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The Solipsist's LotThere's something about yourself that you don't know.  You probably don't remember the circumstances very well, but I do.  If you enjoy things the way they are, if you revel in even the smallest speck of ignorance, you need not read ahead.  I won't force you.  But from what I know of you, you don't like secrets.  Especially not when they are about you.

You see, when you were born, so at once was everyone else.  Your mother, she sprang into existence, just like that, the instant your tiny infant brain achieved the smallest semblance of self-awareness.  Woven out of the ethe
TeatimeIn January, Elsa got new neighbors.  She greeted them with apple cinnamon tea.

It gets so cold, here, they told her, shivering in overstuffed parkas.  Snow had turned to mud in their front hall—an unavoidable side-effect of moving in winter.  Elsa nodded along to their complaints and observations, silently brewing the tea in their kitchen.  They were young; they had big plans.  Allison and Steve, newlyweds, just starting out.  They sat on the cold floor together, sipping with chapped lips.  The house filled with cinnamon.

In April, Allison knocked on Elsa's door.
Counting the Ringsi

near my sick bed
he murmurs of how he's crumbling
but I'm still here
I've fought so long, I'm here
for a while I trust
I believe this, I must
even when it's bad, because
his faith alone is not enough

my random thoughts of how long
I have, and his thoughts of
"will she be able to outlive me" -
even at moments like this
it happens that
we hold on and speak of a future

ii

rolling restless this early morn'
you exhausted and I
drying up from a virus

spying through the shredding
of 250-thread count bedding,
between the hillocks of your shoulders

we never can sleep
in anticipation for what's to come

to plant the seed and watch it grow
Gourmet Novel RecipeRecipe for Writing a Novel
Serves: 1. If you’re J K Rowling, billions.
Ingredients
- 1 Tin standard cat food
- 1 Laptop/Computer
- 250g cat biscuits
- Paper
- 5 Pens, various colours.
- 1 stuffed cat toy with bell
- 1 pouch slightly fussier cat food
- 1 sachet gourmet cat food
- 1 bottle of wine, red or white
- 1 Wine glass (Large)
- 1 300g Tin of tuna
Cooking time: 2-5 years
Preparation
(Preparation time approximately 10-60 minutes depending on condition of desk and computer speed)
1. Clear space on desk. If you do not have respective space for junk, throw on floor. Place paper and pens in clear space.
2. Turn on computer and allow 10 minutes for slow loading time. Add 2-3 sighs as windows update informs to restart computer. Restart computer and allow a further 10 minutes.
3. Once computer is ready, open up new document.
  
Cooking

1. Begin with your plot. Open internet to several pages, use pens and paper to mix r
FirefliesWe kept cicadas and caterpillars in mason jars, but never fireflies. My brother still has a cicada from three years ago, sleeping away under the lid. Grandpa says it'll stay that way for 17 years like all cicadas do, and it's okay to keep them safe.

But we don't catch fireflies; they don't live that long. They say light travels faster than anything, but our bugs are fat lazy things that travel nowhere in a big zigzag. The tall grass lights up with tiny little flashes every night all summer long and all is dark not two months later, but for the time being they don't even know they're dying.
The Last SongDo you think we'll get a last song?

I'm not sure.  This diary I'm writing in is full of holes.  It's sopping like a wet sponge.  It reeks, but what doesn't in the filth and the mess?

Storm's passing.  Not like I've ever seen here.  Even the explosive storms of my youth; running in the fields, the junkyards, the rust-ravaged train tracks of old wasn't quite like this.  

Something's exploded against the skyline.  Orange is reflecting off the glass; the spider-striped, near shattered glass I kicked two weeks ago while mowing the grass.

It might be the gas works.  Or the chemical sheds.  Weyrdstorms do this, you know.  That's what the warning
cliffcliff
e.bojnowski

on velvet roads,
I impale a  belated dawn
with my incisors and
shiver with perfect leaves-

I have no qualms
with the dark hills
that slope
and stagger into
a bed of scorched fly husks:

where
the thrum of the ground
melds
with the rapids in
my clairvoyant ears.
Never Told He thinks it's odd, sometimes, though he's not certain why.

A sense of dislocation, perhaps. Like cutting yourself on an unsharpened blade. He walks the immense aisles of the cathedral, footsteps echoing hollowly into the blue shadows of high vaulted ceilings and arches, stone figures watching him from above as he, in turn, watches dawn play across their carved and weathered faces. The grandeur of this place is oddly soothing in the solitude it affords him. A holy place, just hushed, here suspended in the silence after Mattins when most have shuffled out. It's a favorite moment of his, a favorite service to attend, and today it gives him p
By Fifty,I'll publish or perish;
  find someone to cherish;
     move someplace phenomenal;
        display an abdominal
           physique to inspire,
              which I shall acquire!

. . . Or perhaps, just retire.
SuperimposeHe doesn't look like a gymnast. He's all button down shirts and frazzled grey hair framing wire spectacles, a picture perfect professorial archetype down to the very tips of his frayed shoelaces. But he was a gymnast once, or so he tells us, and I believe him because he smiles like he knows something while he's chatting before class.

It's strange to see that image superimposed over the current one – the distinguished professor in pressed khaki slacks and a jacket, worn brown loafers exuding a faintly courteous manner (you can always tell them by their shoes), and a ring on the fourth finger of his left hand – versus the athletic ki
Night Chaser02:37am 22nd July - depart from London by commercial jet, business class.
00:53am 22nd July - arrive in New York an acceptable 7 minutes behind schedule.

Slaying an archangel is hard work. It takes a great deal of study, picking your mark, separating fact from legend, learning your target's tells and vulnerabilities. Even if you succeed, and when I tore Gabriel's crystal heart from his open chest I became one of the precious few who have, there is still the matter of retribution. Angels never forget the death of one of their own, and a legion of these creatures now wait to descend and deliver their vengeance. My only sanctuary is the night.
Crows"Crows," I whisper and she flies,
brown arrow shot
from the bowstring of a word.
Machine-Part SincerityShe once said to me,
"Come. You be a gear right here,
and I'll be a pulley over there.
Together, we'll both obey
the lever's dream."

I lied to her when I said,
"I want nothing more."
Across the Sea and Around the KotatsuSpring

Taco Rice

Mom starts with rice. Japanese rice, one, two, three Japanese cup-fulls of rice grains into the cooker, because Sis eats a lot of this stuff. It's one of her favorite dishes, taco rice, and Mom's always happy to make it for her because it's the only way Sis will eat her tomatoes. But back to the rice. "You want to rinse at least three or four times, until the water's kind of clear," Mom says as she cups her hand under the cooker pot, letting the cloudy water wash over her hand.

Rice cooking's easy though – just fill enough water to the point the rice's covered, punch in a time (or set it to "Quick Cook," which with our cre
Dog AdviceI spoke to him as an airplane glided overhead: "I have always had this sort of love/hate relationship with melodramatic phrases and expression. Words and terms that were once powerful, like love and soul and eyes and ocean, have all become weak and horribly cliché as a main result of brutal abuse and overuse. There are other ways to write love poems than basic comparisons and Italian sonnets; it's quite obvious that you can stare into somebody's eyes and figure out what's going through their pretty little head. But there ARE other features of the human anatomy, can't you watch her chest tense up or his shoulder's simply slump and relax b
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A Thing Now: A Two-Sentence Storyby =tonepainter

DescriptionDetailsShare

    For the :iconwriterart: 2 sentence story contest described here.

    Donald Barthelme, whom I met, is turning over in his grave.

    I know that the recommendation for the contest was against having any overly long sentences. In this case, however, the whole point of this story is how long and breathless the first sentence is.

    It’s sort of like this: we all know towers aren’t supposed to lean. The whole point of The Leaning Tower of Pisa, on the other hand, is that it is leaning, kind of like this…

    My tower is leaning!



    Update: I Won First Place!
    I just found out. Check out the announcement of all the winners here.


    2nd Update: DailyLitDeviations (DLD) Award!

    “A Thing Now” was recognized with a :icondailylitdeviations: for May 22, 2012. See the article here.


    3rd Update: Daily Deviation (DD)!

    “A Thing Now” has received a Daily Deviation feature for February 23, 2013. This is my second DD. Holy cow, I’m stoked! Huge thanks to the wonderful =LadyofGaerdon for suggesting it and ^neurotype for featuring it.


    630 words, not counting the Easter eggs.
©2012-2013 =tonepainter
Category: Literature / Prose / Fiction / Philosophy & Perspectives / Flash Fiction & Vignettes

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May 3, 2012
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Daily Deviation

Given 2013-02-23
A Thing Now: A Two-Sentence Story by =tonepainter is a "tongue-in-cheek" (suggester's words) exploration of a style bordering on stream-of-consciousness. ( Suggested by =LadyofGaerdon and Featured by ^neurotype )
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:iconmyperson54:
~myperson54 Mar 20, 2013
Wow. I actually had to reread this a few times. I suppose knowing the movie references helps (The original Star Wars were the good ones!), but I fount it OK to follow through the ones I didn't know. The only part I was turned around was right before he started explaining the "you don't even have pals" part, where there are three contained sentences. (Or so I counted.) Amazing piece, though!
Reply
:icontonepainter:
=tonepainter Mar 20, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
Thanks! I really appreciate it.

(And the films were fun to include...some of the movie references are serious, and some are meant to be humorous. I would never expect anyone to do this, but anyone who took the time to watch all of the films referenced in this piece would, I promise, have a lot of fun and get to see some really great—and some really off-the-wall—cinematic masterpieces.)
Reply
:iconmyperson54:
~myperson54 Mar 21, 2013
Of course. I'm in media arts and am an aspiring writer, so it's always nice to see something as well-written as this. For instance, I now know how rambling sentences can be good, in some ways. And I might just watch those movies. I might. :D
Reply
:icontonepainter:
=tonepainter Mar 21, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
And in case you didn't notice.... just as many DVDs have "Easter Eggs," surprise bits of content squirreled away among their menus, so, too, does this story (like all my lit deviations) have a huge number of hidden Easter Eggs. Hover your cursor here and there above the words and you just might find a few. There are tons....and some of them are quite significant. For example, one might just find the best/most important line of each of the movies referenced. One might. :D
Reply
:iconfuzzyhoser:
`FuzzyHoser Feb 25, 2013  Hobbyist Writer
Uhhh...how did I miss this one before?
Love it, man. :clap:

Congrats on the DD!!! :la:
Reply
:icontonepainter:
=tonepainter Feb 25, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
:love:
Reply
:iconkarinta:
~Karinta Feb 24, 2013  Student General Artist
Holy shit. So how the heck do you do alt text?
Reply
:icontonepainter:
=tonepainter Feb 24, 2013  Hobbyist General Artist
You want the magician to give away his secrets??? :lol:

(I just sent you a note explaining how.)
Reply
:iconkarinta:
~Karinta Feb 24, 2013  Student General Artist
Hmmm. No.





(thanks!)
Reply
:iconxlntwtch:
*xlntwtch Feb 24, 2013   Writer
:+fav:
Fantastic run-on sentence, one that kept me chasing it and remembering all the movies listed as "old" and what a great reply, too, and thank you and congratulations (a bit late) on the DD!
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