Orange leaves in a yellow “vase”; they don’t quite match but that’s “ok”
Mantle strewn with fall-time “treasures” and dead beetles and purple clay
There’s water on the floor that’s turned to “ice” that’s turned to ants
Ice ants, crawling through the cracks in “reality” until they can pay the rent

The “real” world is either six inches or “infinity”

The frog in the glass box thinks the world’s in a “cage”, boasting his six-inch
“Freedom” from the brits, the turks, the despotic professors in summer twitch
And the frog, the frog’s “name” is Ben and he steals food from Jason “sometimes”
Neither of them like bacon, but bacon is just an old volcano’s “intestines”

The “real” world is either six inches or “infinity”

How long this lasts is entirely up to “fate” and “chance” and “monopoly”
But the frogs don’t care, six-inch freedom is all they can “handle” coolly
More than that and they might “freak out” or eat their toes and knucklebones
And the stool sits nearby, “waiting” to disintegrate into decay and rot clones

The “real” world is either six inches or “infinity”

The vase is ok and someone calls it a treasure in a heart of ice that fits easily into reality
Her name is Sometimes, and she’s named all of her intestines too, and calls them pretty
Her cage is made of freedom pipe cleaners - blood red, snow white, and hospital blue
She’s fated to chance, and has a monopoly on handles on life that she gives out        sparingly so no one will freak out because the six inches no longer keep them waiting

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           Hell wasn’t the most fun place to hang out.  The first time Death had heard a man tell someone else to “go to hell” he hadn’t understood why people would say such things in fun.  Then he learned what sarcasm was and it all made sense.  Well, most of it anyway.  He still didn’t get how people knew hell was such a bad place if no one had ever come back to tell them about it.  And then he learned that people are generally willing to believe that things are bad rather than that things are good.  Then all of that made sense.
            Even understanding sarcasm and humans’ tendency toward pessimism didn’t change the fact that hell still wasn’t the most fun place to hang out.  Death was stuck here for at least an hour or so and hating every minute of it.
            “The escapee’s back, huh?”
            “Raitus.”  Death let Cerberus sniff his hand – all three heads – and then pushed past the demon Raitus into hell’s antechamber.  Most of the damned hung out here, writhing in their various agonies in a waiting room type space.  The place was far better decorated than those fire and brimstone preaching preachers made it out to be.  Burning forever in agony and gigantic machines of torture and all that, it was all well and good, but what Death observed as he made his way toward Lucifer’s receiving room was far more chilling.  Overstuffed chairs and footstools stood about – some of them occupied by groaning sufferers – and long thick carpets criss-crossed in every direction.  A few millennia ago Lucifer had had a penchant for light blues and greens, but the reds and blacks that were used in portrayals of him on earth had appealed to him.  Besides, if that was what a damned man expected as he expired, why not fulfil that expectation?  It would be the last satisfaction he would ever get.  The rest of eternity would be spent being constantly consumed by internal fire.
            Death shoved one shoulder against the double doors leading into Lucifer’s study, not bothering to remove his hands from his pockets.  The Prince of Lies leaned back in his chair and flipped casually through a folder full of lists.  He frowned at them with a vague sort of interest, the sort of interest your parents give you when they really don’t want to listen to your story but they do want to be good parents.
            “Freakus said you wanted to see me.”  Death kicked the door shut behind him and ambled a few steps closer to Lucifer’s desk.
            “I have a name you- you-“ a very small demon jumped up on Lucifer’s desk and shook one bony fist at Death.
            “Filius.”  Death glanced at him and dipped his head in a small nod of gently mocking obeisance.  This particular demon liked to disguise himself as a garden gargoyle and terrorize children to “scare the heaven out of them” he liked to say.  Death was often amused to find “Freakus’s” antics having the opposite affect.
            “And don’t forget it!”  The creature squeaked, arms akimbo, glaring at Death with all the anger in his tiny, trembling form.
            “I don’t think he ever does, Filius.”  Lucifer rose from his chair and walked stiffly around to shake Death’s hand.  “Thank you for coming.”
            “I didn’t have anything better to do.”  Death shrugged and glanced idly around the room.  “Is that cake?” 

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she's awfully hard to pin down.  at least, mine is.

you know the feeling.  you sit down to write, ideas filling every cranny of your remarkably creative brain, and for a few minutes, an hour, maybe a few hours, things go along like magic.  Your pencil scratches away, or the keys on your laptop click encouraging words back at you as your fingers dance over them. 

That's when it begins.  The clicking slows down, like popcorn in the microwave as it nears crispy, buttery perfection.  The pencil seems to get caught on invisible blemishes in the your paper and just won't keep moving properly.  You poke through your brain for the next brilliant idea to spill on paper and find the space like the inside of an unfinished basement after the family has moved out.  Dry concrete, dusty rafters, empty shelves.

Your muse has stepped out for another round of tea - or a cigar, if yours is the smoking type - and taken with her all the brilliance that had so lately filled your mind.  You can't make her come back, no one has that power, so what can be done?

You write anyway. 

You dredge up a conversation you had yesterday with your mother-in-law and stretch and skew it until it fits in your characters' mouths.  You describe the empty rafters and lonely shelves of your mind's idea warehouse.  And while you scribble nonesense across the page with one hand, you spread chocolate truffles on the floor by the door to try to entice that muse back in so that real work can get done.

Muses don't hang around with people who aren't writing.  Write, and wait for her to come poke you along in the right direction.

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When someone lives forever it can really throw the world off-kilter.

Emese thought she was brilliant when she discovered a way to keep her granddaughter from Death by refusing to name the child. No name, no way for Death to record her in his book. Problem solved, right?
Now it's two weeks past the time that this nameless girl should have died and the underworld is freaking out. Banshees flock to Faber, CA, searching for the corpse they never got to mourn and making replacement corpses (that really don't satisfy) left and right. Death himself attempts to drown his frustration in bars, only to discover that Death can't get drunk and it doesn't do him much good anyway.
It would seem that Max - a girl with a little bit of the immortal child carved into her collarbone from an interesting encounter with a path of needles - is the only one with a shot at putting things right, and even she's woefully confused.

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            Some fifty years ago, a woman by the name of Emese was watching by her daughter’s birthing bed, waiting to see her grandchild’s face and discover her name.  The mother, whose name was Anna, had already seen two children stillborn and was desperate that this birth not bring the same sorrow.  In that vein she begged her mother to search until her old eyes ached for a way to hide the child from Death.

            The day of the birth had arrived and still Emese had discovered no certain protection from Death’s eye.  So, she prepared to name her grandchild with no more hope for a live birth than any other woman in the hospital that day.  As the crown of the child’s head began to appear, Emese was struck with inspiration and, catching up a red towel from the nurse’s cart, she cast it over the child’s face before anyone had caught sight of the name within its eyes.

            Anna cried out in protest and attempted to move the cloth so that she could meet her daughter, but Emese stayed her hand.

            “Stop!” she cried, “the moment you reveal this child’s name, then Death will write it in his book and she will be as vulnerable as the others were!”

            This speech had the intended effect and Anna contented herself with cradling the small child while her eyes were covered.

            As the girl grew, her mother and grandmother kept her supplied with hoods.  Red because Emese believed it was Fate that had led her hand to that colour as the first day of her nameless granddaughter’s endless life.

            No one has ever seen her eyes.

            Thrilled with their success at tricking Death, Emese and Anna sought to do for themselves what they had done for the child.  Emese cloistered herself away in the forest, living in a small house between a pair of oaks – trees of strength and vibrancy that she knew Death preferred not to walk near – and began work on various elixirs of life.  The hazel bush by her door, a conduit of fertility, served to provide the vitality she needed for her serum, a mixture to which Anna added her own touch here in town.  Their methods and ingredients are secret, but their mode of communication could not be more obvious. 

            The child walks back and forth between their homes monthly, on the night of the full moon when all moon madness breaks loose.  She carries what she claims is a hot loaf and a bottle of milk to her grandmother, and then returns with a bottle of grey liquid that pulses with life.

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This funny bit of word picture popped out of my fingers last night.  It's so odd, I don't know what to make of it.

“I am carrying a hot loaf and a bottle of milk to my grandmother.” The girl replied. Her voice spread tendrils of grey mist through Max’s mind. She found it a bit more difficult to care about what Connor would say next because she was suddenly overcome with a desire to find out what colour the girl’s eyes were.
Connor’s next words did penetrate her sluggish consciousness however. Just a bit. “Which path are you taking?” He asked, his voice a little bit hoarser than it had been the first time. His head was definitely downcast now, staring at his dirty scuffed shoes rather than any part of the girl before him. “The one of needles or the one of pins?”
Muddled as she’d become, Max had enough clarity of mind to realize that this was a very odd question.
“The one of needles.” The girl’s voice grew tight at this question and the tendrils of mist in Max’s mind became harder and sprouted thorns. She realized she did not want them there and began mentally dragging them out. They scratched across her memories and emotions in their exit and the pain brought hot, pricking tears to Max’s eyes. She gave up getting the thorns out and looked again down at Connor. Was his mind equally entangled?
“Good!” His pleasure seemed genuine. She’d never thought of him as a good actor until this moment. “I am taking the one of pins.”
At this, the girl turned on her heel, walked briskly across the open grass to the next path over and hurried away. When she turned the thorn vine entwined in Max’s mind was jerked out quickly, leaving scratches across her thoughts and dislodging some of the convictions she held less firmly than others so that they knocked against one another and sent up dust clouds of doubt that she didn’t care to clean up at the moment.
She dropped from the tree to crouch on the ground, holding her head. “What did she do?” She asked, surprised to find her voice such a wavering ghost in her throat.
“I don’t know.” Connor didn’t even bother crouching next to her to see if she was ok. It was as though the friend who had tagged along on her adventure never made it down from the tree at all. He was hovering in the air someplace and this boy had jumped into Connor’s skin before it could hit the ground.
Max sat back on her haunches and peered up at Connor from between her fingers, still clutching her head to staunch the bleeding in her thoughts. He was staring off into the forest after the girl. By the look on his face Max believed he could answer every question she had ever wanted to know the answer to.
“Does she really have no name?”
“Yes.”
“So Death won’t ever find her?”
“Not ever.”
“But the path of needles will make her name.”
“It may. But it may not.” Connor was frowning now and his nose screwed to one side. It was a comforting sight. Her friend Connor used to do that. Maybe this boy was the same. Maybe.
Max grew instantly tired of being shown up. If Connor could jump out of a tree and immediately be a grown-up, so could she. Standing up and putting her hands on her hips, Max looked about for something she could do to demonstrate her superiority to Connor. She searched his face as if the answer was written there and realized that his eyes were still firmly fixed on the part of the forest that had swallowed up the girl.
“Well, if her name shows up in the needles, I’m going to go find it.” Without even looking at her friend, Max balled her hands into fists and raced toward the path of needles. A few minutes ago she might have turned and asked Connor why her decision to pursue the girl caused him so much distress that he would yell and try to grab her and pull her back. However, the idea that one should think and consider other’s opinions before careening into action had been one of those dislodged by the girl’s word woven vines and was therefore kicking about on the floor of her mind in a heap of doubt and not worth a thought until it could be cleaned off again and set back on its shelf.

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You put all your emotions on like masks. 

You have a whole box of masks. 

One for funerals, one for parties,

One for those moments when someone’s telling you

About her problem and

You just really. Don’t. Care.

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but then, when are words not my life?

honestly, isn't all of life a story?  every morning the stage is set, the characters take their places and hurtle into the rising action of the day.  conflicts come often, smaller ones driving the action higher and higher until the climax of the day, or the week, or the year.  this hits with a passion, exploding into some life-altering conclusion that comes down upon your head with a rushing waterfall of denouement. 

the only part of the story that life seems to lack is the ending.  the conclusion.  the neat little epilogue that tells you who marries who and where they end up living happily ever after.

that last bit - the part life doesn't give us - i think that is why we write.

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i drove with the windows up today. i told myself it was because of the wet, but i think it was mostly because i didn't want my music to be diluted in the wind.

the trees stood about, more grey than the gold and red of last week's costumes. they watched me pass dispassionately while the leaves they had dropped danced around my car.

i rounded a bend to find a flock of crows socializing on the asphalt, they rose in a cloud of silent feathered bodies as my car cut through their midst. the flock went on for an entire chorus, parting before me like the backstage curtain to nature's winter saga.

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Silence is heavier than sound
It stops up your ears and drags at your feet
She wanted her fresh beef ground
-|-|-|-
His hands moved deftly among the meats, removing blemishes invisible to her eyes and assembling her sandwich with the ease of long practice.  Dark bags of sleeplessness hung under his eyes, he brought his wrist up to rub at them in between cuts.  Tired?  Yeah.  Up late?  Yeah.  Partying?  If sitting with my mom at the hospital is a party.  I’m sorry.  It’s cool, here’s your sandwich. 
-|-|-|-
  “Hey.”  Nicole put one hand on his where it rested on the counter. “I saw your mom yesterday.” 

  “Oh yeah?”  His eyes brightened in a way she’d never seen before.  “Doesn’t she look good?” 

  “She looks great,” Nicole assured him.  Immediately, the worry faded away and a smile spread over his face.  He turned his hand and squeezed hers. 

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