Tag: microfiction

Founding Feathers

~ johnbrandall

“A lot of texts these days.”

“Yeah.  I was thinking.  What messages did we used to send that didn’t contain text?”

“Smoke signals.”

“Yes.  Can you imagine sending a smoke signal today?  From one end of a city to another?  From Minneapolis to St Paul?”

“There are a lot of places where it could still work.”

“Not in cities.”

“Certainly not.  But from one farm to another.  Along some trails.  In the desert.”

“What do you burn in a desert?”

“A desiccated cactus will bank a fire for days.”

“What about hieroglyphs?”

“Were they sent?”

“Through time.”

“That’s… a stretch.”

“They were composed by hand and contained or referred to a specific language.  How do we know they weren’t meant to convey information into the future?”

“I think they were pretty close to being text though.”

“How about Morse code?”

“Hmm—yes.  Only audible.  Not a text but...”


This short bit of fictional dialogue continues...

Sunlight In the Studio With Wide Eyes

~ johnbrandall

Every new phone is going to be the best. Sleek, dark, touchless, smart. I look at my phone now, an older model, practically obsolete. My fingerprints are dirty smudges on its protective film.

It took me fifteen minutes to write that paragraph. In those fifteen minutes, I could instead have saved fifteen minutes on car insurance. I didn't. I made a mistake, I missed the boat.

I bought a blood pressure cuff recently, at the recommendation of my doctor. My first home-read was just a moment ago. It wasn't as high as the ones in the office, but it was still too high. Ice cores, volcanic ash, a barleywine that's been recast as an Imperial Red IPA. Do you believe in miracles? Yes!

Earlier today I saw something I would describe as not quite a miracle but something approaching a miracle—a stupendous oddity. I saw a gal struggle against the side of her car in the parking lot at the grocery store. I don't think she was drunk. She just got hit with some strange sort of gravity. All of a sudden. It was a kind of gravity we haven't explained because we can't even detect it. I'm not sure anyone else knows it's even here....

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For The One Who Wouldn’t Come Out of His Shell

~ johnbrandall

She noticed a stack of books by the door.  One she picked up, showed the cover to him.

“Were you getting rid of this?”

“I was planning on getting rid of most of them.  You can have it if you want it.”

“Maybe, I’ve never read him.  Would you say he’s good with relationships?”

“Oh, yeah.  He does a ton with relationships.  He’s the relationship master.”

“Interesting.  I think of Beattie as the relationship master.  Recycled love, mother stuff. But she could also leave me feeling worse about relationships.”

“What do you mean?”

“She can make you paranoid because a lot of relationships don’t make it through her stories.  Her characters have a tendency to leave their spouses.”

“Oh.”

“What about him, though?   Better or worse after reading?”

“Not better.  He’s not therapeutic in that way.  I’d say I feel weirder after reading him.  Fanciful, if that’s possible?”

“Probably not.  But it’s better than feeling worse.  Say, while we’re on this subject—have you been doing any disco art?”

“I’ll show you what I’ve got.”

Creepy jazz music defected from the attic.  An old gramophone was playing new tunes. He was scrobbling to last.fm.  They went up there.

“What are all these pieces?” she asked...  


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Cabin Sessions

~ johnbrandall

I think about our conversation.  Our conversations.  They're like a river.  One river, different river, it doesn't matter.  What we say—it's important to say it.  I'd like to remember everything but once you say something it's in the river, the river takes it on down the stream, we can't look at the river to remember whether we said something.  Did we say it, didn't we?  If it's important enough we can say it again, and it can go into the river again, and it's not wasteful, it's not pollution if we mean what we say when we say it...



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Memory Foam

~ johnbrandall ~ 1 Comment

It is broken.  Does it require of me that I buy a new spacer kit?  What if I counter-offer with a brand new ball assembly?

The right answer ran between the left guard and the left tackle, to the house.

I am from Illinois but I live in Missouri.  This does not make me anxious.  I do not spend an hour a day imagining the explanations I will offer as justification when someone asks me, "What are you doing here?"  Or says, in the pejorative, "Go back to your Land of Lincoln..."


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Observations, Recent and Uncatalogued

~ johnbrandall ~ Leave a comment

1

I was struck by the rightness of a Morandi still life, leading me to believe (again) I could paint something similar, or should try in any case.  Are my old oils still any good?  Am I better with either color or depth?

2

"There's a dead branch out there," she said, pointing out the window.

"You dissembler," he said, raising a knee and tapping it with the opposite hand.  Then raising the other knee, tapping it with the other hand.  "These are my new calisthenics," he said.


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