You have the cure for what I've got. You carry it in a locket around your neck. Maybe that's why you keep me at arm’s length--you can feel the keening. You don't know your own power. How could you? There aren’t any holes in your body. The systems, they all work. Your nerves are superfine. You think I like you. Really, I’m sticking around long enough to see that locket open. I want to be there when the cure spills out, maybe like smoke, maybe like gunshot. Either way, I’ll be here to remember what it’s like—being whole.
one hundred word story #53: Hold this
What if, every day, starting the day we were born, the world gave us something to hold? Pencils, pixie sticks, chickadees. We'd go everywhere holding things, hands so full that we'd give up introducing ourselves. Instead we’d trade things. A Coke for a dictionary, a dictionary for an iPad, an iPad for a robot. And what if, at some specific moment in time—our twenty-first birthdays, say—the world took it all back? Our houses, they’d empty. Our cars, they’d disappear. We’d be left with only our hands. Maybe then we could put a name to this feeling—this quiet.
one hundred word story #52: Politics
The candidate was up in the polls until the first woman came forward. His campaign manager assured him that it was nothing; what difference did one measly affair make? Then the second woman, his former employee, called the press. Best to address it now, his manager said; nip it in the bud. But it was too late. The women, they came out of the woodworks. They showed up at his restaurant. They met him on the golf course. They occupied city streets. On election day, they surrounded his car. Your voice might be loud, they said, but your words—powerless.
one hundred word story #51: Coming up roses
Bob and Sharon hated to see their flowers turn color in the shop. Floristry was wilting. One day a customer forgot his credit card. They watched him trot a redhead across the street. Without knowing it, he donated to their store. Bob and Sharon had never seen anything grow so fast. It was easier than planting seeds. And thus it started: tulips, peonies, daisies, rhododendrons, orchids, all blossoming in their store. Men queued up outside, hoping to appease angry wives and sullen mistresses. Bob and Sharon understood it all as donated romance. Later, in the courtroom, he brought her roses.
one hundred word story #50: Cover letter
To Whom it May Concern:
Please consider me for ________ position at ______ company. I believe I am qualified to ______ because of my considerable experience as a _______, ______, and ______. My interest in ______, as well as my dedication and commitment to ______, are in line with ______’s mission to be a _____ and ______ company of the future. If hired, I promise to _____, _____ and _____. I’ll ____ what you want me to ____, ____ when you say ____. I will make you money. Don’t worry about how.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
_________ _________
The People United
My friend and former housemate J.T. Yu wrote this song, "The People United," in response to protests around the world. There is something really satisfying about seeing this footage taken around the globe--maybe it's because we see how many of these unanswered questions, pleas and frustrations are all in some way related. To the top 1% still profiting off all the unpaid interns, all the disenfranchised, all those held back by debt, inherited prejudice or systemic injustice: do you feel like you're in the minority yet?
one hundred word story #49: When life gives you lemons
After twenty years of marriage, Agnes can't handle it anymore. It isn't alcohol; it isn't infidelity; it's the snoring. Phil's snores are barges passing in the night. One night, he awakes the neighbors, who rattle their trash cans to the curb, thinking it's garbage day. Agnes drops him off at the sleep lab with a pillow and a glass of milk. Fix your shit, she says, pointing to his nose. That night, they affix special stickers to his forehead. The next morning, there is a flute where his nose once was. Go on, the doctors say to Agnes. Play nice.
one hundred word story #48: Interactive
The museum does not come alive at night. What happens in the museum, happens in broad daylight. The statues flirt. The abstract painting drips into a puddle on the floor—no one is the wiser. The video installation flickers, then coughs, until exactly 12:15. At 12:15 the picture is suddenly very sharp. The images are foreign, the sounds unfamiliar, but the subjects are very real: the African masks, the ancient Peruvian flutes, even the French impressionists. We see where they once belonged. Patrons blink, rub their eyes. Did you see that? They ask. At 12:16 the video flickers again; snow.
one hundred word story #47: Pies
You're eating Grandma's pies, Dad says. We look down and the boysenberries are impossibly ripe for late November. She made them in August, he says. She was always so efficient. He guts the last turkey and we feel it now, turning in our bellies like a knife. They’re just pies, you say. Sugar is sugar. But it isn’t the sugar I’m worried about. It’s the kneading. It’s those four months without light. Someone dies and everything they touch is sacred. Might pie be sacrament? The berries are sour and plump. Someone wears her apron. We eat until we’re full.
one hundred word story #46: Thanksgiving in space
Thanksgiving in the space shuttle is not so special. The dried turkey flakes off in even sheets. The mashed potatoes are so mashed that the starch molecules combust into fine particles in the cabin. Ken wants yams but there are none. Bridget says not to worry; she’s got marshmellows. She rips the bag open and out they spiral, tiny congealed globs of sugar that spin like stars. Ken turns off the light and the astronauts bob in the dark. Planets might shift and stars might form. Asteroids might collide and satellites might pass. Regardless, all that matters today is sugar.
one hundred word story #45: Poison
The rats are dead. They smell sour and stiff and you can't see them but you know that posture: toes curled, or perhaps uncurled, eyes glassy. Once upon a time you were a pacifist. You left your door open. You named them Templeton and Posey. But now you sleep downstairs. You set traps with peanut butter. You heard their shuffles in the night, the scratch of their toenails as they dragged traps full of peanut butter back to rat headquarters, where they licked and bit with a fury you now know. Dead, they taunt you still, their silence sour.
This is my university
As English Professor Seeta Chaganti says, "Say it, don't spray it!"
one hundred word story #43: On revolution
The mice at Rodent College are unhappy. The school is demanding an extra whisker off every animal's face. The mice gather, assemble a wheel so complex, even the Rodent Board of Directors can't quite jump aboard--it's too fast, too new. The High Queen wants to protect the health and security of her students. So when the group reaches its critical mass, she summons the cats, who pad back and forth, tails twitching. The mice spin faster and faster until the cats collectively hiss. The force of their breath knocks every last student down. Days later, the wheel still spins.
First Amendment, anyone?
This makes me sick to my stomach.
I'm too mad right now to write anything interesting, so instead I will direct readers to Assistant Professor of English Nathan Brown's letter calling for the resignation of UC Chancellor Katehi, who ordered the riot police to break up the student protesters who were protesting police brutality. Ironic, no?
one hundred word story #42: No vacancy
Night falls over Crater Lake, that blue gully with its mouth open to the heavens. The man and woman approach the summit as the rain drops like marbles. The campgrounds are full, as are the chalets; there aren't any hotel rooms this close to the crater's rim. What if we could make it to the island? She says. It’s probably vacant. When he doesn’t answer, she puts the car in reverse, aims for the rim’s biggest lip. Floor it, he says. Rain steers them down, down. The sky has never been more vacant. They push the stars aside. They land.
one hundred word story #41: Dear Mark Yudof,
Georgia interned twenty hours a week at the archeology lab. She worked nights at the local grocer’s, bagging her professors’ organic almond butter and grass-fed beef. She crammed through sixteen units every quarter, her desk dirtied with coffee mugs, grounds decaying as she poured cup after cup. College meant sacrifice. Learning, a privilege. One night, while restocking cans of kidney beans, the news came: tuition had doubled. Georgia considered the beans. If each bean were worth a penny, how many more would she need to complete her degree? Or were they useless either way? That night, Georgia sacrificed the beans.
Support public institutions while they are still public
The University of California system was designed as a network of competitive public schools -- institutions where, at the very least, California residents could get a good education for an affordable price. I believe in the UC system and am incredibly grateful for the education I have been able to get -- thanks in large part to my parents, grandparents, aunt and uncle who all helped support me while I pursued my undergraduate education. Without them, I would have accrued massive debt--a price many students are forced to pay for the privilege of getting a degree.
Education should not be a privilege--it should be a right. College should be a time when students are allowed to focus on their studies, to experiment with new ideas, to invest time learning about careers they might not have had access to otherwise. It should not be a time when students must forgo their homework to work multiple jobs, or lose themselves in adult financial matters that tie them to debt for the rest of their lives.
For these reasons I stand in solidarity with my peers at UC Berkeley, at UC Davis, and other public universities who are striving to remain that -- public -- in this era when systems of all kinds need reminding of what our true priorities are.
one hundred word story #40: Just a dog
He's just a dog, you say, as you take him off the leash. We watch that tail raised high like a flag as he disappears into tall grass. He’s just a dog, but he’s all I got. You have me, I say. You are quiet. The grasses flinch. All we can see is the occasional brown flare that is his tail. That’s the thing, you say. The dog has disappeared. You shout yourself hoarse. I shout too. You’re not shouting loud enough, you say. I shout louder. The dog trots back and still you shout. I disappear into tall grass.
one hundred word story #39: Empty nest
A mother of twelve, Gertrude never went anywhere alone. The furthest she could go was the end of the bus line, but even then, one of the twelve often hopped aboard. Sometimes it was Charles, a failed mime, or Joanna, a butcher with forever bloodied hands. Scarlet, who organized strikes in the harbor, occasionally dragged sailors back to their two-room apartment. Gertrude recognized their look: unmoored, captive, as she was, by the wants of so many others. One day she followed the sailor back to sea. She lingered at the port, inhaling the salt, counted to twelve, and hopped aboard.
one hundred word story #38: Reminders
There are days when the universe imposes its limits. There are days when the numbers overwhelm, when the beeps at my side are bullies, when things hurt again. After ten years it should be implacable; the skin should be thick enough. But when it gets this thick, every intrusion pierces the surface, digs a little too deep. And on these days the best thing to do is sit very still and listen. Let the universe clatter with other voices, other numbers, other sorrows. When I get up, the skin, it sloughs off, leaving the hurt behind for some other day.