March 28, 2010

From “Night of the Great Skies” by Ron E. Maddox

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Without her, the house seemed empty and foreboding. The sun didn’t shine as brightly—the entire world seemed faded, as if it had been bleached.

Marshall looked out the second-story window and sighed. “Where are you?” he said.

The treeline at the edge of the yard undulated in the light summer breeze, answering the question with another.

“What am I supposed to do now?” Marshall asked. “I…I never thought I’d say this, even to myself, but I’m lost. And I don’t know if I can stand to lose you.”

Boughs rocked back and forth gently, as if nodding.

 

March 26, 2010

From “Novels” by Nokin Kobayashi, translated and adapted by Irene York

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A good book is like a fine meal. Every bit you take only increases your enjoyment , and although you’re curious what dessert is at the end, you’re sorry to finish it since you know nothing can compare to that first taste, even if you sit down to the same meal again.

Some people are gourmets, carefully savoring the taste as they consume the portions in their proper order. Others are gluttons, choking tomes down as fast as they’ll go, sometimes even starting with the dessert first.

Me, I’m a glutton who likes his desserts. The first thing I read will invariably be the last chapter of the book. My literary-minded friends find this heretical, but for me the focus has always been the journey, not the destination. And there’s always the chance that things will go differently, and that the ending I read at the beginning won’t be the one I arrive at when the book is finished.

I remember the first time that happened…

 

March 25, 2010

From “Tracing Davis” by Jeanette Meadows Ab-Zajj

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The note was creased and worn, as if it had been worried over for some time. Erased words were still visible beneath their replacements and sometimes a whole lineage could be traced. The first words had the smudged look of old pencil, but the last were fresh enough to rub off on one’s hands.

I want to tell my children about a day that was so bright and clean and pure that you could shout possibilities to the heavens and no one would question them. I want to tell them that I devoured that day, let its juices drip down my chin; I want to tell them that I lived that day as fiercely as if it were my very last.

What I will tell them, if indeed I tell them anything at all, is how I spent that day behind my desk, watching it blossom and fade in snatches. Through a window here, a door there, sunlight dancing its life away on tiled floors. I will tell them how I emerged only as the day was cooling and dying to embers about me.

 

March 13, 2010

From “Brokedown” by Benjamin Johnson

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Harry gnawed meditatively on the end of a pencil, leaving deep tooth marks.

“That’s a bad habit,” I reminded him, as I always did.

“And you have a bad habit of reminding me that it’s a bad habit,” came the standard reply.

Everyone has a nervous habit, and Harry simply preferred pencil-chewing. He claimed it was cheaper than smoking, and better for the environment to boot. In front of the bank of computer monitors in his apartment, there was always a fresh batch of pencils in a little jar. I once got a good laugh by replacing one with a yellow pen, which burst and gave Harry a blue mouth for a week.

Don’t get me wrong–I want to be sad about what happened. But how can I be, when every memory I have of Harry is so much fun?

 

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