You are so on!

I'll have one for you.

_In the Bathroom, Last Night_

He was a Southern House Spider, folded in on himself atop a three-gallon, clear plastic jug. Then his legs unfolded like brown petals and he went from dead to living, long enough for my camera to capture him on macro and close enough for me to look into his eyes.

He crawled a bit when I returned him to his perch, then crossed his eight legs again and became a tiny ball.

I busied myself with my field guides while Mary brought him to the compost pile. What killed him remains a mystery: old age, starvation, or the thirst of being separated from three gallons of water by a membrane stronger than silk.

Concentrated

Anything’s possible, she told me. But then again, she believes in that kind of thing (you should see her bookshelves full of oracle-this and wisdom-that).

“Go outside and look at the sky. If you still feel small, then you can see what you can fill up.”

The sun was setting but it was still too hot for this time of year.

A kitchen knife protruded from Poppie’s chest, the hammer still in his hand, a sharp odor of exertion and fear tinged the air. He was lying there in his bed, still conscious, blinking at Mom and me as though surprised, and perhaps guilty that we had found him still in his body—his solitary escape gone awry.

I stared from the knife to my grandfather’s agonized expression, his gray eyes watery but clear, and he held my gaze for several heartbeats as though willing me to understand his pain, and his decision—he was finished with life and wanted to go on to whatever happened afterward.

I couldn’t breathe to speak, but it was was Poppie who broke the silence saying, “Get her out of here” in that gruff voice that was always his way.

I gave him one last look—a lasting vivid memory—before Mom shoved me mechanically out of the room, and I listened to her calling 911, her voice a haze of calm covering a deep chasm of rage, knowing that it would come out eventually, but not until everything was over, since that’s how it was in our family.

I like the minimalist and abstract...

The long dark hallway left me whirling.
Fumble, clunk, crash.
Search for the familiar in space.
Guide me through the long dark expanse.
To the porcelain chair.

In the park, sitting alone on the simply uncomfortable concrete bench donated to the city by Eldrich and Claire Blume, I strike a first, a second, and a third match before successfully lighting a cigarette. I relish the burn in my lungs and ignore the sun, the breeze rustling the leaves of the birch tree shading me, and distract myself in the actions of a beetle worrying a bit of dandelion fluff at my feet. It works oblivious to my presence, my size beyond the scope of its comprehension; my threat an abstraction like evolution. So many things that could otherwise occupy my meditation —the two stubbornly purple iris stalking up in a group of yellow cousins; the two squirrels barking a corkscrew path around the hickory tree; the pair of ravens arguing from opposite corners of the common area— but I am fascinated by the simple workings of a nondescript beetle perfectly unaware at my feet. When I walk away, I regret, for just a moment, the crushing sound under my heel, more felt than heard, drowned out by the spring wind.

Maybe it's just me, but it seems like there's an opportunity here for publishing an anthology of 5-line fictions. It would make the perfect travel book for that long plane ride or trip to the beach.

Okay, so thanks to Stacie for the exercise. I submitted, on a whim, my little 5-line piece to "why vandalism?," an on-line journal posting a call for submissions in the tribe. lol

I need to submit things on a whim more often. They'll publish it in the May '07 issue. Not anything to get all excited about, but I still think it makes for a fun(ny) story.