Let loose the rope and cock your knees. The water won't reach your chin. Watch the egrets hover. See how everything on the river does what the water wants? There's no fighting this. Even when you accept the cold, every moment you sit here, you float backward in time. You shrivel. Your jacket dwarfs you. Hit it, you want to yell, but you’ve waited too long. The boat, too, has morphed. You are tied to a lousy sapling; the engine sank miles back. Don’t panic. You made it to the sea. Surf those waves, and you just might grow up.
one hundred word story #61: Winning
The arena's full. Fireworks ejaculate off baskets as the players emerge one by one, unsnapping pants at the knees. We pay these men to play. We hope these games have meaning. When they score, we shout. When they foul, we squirm. When their opponents huddle, sweat beading their brows, we beat our chests, yell Give up--go home. If only we could sweat out our problems on some grand stage. If only we could slam dunk our tiny victories, paid bills and good health. If only our labor strikes were half as fruitful. When we win, they’ll buy our words.
one hundred word story #60: Unfurling
The butterflies hang still like discarded paper bags. But then the wind shifts. The bags open and out pop a thousand orange wings. They are out of reach. When you get home, back where tule fog lingers, where the only ocean is the tousle of dried corn, you want to recreate that moment. You drape scarves from your rooftop. Wait for the perfect unfurling. You look up for hours. Your neck is sore. Your scarves are thick with fog. And then: a single butterfly, orange and translucent, perches on your windowsill. No pops, no pizzazz; wings brush glass. You unfurl.
one hundred word story #59: From the desk of...
Dear diary, today we made a small nation smaller. Then we had lunch: pastrami on rye. We were out of money so we nixed elementary school arts programs. Lord knows we don't need any more fourth graders with recorders. After that we played handball with some entrepreneurs—and won. It was Happy Hour before we realized we’d bought a half million homes on credit. Not again! Luckily, we were ready to hire 100,000 new builders. Only problem? They’ll have to telecommute—from India. Hey, this is globalism in action, right? That’s what we’re doing, right, diary? Yeah, I thought so.
one hundred word story #58: Turkey drop
There are turkeys on my car. The first one seems friendly; his gobbles falsetto. But then James drops the trail mix. They peck at the windshield. They scratch the doors. They shit on my sunroof. I can see their turds settling. The flock—the gaggle—the monsters attack us with holiday cheer. Start the car! James yells. But turkeys blockade my wheels. I turn the ignition. The big one jumps on the hood, levels his face to mine. I can’t, I say. You should, says James. The turkey shits on the windshield. We lurch forward. That night, we eat turkey.
inspired by a recent This American Life story about rogue turkeys
one hundred word story #57: Ways to fall in love
He bought me glucose tablets. He held my hand while we biked. He took me to see the seals in the snow. He left a birthday gift outside my parents’ gate, close to midnight on a day I thought he’d forgotten. These are all the ways I’ve fallen in love. But this one unrolled the country and we hiked right across it. He vacuums. He lets me drive his ATV. This one woke me that night I'd fallen off the bed, wet and shaking, and didn't mind that I'd broken his glasses. This one is afraid of the right things.
one hundred word story #56: Take care
After the cicadas stop humming, after the moon flushes the sky clean of stars, we hear it. A thrashing, a clanging, a hurtling, is whirling towards us from below the campground. You pace on the pulsing soil. Don’t worry, you call. I’ll take care of it. The earth is loud. Insects gather at my feet. Then I notice it: the ground has seams. Stick your finger in and up it rips, soil and roots and worms, concrete foundations, wooden beams, gravestones. Don’t! You say. But my fingers are hungry. I pull back the earth beneath your feet. I take care.
one hundred word story #55: Dad
You run in the evenings, long after dark. You line the counter with mason jars of fresh pesto and pomegranate jelly. I cost you more than you’ll say—the boxes of needles under the stairs are proof enough. Once, when I was abroad, you called late at night to make sure the world hadn’t broken me yet. But that’s just it. Everything I break, you fix; sometimes with epoxy, sometimes by running past turkeys in the rain, clearing the trail before I get there myself. Someday I’ll make you dinner. Clear your path. Who knows, maybe we’ll get there together.
one hundred word story #54: Cure
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!"