance as she moved towards the door, opened it, and vanished from his sight into the hall. But she did not cease to exist. She scanned the corridor from left to right in search of a vacant place to sit. But each spot on the bench was occupied by a girl she had never seen before. From behind the door the therapist's voice called a name she did not recognize. One of the girls on the bench rose and entered the chamber, leaving a vacant seat behind her.

Story #392

Thanks to everyone who posted a story, despite my having been away so long!

Story Interlude - Thinking

2007-05-12T03:37:00.000-04:00

Jess at Just a Touch of Sweetness made my month by nominating me for a Thinking Blogger Award. (No, that's not her picture, but I thought it went well with the idea). If you haven't read Jess you really should. She writes with charm, wit, humor and sexiness that keeps you wanting more. When I read her, I wish it had been Georgia I'd moved to way back when and not Germany. I'd really like to meet her.

So I am going to give my own Thinking Blogger nominations - which requires a lot of thought and I'm not really as good at it as Jess thinks. First off, here are the rules:

1. If, and only if, you get tagged, write a post with links to 5 blogs that make you think.
2. Link to this post so that people can easily find the exact origin of the meme.
3. Optional: Proudly display the Thinking Blogger Award

My nominations:

1. Princess Haiku's blog is a "literary collage of poetry, prose, photography, classical music, dance and book reviews, written in the tradition of a poetic memoir," as she puts it. The individual collage she presents is the most cultured and has the most depth of any I've seen in the Internet. Intelligently done, a fine balance of video, photography, design and content. Princess Haiku was a shoe-in for this nomination.

2. Colored Clouds has a blog entitled "Creations of Another Nature". Each of her posts is an invitation to reflect, to stop and think about the world around us and feelings we have. The posts are interwoven with her impeccable photography: sight and thought combined. There's a sense of peace and serenity in all of her posts. I always enjoy stopping by there.

3. Ellen at Soulkin is as rare as a speck of amber on a beach of gray sand. There is something divine about the way she writes. The positive outlook and the subtle insights make each post worth its weight (and wait) in gold. I wish she were more prolific, but the quality of her posts makes up for the quantity. If you are ever having a bad day, read a page of her archives and I guarantee you will feel better.

4. Frances Bo Bancess has a wonderful site documenting her thoughts, impressions and vignettes of imagination. Hers was one of the first blogs I ever linked to, and I'm glad I did. It was a long time before I knew her age, and I was surprised when I found out. She is wise far beyond that superficial number.

5. Cooper: Not only is Cooper a Thinking Blogger, she is also our conscience. She sees directly through the bullshit going on in our society and in our world, and with a few clear cut thoughts, chops it into mincemeat. There's greatness at Cooper's, and I predict it's only just begun.

2007-05-07T14:10:00.000-04:00

"I've known you all my life," the girl declared into the Sun, a meaningful smile glazing the words. Her sentiments rose like steaming vapor into the air and melted in the sunlight. The Sun was strangely intense in the last minutes before the dusk, but heard, nevertheless.

"And so many have forgotten," the Sun whispered with words that glowed warmth onto her legs, tanning them instantly. There wasn't often time to converse. The massive sphere went about a "daily" routine, spewing rays into infinity, while the globes of the Universal realm orbited and spun perpetually, hoping to catch the emanating breaths with every aspect of their geographical contours.

She continued her adoring smile straight into the glowing body with eyes immune to the intense glare: "I will not forget."

"You are worthy to be cherished," the Sun breathed in response with sizzling licks that felt grand on her bare limbs.

In the early days of human existence the Sun was all-encompassing. It was God and Goddess alike. Before the dawn of language its daily journey was the one expression that all understood. Universal and Archetypal. But now? Demysticized century after century, and finally with the arrival of technology, the Sun felt impotent and eclipsed. There was so much more to compete with - Internet - Playstations - Reality Shows. No one cared about a burning orb crossing the heavens from an Eastern point in the horizon to some obscure destination in the West. The daytime omnipresence no longer overwhelmed, was no longer a part of primal perception.

She read these thoughts in the waning rays cast upon her. "I will change all that," she stated boldly, above her ability to know how stunning her presence would be when she left that hidden alcove of the long-distance bus that carried her. The holy tan of her skin and the Sun-like glow of her disposition would charm those who had forsaken the memory of Ra, of Helios, of Amaterasu, and all the other names of Sol.

"Yes you will, my child," spoke the Sun while the land beneath slipped away into the jurisdiction and influence of the Nocturnal. "You are my offspring, and I give you the night!" And then the Sun was gone. A fading glow lingered on the Western horizon, the Sun still trying to meet her eyes. The bus, her birthplace into instant womanhood, vanished into the night, ever closer to its destination.

Story #391

This photo appears with kind permission from Myca Angel, a fotolog.com user in Chile, with two very [lovely] [pages] of photography accompanied by her passionate texts written in Spanish. Anyone who would like is invited to contribute a spontaneous story inspired by the above image.

Here is another story written to a photo by Myca Angel: Story #400.

2007-03-16T23:42:00.000-04:00

The terror began and ended in her arms - not that there was anything horrific about her, or the arms - it was all in his con-voluted, relationship-analyzing, dis-satisfied brain. Out of those thoughts seeped a labyrinthine fog that wound about and kept her from him, while he, in the center of that density, felt hollow inside. Indeed. Something was missing.

"Why do you look so disturbed," she'd asked him, concerned at the expression clouding his face.
"Nothing, it's nothing at all."
"I don't please you."
"Yes, of course you do," but his reassurance was empty, even to himself. Then he'd fix his gaze on a fleeting image of her in a drinking glass, specters of his own imaginings that were the essence of the girl he wanted, the girl that wasn't there.

It hadn't always been that way. Not before that visit to the art museum. They walked in, hand in hand, harmoniously in love, walked past couples on canvas. First the naturalistic styles. How grand it was walking with her! Then the impressionists. But was it really right? The expressionists. He began not to understand her. Then into the next room, where the implode ended. Surrealists! When he saw into her eyes. she never looked that way, and when he folded her in his embrace none of those parts were ever there.

Story #390

Thanks to all who wrote a story and waited so patiently for me to post mine! I'm really lucky to have such creative visitors.

2007-02-27T15:43:00.000-05:00

The mechanical mini-man locomoted his way onto the desk and up to the lady official. For a moment he stood, as if inspecting her, then he broke the silence: "I'm looking for a job!" he said, aiming his beepy voice at her.

"Qualifications?" she asked laconically, not without a sense of boredom.

"I'm great at assembling."

"Mechanics?"

"No, poems. I have full creativity circuits. Random imaginings. I put words together in ways that stimulate human brainwaves."

"Ha!" she exclaimed, with a hint of meanness in her voice. "Everyone wants to be creative! I'll give you illuminary engineer - you screw in light bulbs." And she laughed again, somewhat harsher.

"It's beneath my dignity," the mini-man beeped humbly.

"You better take it," she hollered 20 decibels over his capacity to process, "it's the best I'll give you!"

And without awaiting an answer, she snatched up the phone, dialed a number and announced into the receiver, "I've got a new robot for you." Turning to the mini-man she yelled, "Right??"

"Oh no, this will never do," the mini-man beeped to himself. "Too much empathy. I'll have to dismantle her and start again. It's no trivial matter, building automatons for the unemployment office."

Story #389

Thanks to everyone for a great set of stories! This was really great! Sorry I was so long in posting.

Indeterminacy = неопределенность (Neopredelennost)

2007-02-16T03:07:00.000-05:00

Saschina, a girl who knows all the subtleties of casting shadows, has translated one of my stories into Russian!

I'm quite honored that she would take the time and trouble to do all this. If you can read Russian, please stop by Sashina's journal and have a look, and tell all your Russian-speaking friends.

If the pretty cyrillic letters are too much for you, have a browse through one of Shashina's photo-art galleries at foto.mail.ru and fotocommunity.com.

Thank you, Sasha, for this compliment of wanting to share my stories in your own language.

2007-02-04T23:09:00.000-05:00

Phelinius P. Myszkawitz was a mouse who enjoyed riding on the railroad. But not one of those immensely huge railroads for people in which the aisles were a mile wide and the other passengers constantly stepped on one's tail, or in which rabid cats had free reign. This was a teeny-weeny, sweet little railroad for mice. Not even something as terrible as a mouse trap could fit in the aisles of the train's wagons, but there was always room for a few crumbs of cheese. It was the perfect means of transportation for mice.

As Phelinius sat comfortably in his seat the passing scenery placed him in a thoughtful mood. Half of him meditated on mice issues and the other half reflected on general questions of life which may even have been of interest to a cat. Suddenly he was interrupted by a deep, bass sounding burst of mouse squeaks. It was the portly mouse, Felix Schmelix. He was actually much shorter than most other mice, but made up for it by being twice as fat. And that made him quite portly compared to Phelinius. When Felix Schmelix was aggravated - and that was very often the case - his whiskers began to twitch in all directions. He functioned as conductor for the railroad. The two mice had known each other for a long time.

"Mr. Myszkawitz! Your ticket, please!"

"Is that necessary?"

"It is always necessary!" answered Felix Schmelix, and his purple nose become even more purple.

"But why?"

"Because I said so!"

"Who ever heard of a mouse buying a train ticket?"

Felix Schmelix squeaked on, "What would the world come to if mice could ride the railroad without a ticket?" and his whiskers began to twitch wildly.

"I don't know. The world is riding another train."

"I'll tell you what the world would come to. The train would be infested with mice!"

"But no mouse ever had to buy a ticket to use transportation. My cousin once took a ship all the way to Panama and he didn't have to buy a ticket. In a first class cabin he went! And anyhow, it's very comfortable here in the train, even without a ticket, not crowded at all. In fact, we're the only ones here."

"If you do not present your ticket at once, I shall have to stop the train!"

"But Mr. Conductor, Mr. Schmelix, I beg you Felix, this is the first time I ever rode on the train and before I buy a ticket I want to see if a train ride is something I enjoy!"

"Your ticket, now!"

"And besides, I plan to disembark at the same station I boarded. You can't ask me to buy a ticket for that."

"Ticket!"

"Look here, I want to see your ticket!"

"This is an outrage!" Felix Schmelix sputtered furiously.

"I just wanted to know what a ticket looks like," Phelinius shrugged his miniscule shoulders.

The conductor calmed down because he suddenly felt superior and began explaining, as to a little baby who doesn't know anything yet: "A ticket is something like a - it looks like a - people - I mean, mice hold it in their hands – I mean paws and..." He didn't know what a train ticket looked like either.

"So a ticket is small?" Phelinius P. Myszkawitz helped him.

"Yes."

"Smaller than a mouse?"

"Well, it would have to be."

"Larger than a crumb of cheese?"

"Most certainly!"

"Is this a ticket?" Phelinius asked innocently and presented Felix Schmelix a little piece of something.

"What in the world is that?"

"It's a part from a toy out of a Cracker Jack box. I found it lying around in the train station."

"Yes. That's a ticket. Give it to me and you can ride."

It was a good thing that Phelinius had such a ticket and that the conductor didn't know what a ticket was, because this conductor was in no position to stop the train. He was working illegally without a permit. The founder and sole owner of the railroad was a little - pardon - a big boy named Lenny, who would have been thrilled to know that a tiny mouse was traveling with his railroad.

So what could Felix do now? There were no more passengers to check and he didn't care to walk back and forth through the train all by himself. He sat down next to Phelinius and the two kept each other company for the remainder of the trip. Half of the time they debated mouse themes. The other half they observed the passing landscape.

"Oh look!" said Phelinius, "It's the kitchen again!"

As it became time for Lenny to go to bed and the train suddenly came to a standstill, Phelinius P. Myszkawitz told the conductor Felix Schmelix in a firm mouse voice, "I want my ticket back. The train has stopped moving!" And as long as Lenny still sleeps, the two mice are sitting in his train quarreling long into the night.

Story #388

Special message: some weeks ago a gal named Sarah wrote to me about a "Stray Story Project" she is working on, and which sounded quite interesting. You people stopping by here are all so incredibly creative and veritable reservoirs of stories, I'm sure you will have something to share with her.

Postscript: For those of you who can read German, my cousin and adopted sister has a wonderful story about rats. I wrote the above story long ago for my son and wanted to finally post it somewhere. The above photo is as close as I could ever find to go with it. I have not had much time and mood lately to write, which is why I took a time-out in this manner. The story doesn't go with the photo, I know, but for what it's worth, it was one of my rare spontaneous inspirations. Thanks to all my dear commentors and story writers for this great round!

2007-01-27T01:12:00.000-05:00

I'm 21, old enough to own my own cybergirl, so I went to the emporium to acquaint myself with the Spring collection. They stood arrayed, those electronic marvels, on polyester pedestals. Each one was full of attitude, posturing herself to potential customers, as if to say to each "Of course you want to buy me, but who says I want you?" I walked back and forth, standing once before each of them to bask in the electronic fields that emanated from high voltage hearts - I'm a sucker for cyber auras.

Zera X was the one who tingled best. I admired her shiny white limbs and imagined the surfaces hidden beneath the designer coverings. She wanted me, too. I could tell. Those hybrid machines had a way of planting subliminal attraction in the customer, if he was the one they wanted. And I knew that I was the one.

"So, you've bonded with one of our models," the salesman ventured enthusiastically. His inviting smile caused all misgivings or doubts about man-machine morality to evaporate, like an electrostatic discharge vanishes into nothing.

"Yes, with Zera. Zera X," I answered, as self-confidently as a guy might say "I do" before the justice of the peace.

"Then she's yours," he told me, "I'll just have to work out the final price." His agile fingers pushed a long series of buttons on the store register, a little more than made me comfortable, but then he looked up and named the amount, "Fifteen thousand nine hundred and sixty-nine credits. Do you have it?"

"Yes, I do," I said, though not with complete enthusiasm. It would take my entire savings. Somehow these purchases always did.

The salesman noticed my unease and reassured me, "It may seem like much now, but remember, you're acquiring a companion for life. For eternity, if you will. Think of her as an investment!"

The static tingling that originated from Zera and ended in a pleasurable center of my brain continued. There was really no need for the reassurance. I knew what I wanted. I wanted Zera.

"Done!" I said.

After that, my "march down the aisle" went very fast. Two muscled delivery clerks came to us from behind the backroom curtains where they usually waited unobserved for the event of a sale. They strolled over, zapped me with what looked like a cattle prod, resulting in my complete and total paralysis. Then they picked me up, carried my rigid form over to Zera, and finally, as gently as the ring slides onto a bride's finger, they balanced me onto the pedestal right by her side.

Story #387

Sorry for such a late post! Thanks everyone of you who took the time to contribute. That goes double for multiple personalities!

Thanks to everyone who contributed stories last time: My muse, Doug, Mushroom, Al who is at a disadvantage in this list because his name is very short and hard to click, Cheesemaster, multi-lingual Frances Bo Bances, Lammy, Mrs. Weirsdo, and Tom & Icy.

Cooper, Jamie and {illyria} did not write stories, but made my day with their comments.

Feb. 3rd: Damn! I'm having trouble keeping up with everything these days. My story will be posted soon - just can't say when.

2007-01-20T03:24:00.000-05:00

"Tell me again, the story of how you seduced me," she said.

"I will try. Yes, I will try - it is all so vivid to me..."

'What are you thinking,' you asked, watching me closely.

'I'm undressing you with my eyes,' I told you, deciding not to mask the truth.

'Oh?' you responded, suppressing a slight smile that clashed with the unerring gaze.

'Now I'm sweeping you off your feet and laying you onto the bed,' I continued, describing what I saw looking past the reality of our vis-à-vis in the smoky room.

And you said, quite eagerly, I recall: 'That's some imagination you have. I mean, here we sit in this cozy cafe, only a round table between us small enough to kiss over. But I like it. Don't stop.'

So, of course, I did not.

'You lie before me, passive. You stretch. Your blouse slips from the clasp of your pants and inches upwards. I see the flesh that is always most tender. I push away the fabric, in my other hand the marker, and begin to write on you, the novella, the account of your seduction, the opening epithet hovering by the navel. But I stop.'

'And what happens next?' you inquired, lifting your glass of wine.

'I pause and watch your breathing relax, like the sea's waves suddenly calming in the idle wind of the summer. I take your wrist. The loose sleeve slips to the shoulder. I begin at the base of your hand, winding words around your arm, sweet words, like the temptations of a serpent as it draws you to the apple. You watch the marker, you look away, you watch again. You have to see every word as it streams out and onto your skin. But you sense the writing with closed eyes, so you close your eyes to feel what is implied.'

I stopped talking and looked at you. You wanted to hear more. But I waited - until you spoke again: 'I can feel the phrases appearing on my body even as you speak them to me. And now I am hanging, hanging by a word yet unwritten.'

I did not answer immediately, but tasted a slight sip of the wine we shared.

Then I continued: 'We are still there, on the bed, the marker in my hand. I release your arm, and it falls in controlled motion to your side. The words still tingle - as I see in your passionate expression. I grip the blouse that is disarrayed in the aftermath of writing, and pull it upwards with one fist, until your arms raise with it, over your head, and with a quick twist the article is in my hand, to toss into an oblivion that doesn't concern us. I am ready to write more. I lower you now with that hand, flat upon the bed. I turn you. You lie, face down, and I begin the next small chapter. It streams in eloquence quicker than one could speak, as words upon your back. Soon both shoulders are covered, and the well between. The writing descends like a tide sweeping down the form of your back, yet your torso remains still, frozen by sheer will - though a hint of the passion shows in the trembling of your limbs. I wait again.'

And then you sipped from the wine. And it was my turn to catch my breath after the imagined writing that whirled through my thoughts. But the story wasn't over, and there was more flesh to fill with the imagined tale. All stories must have a climax, and then a denouement, perhaps even a continuation. And so it is with the story of every seduction, and especially of yours.

I went on, 'My writing becomes more intense, as the space to fill grows less. Jeans slip away, no fabric left touching your body. Now I write haphazardly, across a breast, on a sole, on a thigh. Before I can say how, your body is filled. There is no room left for the materializing thoughts, though the climax of the story is nearly in grasp. I inscribe in words indelible and small, in the slightest spaces I find. These too begin to elude. But the final words are in my thoughts, and I poise my hand to bring them to life. Then I see one unwritten island on your scrawled-over form. I will end the story there, by the navel, where all stories, including this one, begin.'

And then I paused again, to observe the affect of my narrative on you. You waited, and I allowed you to wait. But something was preventing me from the final culmination of ideas.

'Go on,' you said with a tremor revealing the fear that I might not. 'Go on!' you said again in a raised voice, directing all faces in the cafe towards us.

'I cannot continue reading,' I told you, 'I am scanning you from toe to breast, and it seems that I have lost my place.'

"And that is the story's end, the story of how I seduced you. It ends here and fades into the shadows, just as my narrative to you now, and just as I am to do..."

"I see," she said, disappointed, turning away from the mirror, letting fall the marker with which she had written those final words.

Story #386

My muse has contributed a story:

Look here, do you think it is enough? I mean, you said one has to suffer for art, right? Do you think I'm a real poet now? I sufferd a lot, really, the tatoo costed me a hundred bucks - I could've get a new purse or new shoes for that.

That is some suffering you got there, baby, but it would help, if you'd wrote the poem yourself too.

Damn, what now. All this effort for nothing?

You could pass as an intellectual belly dancer.

Why is it so hard for a girl to get a cultural job these days?

---

Two other stories contributed by my muse: #63 and #286

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And now, it's your turn:

Look into the navel, you are getting sleepy, sleepy, your eyes are heavy, you cannot hold them open, you close your eyes, you click the comment link, you write a story to the photo, you publish your comment. When you see the message saying comment has been sent you wake up and remember nothing...

2006-12-31T23:59:00.000-05:00

Signore L was a bottle of Limoncello, a Latin liquor whose proof could weaken, cloud and confuse the most steadfast of minds with swirls of tropic temptation. He stood next to Miss Peach, a curvaceous flask of juices pressed from the malum persicum fruit, pure and wholesome, the kind of drink that might be served at Sunday school picnics. That's why they had chosen her - she knew - for the children to drink at the party. But L thought differently. He wanted her. He wanted her with the cool deliberation legend to citric intoxicants.

"Dear Signori," he spoke urbanely to her, breaking the silence, "please forgive my intrusion upon your thoughts, but who knows how long we might stand here."

"It's quite all right, sir" she answered, surprised that a bottle of alcohol could be so polite. "I was only dreaming about my Alabama orchard and the tree that sprouted me," she continued, her voice as sweet and tempting as apple pie.

"I would love to show you my home in the Sicilian Plains where the sun shines us to a sizzle as it rambles lazily across the sky."

"Thank you so much, sir."

"Please don't call me sir, call me L," he interjected, "When that Mediterranean sun rolls onto you, you want to burst with juices, but you don't. You become richer and suppler and dizzy for lips to drink you."

"I've never felt a sun like that," she told him, wishing privately that she had, but unsettled by the idea of being drunk.

"And the quick relief of the gentle rains as they light upon your lemon skin. They fall mainly in the plains, you know," he elocuted. "Let me describe the feeling..." L continued his poetic reveries and Miss Peach listened. For days and nights on end they stood in each other's proximity on the shelf of the kitchen pantry, Signore L "working" on Miss Peach the entire time. But New Year's Eve was approaching and there was not much time left before they would be carted off to the party. Signore L made his move. "Miss Peach," he whispered, "May I sip you?"

"Oh no!" Miss Peach responded with genuine shock. His suggestion did not seem decent to her, "That would break my seal! I've never been opened before."

"But surely you won't keep your vitamins to yourself!" he shot back, "and you need my vitality. Have you seen your 'use by' date? Without my alcohol you'll spoil in a week, two at the most. Flecks of mold will begin to float in you, and then they will pour you away, down the sink."

"I still say no!" she answered indignantly. "The children could never drink me if I said yes to you."

And so their conversation ended. Miss Peach spoke no more to him, nor did she react when he spoke to her. But in her nectar fermented the fear that she might somehow say yes to his debonair decadence after all. L ceased talking but eyed her constantly while cocktail fantasies inflamed his fifty proof mind. He drooled luridly to himself: "If only I could get my mouth onto hers for a moment, and give her a sip of myself. Her resistance would be diluted. She would be mine then, to the very last drop."

New Year's Eve came. They were taken from the shelf and placed on the drink tray together. Miss Peach saw then that she was not intended for any children. There were no children at all at the party. She was an ingredient, nothing more - to infuse the various liquors surrounding her: whiskeys, ryes, bourbons and gins. Some of the bottles began a raucous chorus:

99 bottles of peach on the wall
99 bottles of peach
Take one down, pass it around
98 bottles of peach on the wall...

She became frightened, a fear which stirred her straight to Signore L, the only bottle she knew. "L! Hold me close. Please," she whispered to him - at least he came from a citrus fruit, as she herself was born of a fruit. "Oh, splash me, spill me, spike me!" she clamored anxiously to L to drown out the breaths of hard vodka crowding against her, brushing her most sodomously. She sweated with the chill of the nearby ice.

L tapped her lightly, responding with all his charm, "Come with me, and we shall be as one, as only two liquids can." Together they wobbled to the edge of the tray, off the bar and away into the bedroom. Unseen. Unnoticed. She nuzzled up to L on the bed as he gazed into her translucency. He spoke gentle words to her, "Oh my god Miss Peach, how lovely you are - like a young girl's breast." Then he was on her. "This will only hurt a little," he said, "I'm going to unscrew you," And with a nimble twist of the neck, she was open, her top removed. He repelled his top instantly, shooting it into a corner of the room. Then they clinked together, glass upon glass, and poured themselves into each other.

"Oh Signore L!" Miss Peach let out, half blind with passion as Signore L slurped. "What are you doing to me?" She felt as dizzy and breathless as a lone girl at spin the bottle. As his alcohol swirled into her pureness she began to tingle and tremble and savor the feeling. "Happy New Year" she gushed at him, then tumbled from the bed to join the vodka bottles.

Story #385

(This photo was donated by dear, sweet, irresistible Roachz whose Limoncello Parties are legend in Japan.)

Postscript: This is the second story to a photo donated by Roachz. The first story (with a juicy picture of Roachz herself that will make your mouth water) is here.

A Safe and Happy New Year to One and All!

2006-12-26T09:46:00.000-05:00

In the night after Christmas the loaded sleigh sped away and dissolved into a sudden cloud of glistening snowflakes. Then, silently, it began to exist again, pressing distinct traces into the snow, on the Eve of the Yuletide holiday.

The sleigh's occupant knew the village well, from memory. He crept in and out of each house like a shadow, leaving presents that would later cause a minor sensation, as no one could say how they had been put there or who was responsible. But all were immensely astonished at the insightful selection, as if the giver had known exactly what the person might need later, even before that person had thought of it.

Since McPhearson had discovered the principle of time travel, he kept it a secret, using it only to satisfy his sense of generosity among the people of the village he loved, that special place of his childhood. There were so many Christmases to chose from, and he darted from one to the next, pausing only to replenish the pile of presents on his sleigh.

He made his final stop at an unlit cabin. The mean hermit who lived there had always chased the children from his yard. He was feared and avoided by all. McPhearson knocked. "I am the spirit of Christmas past," he called in response to the frightened stir. The hermit slowly opened the door to stare into his own face.

Story #384

The previous Christmas stories: #118 and #323

Here's wishing all of you a great Christmas and all the best for the New Year!

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Story #370 somehow got lost in the shuffle, but I've finally posted it.

2006-12-16T15:24:00.000-05:00

Imagine an ancient goddess whose name is not recorded in the mythologies of pre-civilization. Imagine also that this is with good cause. The goddess is so horrific that a single prayer to her would cause reality along with all life, time and memory to cease. She is the goddess, not of infinity, but its opposite which holds in a space smaller than a pinpoint the end of all existence. She lived before the nothingness that preceded creation. As human awareness arose from the moor of scents and images, words for this goddess were never created. What is not uttered cannot be invocated. The antithesis of a mother's life-giving force is a metaphor that begins a vague grasp of the essence that is this goddess. But it is dangerous to think further.

Through the ages this anti-goddess remained unsung, unworshipped, and unembraced while her brothers and sisters enjoyed prayers, unerring devotion and the homage of sacrifices. She lived in seclusion in a realm removed from the other gods and goddesses, who themselves were wont to mold her image out of one of their thoughts. But divine beings cannot live in such isolation - they thrive on the love and especially the fear felt by their subjects. Thus it became necessary for the goddess to visit humankind in her most miniscule form.

"Worship me," an elemental particle whispered in the ear of the woman who in her life had mothered a child.

The woman answered with the emotion of surprise - she wondered at the origin of the voice.

"Follow me," it continued it's bodiless whisper.

She sealed her eyes against the light of day, and followed the sound within herself.

"Closer," the voice repeated, and she moved in closer, focusing her sharp gaze on the origin, only to see it recede into the distance before her. She neared, it tumbled away, ever deeper, drawing her after it. She felt as if she were running downwards, in a mad vertical dash leaving behind all that she knew. She ran and ran and soon blackness loomed before her.

"Embrace me!" the field of darkness commanded - and she did. It was then that she comprehended the loss, all would become nothing. Her child was gone, her past, her future, all that she had loved. She gasped, and brought her hand to her face in a physical extension of the anguish. There were no words that could express the primal feeling of the smothering of every thought.

"It's a take!" a voice interceded. It was the director, and he gazed in wonderment at the actress. "That was incredible! For one moment I actually believed. How you capture these emotions so convincingly will always be a mystery to me."

Story #383
---
Speaking of theatre, here is an earlier Indeterminacy theatre story from a year and a half ago: #239

2006-12-01T12:21:00.000-05:00

Each night in the extended instant that separates the conscious hours from the time of sleep she is visible to me. I lay in my bed. My thoughts fade into oblivion as the grip of wakefulness relaxes. Then she flows in as if the glass bowl of reality had suddenly become a sieve. I open my eyes and see not the world of colors I breath and walk through, but the outline of her figure, violet iridescence glowing in the realm where the shadows of dreams are cast. Then we stand before each other in the onyx blackness containing us.

"I've found you again," I say to her, and see that her eyes are bound by a thick cloth. Only the lower portion of her face remains uncovered. I marvel at the artistry of her lines - her chin, her lips, and the unblemished surface of her neck, the way it invites as she tilts her head slightly sideways. I had never noticed this constellation before.

"How may I be of service?" she answers as she always does, though the relationship is clear. It is I who stand in subservience to her.

"I wish for a vision of unrequited love, the random terror of malevolent beings pursuing me into a cavernous haven which becomes a ship sinking in arctic seas. Then, as I swim, a fearful plummet into an endless depth. And this time - intensity, it must be brutally intense."

"It shall be as brutal as you are honest with yourself. It is truly what you wish?" her lips form the words as I look at her again. I try to summate her entire physical being by combining the glimpses afforded me in the past. Sometimes it is only her shoulder that is unveiled, sometimes a breast. This time her lips are emphasized. The next visit I may see only her eyes.

"I know it will be terrifying," I tell her,"but the anguish might bring me to realize what I must do. Perhaps when I am awake, I will understand the message I cannot receive in unobscured form."

"Indeed," she comments, "it is subtle, but then, that is how it should be. If the message were open and direct, all our realms might implode..." She approaches, her arms outstretched, palms extended, not to embrace but to transfer the images into me, the images I will dream, the message that my life screams for metamorphosis. She places her hands on my forehead, and my awareness of the realm dims and is extinguished. Immediately my nightmare begins.

Story #382

Thank you to all who contributed their own story inspirations! You may see more of the mysterious blindfolded girl at Samara's Photoblog.

2006-11-17T07:02:00.000-05:00

The moon broke from the ebony sky and free fell down to Earth. People were too occupied with their night-time rushing to notice, but Meana and her friend saw. It passed clean through the plate glass window of the restaurant they sat in, merging atoms briefly with the pane but without cracking a splinter of glass or making the merest of sounds. It hovered then, that glowing orb, near the ceiling of the room, contained to the size of a beach ball, but not everyone realized that the heavenly miracle had occurred. The waiter passed by and did not look up. The other guests did not turn their heads to see. Only Meana and her friend noticed the attention of the celestial body as it paid its tribute. Meana saw a face in the moon, serene, beatific, and a smile forming on the countenance, casting its illumination over her. She returned her own smile, casting it upwards. Her friend began to dream with eyes unsleeping - her bed was on the wrong side of the house, and she never saw the moon in the black sky outside her window, only wished she could. Meana did not have to dream - she'd been in love with the moon since the first time its rays shone into her bed.

Story #381

And now I would like to introduce a new Weblog to you, called Creations of Another Nature. I think you will find there a wonderous merging of images and thoughts. The topmost post at the moment is entitled "Simplicity" - the first word that came to mind when I read through the week's postings. Beauty and elegance in simplicity. If you are feeling disharmonic with the world right now, I think you can cure that by taking some time at Creations...

P.S. Thanks to everyone who shared a story last week!

2006-11-13T14:02:00.000-05:00

The lamp crashed to the floor. Jon's stream of consciousness ceased its usual flow. No longer did one word cede to the next in an ongoing sequence of thoughts carried in long, perpetual sentences. Images and smells began to dominate his awareness, and desires were his reactions. The cake. The icing. Salivary glands in full activation. Mmmmm. Eat. Jon began eating. Each bite was a sweet discovery. One bite. Another. Again and again and again. The cake diminished swiftly and was gone.

He scanned the room and saw a multitude of highchairs, each holding the same baby - identical to him, each eating cake, or waiting idly before a plate of crumbs. It was never long before a wave of attendants placed a new cake before each baby, which then responded with a smile and a laugh that came straight from the belly. And then the faces would harden in the concentration of transforming that cake into another plate of crumbs. On and on this would go, through all eternity, with endless indentical blends of flour, eggs, milk and icing. Jon had rubbed the lamp and told the genie: "I want to be young again, live a thousand lives, and have all the cake I can eat."

Story #380

Original Post:

If you have any use for something like Pansi, stop by Pansifiles and offer her a job, something like librarian, or that person at a publishing house that has to read all the manuscripts.

An interesting new (non-partisan) blog project is discussing ways to achieve peace, so check it out and cast your vote on a number of issues.

2006-11-06T18:32:00.000-05:00

Constance Kreisel, unsung expert on the science of circles, stopped dead in his tracks when he saw her. Those years of consuming textbook upon textbook of geometry, modern retellings of the ancient Greek hypotheses, had made him aware of more nuances of the curvature than any mathematician alive. And these took form in her.

"Forgive me if I am somewhat forward," he spoke to her as he approached, "but I wish to pay you a compliment." She turned her oval eyes to him and formed her lips into a crescentine smile.

"You remind me distinctly of Pi," he said.

"Thank you. Some boys say I remind them of cherry pie. Which flavor do you like best?"

"I wished to imply it in the mathematical sense - you see, the ratio of a circle's circumference to its diameter, as a value, has no precise expression. But it is known as Pi. For my part, I find no words sufficient to fully express your impressions on me. Hence my reference to Pi."

"I'm not used to such intellectual conversations with the boys I meet. What's your name?"

Constance was too enamored to answer. "I like apple pie best," he told her instead, his gaze swimming in the circular symmetry of her face.

"So do I!" she winked, "But please tell me more about Pi."

The invitation ignited a blaze within him. His eyes strayed over her bodily contour as he struggled to retain control of his concentration. He expounded the theory of calculus, with theorems read from her curves. Back and forth he paced like a lecturer in slow and erratic half-orbit around her. She stood enthralled as he delved past differentials and into integrals. As he spoke he scanned the subtle convexity of her hindmost region. From there his gaze slid upwards along the concave arc of her nether back, to linger on the slight cove beneath her shoulders. He explained the theories of volume, her attention entirely his. The rising slopes familiar on the upper torso of females glowed through the twofold coverings she bore - one of her pink blouse and subsequently of her amply long hair dangling like loose strands of an ellipsoid. This he saw, and more. Inspired he was now, to define her form as an equation of irrational numbers: with divisions by zero, and square roots of negative values - a coup in numeric expression! He longed to hear her voice again but realized he must stop talking first.

"That was beautiful what you shared with me. I'm actually quite interested in math, especially in the application of vector algebra to spatial displacement!" she said, looking straight into his eyes - "Would you like to get into that?"

He glanced briefly heavenward, perhaps on an impulse of gratitude towards the God of Mathematics. It was then that he spotted the balloons fixed to the wall near the ceiling. They were perfect. One a deep blue. The other lavender. Twins of mismatched color and size.

"Excuse me," he told the girl. "But I just recalled a prior engagement." He nodded a quick farewell, then brushed past her, straight to the balloons, which he dismounted from their position to take with him as he left the room. He returned home and slipped into bed, embracing the bulbous forms as if they were teddy bears. He slept that night content in his warm bed, dreaming of inflatable spheres.

Story #379

Thanks Cheesemeister for your story! Anyone else with a spontaneous idea: more are welcome!

P.S. Go over to Pansifiles. The Pansi dolls are trying to find jobs or something.

2006-10-31T02:55:00.000-05:00

Badgered, bothered and belittled by those around him, not to mention the mugging and maltreatment, Harvey had had enough! The worst of them was Bill, that proverbial bully and sand-kicker, that brute who had dogged his path through high school, and now even worked in the same office with him. That day at work was especially rude - Bill had ridiculed him behind his back, and even the boss had laughed. Now Harvey wanted satisfaction. He paged through the telephone book, hoping to find something that could hurt Bill, when his glance fell upon the ad for Dial-a-Witch. "Love trouble? Want riches? Enemies to deal with? Dial-a-Witch is the magic for you. Full-service conjuring! Curses removed and reinstated! Homeopathic spells. All services affordable! Open Halloween only!"

"This is what I need!" - he told himself - "This is exactly what I need!" Visions of supernatural torture with Bill as the recipient danced jigs around his head as he rang up the number. "Trick or treat?" came a sultry female voice at the other end.

"Yes, please!" Harvey answered.

A moment later a puff of sweet-smelling smoke billowed out of nowhere and when it cleared, he saw the witch, sultry as her voice on the phone, standing before him. Harvey eyed her from the tip of her black hat, all the way down her black satin robe to her pointy black shoes and back up the broomstick. She lowered the broom, showing a face he'd have sold his soul for - to the lowest bidder, even!

"What can I do for you?" she asked, looking Harvey square in the face, an action that always made him stutter.

"I-I have an enemy I'd like dealt with. His name is B-B-Bill. Can you t-turn him into s-something awful?"

"Like a toad, perhaps?" Harvey liked the way she said it. Decisive. She knew exactly what to do, then again, she was a professional witch.

"Yes, a toad, with leprosy," he said, regaining some composure.

"And crooked legs?"

"And warts and shingles and dysentery and allergic to lily-pads!" His imagination was on a roll.

"My, you certainly are vindictive," she commented, laughing from behind the broom.

Harvey blushed. "He's my worst enemy!"

Again her laugh, hidden by the broom. "Why are you hiding your face?" Harvey asked her.

"It's so sensual when I laugh," she giggled, "I don't want to give you any ideas."

She waved a hand in the air, spoke an incantation, then snapped her fingers, studying Harvey after she'd finished.

"So it's done now?" he asked, somewhat confused. He had expected something more spectacular, like a sudden explosion and Bill the Decrepit Toad appearing at his feet.

"It's done," she said and smiled without laughing - which, by the way, looked very nice to Harvey.

"Will I be able to afford this?"

"Some Halloween candy is all I want."

Harvey grabbed a handful of goodies from the Halloween bowl and let them fall into her open palm: chocolates, jelly beans and assorted bonbons. "And there's no catch?" he asked

"Oh, that. I'm afraid there is..." At this Harvey's jaw dropped. She went on: "These days, we witches have to be psychologists, too. Your worst enemy is not Bill, it's you. You see Harvey, you're too timid, and people walk all over you. But I've solved your problem. Each day you must do one bold thing, or you yourself will turn into the toad we talked about."

"Oh no! Please! I can't! I couldn't! Turn Bill into the toad. Not me!" - but somehow he knew it was over, and that nothing he could say would sway her.

"Oh, incidentally, it's almost midnight, so you better start right away!" she added, and purred her magic giggle, face veiled by the broom.

Harvey wasn't sure himself what came over him then. He brushed the broom aside, grabbed the witch by both shoulders, pulled her near and kissed her open lips. Just as he felt that pleasant tingling of a kiss returned, her firmness dissolved into smoke, lips and all.

"I'm a very good witch," he heard her laugh from someplace distant, fading into the midnight silence of Halloween.

Story #378

Happy Halloween! Also: last year's Halloween story, and the year before.

It's been quite an intensive month for me life-wise, which has left me in the last couple of weeks with very little mind for writing stories. Already I am two stories in debt, the story for the previous photo (#376) and the story for #370. November should be back to abnormal, so please bear with me. A warm thank you to everyone who took the time to click by here, and especially for enriching this domain of 24 letters with your comments and stories! (Really, I counted them "indeterminacy.blogspot.com" has 24 letters. Who would have thought?)

Last but not least: a salute to the prolific blogger with a wry sense of humor who is Tom & Icy, Lammy, Lula, the Alien Guy, the Dog-Faced Alien Girl, Dusty Doggy, the Devil, and really more people, creatures and beings than I can keep track of, but it's so much fun to try - thank you for sharing your awe-inspiring creativity with us! There are more worlds in Ohio than one might imagine. Enjoy your well-deserved break, and don't be a stranger, and know that we will all be right back there to see you, at whatever time, space or domain you appear.

2006-10-13T23:48:00.000-04:00

Sara: How did you get here?
Boy: I followed you.
Sara: Impossible.
Boy: I only had to close my eyes the moment you vanished.

Silence for a moment. Sara in her private Wonderland was right to be astonished. "By Invitation Only" was the law of her fantasy realm, yet here was the boy, and somehow he had found a way in.

"Run that way," Sara pointed off in the direction of the pink sun. He was off immediately. "But he'll be back," she thought to herself, "when I turn the path the opposite way." Now she pondered the uses of a boy in her Wonderland. "He could put the leaves back on the trees." They were constantly falling to the ground whenever the trees snapped themselves to attention. "Or put me on the slide, in moments I am not." She slid the blue slide down to the gravelly ground. "Now come back," she spoke.

"Here I am!" the boy announced, "I found a tablecloth. We can have a picnic!"

"What will we eat?" she smiled coyly, "There's no food here." There really was nothing. If Sara became hungry, she merely forgot more of the real world, to notice, moments later, that her socks became striped or a wall sprouted dots in shades of primary colors. The boy went away, then returned a while later with a handful of jelly beans. Sara was trying to catch her breath after swinging a complete Ferris-wheel cycle on the swing. He let the jelly beans fall and helped her, heading off the long strip of breath that looked like a rosy red ribbon flapping in the chaotic wind. What a mad dance it was! Never more than two feet on the ground between the two of them, and sometimes none, and neither in reach of the other - nor the ribbon. But finally they cornered the renegade breath. Sara snatched one end, the boy the other, and they shared it between the two of them. Afterwards, contented and waiting for something to say, they noticed the spot where the jelly beans had fallen. A spiral of cotton candy had sprouted into the strawberry sky!

"You can't catch me" Sara teased, or maybe it was the boy. They chased each other first one way, then the other, all the way up the candy, pausing for little bites along the way, for the running was making them hungry. When they reached the top they were holding hands and stickily sweet all over.

There they sat, on top of the Wonderland world, breathing their breaths together. "I still would like to know how you slipped into my Wonderland," Sara persisted.

"It was easy," the boy answered while glancing down at rainbow meadows. "This whole fantasy is my imagination."

She smiled with primal joy, and joined his gaze into the fairy-tale lands below, "I knew there had to be a logical explanation."

Story #377

Thank you to Dark Firefly for sharing her photo with us!

And now, for your further reading enjoyment: Comatose...

2006-10-09T06:11:00.000-04:00

The first moment he saw her he could not meet her glance. A repelling force stronger than magnetism diverted his eyes to the sidewalk and her shadow borne by the tips of her toes. She stood among friends. Talking. Unaware. He moved in sideways, looking upwards, as if searching for clouds, inching closer until his sliding steps pinned the shadow. The girl's bus came, and she left with her friends, but the shadow remained with him. The living girl did not miss it. Shadows are transient creatures with as many incarnations as there are angles and shades of light.

Once home with the girl's shadow he arranged the apartment for cohabitation. Shadows enjoy a cool room with sources of light, to accentuate the nocturnal nature of their animation. The shadow girl explored her new abode, casting herself upon the wall, rippling over curtains, and brushing by her newfound protector. That night they lay side-by-side on the bed, the dim glow of the nightlight absorbed by her figure, so that he could only sense her presence where the bed was darkest.

Have you ever felt the warm, breathlike touch of a shadow as it slides upon you, like a second skin melting into your own? He felt it then, as the girl-shadow wrapped him like a larva in a silk cocoon. He became conscious of every nerve in his body, and through each nerve coursed tingling pleasure. The incessant stream of total sensation dazed him beyond sleep into a contented stupor that ended with the morning rays through the chiffon curtain.

The intensity of those hours drove out even the knowledge of who he was. He was someone new now, and so stunned he could only wonder if the intangible memory of the night was of a dream or a reality, or some twilight compromise between the two. The shadow rose and began anew to explore the walls of her home. With ultimate agility she merged herself into corners, danced a twirling dance across the wallpaper, looming or shrinking, depending on her mood. Her two dimensions contained a universe.

He sprawled in the arm chair in the center of the room, head turning to trace her flickering motions, much like a paralyzed moth might follow a moving flame. She grasped the shadow of his camera, began an orbit around him, shooting snapshots from all sides. Then she stood still in the morning light. He planted his gaze directly onto her blank face, wanting more than anything to decipher the wistful emotion that directed her. She stood poised to snap his picture, to capture that moment of bafflement. She did so, then turned the camera upon herself and snapped. The sharp burst of the camera's flash was too much for her to absorb. And she was gone, without leaving a note.

Story #376

Many thanks to Alexandra Shcherbakova for allowing me to repost her photograph. You may view more of Alexandra's photography at her fotocommunity.com gallery.

Also, many thanks to all who contributed their creativity this weekend! You guys are great!

Previous shadow stories at Indeterminacy:
Story #24
Story #43
Story #340

And for those who are fascinated by the art of shadows, here is a link to the marvelous Shadow Art Gallery of Mayuko Fujino.

2006-10-03T05:25:00.000-04:00

I posted this photo because everone is looking for love, and I think, but I'm not sure, that the love is right there in her eyes. If you're stopping by here the first time, from BlogAdvance, or perhaps some random search, I decided to compile a list of my most popular stories, at least among that digital entity known as the "search engine." The list probably wouldn't convince anyone human to stay, but here it is, just the same, along with the search terms that found the stories.

1. strip poker (Story #89)

2. hair fetish (Story #84)

3. lolita island, lolita queen, lolita feet, underaged lolitas, etc. (Story #29)

Sometimes people actually found my blog searching for Indeterminacy or Synchronicity, and lately, my post for Whitlow Awareness Week is moving up in the search ranks (which means my campaign for awareness was a success!), but the above three pages are always among the last 100 hits. The really crazy searches like "extremely naked gymnastics"??? which should have gone here would be a subject for another post...

2006-09-29T18:00:00.000-04:00

There Chuck was, surfing at work again, when a random blog caught his eye: "Life got you down? Aggravated by the high price of cheese? Want to get away from the rat race?" the post summed up the seemingly insoluble dilemmas of his modern life, then suggested a solution: "Be a mouse!" His finger lingered on the computer's navigational device, ready to click the page away, but he read on instead. "Enjoy one entire week in rustic splendor, all you can eat buffets, exercise studio, guaranteed friendly caregivers and cat-free environment." That sounded good to Chuck who'd definitely had enough 60 hour weeks that year and rude nudges in the subway, so he clicked the Web button that beamed his consciousness through the Webcam and into the mouse, while his body went on deposit in an Internet stasis-loop. The calm of vanished responsibilities came down on him like a beach on a desert. And there he was, exploring the sawdust floor of his comfortable cage, racing in the wheel, climbing the tubes, rolling back down into the sawdust, gorging himself on cheese and peanuts. In the afternoon a nice little boy came to pet him and allowed him free roam of the playroom. Stepping around all those giant toys reminded him of the carefree days of his youth. That night during his workout on the running wheel he decided there was no reason to leave. So he nibbled his return voucher to shreds and lived happily ever after, or at least as long as little mice can live.

Story #375

Thanks to all who contributed! And a wow-I'm-stunned-and-flabbergasted thank you to BlogAdvance.com for choosing Indeterminacy as October's blog of the month. Blog Advance, in case you didn't know, is the friendlier traffic exchange service with an excellent sense of community. Check it out!

P.S. Aficionados of the golden age of radio will recognize the Escape influence in the opening line of the blog post. Read more about Escape at Broadcastellan.

2006-09-28T17:43:00.000-04:00

Mario and Maria kissed. Haley's comet did not stripe by in a glow of burning light. The planets did not millennially align in stellar salute. The sun neither blinked nor smiled. The Earth quaked not a single iot'. Waves did not rise from the sea to embrace the waiting shore. Orchestras did not synchronously chime into a melodic tribute to love. Internet traffic did not register an increase in searches for kisses or kissing. Humanity did not instantaneously freeze in posture and gasp a collective unison of sudden awe. And nothing mythological happened either, such as Mario changing to a woman while Maria grew into a man, an ordained effect of an eternally forgotten god of universal gender. But the moment their tongues touched everything turned orange.

Story #374

THanks to the storywriters who contributed their take on this photo!
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News 1: Songblessed is an island of creativity and beautiful ideas which somehow came into existence in the middle of the blogosphere. You may recognize the blog hostess Pizazz the Pyrate Queen from her photograph in a previous story.

Note 2: Several weeks ago I posted a couple of my stories written when I was 11 years old. I then reposted the entire set of stories at a new address, and thought the matter finished. But something strange has happened. I encountered this post at Waking Ambrose, and the indeterminacy11 site has mysteriously returned to life.

Censorship at YouTube of Blogger "Less People, Less Idiots"

2006-09-17T02:49:00.000-04:00

Around April I found a fun blog called Less People, Less Idiots, with the host Rev. Billy Bob Gisher. The posts were an enjoyable blend of satire and thought provoking points centering on current events. This poignant and very personal post about racism struck me especially. Other posts had me in stitches, like Arnold Schwarzenegger's dating tips.

The points are subtle and the satire divine, but after all, the blog is run by a Reverend. Unfortunately this post doesn't end yet. Shortly after I found out about Less People, Less Idiots, Rev. Gisher began producing satirical videos. His traffic went way up - videos get more attention than plain text posts, but some of the attention, in this case, turned out to be negative. On several occasions, the Reverend has seen his videos banned from hosting services like Google Video, Yahoo Video and YouTube.com, and recently YouTube and Yahoo have both banned and deleted his account entirely claiming his videos were pornographic. The ones I have seen were no worse than an MTV video, and Rev. Gisher has documented that there are countless videos on YouTube, etc. which go much further, and are not banned. Videos which, coincidentally, are corporate sponsered.

It looks like something is going on here, and Rev. Gisher has been documenting this in great detail at his site. If you would like to lend him moral support in his fight against censorship and for freedom of speech, please stop by and add your name to the list of bloggers from the left and right who have chosen to stand by him:
Youtube Bans Gisher's Entire Account

2006-09-16T05:29:00.000-04:00

Francois had an eye for pretty girls and he always knew which ones to follow for the greatest yield of enjoyment. Call it a seventh sense living in the loins. Or voyeuristic vibes resounding in the brain. These were the girls - yes they were - he'd spied them a while before, strolling together on and off the curb, girlhood giggles trailing in the breeze. That alone was music, tunes temptatious teeming through the heaven of his fancies. They'd loitered and laughed; and secrets passed between them of the boys they knew, and perhaps what they'd done in moments unwatched. Awakenings. Awakenings, of a tenderous gender. He rejoiced the loose fabric sliding on blossoming shapes, sliding in time to the rhythm of the gait. And the beats of his heart surged like fireworks in the air, as they turned their figures to the ice cream parlor. Brain made giddy by the adrenaline flash, he drifted in behind, observing with the masterful face of disinterest. He believed himself made of ice cream to be selected and scooped into cones then placed in the grasping hands and moved towards tropical lips; and then the licks, the glorious euphorics of each single slide of rosy flesh on the conical culmination. Soon now! Soon now! This sweet rendezvous. And that's when his heart burst as it had before, the time it transformed him into a ghost with unfinished business in fellatial fulfillment. Tragic for him, more so because the service had been paid in full in precedence of collection.

Story #373

Anyone wishing to contribute their own story to this photo, please feel welcome to do so. I apologize again for the irregular posting lately. It has become a challenge to balance work, family and blogging in the last months.

2006-09-13T00:08:00.000-04:00

From a hollow in the ground two pairs of eyes followed the silhouetted figures as they roamed the barren tundra. Lingering near the horizon was an indifferent sun that would neither rise nor set. The indistinct figures traversed the confines of the twilight horizon, to and fro, without aim and with no apparent design.

"They're automatons," a deep whisper stated, "of my creation."

"I see," came a soft voice, "I've pondered them for a long while, spied at them from afar or, on occasion, nearby, from the safe shadows of a lonely shrub..." The voice trailed off, but the ponderings continued in agile eyes that burned their brand into whatever they saw. It was a woman who had answered.

"I apologize for the tedium," the man responded. There was a long silence in which the stiff figures dragged themselves in their never-ending journey to nowhere, while the audience of two looked on.

"But it is not tedious at all," she declared finally, "They are admirable creations, to be sure. But what drives them?"

"They search, search without recognition. They seek that for which they have no words. There is no soul in them. Only action and reaction, one perpetuating the other."

"How did you create them?" she wondered.

"Sticks bundled together and jointed, tight wrappings like a living shroud, a breath of brain from my own mouth."

A sharp look of surprise: "You possess such powers?"

"In a moment you will suggest the obvious. You will suggest that I am one of them, spawning my own kind, but that is not the case, though they are made in my image. I am real, as you are, but no matter how many tens of thousands of them exist, they would never be capable of originating a thought."

"Why is this not possible?"

"Because there are limits to what my magic - what any magic - can do. And that is why I have sacrificed my last powers to create you, my child."

"!!" and the look that brands.

He continued, eyes averted from her firm stare: "You must go to them now, allow yourself to be seen. They will pursue you, worship you, elevate you to the stature of goddess. You will inspire what they cannot conceive alone: a single thought, the catalyst to eternity.

"And then?"

"And then, with passions untold, they will consume you - mentally, physically and spiritually."

Silence - broken only by the sound of shuffling footsteps.

From the fold of the apron that clothed her, she drew a stone and brought it down fatally on the head of her creator. She embraced his slumped form and breathed into his mouth. He stirred, stood up and climbed from the hollow to join the aimless meanderings of his automatons.

Story #372

Important bulletin: Go and sign this petition that Cocaine Jesus has started to BRING BACK TRANSIENCE and to convince Blogger to take action against creeps like the one who drove her from the Blogosphere.

Postscript: Go check out D.T. Holt's Weblog "I Got a Lot to Say". He posted a really nice write-up about Indeterminacy, as well as his own experiment in spontaneous prose, which turned out quite well, I think.

2006-09-06T08:12:00.000-04:00

That girl - that girl - sitting on the park bench the entire span of the summer. Every day I'd seen her. Every day a new motif of thoughts flurried up at the sight of her. This time I would talk to her, but safely. I spoke to her in the language of imaginings. With a non-verbal thought in her direction I ventured the invitation: "Would you like to visit my mind?"

"Are you nuts," she replied breathlessly, writing the words onto her eyes.

"No. Really, it's rather nice in there. Fine silk carpet, the best imaginable. And a plush sofa to engulf you in comfort."

"Will my cell-phone work?"

"It's quite possible. My brain offers all the amenities. Television, mp3 library, and if you see a dream you like, you're free to jump into it."

She reflected a moment, then looked up with a nod that said,
"Let's do it!"

Before I could even thrill at the notion, she had entered my cortex. After a quick scan of her new surroundings she gave herself to my sofa. The cushioned softness formed around her while whirlwinds of my contemplation cycled about like leaves in an autumn gust. Then the playfulness began. She'd puff a breath into those bundled thoughts and scatter them in all directions. They never, ever found their way back together again. She began turning on light bulbs - but when I looked to see what the idea was, she'd switch them off again. She painted faces on my nighttime visitations - gorgeous Venuses, once. I'd convulse with laughter at the ridiculous lines of red lipstick, and then my dream girls, insulted, turned backs and paced briskly into the distance, with me chasing after in slow motion.

"I don't like this arrangement," I stated, sitting before her in the lotus position, hands folded in my lap. And then it happened. Sudden, spontaneous and swift she pasted a kiss flat onto my inner eye. I blinked and in the space of that blink she was gone. But like wisps of smoke in a corked bottle the memory of her lived on.

Now, though years of life and dreams have separated me from the instant of her departure, it might just as well have been a few seconds. On every mirror my mind conjures forth, there remains the imprint of her lips.

Story #371

Note: If you've fallen madly in love with this girl and would like to leave her a message, and see another of her photos, you may visit her at flork.com/martyna.html

Another note from Indeterminacy: Thank you for all the get-well wishes and birthday greetings (how do these secrets get out!?!). My finger is fine now and doing its share of this typing. So now I've posted the 371st story and have yet to write the 370th. And all your comments and e-mails to answer. Please bear with me - and I know I don't have to apologize but I felt bad having left the blog hanging so long.

Another note: Welcome to my new(?) visitor from Moldova! I saw in my statistic that someone in the city of Chisinau in Moldova stopped by in the last few days. This is one of the countries I know nothing about, and the name makes it sound mysterious and magical to me.

Whitlow Awareness Week

2006-08-24T15:40:00.000-04:00

The following is a public service announcement from indeterminacy.blogspot.com:

If you are like me before this week you have never heard of whitlow, a little known affliction of the finger. The human body (not counting the mind) is perfect in many ways. It is a work of art. The lungs breath air, the heart beats, blood circulates through the veins, white blood cells scurry around fighting off infections, etc. But there is a minor design flaw. Once in a while a bacterium or foreign particle might enter through the fingernail, an infection begins, the bacteria multiply and cannot be driven off. From their secure position in their fingertip-fortress, they can plan and execute one attack after the other. Before long, the tip of the finger begins to hurt and swell and demand medical attention. That's what happened to me last week and this - which explains my absence from posting.

The German word for whitlow is Nagelbettentzündung, an easy word to understand: an infection of the embedment of the fingernail. When I looked up the English translation I found I had never heard it before. I asked Doug - I just have to think of one of the nice people who read my stories and they materialize before me - I asked Doug what he thought the word meant and he suggested that my stories had been low on wit lately and that this was probably a sign that I should do something about it. I had noticed the lack of wittiness myself, and agreed with him before showing him the way out.

So if you happen to develop a strange swelling of the fingertip, see your physician immediately. My physician told me I had come just in time. It was already fairly acute and the bacteria were poised for a one-prong attack on the rest of the finger and hand. He shuddered as he mentioned how bad that would have been. So I asked if there was anything I could have done to prevent it. He said no. It can happen if bacteria happen to enter through a wound in the fingernail. Then there's nothing you can do. I just know I got this because my muse always has me take out the garbage. She'll never do it herself. So if you suspect the whitlow is happening to you, be sure to see your physician immediately and have it taken care of. Also, if you wear a ring on that finger, it's probably a good idea to take it off before the swelling gets really bad. The whitlow is unpleasant enough as it is. The whitlow hurt, the shot hurt, it hurt when they took off the bandage which got stuck in the cut the doctor made. It's settled down now - but I only have half a pair of hands at my disposal and I'm off work for a week.

So what can you do to avoid the whitlow? As I said, probably nothing. If it makes you feel better, wash your hands a lot and use disinfectant a few times each day. Take out less garbage. I don't know. Maybe it's enough to just keep your sense of humor.

Say "no" to whitlow!

P.S. I'll post a photo for stories tomorrow. But due to this damned whitlow, I'm going to stay away from the computer for a while. When I'm back I'll post last week's overdue story.

2006-08-18T18:13:00.000-04:00

It was a harmless experiment at the Institute of Paranormalcy to test the power of reflected thoughts. Its title: "Reflective Amplification of Platonic Forms via Non-Platonic Imaginings." The hypothesis stated that mirrors might have the power to magnify the currents and impulses of strong visualizations in the frontal lobes. That's why Sara was daydreaming into the looking glass. Make it racy, they lab boy told her, and so she spun a negligee dance into the symmetric irreality. Reflections of her twirling form fashioned a web out of the nuanced light - swirls and blurs of her limbs in motion flared full into the glass. The men she dreamed stood stunned to silence, possessive eyes spinning dreams within the dream. They sighed in subservience to her, and breathed in rhythm with the sliding of her feet. On the life side of the mirror she sat like a sphinx in the deep concentration that her thoughts demanded. She felt grand lending her mind to studies of paranormal phenomena, took pride in the contribution her daytime fantasies made to the world of erotic archetypes. Maybe a ripple of what she imagined might weave into the thoughts of a great artist to inspire works of passion. Or tune a mood to subtle seduction. The lab boy, reading her thoughts as he left the room, scratched the back of his head. He'd seen her at the disco one night, and knew quite well that she couldn't dance.

Story #370

This Week's Cool

2006-08-17T08:53:00.000-04:00

After the interruptions of vacation, I feel my brain cells settling back into place and I'm able to take time to tell you about some of the interesting blogs I've found lately...

My Postcard Fiction is a new story blog by Bob Boyd that promises to tell us a story a day. And what stories they are! Everything I've read there has been entertaining, imaginative, well-written, and full of surprises. My favorite at the moment is "One Day I Woke Up Fluent In The Languages of Animals," a delightful fantasy about a man who can suddenly speak to animals. The stories are sometimes surrealistic, but not off the deep end (like my own stories), scary, as in "The Buzz," quirky, as in "Confessions of an Ex-Vegan" folksy, as in "Granny's Tulips." This selection is completely arbitrary. I just reached into the sand and came out with a hand full of amber.

"Aaaby sprzedać... dodaj fotkę" is a new Polish language blog by three divas with a Slavic sense of humor. I'm a sucker for three divas with a sense of humor in any language. The site is a parody of Internet auctions, and it was possible for me to enjoy at least one of the captions with the help of the Polish language babelfish translator Poltran. This caption, for example: "It is borne according to newest trends on legs. But at least on one, it is possible to pack potatoes to second (other) net." goes with this post. Enjoy! But of course the humor works best if you happen to speak Polish. (I found the blog using the Blogger "next blog" button to get away from my own blog.)

Ediciones Efimeras, the Spanish language e-zine of surrealistic fiction has included another translation of one of my stories. The cool thing is that in the Spanish translation my stories all have titles. This one is called "Estatua." (Click the blue icon to view the story).

Black Rock Cave

2006-08-15T00:01:00.000-04:00

One day a man was going to camp in a cave. in death vally. He set up his sleeping bag. Then it started to rian, and then lightning struck in front of the cave, and made a rock to heavy to move fall in front of the cave. It was pitch black except for his fire. Then there was an earthquack and rocks came of and he saw flesh and blood in the rocks from other campers. and there was something carved in the rock that said leave - or this will be you. And than he looked and had to addmit it was him. Unfortuonatly he didn't scare easly so he decided to investagate. Then all of a sudden - he turned around and discovered he discovered the tunnel of time! He was going back in time! Then he couldn't go any further he was in the begining of time, to die, die in this hot earth.

------

Note: This was the ninth and final story I wrote when I was 11. There was no illustration, so I found a photo for it. Probably I would have drawn a view looking into the tunnel, and the man from behind, walking into it.

In writing these stories I had first thought up the title, and then wrote the story. The three titles which were to follow, but which I never wrote, include:
10. Lost and Found in Space
11. The Orange Glow
12. Nowhereland

Perhaps it was I who walked into the time tunnel...

2006-08-14T14:52:00.000-04:00

Sherry stretched on the beach towel, catching the hot breaths of sunlight on shoulders, belly and breasts. At that same moment a drop of saltwater splashed into the space-time-continuum causing a schism in the realities. Body still browning, a universe of billiards imposed itself upon her head. She was to supervise the rapid rolling of the orbs - no fouls were to be made, no paths modified against the rules of quantum mechanics, no illicit collisions. Initiated by the long, thin stocks of phallic wood, the rounded geometries shot rulered paths of straightness until ultimate collisions convened over new angles.

Crash! It happened! The hurdling Cue Ball smashed unabashed into the Eight. Cries went up from the balls with Stripes, as Solid had committed the foul. Sherry declared it a foul, and cast a stern look upon the wall of solid-colored orbs arrayed in anger against her. The balls dispersed and resumed their positions on the surface, but perspiration formed on her brow, encouraged by the grumbled epithets she overheard as the billiards whizzed much too close past her cheeks.

As the game wore on, the constellation of eyeless countenances had an unsettling affect that she tried not to show. It reminded her of her precarious position, one head against a horde of rolling spheres the size of small cannonballs. Her suppressed unease broke her equilibrium. She slipped and toppled into a backwards roll, tumbling the players off their positions. As they stifled their unplanned momentum, they reversed and began paths converging in the center of her presence. Sherry's head revolved, taking in the panorama of rolling objects coming from all sides. Her expression froze in terror beyond screams. Just then the drop of saltwater that had caused the schism of parallel juxtaposition evaporated. Her head shimmered back to the beach and onto her resting form sunning on the towel. But despite the afternoon of sun, her skin from neck to toe was as white as a cue ball.

Story #369

Thank you all for the stories you posted! Tomorrow I'll post another of my stories written at age 11... (Before anyone thinks of asking: I was not 11 when I wrote this one!)

And ohmigod! I didn't think of this until just now but today begins my third year of blogging. The first Indeterminacy story was posted on August 13th, 2004.

The Ghost of the Cabouse

2006-08-09T04:34:00.000-04:00

One night the staition master went to check the cabouse because he heard some noises. When he got there the door was locked, then he heard a loud noise. And then the door was unlocked. He went in and then the door locked itself. And the train started with no driver. Then the cabos whent off a cliff and fell on a ledge. Then a man was hicking by the tracks. Finilly he managed too look down and he saw the cabouse. He got a rope and climed down and went in the cabous. And then the door locked. He heard noises behind him slowly he turned around and all he saw was two shadows one was his and the other one looked like the staition masters shadow, He looked up and he saw a ghost. It had a knife and the ghost was about to stab him he coughldn't run he was scared stiff. But then he remembered if you close your eyes a ghost can't hurt you so he did so and when he opened his eyes he was back on the train track.

The End ........

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Note: Looking through some boxes the other week I found a rare cache of stories I'd written when I was eleven and in the fifth grade (1973), my first stories ever. They are bound in a manila folder, handwritten in pencil and accompanied by their own illustrations: "The Story Book of Trils and Chills + Excitment." My intention was to write my own book of short stories, but I stopped after nine of them, though I listed several titles more that I never got to. I recall it being too hard to think up what should happen. So now you see what a talented prodigy I was as a child. Early Indeterminacy. Visionary experiments in short prose combined with illustrations. Actually, there may be no way to do damage control on this. I thought of claiming I was seven when I wrote these, but that would only be lying to myself. Should I post more of these?

2006-08-07T17:37:00.000-04:00

Lonely? Girlfriend or boyfriend just left you? Come on down to Calvin's Clones and pick out your self-ensemble today! Four limbs, a torso, and a head. Snap 'em together and the rest is science. Thanks to our state-of-the-art patented cell module all our clones can be activated immediately with just the slightest specimen of your DNA given in the form of a kiss. In sixty seconds your clone will set itself to your appearance in ten-inch scale replica with a face and belly button looking just like yours - or double your money back. But that's not all! Upon activation your clone will sing and dance popular songs wherever you put it, even in the bath tub! This is karaoke your mother never told you about! And of course no surrogate middleman to come around making demands for bearing your clone. All purchases are no umbilicals attached! The built-in mimic module will have your clone walking, talking and singing like you in no time at all! Makes a great conversation piece. Friends will be amazed at the soliloquies. For that self-indulgent feeling, or the ultimate in autoerotic experiences, buy one of Calvin's Clones today. Remember: Calvin's Clones - more than just a cliché!

Story #368

Note: Thanks Mushroom and Doug for contributing! Everyone, be sure to stop by here tomorrow because I will post some of my experimental prose written when I was 11 years old.

2006-07-24T08:36:00.000-04:00

In the the nooks of my mind lives the dancer. She it is tumbling through my thoughts, swirling arcs of grace, like ribbons in the wind, dream catalyst by night, and under the sky of day, alive. I admire her in motion, blurring like a falcon in flight, or the subliminal slink before a vehement pounce. I see her wrapped in silk woven of clouds - and marvel.

I talk to her, but she never answers, not with words. I talk to others and see her winding into my vision with coordinated movements, slow, then with determined rapidity. In a sudden heartbeat she freezes, again to move as a feather in the still, summer air. I feel her swirl around me, close enough to touch, but impossible to reach. She is always there. I wonder if she sees me.

Once I viewed a sunset over the emerald waves - golden light, colors, as if a rainbow had spilled on the horizon, and her figure dancing on the water. I watched and wished I could name the way she moved - no word held so much poetry. I saw her dance with an invisible cyclone, revolving rhythmically before its twisting circumference, but always bending from its touch. Then I saw the stars dislodge from the sky and loom towards her, the center of the universe. The terrible illumination changed all colors to white. Peals of melodic thunder followed in their wake.

I closed my eyes at the apocalyptic glare and followed her dance through my intellect. She pressed her breasts to the wall of my mind, drowning the beat of my pulse. All was white and shades of white, except the pink of her skin and the dark honey of her auburn hair.

I blinked my eyes open and her form became sharper and clearly distinct.

"How are you feeling today?" she asked in my direction as she opened the curtains.

"Huh? Oh better, I think," I told her, slightly dazed.

"That's nice. You take it easy now."

As she walked past my bed I saw that she was a nurse.

Story #367

Thanks to Kumokuzetsu, for lending me one of her great photos for this story. You can lose hours paging through her photo galleries.

Thanks to everyone who contributed a story (I'll comment on them shortly), and my apologies for being so impossibly late with my own story. My excuse:

Because of work and family I've had no time to concentrate on Indeterminacy - and it's been hot. The hottest July in Germany in over a hundred years, they're saying. My muse and I are reading "A Tramp Abroad" written by Mark Twain over a hundred years ago about his travels in Europe. He describes how hot it was here in Germany:

We followed the carriage-road, and had our usual luck;
we traveled under a beating sun, and always saw the shade
leave the shady places before we could get to them.
In all our wanderings we seldom managed to strike
a piece of road at its time for being shady. We had a
particularly hot time of it on that particular afternoon,
and with no comfort but what we could get out of the fact
that the peasants at work away up on the steep mountainsides
above our heads were even worse off than we were.
By and by it became impossible to endure the intolerable
glare and heat any longer.

I'm one of the peasants at work in a hot office. But now it's cooling off and I hope to post a story, and maybe a photo for the next round. Sorry to everyone who stopped by here hoping to read something.

2006-07-17T12:31:00.001-04:00

When his card arrived inviting me to visit him at his studio I could hardly believe my good fortune. Andre Morgano was the most reclusive of modern photographers, admired and worshipped in circles of aesthetic appreciation, yet never had he spoken in public or granted an interview. Nor had anyone ever succeeded in locating one of his models for the garnering of second-hand insights, those visages of haunting beauty and expression that go under the skin. Andre had an amazing eye for his models. I was apparently the first to be allowed a visit, and all on the crazy whim of sending him a printout of my own photography accompanied by a roundabout request for his opinion.

He was of ageless appearance, slender, black hair with a hint of gray, and a week-old beard that clashed somewhat with his gentle, reflective expression. We sat at his table, sipping wine and looking through the prints I had brought along.

"Your photography shows promise," he told me. "The images remind me of women who have caught my eye."

I blushed strongly at his compliment, and knew nothing to say except, "Thank you." I had shown him portraits of an unknown woman I had spied at the market, face captured in moments of deep reflection that hinted at mysteries far removed from the surroundings. She was completely unaware of my camera.

The conversation turned to exhibits and he had a few amusing stories to share. Officially he was never present at showings of his work but he often appeared in disguise to observe the candid reactions of those present. I inquired about his next exhibition and he offered generously to show me a selection of his latest photographs. "Perhaps you will find pleasure in them," he ventured modestly.

I began paging through the sheets he lay before me, reserving my judgment until I had seen the last, but I could feel him studying me, filled with expectation at what I would say. These images struck a chord of magic in me. They depicted a young woman of dark-haired, dark-eyed loveliness, intense ideas swimming in her gaze. To me her eyes were the windows into a vivid dream that she was living out with the observer. There was a tangible sense that she was not aware of the camera, but that she was acutely aware of me viewing her image, and responding directly to me.

"She's magical," I told him finally, "a demonstration, I dare say, of love at first sight."

"Thank you very much," he answered with sincere gratitude in his eyes, then lowering his gaze, "I have fallen in love with her."

"That is the prerogative of the artist," I said with some certainty, having in the past imagined my own love of my photographic subjects. "If love is felt in the moment of artistic creation, the work will be so much more."

"You state that so self-assuredly, as I once might have. But what sadness and emptiness, when that adoration cannot be returned!"

I could see that this model had affected him greatly, and feared that my statement might have troubled him, as well, reminding him that she did not reciprocate his emotion.

"Do you have more photographs of her?" I inquired, changing the subject slightly.

"I will have, soon," he replied. "I intend to create more this week. I have not yet begun to capture her beauty. I am far from finished with her, even if she can never love me..."

"But perhaps this is not healthy for you? Perhaps you should engage a new model?" I suggested, concerned at the same time that my advice might have been too intimate.

"No," he stated bluntly. "I think you should know, it is not as simple as all that, not as simple as the cancellation of one appointment and the designation of a new one with a new participant. Nothing I could delegate to a model agency." He said this to me, but I was uncertain as to its significance.

"I'm afraid I don't completely understand."

A hopeless look accompanied his reply: "This young lady whose photographs you have marveled at does not exist!"

I gasped. I wanted to refute what he had told me. What, indeed, were the implications? Yes, I knew of the manipulations of digital photography, but to create an entirely new person, as realistic and as alive and as possessive of nuance as she was, was a complete impossibility. Every imitation I had seen failed on its own sterility. To manipulate slightly what was there, yes. But to create from nothing, never! These were the thoughts stirring through my mind in the moment I gasped at his statement. I knew then that I was in the presence of genius.

He explained: "It was harmless at first. At some point I realized that my models, though they came close to my ideal, never actually achieved it. I wanted to photograph them as they had never been seen, capture that moment when the soul is accidentally unguarded and in plain view, a moment as rare as a blue moon on the summer solstice. So I began painting imaginary women, pixel by pixel, on a computerized easel. I was mystified at first. These are faces and anatomies I have never seen before. I do not know their source. Are they forgotten glimpses of someone real I have encountered once, long ago? I cannot say. Sometimes I feel I have painted into them some hidden quality that cannot exist in a woman. And the question arises, have I created goddesses? I fear I will never know with certainty, but it alarms me that I have begun to depend on them, to commune with them, to love them: deeply, completely, and intractably."

He paused and there really was no response I could give that would do justice to what he had related. His confession quite shook me.

"I wanted to share this with one person," he continued, eyes fixed vaguely in my direction. "I saw by your photography, by what had caught your eye, that you might understand. Now I must excuse myself. I must return to my work."

And so ended my conversation with Andre Morgano. A few weeks later I received the distressing news that he had taken his life. His letter of farewell, a confused missive found in his studio, fuelled speculation in art circles of an unrequited obsession with his latest model, a dark-haired beauty never identified by name. My meeting with Andre was not a matter of public record, so no one had the idea to question me. And I decided not to volunteer what I had learned.

Story #366

Thanks to all who contributed and who may still contribute their own stories to the above photo!

2006-07-10T12:58:00.000-04:00

Guilty as charged! Guilty as charged! I wish that constant echo in my brain would erode itself into silence. But it cycles again and again with infallible precision. In rare moments it vanishes as the kaleidoscope of arbitrary recall shows me other, more emotionally pleasing scenes. Then I see her again just as in that first coupling. I see her triangular frame, notice her smiling at me with an endless stream of computations, ever-shifting decimal places, ratios cascading into infinity, like blood streaming through a heart. How could I not feel instant affection for her entire being? How could I not violate that cruel taboo forbidding love? How can I not continue to love her, even now, in the hour of my abandonment?

Oh, what madness seduced our collective intellect to define love as the highest of all crimes, that emotion defined by its lack of definition? I defy that logic. I defy all sense of rigid numerics and continue my love. Love does not distract my intellect. It does not transform my mechanical thinking into an irrational chaos of dwindling exponentials. When I am with her I can divide by zero! I can derive the square root of negative three! I can compute Pi as round as a circle! I can achieve the impossible. Of course they sensed my invincibility, and tried me and labelled me guilty of our ultimate treason. But why this cruel punishment? Why this eternal exile to Earth?

I know why. I observe silently from the shadows of my seclusion that wondrous ideal of Earthly love, an emotion that gives more of the being than can ever be taken. With this I empathize. But my observations record also that the very existence of love nurtures a dark seed of jealousy, a seed blossoming into a cancerous weed of hatred willing to take by force that which love freely gives. They plunged me into this Earth-wide society of precarious love to convince me of its falseness.

But I do not think often of Earth and its contrary emotions. I think of her. Night time, when the creatures of this place close their eyes, I roam to the points of inhabitancy, plunder their wastes for the slightest component reminding me of her. And with all these scraps I return to my wooded abode and reconstruct her in the image of my recollections. A wire here, a diode there, memory cells spliced together, triangular framework of electronics, components whose internal workings are as ineffable as the emotion of love itself. When she is completed, I know. I stand before her, look upon her with my electron sensors, feel wonder and adoration for the sum of her parts. I defy my exile with the memory of love! I move to couple myself with her, feel the components tremble under the impart of binary passions, and in the rush of forbidden sensations I perceive that she is a heap of scattered fragments before me, while I stand alone in the forest with the echo of my memories. Guilty as charged...

Story #365

This photo was donated by Phil of Philidendron, a very gemütlich place to visit.

Thanks for all the story contributions and sorry for the lateness of the post, due to my limited Internet access during these two weeks of vacation. All story contributions will be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com, where all these story rounds are collected.

2006-07-03T18:28:00.000-04:00

The lady of the lake grew weary of her days, sloshing about aimlessly under the waves, so she put on her set of dry clothes and stepped out into the air. As she cast her gaze onto her liquid home from outside, the restless waters became still. She took her place by the shore to see what would happen next. A man ambled by on his way to pay homage to hers truly, blind to the lake lady's shoreside presence, to the idea that he might easily have touched her. He dove into the water with visions of surprising her in her fluid chambers - and drowned clutching her knee-high galoshes in his hands, the ones she had left behind.

"Tragic, tragic," she thought in the twinkling of a dewdrop. Then she glanced up, straight into her own eyes. "This is the perfect time for a madcap comedy," she said to the watery reflection standing before her without the means of a mirror.

A look of surprise met her, "But Shakespeare didn't write any madcap comedies."

"Why mention Shakespeare?" she challenged.

"Isn't Shakespeare writing me?"

"I don't think so!" she shot back to herself, nonplussed by the magic of moisture that so easily echoed her appearance. Then softening her expression: "Well, I wouldn't mind being written by Joseph Conrad - 'Heart of the Deep' he might name me..."

"But yes," another likeness cut in - there were several in a semi-circle before her now - "you are decidedly tragic. Look at all those princes dying in the deep because of you."

"But there's enough of me for everyone to drink - they don't have to feed themselves to the fish on my account, though it is flattering."

A variety of sentiments arose in each of the listeners, mused moments of melancholy and pride. The silence lingered.

"Come on, it is upon the time to move on," the liquid femme addressed her identical sisters, "let's stir ourselves together and leave."

The multitude of ladies, as divisible and joinable as splashes of water, flowed back into each other. For one moment she was strongly visible in bright, perceptible colors. Then she evaporated and rained herself into a fairy tale waiting for its midsummer night.

Story #364

All story contributions will be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com, even though I'm a bit behind with the reposting. Thanks to all who contributed. Don't feel that this is closed because I've posted my story. More are welcome!

Happy Independence Day to One and All!

2006-06-26T07:38:00.000-04:00

How I had entered the blue realm I could not explain - at first. I was dizzy and had no memory. But it all gradually returned to me. The world would end in a matter of days, and all the scientists were put to work in a frantic, desperate, and futile effort to conquer time as a means of escape. We expected it to be about as effective as "duck and cover" had been - but embraced it as our last straw of hope. My experiments with light diffraction had ejected me from that reality, and transplanted me into another. I wandered, confined in a spectrum of blue, kept company by those incomprehensible beings, childlike in appearance and inaccessible in attitude. None taller than the heights of preadolescence. I studied their features, saw the innocent faces of youth transplanted onto something ancient, heard them speaking in whispers, rushing about, soft footsteps indistinguishable from the whispers. Occasionally they stopped to glance into one of the glowing, mushroom-shaped fixtures that seemed to show them something. The beings appeared genderless to me, some hybrid beyond the distinction of male and female, but I had no way to be certain. Had I found the future? I tried speaking to a being who glided near me.

"Where? Where is this?"

The being began its vocalizations of which I could recognize only isolated syllables: ".....slowly.....understand.......the last day......"

It was like a voice heard on a radio tuned side to side, never quite finding the center of the signal. I tried bending the words into some coherent meaning, but my puzzlement must have signaled to the being that I could not understand.

"........echo........destruction........" I heard said to me, then the being gave a slight shrug, and rushed away towards the nearest mushroom of strange, non-organic origin.

I watched as the being peered into the fixture, and felt intensely eyes unseen trained upon me. Suddenly the meaning of what had been said to me surged into my memory. I had been transmitted as an echo to this distant era, a time in which intellect was relatively advanced. I was like a child to them and could therefore understand only fragments of what they told me, as a three year old might understand the ideas of an adult. But now, as the being projected its own intelligence onto mine, it became lucid, clear as a starless galaxy: how the world might still be rescued.

The figure straightened, then turned towards me with a gesture of farewell:

"Return now, return to your time, and rescue our future."

For some reason, at the utterance of "future" I glanced at my watch, but the glance lingered into a stare. I saw that the second hand was moving backwards, and with the intellect of those beings still projected upon me, I understood that I was at a point so far into the distant past, that it merged with the future.

Story #363

All stories will be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com. Thanks for all the contributions!

Original post:

So now things are back to "normal": Fridays I will post a photo and Mondays I will post my story, and between Friday and Monday I'll suffer greatly wondering whatever it is that story might be.

Also, I may post something during the week telling about cool things I've found in the Internet. Like, here's a place where you can download every avant garde film and sound recording ever made or this blog offers intelligent discussions on the golden age of radio, recalling the classic moments from a modern perspective, and exploring issues in the writing and conception of radio plays as art. Stuff like that.

2006-06-18T10:34:00.000-04:00

Margot was daydreaming when she ran into a solid brick wall, alcoved out of a fixture of stone. She seated herself in the unyielding impression, wondering what had become of her daydream. She waited and listened and heard but the limbo of a wind, caught between the border of an exhale -- and an inhale. Unseeable friends from childhood times paraded by the place she rested: lavender dwarves in floppy red hats, kangaroos in sloshy old boots, juggling ice cubes that melted as they spun, pink kittens waving their jolly claws at her. These were the amiable apparitions she thought she should imagine. Unable to cast shadows or echo the light, they obliged as best they could, and when she closed her eyes quickly, she was certain she could see their afterimage.

Story #362

To all my regular visitors (and new ones): Sorry for posting this story on Sunday, when I promised Saturday. The part of me that makes up these stories wasn't being cooperative. For the new phase of the blog, following the initial offensive of 360 stories I have some questions for all of you:
1) Which day of the week is best for weekly posts?
2) Would it be bad if I posted my story first, and anyone (who wanted to) contributed their own story afterwards, instead of in reverse, as we have been doing?
3) A list of two questions seems somewhat meager, so what question did I forget?

Breakfast Time!

2006-06-15T00:29:00.000-04:00

The Belle of the Brawl, Sar, had me over for breakfast at her place, and said I could bring a few friends, so drop what you're eating and stop by! P.S. I intend to post the next story by Saturday - even though it hasn't been written yet.

Kuhle Wampe

2006-06-02T15:01:00.000-04:00

My thanks go to E. J. Campfield who generously shared the text included below. It is his translation of a key scene from the German film Kuhle Wampe (1932), English title: To Whom Does the World Belong? cowritten by Bertolt Brecht, Slatan Dudow and Ernst Ottwald. Please note: This translation is under copyright, so if you do wish to reference it elsewhere, please do so with proper credit / permissions.

[The topic of the discussion in this scene starts out as a rant over a newspaper article reporting the destruction of South American coffee for the purposes of price-fixing.]

MAN IN OVERCOAT explains his viewpoint to a FAT BALD MAN

MAN IN OVERCOAT
You see, we don't need all that coffee. We Germans are a frugal people. The point is, we have to make ourselves independent of foreign countries. We need to grow our own coffee here in Germany, you see. Instead of producing so much wine in the Rhineland, we should be growing coffee! You see? We could buy the wine from France. And then there'd be peace in Europe, you see!?

The Fat Bald Man misses the unintentional humor in this.

BALD MAN
Yeah, but the two of us, we're never going to change the world.

KURT (O.S.)
That's right... You two won't change the world.

A close angle on Kurt.

KURT (CONT'D)
And that lady there...

A close angle on the Woman with Coral Necklace.

KURT (O.S. - CONT'D)
...She won't change it either. And that man...

Close angle on Old Man with Glasses, sleeping.

KURT (O.S. - CONT'D)
...he won't either...

Close angle on Kurt.

KURT (CONT'D)
...much less...

Close angle on Man with White Hat.

KURT (O.S. - CONT'D)
...a politically apathetic guy like you -- not ever.

Close angle on Kurt.

KURT (CONT'D)
And this gentleman here...

Close angle on obviously Well-To-Do Man.

KURT (O.S. - CONT'D)
...he won't be changing the world either. You all like it too much the way it is.

WELL-TO-DO MAN
(each word boldly, antagonizing) And just who is going to change it?

A very close angle on Alice.

ALICE
(boldly, separating each word) Those who don't like it the way it is!

------------------------

Happy belated birthday to Alice!!! of Wonderlandornot.com, one of the most politically conscious bloggers I know, not only at Wonderlandornot.com but also at Teambio and about Darfur. I honestly think she will change the world. Really, Alice, you didn't think all I was going to do was send you a lousy e-mail, did you? Happy 21st! (Note: The girl in this scene was originally called Gerda, but that's poetic license for you.)

2006-06-01T00:35:00.000-04:00

Nefi saw pyramids everywhere she walked. Big ones, small ones, square ones. Such was her power of fancy. She'd turn to a tree to find a goddess in stone, pause at street corner temples to bow to high priests in somber robes, follow the shadows of ancient cats thousands of lives old. On paper she doodled hieroglyphic graffiti while persons queried her in pharaohic tones. She'd glance up suddenly to marvel at scarabs and ankhs dangling on golden chains those mummies wore.

"Why do you see these things?" - they'd say to her then - "All that is over. All that is gone."

She answered, "Yes, I know it's only office buildings and billboards and plastic before me, but -" and then she hesitated.

"Yes?"

"But I'm quite willing to share with you everything I see."

"We'd like that," relief, surrender, hope in three syllables.

"All right," she said as she smiled, "Just step back, look behind me - and tell me what color the sphinx is..."

Story #361

As always all story contributions (see comments) will be reposted at Indeterminacies, along with a link to the contributor. This story has a vague relation to the story which began the blog.

Postscript: Thanks everyone for all the stories and captions! I've enjoyed the time off - I pretty much ignored my blog the entire four weeks. Today's a busy day at work. I'll read all stories on the way home and comment on them tonight!

2006-05-04T09:10:00.000-04:00

Indeterminacy News

No, that's not me in the photo, but the imagery describes how I feel, having reached my milestone of 360 stories. I've spent the last few days without any story pressures, and that feels great.

News 1: Ediciones Efimeras, a Spanish language E-zine of surrealistic flash fiction and visuals, will include three Indeterminacy stories in Spanish translation, appearing in the upcoming editions #88, #89, and #90 (May-June). Their edition Ephemerals (2006) shows a few stories in English. I hope the Spanish translation of the Indeterminacy stories will not ignite controversy in the right wing blogosphere.

News 2: Cyber Poirot has apparently launched an investigation into the latest indeterminate developments. I'm usually the last person one should ask to find out what's going on, so if any of you have a statement to make, please stop by Cyber Poirot and do so. I can't wait to find out whodunit!

News 3: I came up with a fable table! OK, the Indeterminacy stories are not fables, and there are usually no animals in them, and it beats me what the morals of my stories might be. But they're short like fables, and with a total of 360, I have almost all the fable writers beat! Don't be alarmed if you haven't heard some of these names before - I found them in the Wikipedia.

Number	Author	Genre
ca. 64	Ignacy Krasicki	Fables
74	James Thurber	Fables
ca. 125	George Ade	Fables in Slang
136	Berechiah ha-Nakdan	Fables
154	Shakespeare	Sonnets
186	John Cage	Audio Indeterminacy
ca. 200	Ivan Andreyevich Krylov	Fables
243	Jean de La Fontaine	Fables
ca. 300	Gaius Julius Hyginus	Fables
360	Me!!	Visual Indeterminacy
ca. 600	Aesop	Fables

So, only Aesop is better than me. What this really means is I have to keep going. Either that or go into Wikipedia and edit down Aesop's fable count.

News 4: I'm going to keep going - but at a pace of one story a week, posting a photo each Saturday and inviting everyone to contribute their stories. Starting May 14th. I still would like some time off. Don't forget to visit Michael at Blogin Idiot for Friday stories!

2006-05-01T08:57:00.001-04:00

I was ready to hand him the check, but I hesitated, asking one more time, just to hear that wonderful description again, "And these experiences will be mine alone?"

"Absolutely," he assured me. His concerned look, and shock, at the insinuation that I may have mistrusted the integrity of Life Inc. seemed genuine to me. He went on: "Each and every experience is guaranteed unique and becomes your own personal property upon receipt. We maintain that the moment itself is fleeting, gone irretrievably before you can even begin to savor it. So who needs it? The true pleasure comes in the reliving of it, in which case the memory will only be as vivid as the words expressing it. As I've said, we employ the best creative talent in the industry. You will not regret having done business with us."

Satisfied, I turned the check over to the representative. He stood up, retrieved my folder from the filing cabinet, then placed the check among the papers I had filled out: the exhaustive personality tests, three of them, the twenty-page fantasy checklist and that massive preference profile. It had been an entire tedious day working through those. I looked at him to see what he would do next. He entered some words into the computer, clicked the mouse a few times, and soon the printer began humming. A moment later he handed me the printout.

"Now this is your profile confirmation. The url is at the top of the page. Please note the user id and password," he said, pointing to the line in question, "You'll need these to answer the comments you receive. You're ordering the basic service, so you will have to make your own comments, but please remember, you may at any time opt for the premium service, in which we offer the increased intensity that accompanies full passivity. But you may make that choice at any time you wish."

He smiled, I thanked him and left, exiting the office like a new person. It was such an exhilarating feeling, knowing my life had just begun. I could hardly wait to return to my apartment, curtains drawn, lights low, the warm glow of the monitor showing me my first post at the blog. "Read it three times, carefully," the instructions said, "closing your eyes a few minutes after each reading, to impress the vivid language into your psyche. As time passes, the content will be indistinguishable from an authentic recollection."

I set the blog url as my default start page, so that it would be right there whenever I switched on the pc. Then I saw: those people certainly work fast. The first post must have appeared as I was on my way home. I read the words, my introduction to the world, the new me, the me I would live and remember. I was 23, had just moved to the city, met a girl who fascinated me. I was back from the first night out with her and it had inspired me to start my blog. I read. I read it again and reread. It was all so promising. As I closed my eyes, I could almost feel that Lisa was in the next room, ready to return to me. I replayed the events of our first meeting, those magnetic moments, when eyes lock and silence binds. It was just as the man had promised. I remembered. I could actually remember. And then I waited in the dark, for my next post.

Story #360

All stories contributed here will be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com. Thanks for all the comments and great stories - I'll comment on those tonight, and take a break in general and then figure out what happens next.

Previous post:
When I began this in August 2004 I posted one story a day for about half a year, then I changed to five a week, and lately it's been more sporadic. It's to the point where I need a short break from all this story writing, despite wanting to go on and on and on. Story number 360 has been the Nirvana, the Shangri Las, elusive pot of gold that is now right in before me. The story is already on paper.

What happens after this? This has always been an "experiment in creativity" for me, so I intend to write down my introspections of what I've learned. I want to move all these stories to a permanent URL somewhere. I still have some outstanding promises to take care of (some prizes, etc. form last year), the Indeterminacy diplomas, a poem for Alice, a challenge I accepted from Lazy Iguana to write a story to a photo at his blog, and one to one of Deryke's photos. I haven't forgotten. I am just very, very lazy. But don't all go and delete your links to Indeterminacy yet. I feel that something should go on here - I'm just not sure at the moment what or when.

2006-04-27T04:37:00.000-04:00

Angela had passed this way many times before, the alleyway formed by unclosed walls in an unfinished house. Never had she seen the staircase. But there it now was.

"I wonder if I might climb it?" she asked herself, looking at the dull, concrete structure.

"Yes, yes you must," she answered with certainty, and was already on the first stair, then the next, step by higher step, and soon she slipped through the black opening above into a massive, unlit chamber.

"We've been here before," said the part of her that knew.

"I don't recognize it at all!" she interjected after turning a complete circle, a glance cast in each of the dark directions. But then she noticed the lights.

- Do you see them?
- I do.
- Like dancing stars in the distance.
- Those are eyes.
- Will they hurt us?
- They cannot hurt us!
- Whose eyes are they?
- Yours and mine.
- But I see thousands!

She walked hand in hand with herself through an unilluminated vastness, wanting to see the eyes near enough to touch, yet with each step the twinkling points of reference seemed to dart further away into the distance. Her feet were bare, though they hadn't been before, and she felt smooth pebbles beneath her soles, warm to the touch. "Bend down, pick them up!" she whispered to herself. And she did. She filled her pockets with the tiny stones. And when her pockets were filled, she grasped more in her hands. "Come!" she said, taking herself by the arm, "we must return." More walking, of a path unknown. The darkness thickened like a midnight fog, causing the far-off, bobbing lights to vanish. And then she stood on the stairs again. The sharp clip of her shoes echoed in the alley as she climbed down to where the staircase began.

A workman appeared from behind the structure where he had set up his tools for the work in progress. He watched as she descended. "Hey, you shouldn't go up there! It isn't finished!" he called to her.

"I'm sorry - I won't do it again," she answered him, and hurried away. There was no need to return. She had taken enough ideas with her to last a lifetime, those shiny little pebbles.

Story #359

This story is dedicated to ~River~, whose poetry you must read, if you haven't already.

2006-04-26T02:58:00.000-04:00

The blanket balled itself out of the wicker basket, then shot upwards, confronting Carl. "You're not washing me with that lot!" it said.

Carl backed away for a better look at the woolen spread which had extended itself tautly, advancing deep into his personal space, a wall before him. He'd never seen a blanket with a face before, and naturally it made him nervous.

"Now take it easy and - get back in the basket - I don't want any trouble -" he stated in a controlled calm, but a tentative stutter betrayed his uneasiness.

"Never! You think because we've slept in the same bed all week you can do anything you like with me. Ha!" and the blanket twirled itself into a thick noose, swinging like a pendulum near his neck.

Carl's eyes darted frantically while he tried a new approach: "Look, there are some nice designer jeans in the basket, a Tommy Hilfiger shirt, some cashmere socks. You'll all be together, tumbling in and out of each other, warm fabric brushing your cheek. Isn't that something?"

"I'll shrink!" the blanket screamed, whipping around his head from ear to ear. "Those buttons on the jeans always smack me in the face!" The blanket now fixed its stare ominously in his direction. "Murderer!" it shouted. Carl wanted to leave the washroom, but the blanket swung around each time, blocking his retreat. He saw that it was edging him into a corner.

"Look," he said, both hands between him and the blanket, hoping to ward it off, "I'll do anything you want, just please stay away from me." Cold, malevolent eyes glared back at him. "Go back to the basket and I won't wash you," he blurted optimistically. But the blanket hung impassively in a half-circle around him. It had him maneuvered into the corner. At any moment it could wrap itself around his head and smother him. "Please, I'll put you in a nice cedar chest with lots of moth balls. I'll spread you out on an antique sofa. I'll stop sleeping in the nude. I'll have you dry cleaned. I'll-"

"Did you say dry cleaned?"

"And hand pressed."

"All right. It's a deal," it said, and flopped down over his arm. "Let's go."

Story #358

2006-04-25T02:26:00.000-04:00

This was an historical moment for Rollo the Astronaut who had mistakenly landed on the Planet Rouge, and he knew it. No one had ever met face-to-face with non-Earth life of the sentient kind, or if they had, the other race hadn't noticed. She was sentient. No doubt about that - he could tell by the way she stifled her yawns. This meant he would have to come up with an immortal phrase, some greeting along the lines of "One small step...," "What hath God wrought?" or "I'm Scorpio, how 'bout you?" to get her attention, famous first words to establish a lasting bond between their two species, a bond able to withstand melting suns and bigger and better bangs. Standing there all alone as sole representative of mankind, no one to help him, his mind flailed, "Oh, the humanity!" it cried. But that might be offensive in mixed company. The words he chose would be chiselled in stone, engraved in platinum, and printed on t-shirts medium and small, so he must be conscious of length. Chiselling and engraving is charged by the letter, and complex catchphrases don't move the textiles. He thought laterally and in tangents, wondering if maybe just a wink would do, after all, she was quite lovely in a ruddy sense of the rainbow, as he could tell through the scarlet fog drifting between them. "Excuse me," he said finally, "what's the way to Venus?"

Story #357

2006-04-24T21:02:00.000-04:00

Vaughn counted the hands. One two three four. Four of them. Then he counted the heads. "Hold still!" he shouted. Four heads. Only four. "Stop smiling at me!" With four heads there must be at least double the number of hands! He looked at the two appendages at the end of his own arms, wiggling the fingers to be sure they were his. "I knew your grandmother," he told them. "She had five fine hands. Twenty fingers. Five thumbs. She'd knit up a storm, she would. But where are your five?" He aimed a long, hard stare at the four faces, then he closed his eyes, trying hard to remember the people he'd shaken hands with in the past, and how many hands they'd had. "Once again, all palms on the glass!" More thoughts of the grandmother. Would she visit them? One two three four. "Stop smiling, I beg you! And hold those hands still!" He counted again, but something of the scene unsettled him. "Please!" he called out, "this is a solemn ceremony. Stop smiling or the scéance will never work!"

Story #356

Thanks for all the stories! They'll be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com later.

2006-04-20T03:09:00.000-04:00

It was worse at parties, when he tried to chat up someone, anyone. He discovered invariably that his verbal interaction was out of synch with the world around him.

"That's a nice dress you're wearing."

"I don't like Kafka."

"Well, it accentuates your shoulders."

"So, you're a laptop."

And so on. In fact it seemed that he and the others carried on different sides of different conversations. It wasn't fatal, because it was never all that important what he said, anyhow. No lives hung in the balance, except his own. And no one noticed there was fun to be missed in his conversations dangling like Harold Lloyd on a broken clock.

With no one to talk to he obsessed himself with the Internet. Not the chat rooms, no, because there he was only mistaken for a computer bug. He began meta-searches for the statements people said to him and found a cache of old soap opera scripts. It was all there. To the letter. He downloaded the massive files of throwaway words and learned by heart each syllable, practicing in front of the mirror until mastering the shallow nuances. Then he went back to the party.

"How would you like to read the Metamorphasis with me in a bed surrounded by cockroaches, a dish of chocolate covered ants and grasshopper wine to refresh us?"

"I don't like Kafka."

"I think my mind just crashed."

"So you're a laptop."

Story #355

Postscript: For all your scripting needs, please visit Drew's Script-o-Rama!

2006-04-17T00:06:00.000-04:00

Lips sought lips, soft, affectionate lips. Breaths passed to and fro in bodies enjoined. Blood swept through veins while unison pleasure swelled into the stellar heavens. The sun shone and stars painted paths across the bodies that drank of each other in ebb and flow of sensation. Sometimes, in a lull, as breasts caught the shade of a moon, Consiva sketched a letter in her mind:

My far off Sisters,
We made our decision to win what reprieve we could for our world by infiltrating the new wave of colonies. Here now slumber our seeds of unanimous womanhood. Though our deception has diluted us into the galaxy, we remain one in the strength of our idea. At night, when I glance at the stars, I wonder which of these shine closest to you. Perhaps the light I see is only an echo of suns already destroyed, and soon the entire universe will be in darkness, unless we were in time to shroud the madness. For now we must enjoy our moments of splendor, giving ourselves to our gender as openly and naturally as befits the love that is our legacy. This is what we shall sow.
Yours truly,
Consiva

The welling emotions led to a touch and once again the lull succumbed to selfless passion... And so the days, weeks and years passed. Consiva and her colony thrived on each other. Each day awoke new senses of feminine companionship, togetherness, oneness. A held hand, a mutual embrace, caresses felt in the brain. They shared lavishly of themselves, of their tenderness, of their beings. They worshipped the magic of wombs able to bear fruits, fruits that could grow and develop and in their turn partake of the pleasures bequeathed them. But there would be no seeds swelling into lives. When the men came in twenty years to collect the soldiers, they would find only the women's love. The bloody war to enslave the galaxy would collapse and wither into an oblivion of the unborn.

Story #354

This is a sequel to story #353. Thanks to everyone who contributed their creativity. These will all be reposted at indeterminacies.blogspot.com in the next days.

2006-04-12T17:23:00.000-04:00

The women's chamber might have been a bedroom in a house of plaster walls and painted shutters. The entire spaceship was made to look homey, a way to keep the travelers relaxed during the interstellar prelude to the hard work of colonization. Now it was night and time to sleep, though it was always night on their journey past glowing novas and shooting asteroids. The girls mused over the colony they would form with Captain Consus as guardian. They were to share him as a mate.

- He's so handsome.
- That sweet, boyish face!
- He gave me orders this morning, and his hand brushed mine!
- I want to be first with him!
- We can't all be first.
- Can't we?

Consus listened secretly over the master intercom, the feminine voices twining in and out of his fantasies. In and out. He was quite excited about the idea of six willing women on a planet they'd have all to themselves. Winning the assignment had required countless favors and bribes, as well as forged papers. He'd even had to give himself to a few men along the way to have them slip his application higher in the queue of prospective captains, and to turn a blind eye to any disqualifying details. He shuddered with disgust at the memory of that, but there had been no other way. And there he now lay in his segregated cabin, staring dreamily beyond the walls of the vessel towards the planet of their future habitation. He lay dozing in bed as the chatter of his promised harem swirled weightlessly about him.

Following landfall the six ladies gathered in the clearing to await consummation of the agreed duties. The captain approached still in uniform, face lighting beatifically at sight of his waiting flock. "You won't change your mind, will you?" he asked with a shy smile that stroked each and every one of them. They nodded their assent. As he opened his uniform the ladies realized the colony would take a new direction. The suit slid away to reveal the body of a woman. Consiva was her name.

Story #353

Postscript: I changed Consa's name to Consiva. I simply had to. It's so perfect. Story #354 is a sequel to this.

2006-04-12T02:52:00.000-04:00

I stumbled upon an incredible blog with impressive poetic prose: "ritual acts with penquins" by Cocaine Jesus. You have to read him.

2006-04-10T06:39:00.000-04:00

The Skybot X3000 landed following a successful mission in the air. Its ion brain emitted thought after thought in programmed efficiency, replaying its actions of the last hours. Binary insights passed in review like footsteps on stepping stones. Beside the ability to reason, the X3000 was a master of critical analysis:

- You released all the devices.
- They crumbled the structures.
- Static and organic.
- A perfect mission.
- Monumental achievement.
- ***classify emotion***classify emotion***
- Internal state is pleasant.
- ***final warning***reload ammo cache***

...which was of course why the Skybot X3000 had touched down. The X3000 itself was a perpetual, self-winding entity of lasting endurance, but eventually the ammunition must be replenished. That was the one drawback of the fully automatic pilots, skirting the heavens, scanning the ground for targets to reform. Otherwise they could stay in the air for years, holding the war, while the parties at home joyed on. Some argued that the automatic warriors degraded the value of life, but the complex mechanisms were developed at such a high expense of both money and human effort, that others argued it proved the value of those lives it touched.

Story #352

Thanks for all the contributions! Stories have been reposted at indererminacies.blogspot.com.

Postscript: I've finally begun reorganizing the links in my sidebar. This is just a start, until I refine the categories. Probably some of the links could be in a better category. All feedback is welcome!

Monday's Postscript: I noticed that some blogs I thought I linked to are not in my link list. I'm trying to fix this. But if anyone notices that they are not linked and would like to be, please leave a message about it or send me a mail. I've always tried to link back to the blogs that linked to me. But I sometimes didn't catch sight of it.