55-Word Stories

Anonymous asked: I'm sad to see the reduction in the number of your stories! I look forward to reading them. What current writing projects are you working on? And a prompt! What do you think of the current college student atmosphere of partying, drinking, and smoking marijuana? Could you do a story on it? You have such a way with words <3 KEEP WRITING! I'll keep reading ;)

Thanks for your compliments; I appreciate it. I’m working on longer fiction, some for contests and journals, some for my own enjoyment. Here’s your story:

          Go ahead and lay waste to yourself. Sometimes, I hear, it is the only way to feel alive after a week of slaving over tiny desks in restricting clothes and self-concepts. Don’t hurt anyone, but have fun. We’re obviously doing something wrong if you hate life so much that you’re using poison to revive yourself.

I’m taking a break from 55wordstories in order to pursue other writing projects. I will still write and post 55-word stories, but not every day. Please feel free to suggest story topics! I welcome inspiration and challenge.

Thanks for your understanding and support.

          When she’s asleep, that small space between her eyebrows is smooth. Her mind and body are quiet, floating in that beautiful unconscious homeostasis at the very center of calm, frenzied, cool, and warm. Asleep, she could be an elaborate flower or a tall, peach-soft monkey.

          He doesn’t love her half so much when she’s awake.

          I often write on school desks with my pencil eraser, leaving dry trails on the snail-shiny tiny wooden surface. I copy down interesting words and phrases from the professor’s lecture in loopy cursive. When he doesn’t say anything interesting I just absentmindedly write “I love you” over and over again in chalky white eraser particles.

          The silent behind-glass girls in the group classes are in a different world than the rest of the red puffing gym users. Those pretty yoga pants girls don’t sweat. They lie on their backs and slowly raise and lower pink balls with their long legs and flutter their arms like a sea of careful birds.

          I don’t understand video games. I don’t understand how their scripted “interactivity” enhances a story. I don’t understand why travel and combat are the only mechanics. I don’t understand why their graphics and stories aren’t better. I don’t understand why they’re so hard for me to play, enjoy, and understand. But I really want to.

          I smiled at Starbucks today. I must have looked silly, garish, even, in a line of wan seven o’clock commuters, all ordering coffee to kickstart their tired brains for another long, dreary day. I think the cashier was taken aback; people don’t smile while waiting in line for coffee in the morning. Everyone knows that.

          To me, reading short stories sliced and diced, introduced and rearranged into a big edited patchwork anthology with clingy film-thin pages is like reading a book with the movie poster cover—bad news.

          Of course, it doesn’t really matter—the words are what matter. It’s an illogical preference, a superstition. But I can’t kick it.

          “Hello, darling.” The devil appears in my living room while I am reading the paper in my easy chair. He smells like sulfur and expensive cigars. He’s gotten fatter since the last time I saw him. His pinstripe zoot suit is mustard yellow and fits poorly. I guess that’s what Hell is. Ill-fitting, out-dated suits.

          It had taken him twenty years to get to this spot. Twenty years from researching legends in his sardine can apartment in between jobs to being hired at the university to getting the grant to standing here in front of it, right in front of it. Larger than life. Bright as day. It was real.