A single engine private plane, skimming low over the Alaskan wilderness. Glacial waters as clear as a polished mirror, reflecting the vast primordial forests and savage peaks which loom above us: a testament to the stoic grandeur of an Earth which existed long before humanity and will continue to endure long after the footnote of our existence has been forgotten. For one glorious moment it feels as though the world was created just for us, but that was before the engine stalled mid-flight. Before the violent plummet and the mercy of a deaf God, before the ground accelerating toward us, all happening much too fast to regain altitude before the crash.
Supernatural
If Bill Nye can’t explain it, then there’s space for it here.
My reflection smiles more than I do
It’s no secret that I drink. My friends will make jokes like “your idea of a balanced diet is a beer in both hands”. I’ll laugh with them, but I don’t miss their pitying smirks. When I’m out, I’m out to have a good time though, and when I’m in… well either way, it feels like I’m only smiling once I’ve knocked back a few.
Clowns must not frown
When you made the worst mistake of your life, did you know it at the time? Or not until later? I don’t think my wife could have known what would happen when she hired clowns for my daughter’s birthday party, but that doesn’t make it any easier to bear.
Trapped between life and death
Eternity is the worst thing about being a ghost. I guess it’s the worst thing about being dead too, but I don’t suppose you’d really mind. Nothing will ever get better for me, although I don’t see how it could get worse either. I’m simply here: seeing but never seen, drifting without destination, waiting for nothing to arrive.
This flower only grows from corpses
My wife lost her battle against breast cancer last month, leaving me alone to take care of our daughter Ellie. Every single night Ellie asks if mom is going to tuck her in, and every night I have to beg her before she’ll let me do it instead. How can I even begin to explain to a four year old that she’ll never see her mommy again? I don’t even know how to explain it to myself.
What the blind man sees
I’ll never see her face again. If my blindness only meant scrubbing this dirty world into an ocean of black mist, then I think I could learn to accept that. Stealing my wife from me before her time though — that I’ll never forgive. It’s bad enough she’s sick and fading from me already, but not being able to see her to say goodbye is killing me as surely as it is her.
The girl on a leash
Ten, maybe twelve years old, wearing a leash attached to one of those dog training collars with the inward facing spikes. She was sitting on the balcony of my neighbor’s apartment, her dirty bare legs dangling through the iron bars. She stared at me where I sat with my book on my own balcony, so I gave her a little wave. She didn’t so much as blink in return — she just kept swinging her legs through the bars and staring. I figured the collar was some kind of ironic fashion accessory, although it hardly matched with her thread-bare summer dress.
Listening to this song before sleep guarantees a specific dream
Sleeping is the easiest, most natural thing in the world. Babies do it all the time without even being taught. It’s so easy people even do it by accident, but not me. I suck at sleeping, which sometimes feels more like I suck at being human since I’m so freaking tired all the time.
Read MoreListening to this song before sleep guarantees a specific dream
Heaven keeps a prisoner
I wasn’t ready when I died.
The first illusion death stole from me was that my body is designed to perceive the universe around me. This is incorrect. The primary function of your senses is to stop yourself from experiencing the universe, whose infinite information would otherwise overwhelm and madden you. Eyes that once simplified the world into finite wavelengths of color closed for the last time, and then I saw everything. Ears once deaf to cosmic music sung by the birth of stars, the communal heartbeat of the human race, and the haunting pop of each collapsing universe now concealed them no longer.
The New You
11:50 PM on New Year’s Eve. The raucous beat of the music is echoed by the pulse in my veins. Iridescent lights lance through the air all around me, and the teaming heat of pressed bodies forces me to swallow great lungfuls of heavy air thick with sweat and cheap perfume. I can’t be the only one who isn’t dancing, but anyone who notices me will immediately recognize that I don’t belong here. Smiles and sneers look the same to me, and all laughter is tainted with condescending jokes at my expense.