“I have never listened to anyone who criticized my taste in space travel, sideshows or gorillas. When this occurs, I pack up my dinosaurs and leave the room.” -- Ray Bradbury
occasionally, and rarer still perhaps, we are consciousÂ
of the very moment of falling in love. it can come,Â
calamitous, with the sounding of cymbals, or a little
less than that, like the purring of some large but tameable
jungle cat (because up until this very moment of love
that was how you looked at love, as a jaguar waiting for a
collar.) Â
the worst way it comes is with a portent, a thought bubble
that says “here be dragons and emotional baggage andÂ
whatever else some sailor has thought to carve into his map.”
it comes, slipping in through the dulcet tones of a gorgeous
person, tricking you into the easiness of falling in love without
the terror of the descent.
you know that it happened already, without your permission,
on one night filled with the raucous noise of childhood memory.
you know that you already imagined a thousand steps
down the line: picnics, car loans, marriage, death. you know
that you already imagined his arms around you before the first
beat of his song. Â and when he looks back at you, midway through
his measure, and then he repeats it in a way that disturbs his
rhythm, you understand that his syncopation is off too. his feet
outnumber his feet, and maybe he’s fallen in love too.
imaginary suddenly becomes a word you invented, its syllables
out of rhyme. love, an easier word: and you belong, at once, to
someone.
NaNoWriMo 2015: Chuck Wendig’s 1000 Words Challenge
Day 23 of NaNoWriMo, and as I sit here, overcaffeinated and home sick, I feel obligated to respond to Chuck Wendig’s challenge to post 1000 words you’re happiest with from your project.  Here’s 1000 (okay, 1018) words that were hard to get through but that taught me a lot about my protagonist.  This is really, really rough right now, but here goes.
The bathroom door slammed shut.
Smoke gurgled out from underneath it.
“Oliver,” she cried out. Â
No answer.
She fought with the door.  It wasn’t opening. Â
Desperate for help, she looked around. Â At the bar end of the hallway, Ravi passed by, sipping a drink and glancing her way without subtlety. Â
“Ravi,” she called.  “Help.”
She pounded against the door again, but there was no movement and no answer. Â
It was how the shadows got to you: by separating you.
Not Oliver, damnit. Â
Ravi ran to her side, drink still in hand, and looked at her with wild eyes.  “What’s going on?”
“It’s Ol— he was just here— and now he’s—“  The words gurgled out, panic threatening to wreck her. Â
Ravi, more focused if not calmer, grabbed the fire extinguisher from the wall next to them and slammed its base against the door. Â Its collision with the metal was dramatic but did little more than dent the door.
“Give,” Audrey said.
The door handle was her target, and she brought the extinguisher down hard— once, twice, three times until the handle and its lock mechanism went with it. Â
It was enough to let them push the door open. Â
Audrey was first in and heard the sound of her name, strangled: “Audrey.  Get out—“
Oliver was suspended, mid-air, against the far wall, his legs pumping, fighting for traction. Â Something unseen had hold of his throat. Â His hands grasped at it.
Nothing to see, nothing to fight against.
But if she blurred her eyes, she could see the outline of the shadow.
A by-product of what had happened to her.
She’d take it.
Still armed with the fire extinguisher, she ran to the figure and crashed it against the side of what could have been its head. Â
Oliver gasped. Â Fell, rubbing at his neck. Â
Then the shadow came for her.
It started with the lights, bulbs blowing out all over the restroom until the only light was the mottled gray from the exterior window. Â And then it slammed the door again.
This time with all three of them in the pitch blackness.
“Marco,” Ravi said, his voice shaking.
“Polo,” she responded.
“Magellan,” Oliver croaked.
“My least favorite explorer,” Ravi said.
“Dumb and dumber, shut up,” Audrey said.
Ravi replied: “Good to know she’s still feisty.”
“Like that’d change,” from Oliver.
“Shhhhhhhhh.”
“Who was that?” Audrey said.
And then silence.
“Guys?”
Nothing.
From all around her suddenly was the sound of water running, a constant shhhhhh.
And then, in the darkness: “Folllloowwwwwsssssss.”
Something pushed her, hard, into the porcelain sink. Â It hit her stomach, knocking the air out of her lungs. Â In the low light, she could see the figure approaching her in the mirror, gangly and bent.
She’d been here before.  Nine months ago.
She wasn’t going to do it again.
She immediately turned the water on in the sink at full force.  The big farmer’s sink quickly filled up.
She counted until it felt like it was on top of her, its breath on the back of her neck. Â
It caressed her back, her cheeks, her collarbone. Â
It wanted inside her. Â She could feel that.
“Better me than them,” she said to it, and she turned to face the shadow.
It happened as quickly as she’d remembered it: like an inhale, and then the shadow consumed her. Â
A veil fell over her eyes, darkening the already black restroom. Â The emotions that tore at her were strong, brutal: sorrow, loneliness, grief, fear.
Everything she’d felt over the last eight months, a thousand times over.
Pain tore at the inside of her stomach, and she doubled over, coughing up blood onto the tiled floor of the restroom.
The blood was the brightest red she’d ever seen.
So easy, the thing inside her thought, to just give up here. Â To give in.
To all those terrible feelings.
She’d almost done that once already, and it had cost her everything.
Not. Â This. Â Time.
Audrey grabbed one of the legs of the sink and felt wet: the water was overflowing. Â
She dragged herself up until she could brace her arms on the corners of the sink. Â
There, in the mirror, the shadows under her eyes, the nightmare rings.
“Get the fuck out of me,” she said to it.
And pushed her head under the water.
Stronger than the shadows— that’s what she had to be.
It took all her strength to keep herself under. Â She felt the thing wriggling in her. Â It whispered to her: Follloowwwwsssss.
Loss, horror, anxiety, heartbreak.
It wanted all of hers.
It pulled her head back out of the water, and she heard, distantly, the sound of her name and her own gasp of breath.
Stronger, that’s what she was now.
She shoved her head into the sink again, and the thing inside her screamed into the water. Â Water flooded her mouth. Â She choked, coughed.
Death seemed so very close.
Audrey was stronger than death, too.
The shadow in her wracked her body, and she felt things shutting down, her eyes growing weak, her arms weaker.
She burst out of the water for air, gulping hungrily at it.
And then collapsed to the cold, wet tile floor.
The thing inside her body seizured and then crawled out of her.
The smell of rotting filled the restroom.
“Follows,” it cried at her, sounding like a dying baby.
“Fuck off,” she told it, coughing up water.
The lights flickered back on, one Edison bulb by Edison bulb.
She heard her name again, but this time it was in a strong, solid voice. Â A voice she loved.
Her eyes were blurry as she rolled onto her back.  Arms went around her.  She was pulled into someone’s lap.
Cedar.
Oliver.
“God,” he said, rocking he.  “God, Audrey.  God.”
“Even he can’t get in or out of the Cape.”  Ravi— mild.  Scared.
“He probably knows better,” Audrey said, her voice hoarse, her throat raw.
Oliver helped her up, his arm around her waist, her body pulled tight to him. Â She was too exhausted to think through the subtext.
“Shit,” he said, and he jerked his chin towards the ground.
There, on the tiles, written in blood, were the words: DAVID TITAN.
Missed World Travel Day but #helloworldrelay inspired me to dig up this picture on the streets of Dhaka, Bangladesh. Not a ton of tourism but the colors everywhere are gorgeous.
the geography of loneliness
comes down to inches and squares--
to the spaces between people,
to the gaps in conversation, the
ellipses where thought converts
into intention. Â loneliness has its
own maps, demarcated by broken
lines that mean we’ve created
our own barriers to understanding.
we live in the interstices, in theÂ
in between where people reach a
kind of accord, the echoes ofÂ
the emptiness we’ve built become
overwhelming, hollow, devastating.
we all thought we were going to be
someone.  we never thought that’d
be lonely, that we’d live on aÂ
map where the only companionship
comes from crossing borders or finding
a way to redraw the map.
someone forgot about you once. the idea of it seems
fleeting, the same way a passing bus or train might. the idea that
someone forgot about you once. Â you stood on a platform orÂ
in a shopping mall or at the threshold to prom night, hoping
for someone to show up and tell you that you’re beautiful or
wanted or loved or even a person at all.
but, look, someone forgot about you once.
a lot of reasons come with built-in excuses that have to doÂ
with iphones and facebooks and missed calls and missed
texts and missed emails. Â excuses build up like scales or
lies, and sooner or later you put on your own armor to
barricade yourself against them. Â because someone forgot
about you once.
you did a play one time, or you played a game, or you
competed in a bee, for geography or spelling. Â you didÂ
well, and you wanted someone to be there to shuffle their
hands together in a way that resembles clapping so that
you could say: someone remembered me this time.
you will be forgotten. Â the sound of one hand clapping is
the sound of remembering to cheer yourself on. Â because
when all else fails-- you showed up. Â you remembered.
it’s enough, you figure.
it has to be.
someone forgot about you once, twice, a thousand times.
not worth it, you realize. Â someone forgot about you once.
the worst feeling in the world (unless you caveat it
strongly) is the one in which you are alone in a big, strange
room. Â people expect you to have a purpose, but mostly
what you have is a tone or a mood or an attitude.
it becomes easy to pretend you aren’t alone whenÂ
you have a big room to flail around in and set the scene
for the dramatics that are sure to play out later,
the ones that involve death and drama and false
dilemmas. Â
so you stand alone in a crowd, anticipating
a single moment in time that might capture how you’re
feeling. Â only what you get is fear and tightness and the kind of
lunacy that only comes from the kind horror you shred up in
your breakfast sandwich. Â you like the pulse in your neck and
the silent judgmental question of couldn’t you have doneÂ
better or been different.
the worst feeling in the world is being on the wrong end of
someone’s teeth or blades or fists or fear when it comes down
to the idea of being alone. Â being alone is scarier
than all of those forgotten nightmares.
loneliness follows you around the same way a serial killer
in an 80s movie does, lingering behind curtains and waiting
on the other end of other people’s phone calls.  loneliness
feels like the space on your skin that seems fine just between
bruise and scar, only you know it’s not because you rememberÂ
what memories violently crashed together to form that
brittle piece of tissue. Â memories-- now, but at some point
they were experiences, and it’s easy to think that you knew
a time in which you didn’t feel the echo that is the emptiness
of being totally alone in a crowded room. Â
so loneliness stalks you, like michael myers or jason’s mom,
and you’d turn to someone and warn them about spoilers
only there’s no one to warn when you’re alone in a roomÂ
wondering if someone’s watching you from the next street
over.
you hope they are. Â two people lonely together at least
have that going for them.  a phone call, even if it’s from the killer
on the floor above you, suddenly seems
                                  welcome.
It has a way of feeling like an old wound, scabbed over, tender under the flow
of warm water, easy to pull away to wait for skin to grow back again.
It encourages you to cause pain to yourself before it can get to you, like
building up antibodies for the day the sickness comes, because it always
does.
It waddles into your brain under the weight of its own bloat and takes over,
right next to its good friend guilt, and it gurgles at you the constant refrain of
“You’re not good enough, not really, not enough.”
It’s a dragon without any chinks in its armor that breathes fire that reeks of
waste and detritus and old, gaping sores. Â
The only way to fight it is with a lance tipped with one of two poisons:
self-defeat or self-worth.
You give in to it, and the dragon, the disease, the scar crows.
Or you can crow back at it, tip that spear in the poison of your wonder.
You can reject the monster before it rejects you, arming yourself in a suit
made of faith.
You didn’t get to this battlefield on your own.  You came on a horse made of
talent. Â
The dragon tumbles, the disease remisses, the scar heals.
Observation point at Skyland Resort in Shenandoah National Park. Hard not to feel like things will work out just fine with a view like this. #photography
Is this feeling
four-and-a-half stars on iTunes?
Or is it
asterisks dotted like bandages
over the wound of a word?
Is it
winter returning to its cold
pistol buried underground?
Or is this feeling simply
the truck that drives trash
through our dream bubbles,
or the driver, ten-year-old sweat
stitched into the bill of his cap, the wind
of a vein-nicked hurricane?
I originally thought I was going to write Grim Fandango.
Earlier this week, I finished the fifth and nearly final revision of a manuscript I’ve spent the better part of two years working on.  It looks nothing like the original, which took place in early 1950s Los Angeles and crossed over to the land of the dead.  I still love the crap out of that idea, but it never really grew any wings.  The draft that I have today absorbed several other projects, and it’s bittersweet, like I’m saying goodbye to old friends. Â
I went back to look for that original project, only to find that most of it got deleted, which is one of the most horrific feelings for a writer, I have to think-- looking for old writing.  That was the best writing I’ve ever done, you think (even if it wasn’t).  I only have one piece of it left, and it actually still exists, though in a very different form, in my current manuscript.  Veronica is now Madeleine, nobody’s a demon or a reaper, but there are still dead people-- and Madeleine still makes a quip about blood on her hands:
The redhead was gone by the time Veronica and Frankie got there.  Her body was still there like a discarded scarecrow broken over the rim of a table, pondering one last sip of someone else’s whiskey sour, but someone had picked up her soul before they arrived.  It was a bad time for redheads.  She was the third that month in a city and a time where the only color that seemed to matter was the one that came out of a box pure yellow.  Veronica would have called them a dying breed except that the truth danced a little closer to murder.
The club was a place called Midnight, and some time between then and an early Angels dawn, someone had taken the girl and shot her five times in the back at a range close enough to be almost sentimental.  It was rage that did that kind of thing, but it was something else that left her face down in a puddle of her own blood at a table where the white silk linen tablecloth probably cost more than her monthly salary.  She’d lost a shoe somewhere, torn her pantyhose with the perfect seam in the back, a real seam, not drawn on like the girls in line for auditions for the kinds of thing they’d regret.  She wouldn’t have had much of a chance to fight.  There were a lot of pretty young girls who ended up dead in a city and time like this one, and it was a hell of a shame every time, but it was mostly never a mistake.  And because it was mostly never a mistake, mostly Veronica never showed up. Â
“Hell of a thing,” Frankie said, an unlit cigarette dangling from the corner of his skeletal mouth.
They were the only ones in the club, save the body of the dead girl, the lights too bright for a place where the garish makeup around the edges showed its peels.  The stains showed.  The cops were almost always too late for murder.  It wasn’t their fault.  It had a way of showing up when nobody wanted much to do with it, carrying with it the smell of sulfur that took the kind of time to soak out of human flesh that the Living just didn’t have.  It was the kind of smell the Living couldn’t sense, but it was there, a smoldering under the shadows that reeked of death and whatever Deadly Sin had taken hold of it, the burned-up end of a cheap cigarette.  The Dead had a way of showing up when they were least wanted, too, but then they weren’t ever wanted anywhere, not even in their own company.  Veronica smelled it, because she was neither living nor was she dead, just something in the in-between, a result of her own hubris, but even her own rotten self awareness did nothing to drain the sink that the stink steeped itself in.
“What do you think?” Frankie asked, and he shoved his hands in the pockets of his well-cut suit, a move Veronica knew from too many hundreds of years to be one for the sake of stilling nervous hands.  “Wrath?”
“Greed,” she said, and she nodded to the gold-tiled linoleum floor around the girl, drenched in blood and the slippery tendrils that a Deadly sin left behind when it did the kind of thing that had happened here.  They shimmered yellow, too brassy to be gold.
“Huh,” he said, and he reached up a bony hand to light the end of his cigarette.  “Why are you better at that than I am?”
“Practice,” Veronica said.  “Years of it.  And I don’t have smoke in my eyes like you do.”
“This stuff can’t be good for you,” Frankie said with a sniff, and he inhaled like he had any lungs to take it in.  His empty eye sockets disappeared behind the smoke, and Veronica thought she saw some of it escape out the cuff of his shirt.  “Has she got a name?”
“Everyone’s got a name, Frankie.  Most people are issued with them, right out of the box,” Veronica said, and she stepped behind the dead girl and reached for her open purse, a couple of singles, a strand of bad pearls, and a tube of lipstick called Rosy Future.  “That’s a shame,” she said. Â
“Careful.  You’re getting blood on your shoes.”
