On the 2nd day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
A Tale of Two Cities, and Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

On the 3rd day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities…
And Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

On the 4th Day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities…
And Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

On the 5th day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
Slaughterhouse-Five!
Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities…
And Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

On the 6th day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
The Dark Tower VI
Slaughterhouse-Five!
Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities…
And Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

On the 7th day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
The House of the Seven Gables, The Dark Tower VI
Slaughterhouse-Five!
Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities…
And Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

On the 8th day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
Eight Men Out, The House of the Seven Gables, The Dark Tower VI
Slaughterhouse-Five!
Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities…
And Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

On the 9th day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
Nine Stories by Salinger, Eight Men Out
The House of the Seven Gables, The Dark Tower VI
Slaughterhouse-Five!
Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities…
And Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

On the 10th day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
Ten Little Indians, Nine Stories by Salinger, Eight Men Out
The House of the Seven Gables, The Dark Tower VI
Slaughterhouse-Five!
Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities…
And Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

On the 11th day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
The Count of Eleven, Ten Little Indians, Nine Stories by Salinger,
Eight Men Out, The House of the Seven Gables, The Dark Tower VI
Slaughterhouse-Five!
Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities…
And Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

On the 12th day of Bookmas, my bookstore sent to me:
Twelfth Night by Shakespeare, The Count of Eleven
Ten Little Indians, Nine Stories by Salinger, Eight Men Out
The House of the Seven Gables, The Dark Tower VI
Slaughterhouse-Five!
Nineteen Eighty-Four, The Three Musketeers, A Tale of Two Cities…
And Silverstein’s The Giving Tree

(*Author’s Note: Thanks to everyone who gave me their suggestions for the 8th and 11th days)

If you missed the first part, you can read it by clicking HERE. And now, on with the story…

HOMER’S REPRISE (continued)

“What fate has befallen those that I would protect should fall as well upon me,” Odysseus cried out, waiting for a bolt of lightening to strike him down or a tidal wave to engulf his ship and end his misery, but the gods were not there to hear his plea.

Shoulders slumped, Odysseus returned his attention to the ocean as the merciless sun beat down upon him. Save for the forsaken cliffs that grew smaller off the stern of his ship, the ocean stretched endlessly to the horizon in every direction. For Odysseus, his ship might as well have been his own headstone, for what was the ocean to him now but a graveyard of failure?

Failure. The word pierced his heart as a spear thrown by Achilles. Odysseus ran a hand across the armor of his old friend, the memory of Achilles’s death at the hand of the coward Paris still burning fresh and painful within him. He did not deserve to bear the arms, to stand on this ship with the memories of his friends and crew who had fought so valiantly and died with such honor. They had not known failure. Even in death they had shown the courage of kings. But he, Odysseus, the great Greek warrior and hero, he had disgraced himself, the gods who had put him here, and the men with whom he’d fought in battle. A more fitting judgment would have been to spend eternity pushing a stone up a hill.

Odysseus stared out across the water and let forth a humorless laugh. What was his fate if not like that of the tormented Sisyphus? Was his quest across the globe not as futile? Perhaps the gods had not bestowed an honor upon him after all. Perhaps, instead, they had done nothing more than condemn him to the same eternal damnation as his alleged father.

Odysseus withdrew his sword and studied the blade, its sharp edge gleaming. A single blow across the throat would end his burden, for although his flesh was ageless, it was not immortal, but the dishonor and cowardice of striking himself down would plague his soul for eternity. He could no more take his own life than he could destroy those he had sworn to protect.

In anguish, Odysseus once more looked to the heavens, his arms outstretched.

“Is this my lot, then?” he cried. “Am I bound to an existence no more significant than that of those banished to Tartarus?”

Odysseus waited for a reply, some sign or indication that would let him know he’d been heard, that someone believed in his purpose. As before, he received no answer.

He turned his attention from the godless sky and stared, disheartened, across the ocean’s waves. Once more he ran his fingers across the armor of Achilles, the armor of a hero, and felt the shame of the House of Atreus for the beasts he had allowed to be hunted down and killed.

In a sudden rage he removed the arms and swung them about as he prepared to hurl them into the ocean, a frustrated roar rising from his lungs. Just then, off the port bow, an object reflected in the sunlight, distracting him. The object was at too great a distance for him to determine its nature, though it appeared to be in two pieces, drifting across the water.

His rage momentarily displaced, Odysseus lowered his armor and studied the object, but even with the aid of his telescope he was still too far away to discern any details. As he changed his heading and drew closer, he thought he recognized the enormous sail of a ship. Before he could identify the object further, it suddenly vanished beneath the ocean’s surface.

Odysseus stared out across the empty sea, wondering if he had witnessed the death throes of another ship, though he knew of no beast that inhabited this region of the planet capable of such destruction. He sailed on, drawing closer to where the phantom ship had vanished, looking for some proof that his eyes had not deceived him. He saw no sign that a ship had ever existed.

Had he seen nothing more than an illusion? A reflection not of the sun but of a madness that had grown within him after centuries of solitude? Odysseus thought of Ajax, struck down with madness by Athena, and wondered if he now suffered the same affliction.

As if in answer, something breached the water less than a dozen ships’ lengths away — like an island emerging from the ocean’s floor. Moments later, what he had mistaken for the ship’s sail rose out of the ocean and slapped back down with such force that a spray of salt water rose two mast lengths above the ocean. When the entire object surfaced, Odysseus beheld not a ship but a beast unlike any he had ever known.

Although he had long ago grown familiar with every species of whale that roamed the oceans, Odysseus had never before seen a whale of equal size or magnificence. Nor had he encountered a whale with alabaster flesh to rival the temples of Olympus.

Odysseus watched the white whale, keeping a respectful distance, though like many of the earth’s other great beasts, it seemed to sense that he posed no threat. Encouraged by its acceptance of him, Odysseus kept pace as he marveled at the creature’s magnificence.

Easily twice as long as his ship, the whale appeared large enough to swallow the entire Greek army, with a tail so wide and strong it undoubtedly rivaled Charybdis in its ability to wreak destruction. Odysseus could tell the beast had seen its share of action, for it wore many scars upon its flesh, and he had no doubts that this creature had sent many ships and men to their watery graves, men who would have otherwise cheered in triumph at the dead and bleeding carcass of the prize they had landed — a prize that would sit stuffed and lifeless in a museum instead of roaming the ocean, defending its right to live.

How long had the beast traveled the oceans? Surely not as long as he. But as Odysseus watched the whale submerge beneath the surface and breach again in an explosion of mist, he couldn’t help but empathize with the enormous creature’s loneliness.

Odysseus followed several ship lengths behind, keeping the whale to his port side, watching with wonder its grace and dignity. When the whale changed directions and crossed in front of him, Odysseus discovered that the beast was not alone. Swimming along beside it, staying close for protection, was another white whale, half as big as the first.

Odysseus watched the mother and calf as they submerged then surfaced again, playfully slapping their tails against the water or breaching completely — their enormous bodies landing in the water with the thunder of the gods. He laughed out loud at their antics, invigorated by their appearance, by the realization of their existence, but his elation was tempered by thoughts that collected around the memories of his own son, long since burned upon the funeral pyre.

He could have stayed that way for an eternity, his emotions alternating between joy and grief as he watched the two whales frolic across their own watery stage, but it took only a matter of minutes before their performance drew unwanted attention.

Off the starboard side of his ship, more than a league distant but approaching fast, Odysseus spotted another vessel cutting across the water, drawn by the display, angling directly toward the whales. Through his telescope he could see more than half a dozen men on the deck, as well as several harpoons mounted to the ship’s bow. Below one of the harpoons, a collection of characters spelled out the name of the vessel: Pequod IV.

Odysseus glanced at the whales, then looked heavenward with the trace of a smile before he put on his armor and readied his weapons as he steered a course toward the other ship.

This would be his greatest battle.

If you like the first part, I’ll share the rest in future posts…

HOMER’S REPRISE

Odysseus Sucks!

The red, spray-painted graffiti screamed from the sheer cliff that jutted out of the ocean off the ship’s starboard bow. There was a time when anyone who sailed near the cliff would have met with the vengeful wrath of Scylla, a monstrous creature who would reach down from her cave and snatch a crew member from the passing ship with each of her six horrible heads. But that was eons ago. Now the mythical beast sat in a museum in Oslo, stuffed and preserved for display among the likes of Cerberus, Big Foot, a family of Cyclops, and the Loch Ness Monster – all hunted down and killed by the same bounty hunters who had left the taunting message in graffiti on the face of the cliff.

As he sailed past, Odysseus sighed – half in dismay at the loss of Scylla, half in longing for the simpler times, before the gods had ‘blessed’ him with eternal charge of the earth’s great beasts. Battling the Trojans and facing the terrors of the Sirens and Scylla gave him more joy than this endless excursion across the globe, always one step behind those who sought to make him irrelevant. He often wondered if they had already succeeded.

Odysseus turned from the defaced and empty lair of Scylla, from the taunting words and the memory of what had once been – though he found no solace on the opposite side of the strait. On a smaller cliff that rose out of the ocean less than an arrow’s flight away stood the barren corpse of a giant fig tree. Beneath the fig tree had once existed the great and terrible Charybdis, a whirlpool who sucked in the ocean thrice a day and spewed it back out. Pity those ships that sailed too close in an attempt to avoid the reach of Scylla, for they would be reduced to splinters by Charybdis and their entire crew either drowned or battered against the rocks.

Unlike Scylla, Charybdis had not been hunted down, for she was more ethereal than substance and could not be mounted in a trophy case. Yet that did not prevent man from hastening her demise. Years of pollution and oil spills had taken their toll on Charybdis, depositing toxins and wastes in the water until she eventually succumbed. Now she sat silent and impotent, the waves lapping listlessly beneath the barren fig tree.

Odysseus stared up into the heavens, where Zeus had once ruled the planet with the rest of the Olympic gods and offered guidance. But in the countless centuries since the fall of Troy, the Greek gods had been forsaken, turned into myth by men who created and venerated a single God. If that wasn’t preposterous enough, those same men worshiped another man, a mortal, who had once claimed to be the Son of God. Odysseus had no doubts that the man could have been the progeny of a god, as Perseus and Hercules had been fathered by Zeus. Yet they were not worshiped and entire religions had not been built around them.

Odysseus found modern beliefs to be strange indeed. And without Zeus and Poseidon and Athena to guide him, the Greek warrior felt adrift in a world that had passed him by. As he sailed from the cliffs that now served as nothing more than headstones for the creatures that had once dwelled within their shadows, Odysseus gave in to the melancholy that inhabited his soul.

In September of 2008, I posted an entry about my now defunct Tuesday night writers group.  We would start off each workshop with a 5-10 minute writing exercise that would change from meeting to meeting.  Sometimes it would be on a certain subject.  Sometimes it would be a certain setting.  Sometimes it would focus on character development or dialogue or description.

At this workshop, the exercise was to write the opening to a story that incorporated five different elements:

A setting.  An musical instrument.  A profession.  An animal.  And a mythical creature.

I asked each of the other five members in attendance to provide a suggestion for one of the elements above.  Those elements turned out to be:

A hair salon. A sousaphone. A nurse. A gerbil. And a leprechaun.

We all wrote our own story openings using those elements.  Below is what I came up with for my opening scene:

One day at the hair salon, I’m giving a simple cut and wash to my third Thursday three o’clock, when in walks a leprechaun with a sousaphone.

“Mind if I play?” says the leprechaun.

I look at the leprechaun, all three feet of him, staring up at me over the lip of the tuba, and I can’t help but wonder if it’s a bad idea to say “no.”

“Sure, whatever,” I say, figuring it’s better to be safe than sorry.

The woman in the chair, my third Thursday three o’clock, looks at me in the mirror and says, “That’s strange.”

I figure she’s talking about the leprechaun, who’s standing by the hair driers playing the opening notes of “The Girl From Ipanema,” when in walks a nurse with a gerbil on a leash.

And I’m thinking that this looks like trouble…

Next post: Fiction Friday – The History of Love

Red is hot. She’s totally hot.

Dude, she could, like, sit next to me and hang out, maybe go surfing or to the skate park or shopping at the Natural Food store and everyone would look at us and say, “Whoa,” because we would look so awesomely perfect together.

This one time, these dudes were all, like, up in my face, totally resenting the fact that I was a way better surfer than they were. For some reason people seem to get all envious around me. So I was like,”Hey dudes, chill,” because really I’m all about harmony and peace. I’m a big fan of nature, too.

Anyway, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Red watching me. Totally checking me out. I could tell from the way she was blushing that she was totally impressed with my awesome freshness dealing with those dudes. Plus I’m pretty fertile. So when I strolled up to her and said “What’s up?” and she called me a stoner, I was like, that’s so uncool. But then I figured it was just because she was intimidated by my healing powers. And the fact that I’m, like, totally loaded.

She digs me, she just doesn’t know it, yet.

(Sound of bong water gurgling, followed by a long, satisfied exhalation).

Dude, what was I talking about?

It’s about suffering and redemption.
Infidelity and infertility.
Betrayal and heartbreak.

It’s about the choices people make when at their most vulnerable.
Their most courageous.
Their most inebriated.

But mostly, it’s about peanut butter.

The players are the usual suspects. The hero. The villain. The doting wife. The overbearing mother. The comic relief sidekick. And the lovable dog who inevitably gets hit by a car or otherwise injured and yet miraculously survives in the end.

Nothing changes. There’s no character arc. No one learns anything. They all exist in a cocoon of consumer excess and designer drugs and reality television. So don’t expect growth and revelations. These are, after all, mostly men.

So why would anyone care about what happens to these people? That’s simple…

Because of the peanut butter.

People are always asking me why I’m so angry.
Telling me to slow down.
Suggesting that I wear some sunscreen.

I’m not sunburned, bitch. This is my natural coloring.

You have no idea how many times some young punk has walked past me and coughed the word “Visine” into his hands. Or what it’s like to have to deal with the constant barrage of relationship-challenged men telling me I look hot.

What I want is for people to just shut the hell up and stop projecting their perceptions of what they think I represent on to me.

Passion.
Embarrassment.
Anger.

They don’t understand what it’s like to go through life with these expectations to live up to, always being associated with some manufactured image of love or power or sex.

Roses.
Ties.
Lipstick.

And then there’s Green who is always hitting on me. Says we belong together. That we “complement” each other. Like peanut butter and chocolate.

Stoner.

The reason for the apology? This blog is a re-post from May 2008. So yes, I’m recycling. But at least I’m admitting it. I’m up front about what I’m doing. Plus, I’ve got a perfectly good excuse for re-posting this a year and a half later.

As an exercise, I’m going to do a series of these flash fiction posts as different colors, just for fun and to give me something to do that’s a little creative. I’ve already written the next one, but since it’s from the color Red, I thought it relevant to post this one as the first in the series and then go from there.

So, without further adieu, the color Yellow…

People are always asking me what it’s like to look like urine.

These are the people who laugh at me. Who walk away snickering and high-fiving each other and thinking they’re all that.

Men usually.
Teenage boys.
Fraternity members.

Assholes.

Women, on the other hand, are more likely to ask me how they look in me. Personally, I wish they’d ask the question in reverse but for some reason, most women tend to think I’m gay. Maybe not as many who think the same thing about Pink, but then that’s kind of a no-brainer. He’s Pink, for Christ’s sake.

Then, of course, there’s Red, Pink’s cousin, who most women find totally hot. Fucker. He’s all show and no substance. But it’s kind of hard to compete with Red when your complementary color is Purple.

Edgar Allan Poe

To commemorate the anniversary of the death of Edgar Allan Poe, I thought it appropriate to share the following abridged retelling of his poem, “The Raven,” which I originally penned for a friend on the occasion of his 40th birthday.

The friend, like many others at the end of their fourth decade of existence, was dreading turning the big 4-0.

It seems doubly fitting considering Poe died at the same age…

Ode to Poe: The Raven Reprised
Once upon a birthday dreary, as I pondered, weak and weary,
Over thirty nine years of curious memories I’d forgotten long before.
Feeling spent, I started napping, when there came a subtle tapping,
The sound of someone gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.
‘Tis some solicitor,” I muttered, “tapping at my chamber door –
Only this, and nothing more.”

Ah, distinctly I remember how I once was young and limber,
And my hard, athletic body made women’s jaws drop to the floor.
Drowsily I wished for slumber, for an age of lesser number,
To remove, to unencumber, what the years had brought before.
To fit into the button fly blue jeans which I often wore
In mothballs now, for evermore.

Presently my sleep grew troubled, so out of bed I on-the-doubled,
And pulled a muscle in my back that I had injured years before.
With Icy Hot I started wrapping, but still there came a gentle tapping,
The sound of an insistent tapping, tapping at my chamber door,
“All right, all right,” I mumbled softly and opened wide the door;
Darkness there, and nothing more.

For a moment I stood fearing, that age had finally claimed my hearing,
When in there stepped a stately raven, uninvited, through my door.
Not the least respect he paid me; not an instant stopped or stayed he;
But like an old, incontinent lady, shat upon my hardwood floor –
Then perched upon a lamp from Macy’s just inside my chamber door –
Shat, and sat, and nothing more.

While this brazen bird sat mocking, I, mouth open, stood there gawking
Until I found my voice and questioned what the bird had come here for.
“With thy crest so shorn and shaven, why choose here to take up haven
Ghastly grim and ancient raven who tapped upon my chamber door?
Tell me why your black butt wandered in and shat upon my floor.”
Quoth the raven “Nevermore.”

How I marveled this ungainly, ill-mannered fowl had spoken plainly
Though its answer seemed bizarre and enigmatic to its core;
Not another word he uttered; not a single feather fluttered–
So with aching back I muttered and cleaned the bird shit off the floor:
“Stupid raven, quit the stained glass lamp inside my chamber door.”
Then the bird said, “Nevermore.”

Ignoring his reply so spoken, as I wiped up the bird’s fresh token
I caught a glimpse of my reflection in the shiny hardwood floor.
My waistline had become my master, and my hair was a disaster
Thinning fast and thinning faster until it covered less than more.
Till I wondered if I’d even look appealing to a whore.
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, sitting lonely on the stained glass lamp spoke only
That single word and shat again upon my pristine hardwood floor.
“Asshole,” said I, patience shrinking, back and neck tight and kinking
And I betook myself to thinking what this stupid bird of yore –
What this rude, obnoxious, one-note, defecating bird of yore
Meant in croaking “Nevermore.”

This I sat engaged in guessing, but my mind it kept digressing
To thoughts of Rogaine and Viagra, to how my youth I could restore.
This and more I sat divining, the fantasy I kept refining
Until I once more started pining for the years that came before
For the thirty-nine years of youth and vigor I had known before
Years recaptured, nevermore!

Then, it seemed, the air grew thicker, and my breath a little quicker,
As perception dawned like sunlight on a shadowed, misty shore.
“Wretch!” I cried, “Oh beast of treason, cursed bird I know the reason
Why you’ve shown up at this season — to mock the past that I adore.
Please grant respite, and diversion, from what forty has in store.”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

“Villain!” said I, “dark intruder.” Then I called him something cruder.
“Have you no compassion for the life that I once knew before?
Youth and muscles once I flaunted, now by excess years are taunted
And my face by wrinkles haunted — tell me truly, I implore –
Is there — is there life past forty? — tell me — tell me, I implore!”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

On the lamp the bird did linger, so I, with grace, gave him the finger
And called him vulgar names that would shame my mother to the core
“Tell this soul with sex drive waning and with old age quickly gaining
Is there nothing else remaining? Is this to be the final score?
Will I have another chance to once more spread my wings and soar?”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

“Be that word our sign of parting, stupid bird!” I yelled, upstarting –
“Get the hell out of my house and speak to me of this no more.
Leave no black plume as a token of the gloom thy soul hath spoken!
Leave my vanity unbroken! — quit the lamp inside my door!
Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy black butt out my door!”
Quoth the raven, “Nevermore.”

And the raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting
On the stained glass lamp from Macy’s just inside my chamber door.
And he quotes with constant nagging to remind me how I’m flagging,
How my flabby ass is sagging almost to the hardwood floor.
To remind me how my waistline and the hair that I adore
Shall see my thirties — nevermore!

Okay. So it’s not Eddie Murphy. But he looks enough like him to pass for the real thing. I quit smoking two years ago and stopped carrying a lighter a year after that. You never really quit smoking until you give up the lighter. So I can’t oblige Miss Eddie, who saunters away looking for someone else to hit on.

Did I say I was in the Warfield Theater? My mistake. I’m at SFO, Gate 33, waiting to board United Flight 4117 to Boston. And Bon Jovi’s not about to take the stage, though several of his songs are on my iPod, so I’m sure he’ll show up sooner or later.

Did I mention I’m a professional liar?

Prevaricator, actually. Professional prevaricator. I get paid to tell lies. To husbands. Wives. Children. Accountants. Nannys. Athletes. Doesn’t matter. I’ve lied to them all. Well, most of them. I still can’t lie to my urologist.

Eddie Murphy in drag? That was the truth. Dead ringer. But he didn’t ask me for a light. He didn’t even walk past me. He’s sitting across from me, applying another coat of lipstick. It looks like bubble gum.

And I never smoked cigarettes. Or owned a lighter.