parking lot –
sippy cup lid
in the snowmelt
#quikfic 88
“You should be hard at work on Valentine’s Day,” the bartender said. “Give me a Manhattan and hold the shop talk,” Cupid groused.
* * *
There are some other stories about Cupid in the archives, here and here. Also, note that this is #quikfic 88: 88 is amateur radio shorthand for “love and kisses.” It’s a nice coincidence today.
Quotable 188
Poets go to bed earliest, followed by short story writers, then novelists. The habits of playwrights are unknown.
– Ann Beattie
haiku 300
February –
freezing drizzle on snow
on snow
#quikfic 87
I stumbled in the fog with only my heart to guide me home to Kathy. I ended up on Lorna’s porch. And on her sofa. And in her bed.
Quotable 187
The attempt to devote oneself to literature alone is a most deceptive thing, and often, paradoxically, it is literature that suffers for it.
– Vaclav Havel
haiku 299
the lives I lived
slowly pass away
except in my dreams
#quikfic 86
“Which door?” the villian shouted. “The lady or the tiger?” The circus animal trainer shrugged; it didn’t make much difference.
Fiction: The Old Dog’s New Trick
Aldo lay in his bed, waiting for one of the staff to remember he was still alive. He was thirsty, and he looked longingly at the carafe of water on the nightstand next to the bed. So near, but Aldo’s aged body would no longer let him move to reach for it.
He stared at the light blue carafe until it became the entire world to him. The carafe rose gently from the nightstand and floated into his waiting hands. He wet his shirt in the process, but Aldo poured some of the cool water down his throat. Then he thought about putting the carafe back, and it moved gently through the air to its original spot.
Quotable 186
Fiction shows the external effects of internal conditions. Be aware of the tension between internal and external movement.
– Raymond Carver