I screamed his name but he wouldn’t move. He just stood there staring at me with a confused look on his face. Why didn’t he follow my brother, the risk taker, the careless one, the one who had jumped across the tracks in front of the train? Why didn’t he stay behind with me, the responsible one… the one who never took chances and always did the right thing? Either way he would still be alive. But his indecision sealed his fate. All I could do was stand there and watch his lifeless body flash in and out of the shadows of the moving train as it flew past. I stood there in silence until the tracks were clear and it was safe for me to cross. As I approached his lifeless and mangled body I couldn’t help but to think…“What a stupid ass dog.”
Category: Short Stories
The Voices in My Head
I was sitting at my computer, as I usually am in the dying hours of each day. I had my headphones on and was engulfed in the music from my favorite play list. Letting the rhythms pass through me like a gentle brook, hypnotizing and relaxing. But somewhere in the middle of Kenny Chesney’s ‘Chasing Demons’ a frail and timid sound tried to push through the notes. It was barely audible in the beginning; as if someone from a distant neighborhood was calling out for their loved ones to come in for the night. I ignored it and continued with my nightly ritual. But the noise sulked and brooded; reminding me of a spoiled child that had been forced to stand in the corner. It fidgeted and twitched; stomping around in my mind, becoming louder, demanding to be noticed. As it became clear that I was not to be rid of it I picked up my pen and let the noise pour into it.
At first it rambled too quickly. Its sentences were incoherent and confused and its structure was laughable. But as the noise learned to control its emotions it calmed and gained confidence. A coherent word here and an intelligent sentence there until it became its own voice bordering somewhere on the edge of competent prose. Through my pen the noise began to court the page, stroking its ego with eloquence and coaxing the words from the depth of the paper’s blank stare. It no longer needed me for guidance and I let the ink caress the emptiness between the blue lines. I lost track of the music. There was only the sound of the pen carrying on its seductive conversations. I sat helplessly by and let the noise sing its song. It became so engrossed with itself that it did not feel the need to confide in me as it rolled the words from nothingness and brought them into creation.
To Post or Not to Post
I read that question, “What’s on your mind?” I type my words into the empty box, place my finger on the return key, and stare at the screen…and stare…and stare.
I’ve filled the little white space with my thoughts. In my mind, I know that it’s the most beautiful thing that’s ever been written in the history of writing. But still, there is some part of me that just can’t convince my finger to hit the post button. So the minutes tick off the clock and the sweat runs down my arms and drop into pools on the floor. My mind begins to doubt itself. After all, this is the place that all my family and their friends go to when they want to know the last time someone farted.
What if I’ve done something dumb.. like typed ‘hit the post butt’. I better check again just to make sure. Even worse, what if no one likes what I have to say? What if I check later and see that nobody has liked or commented on it?
OMG! What if my friends and family are sitting around the kitchen table right now laughing at my futility? What if I go to work tomorrow and my co-workers are huddled around the water cooler, glancing over their shoulder at me and snickering; asking each other if they read that garbage that I had left for them.
What if, because of my post, the alien life forms that have been watching us through their viewing screens decides that they’ve had enough and send their laser-eyed zombie robots to put an end to us? How could I possibly live with the knowledge that I single-handedly destroyed the world?
Oh wait…
So I click the magical button that throws my words into cyberspace. Now there’s nothing to do but chew on my fingernails and wait.
Oh, the agony and the joy of it all.
Facebook Post
Facebook is a wicked but wonderful world
Like a house built out of glass
I let my thoughts and emotions unfurl
To any who comes scrolling past
I cry out to those passers-by
Not knowing if they hear my plea
But still I know that I must try
To get someone to stop and love me
Will you be the one to share me with your friends
Hurry, my time in the newsfeed fades fast
Or will you be the one that does not hit send
And just keeps scrolling on past
A Letter to the World
For my friends in the U.K. and around the World
It’s times such as these that I wish I could pull some great words of wisdom from the air and lay them out on paper in such a manner that they would make some sense of it all. If only I could reach into my heart and extract those feelings that are there and give them to you so that you might use them as a blanket to protect you and perhaps ease your pain. If I could I would shield you with my pen and write for you a future without sorrow, without hunger, without hatred and without war…because that is what you truly deserve. But I do not have that power. Only God can make the ultimate decisions in how our lives will turn out and we must trust in his wisdom that all things will be provided for us in the end.
My Dad
He worked at the local grain elevator by trade, but that’s not who he really was: he was a music man by heart. Although most of that music had faded from his life long before I was old enough to know the difference between my siblings and the family cat, I still remember the occasional gatherings of his old crew. They would sit beside a bonfire on a warm Saturday night, drink Schlitz beer from the can, and cuss like nothing I’d ever heard before. They shared their stories freely, a few might have been true, but most probably weren’t. My mom always said that the first liar in that group definitely didn’t stand a chance.
They played real music. The kind that you knew came from somewhere deep inside them. He managed to keep it well hidden most of the time, but every once in a while he would let it out, and when he did, it soared. On those special nights, I would ride along on the notes of their music until I was no longer in my small town of Wakenda, but somewhere distant and foreign. I floated gently on the rhythms of their instruments until dreams overtook me. I could tell from his voice that he was singing a lament to the boy of his younger days, traveling the country with his band. However, those days were gone now, replaced by the responsibilities of fatherhood.
The rest of the world saw him as just another, gray, grizzled, old man with dark stains, from tobacco juice, at the corners of his mouth. As the music swelled though, he appeared to physically change. His hands regained the agility of youth. His fingers twisted from age, that could barely grip his beer can, now would fly up and down the strings of his guitar with ease.
He quickly became that young boy and with every verse, his voice did a little flip on the end. It was nearly impossible for me to control myself. I wanted to jump up and start singing and dancing ‘the Wakenda stomp’ with him. I really had no idea how far into the night they played. Their music would carry me along on some journey until his voice would lull me into the darkness of sleep. When I woke up the next morning, they’d be gone.
I’ll always remember his advice to me. On one of those nights as the light from the bonfire danced in his pale blue eyes, he gently squeezed my shoulder and said, ”Remember son, every now and then you have to sing, dance, and howl at the moon.”
That was my moment with my father. I didn’t have to share it with any of my brothers or sisters. It was mine and I kept it.
Jerry Brotherton 