you fell asleep on the subway. [trigger #221]

Of course this is the way the worst day of your life ends, with you six stops past your own on the subway because you fell asleep. This is the last train before the subway reopens in the morning, there’s a torrential downpour outside, and you don’t have any money for a cab. After a day in which your power was turned off, you’ve lost your job, been dumped by your girlfriend, discovered that a misfiling in your taxes has resulted in you owing the IRS $2134.00, oh, and you found out your parents are getting a divorce, this is the last thing you needed. This adds insult to injury. Perhaps it is just a fitting conclusion, par for the course, the only way a story like this would end, barring a twist ending. The only prospect to look forward to is the miserable, wet, cold walk back to your apartment, the one for which the rent is already past due even before finding out you are no longer gainfully employed. Time to get off at the next stop and start the trek.

Or is it?

Maybe it isn’t time to get off and walk home on your achingly tired feet after all. Maybe, in the midst of a day as shitty as this one, the best course of action is to stay on the subway, to ride deeper into the heart of the unknown. If ever there was a time for new beginnings, this is one of those times now. You know what’s waiting for you back there, in your empty apartment, fighting your way through the horrible weather just to slump down on your couch in the dark, left alone with your brooding thoughts about everything that has gone wrong. Perhaps instead it is time to let the speeding train pull you farther away from all the familiar bullshit that has gone wrong today. You’re alone in the car, rushing beneath the sleeping city above you, and that seems as good a place as any for an adventure to begin. Isn’t this always how great adventure stories begin? Our protagonists never begin with the greatest day of their lives. It must begin with failure, some inciting action, to thrust our hero or heroine out of the comfortable and known and into the mysterious wilderness. Maybe missing your stop was exactly the stroke of luck you needed. Just sit tight, keep your eyes open, and wait for your cue, because life begins now. Time to sally forth, onto treasure, and glory, and triumph.

she took the pill and all went black. [trigger #154]

**Okay, so after all that nonsense, I think I should finally be back for real. This time has really sucked, but I’m think I’m going to feel really light once it’s all over and done with. Either way, I should have time to write and start the long process of catching up.**

He gripped her gently by the shoulders, squeezing just enough to get her attention in the midst of her stupor. “Noreen, listen to me, I know it’s hard, but you’ve got to decide.”

“Rick? What’s happening? Where am I?”

“I can explain all that later. I don’t mean to get all Matrixy on you, but you have to take this pill if you are going to go any farther with me. Your heart won’t survive the journey unless you take this pill. It will put you in a controlled coma, and your heart will slow down enough that it can take the rigors of the trip. If you won’t take it, I have to leave you here.”

“Mm, what? Rick, I don’t understand. I feel so woozy and cloudy in my brain. What’s happening? I’m really starting to freak out.”

She looked up into Rick’s face, and even in her confusion it was easy to read his compassion. It sobered her a bit. “Rick, tell me what’s going on.”

Rick looked back over his shoulder to see if anyone else was near. Then, he looked back into her eyes and brushed his thumb over her cheek, cradling her face in his palm. “Listen, I can’t explain what’s going on. I just need you to trust me. This is really important, and I really need you to take this pill. I just can’t force it on you, you have to take it on your own. Can you trust me?”

She was terrified, but something about the intimacy of the moment had gotten to her. Instead of speaking, she looked into his face, and for the first time ever, she kissed him full on the mouth. Then she tossed the pill into the back of her mouth, swallowed it, and all went black.

my favorite pair of jeans. [trigger #153]

Suzie has been my best friend since we were both 16. Her parents had gotten divorced, and her mom had moved the kids three towns over, to settle in the Village of Wappingers. Thus, Suzie had to change high schools her junior year. She was put in my homeroom, and it took all of one full week of school for us to become inseparable.

We were connected at the hip for the rest of high school, were both accepted to SUNY New Paltz, and continued on equally inseparable there. We had our fights and misunderstandings, our lives have changed quite a bit since we were girls and it’s possible you could say we have far less in common these days. Still, nothing has ever truly shaken our friendship. She’s been closer to me than anyone I’ve ever dated or lived with with, more reliable than any family member. We anticipate each other’s feelings as well as we can anticipate our own.

She’s like my home, or comfort food, or my favorite pair of jeans. We’re just broken into each other, no one else could ever fit around my soul the way she does.

It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been away, or what circumstances keep us from talking for longer than normal. The moment we are together again, or even the moment I hear her voice, it’s as if we were never separated.

the seventh chair landed in Paris. [trigger #132]

The Seventh Chair landed in Paris. Truly, the creature’s name was Galdiel, but always prefers to think of itself as The Seventh Chair. This is because, when one is the seventh chair clarinet out of the entire orchestra of the heavenly host, a certain amount of pride is in order. Thus, The Seventh Chair landed in Paris.

The Seventh Chair had a fairly simple errand to see to, someone or other needed to have a spark of inspiration, and The Seventh Chair was to act as the muse. With so simple a task, time was no issue. That meant The Seventh Chair could do what The Seventh Chair liked best, perform over creation.

There is a small hotel on Av. de l’Argent Sarre, near where Rue Hoche, Rue Bournard,  Rue Victor Hugo, Rue de l’Independance, and Rue Saint-Denis converge into the same small vicinity. Standing on that small hotel, The Seventh Chair began to play.

Flowing through genres and artists, The Seventh Chair played unadulterated beauty onto the people of France. Mozart, Stravinsky, Copland, Benny Goodman, Artie Shaw, John Carter, Jean-Christian Michel, Paulo Sérgio dos Santos. Some saxophonists, because upon returning to the higher dimensions The Seventh Chair would hear it from Coltrane if he was left out of the performance.

The Seventh Chair even forgot itself for a time, and even more than usual when it performed, the world below became a more peaceful and lovely place. An oddly large number of people could be seen pausing in the street and staring into the night sky, or even facing up with their eyes closed for long minutes when they would normally be rushing to wherever they were going. Fighting couples made love and conceived beautiful children. Angry relatives reconciled and forgot what they’d been fighting about. Several parties got much more amorous than was expected. Wine peaked early, food tasted richer, kisses lasted longer, and sleep was filled with good dreams.

Artists were overcome by a fervor to create something new: two internationally best-selling novels, a new genre of music that would take the world by storm, a memoir that would literally stop two wars when world leaders read it, a photo shoot that would inspire several generations of photographers and models alike, seven different masterpieces were painted (one by a nine-year-old), and more poetry than has ever been composed per square meter. That is just the tip of the iceberg.

It was one of the most beautiful moments in all of history.

matches! [trigger #105]

“Vegetables?”

“Check!”

“Steaks?”

“Check!”

“Hamburgers?”

“Check!”

“Beer?”

“Check!”

“Plates?”

“Check!”

“Propane?”

“Check!”

“Matches?”

“Che.., wait, what?”

“Matches?!?”

“I didn’t bring any matches, what do we need matches for?”

“I told you, the igniter doesn’t work on this grill, you need matches or a lighter to start it.”

“Oh, well… I don’t have any matches.”

“But all the stores are closed for the day, we’d have to drive all the way into town to find a place open on a holiday. What are we going to do?!?”

 

 

she warned me, but i ignored her. [trigger #102]

She warned me, but I ignored her. Time and time again, she said it. I just thought it was one of those things that moms say, I didn’t think there was any actual substance to it.

Moms say all sorts of things that aren’t true. ‘Don’t sit so close to the tv, you’ll go blind.’ ‘Video games rot your brain.’ ‘If you go outside without your jacket, you’ll catch your death.’ ‘You’re such a handsome young man!’

I thought it was just another one of those things… but it wasn’t. So here I am, sitting in a waiting room until it’s my turn to go in and see the plastic surgeon. From what I’ve learned so far, it’s going to be a difficult surgery, followed by a painful rehabilitation and recovery.

So, kids, learn from my tragic example. If you keep making funny faces, eventually it really might get stuck that way.

His nickname was Toro even though he never… [trigger #86]

His name was Jhonny (yes, that is where the h is supposed to go in this case). His nickname was Toro, even though he never did anything that resembled a bull. The nickname probably derived from a combination of his size and a healthy dose of irony.

When you think ‘Toro’, you think of bullfighting, no? An enraged animal fighting for its survival and territory. Jhonny was nothing like that. His nickname probably should have been Buey, or Steer, because for the most part he could be found standing around with a vacant stare, chewing gum.

He’d been an energetic kid, but somewhere along the line in high school he just got to staring and chewing, just like a cow. No one knows what might have happened, just the outcome.

Maybe he was fortunate and the nickname had been given to him by a few ladies he’d known, in relation to an anatomical endowment. Then again, if he’d ever been with a woman none of us had ever heard about it, so that seems unlikely in a small town like this one.

All we know for sure is that his nickname was Toro, and that on the 1 in 4 chance he might respond to you at all, he’d have been as likely to respond to Toro as to Jhonny.

two weeks later, it happened again. [trigger #72]

It’s hard to get people to believe me when I say that a drunk driver literally crashed through the front of our house and into our living room while we were out getting ice cream. It’s impossible to get people to believe me when I tell them it happened twice.

I was 20 years old, home from college for the summer, and we’d gone out to get some Molly Moon’s on a nice, warm evening. We came home to find the street in chaos as police tried to deal with the situation while also holding off curious passersby.

At first, we couldn’t believe our eyes. It was like we couldn’t get our brains to accept that it was our house, but with the front wrecked and in tatters with the back of a car sticking out and an odd angle that kept both back tires off the ground. Some guy had gotten drunk down the street at his friend’s house, had fallen asleep only seconds after starting his journey, and had proceeded to accelerate into what had been our living room.

It was bizarre, but we were fortunate to have been away from the house so that none of us was hurt, and insurance was taking care of things with an uncharacteristic promptness we all found refreshing and reassuring. Construction had already begun on getting things patched up within the week.

It would have been perfect, all things considered, to have been fortunate enough to avoid physical injury and have things getting repaired in short order. I say would have because two weeks later, it happened again. Not just another car drove into our house, mind you. The same driver drove into our house. He got drunk with the same friend, got into a different car, and while the details of what actually happened next are sketchy, the gist is that he ended up in our living room again. The only different on our side, because we were somehow not at home for this even either, was that we were getting Trophy Cupcakes instead of Molly Moon’s Ice Cream.

I’m honestly not sure if the moral of the story is, ‘don’t drink and drive’ or ‘go out and buy yourself sweets as often as possible.’ Maybe it’s both.

the tiny stone came skipping back. [trigger #67]

He turned right at the old fork, to take him down to the lake. The year’s first snowfall began, and John decided to go out for a walk. After all that had happened, he had quite a bit on his mind. He’d known that they’d been growing apart for so long, but he never thought Rebekah would really be willing to leave him. Now that she’d told him she was seriously considering doing just that, he didn’t know what to do. He wasn’t scared, or desperate, or angry, so much as confused and numb.

That’s why he decided to go for a walk when he saw the snow begin to fall. He found there was no moment quite as clear as the first fall of snow, especially when it came at night. He’d stand still and stare up at the black sky as the white flakes slowly drifted down toward his face. That was when clarity would come, when enlightenment would strike. More than anything, clarity and enlightenment were what he needed at the moment.

As he got closer to the lake, he noticed a strange fog out on the water. It was luminescent, glowing green from the inside. He couldn’t help himself from continuing to move toward the edge of the water. He stood at water’s edge, looking out as the fog slowly moved toward him. There were strange flashes, like charges of electricity that would move around the outside of fog’s surface.

He picked up a rock, about the size of a softball, and threw it out into the fog. The rock broke the surface of the fog like it would in any other fog, aside from the fact that after that, it never struck the surface of the water. It disappeared into the fog and never made a sound.

He grabbed a stick from the edge of the woods and threw that in as well. Same result. It disappeared in the fog, but never made the sound that should have come as it struck the surface of the water.

He kept up the same thing, throwing random objects he could find out into the fog, only for it to vanish in the fog without ever hitting the lake. Then he picked up a small flat stone and skipped it along the lake’s surface into the fog. It vanished like the others. John slowly started backing away from the surface of the water, when the tiny stone came skipping back out of the fog.

“What’s that?” “Magnets! We’re going to need magnets!” [trigger #57]

Courtney had waited for this day her entire life, her wedding day and night. As a good Christian, she’d also saved herself for this, sexually speaking. When hormones started kicking in and her body was craving all sorts of carnal pleasures, she’d battened down the hatches and held out until the day she said “I do.”

She’d been promised by her elders that waiting would make the night magical. Somehow, waiting until her wedding night would create a remarkable sacred whirlwind of sexual bliss.

Her and Alex hadn’t actually talked about the wedding night yet, because they were worried that talking would lead to doing before the appropriate time. Still, she just knew that Alex would want what she wanted for that night: a quiet, intimate, beautiful time where they could gently enter the world of sex and celebrate their love for each other in the most physical of ways.

Thus, she was very surprised when she entered her hotel bedroom after changing from her wedding dress into a sexy little nightie that her girlfriends had bought her, and Alex was dressed like Abraham Lincoln.

“Alex, why are you dressed like that?”

“Because, we finally get to have sex. I’m going to enjoy all the fantasies and dreams I’ve ever had!”

“You have a sex fantasy where you are Abraham Lincoln?”

“Yes, mam! Your grizzly bear outfit is on the dresser, over there.”

“My what now?”

“Your bear outfit. This is going to be so awesome!”

“Wait, why do I need a bear outfit?”

“To have the best wedding night sex ever! I still don’t have everything we’ll need, so I’ll run down to the Walmart to grab the final touches before we get started.”

“I don’t understand, what else could we possibly need?”

“Well, I’ve got the bike horn, the strobe lights, the moose head, the firecrackers, and the pixie sticks. I’ll need to run down and grab the bananas, some sugar, some G.I. Joes, and a football.” She stared at him confusedly. “Oh, and industrial strength magnets”

“What’s that?”

“Magnets! We’re going to need magnets! That’s definitely the best part.”