Drabbles - Fish and Robots

Give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day. Teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime. Build a robot to fish; do all men eat or do all men starve?

Drabble - Anything

Drabble - Anything

Once, in the twilight of his years, Cartier was in his study working when he was approached by an apprentice. The young woman had an air of sleep about her, dressed in sleepwear and with a small clay mug of milk. Cartier was behind his drawing desk, an array of sketches before him in flimsiplast, his gaunt face was shadowed from the glow of screens.

His apprentice waited for a long moment, seemingly content to sip her clay mug of milk, before finally she spoke up, unbidden.

"If you could be anything in the world, what would you be?"

The old master didn't look up.

He didn't even hesitate in his answering.

"In love."

Later, the apprentice, a master herself would recount the tale, of what a person who had everything could possibly want more than anything.

Drabbles - Lives

Drabbles - Lives

Sometimes people ask me how many lives I've lived.

I just smirk and ask them how many they have.

But on the inside, I fall to my knees.

And cry.

Drabble - Minimalism

I admire minimalism.
Minimalism.  I admire.
Admire I, minimalism.
Minimalism,  I.
I, minimalism.
Minimalism.

Life - Let's Go

Life - Let's Go

The night sky is open above my head. It stretches vast tracts above me, endless and uncertain. The wind calls, it picks up and holds me in her embrace. I am a lonely wanderer of the earth, but I am not alone.

Let's go.

Writing - On The Cascade of Humans

Writing - On The Cascade of Humans

Oh what these glorious monsters, astride in silence looking out into the darkness. I sat in quiet vantage, contemplating their movement and found myself alone. To behold their freewheeling paths, that which made them both envious and enviable.

Words bespoke one another, and gestures too. They tried to share their experiences, but words and language fail, they turn to pictures and then to long pieces of video, carefully constructed for the human mind, frame by frame at a galloping 60 per second.

These too fail.

I kept a silent vigil, long into the night. A cloak of cascade water, and a weary eye alight.

Drabble - On Humans

Drabble - On Humans

"Where there are men and women with things that others want, there shall be conflict in the pursuit of the taking or copying of those things."

That belief implies that humans are inherently covetous and evil.  What if we change our paradigm of thought and ask an important question.  Can that Envy be turned to Respect?

What would the world look like if it was?

Drabble - On Depression

Drabble - On Depression

There is this insidious, deep seated weird thing in your brain, when every time you hear a compliment you think to yourself "They're just being nice."

Drabble - Empty Book

Drabble - Empty Book

She hands me an empty book, and bids me read from blank pages.

Drabble - Me

Drabble - Me

It's not you, it's me.  It's never you, it's always me.

It's me.

Me.

Me with an imperfect belly.  The wrong curve to my hips.  The wrong smirk.  The wrong eye color.  Me, with too-frizzy hair, and eyes that are a little too wide-set.

Me, with the eccentric need to eat too-hard boiled eggs in the morning.

Me who cooks pasta in unsalted water.

It's not you, it's me.  Me who wears socks to sleep in summer.  Who packs a rain coat on a clear day.  Who pats every dog, shies away from every cat.

Me who reads sad romance novels, and the funnies on sundays.

Me who dances with two left feet, who drives a little too fast, who mismatches purse and sandals.

It's not you, it's me.  Me who blinks during photos.

Who spills ice water at dinner.  Who uses the fork in the right hand, and the knife in the left.

Who writes too much, and stares at the stars too long.

Who isn't right for you.  Who won't be what you want.  Too fat, too thin, too tall, too short.  Hair too straight, too curly, too much moustache, not enough beard, too muscular, not tan enough.

It's not you, it's me.  Me who is all wrong for you.  Me who tells myself it will never work.  That your eyes glass past mine every time.

It's not you.  It's me.

It's always me.

Always.

Me.

Drabble - Hero

Drabble - Hero

You are not the hero of your own story.  Your story is filled with the heroism and villainy of other people.  Why be the hero of one, when you could reach out and be the hero of many.

#3amthoughts

Drabbles - Ink

I am watching the slow process of ink flow down the drain.  Nature will write the next story as it evolves in flowing lines to nothing.

Secret - Draw Something

A secret.

Every time I open my phone, I deliberately don't address the the little indicator at the top that mentions you have sent me a poke regarding our Draw Something game.

Because every time I see it, I smile a little inner smile for the memories of a time gone by.

And miss you and those days.

Drabble - Dust

Dust is the indicator in our lives of the slow passage between now and then.  It builds up in the corners and shares the world we live in, turning everything to grey.

Drabble - Memory Glass

A memory held in the fingers.  It's edges worn and soft with age, but the colours still vivid as if yesterday.  I traded my memory of you to a wanderer, and I can't remember why.

Drabbles - Sword and Glass

A warrior holds a shard of glass and a sword.

The sword to carve a new tomorrow.

And the shard of glass, a memory of yesterday.

Together the only things that might save his soul today.