75 Extracted Words – The Tease

February 2024

 

 

I write short fiction, flash fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from an essay in progress.

Chicken before egg. Egg before chicken. Most of us are familiar with the pollotarian koan, but now we must consider embryo or personhood coming first.

The Alabama Supreme Court seems to think they arrive simultaneously.

This raises a great deal more questions than it quells. One thing is certain though … in the time it takes to unwind this  twisted knot of legal yarn, many couples struggling to conceive a child will have lost their opportunity.

83 Extracted Words – The Tease

April 2022

 

 

More pumpkins

I write short fiction, flash fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a short story in progress.

If it had been sunny, then he might have seen how deep the pothole was. If it had been sunny, he would have worn his shades and his blush would have been hidden from the world, and the Mother Superior.

“You seem to have lost your way, and your front axle.”

“I was looking for pumpkins. Do you have pumpkins?”

“Oh no, you must be looking for Green Bluff. That’s one bluff over to the right.”

He exited the sedan to inspect the damage.

103 Extracted Words – The Tease

October 2021

 

 

I write short fiction, flash fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a work in progress.

Why ask why? Really. Outside of scientific inquiry, what good is the word?

You hear it at gas stations, why is gas twenty cents higher than last week? You here it at restaurants, why are you out of the halibut? You here it at the grocery store, why are you out of toilet paper? As if the wait staff or checkout clerk has any idea what the actual combination of geo-political and socioeconomic events are that led to your dismay.

And the truth is, if they did happen to know exactly what the answer was, you wouldn’t believe them anyway.

Why ask why?

65 Extracted Words – The Tease – February 2021

February

2021

I write flash fiction, non-fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a children’s story in progress.

Maddi was from the scarecrow side of the family. Maddi was a scarecrow and she lived on a farm, as most scarecrows do.

Maddi had a very important job. She had to guard the carrot field. Naughty little rabbits liked to take the carrots. She didn’t really mind  the rabbits. She liked the way their fuzzy little ears tickled her ankles as they ran past.

106 Extracted Words – The Tease – January 2021

January 2021

I write flash fiction, non-fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a novel in progress.

As he stood upon the right wing of the media stage, hidden by stacks of monitors, scaffolding and electrical cables, he could see several bright festival pennants behind the outer arc of seats. Beyond their gilded seams, rolled the expansive city park that hosted the event. At the rise of each knoll and drop of each draw stood a flag. The heat had already ignited the scent of trampled grass and sweat – hot, pungent odors reminiscent of livestock. If he closed his eyes, he could picture armored knights saddled at opposing ends of a regal field …

166 Extracted Words – The Tease – December 2020 – September Revisited

September 2020

I write flash fiction, non-fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a crisis in progress (originally published in September). This excerpt was the most popular of 2020, and therefore is this month’s entry.

The two mobs run toward each other. The only distinguishing difference is that one approaches from the left and the other from the right. Signs, clubs, guns. Shouts, laced with righteousness, jab at the air, as if meaning to poke God in the eye.

And then it happens. A protester falls, twisting his ankle in a pothole. And then another and another. Years of budgetary neglect has created a minefield out of the boulevard. Perhaps they could have built a few less bombs, a few less prisons, a few less green belts, and none of this would have taken place. No one would have had to get hurt.

116 Extracted Words – The Tease – November 2020

November 2020

I write flash fiction, non-fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a crisis in progress.

He scans section 23-581 of the penal code of the District of Columbia. It says A private person may arrest another who he has probable cause to believe is committing in his presence a felony.

Joe muses. Trespassing on Federal property is probably a felony. Better yet, parking in the President’s parking spot must be a felony.

He laughs.

So there it is. If he’s still there on January 20th, Joe Six-pack has just as much right to frog-march his ass out of the White House as any armed militia member has to “guard” a stranger’s storefront without their consent.

Joe pulls his luggage out from the hallway closet. He packs his best sweatpants.

89 Extracted Words – The Tease – October 2020 Canada geese, honkers, fly overhead, sunset painting their wings bosenberry. They speak to each other in economical bursts, positioning, locating, redirecting. They minimize the chatter, the choice to burn calories in any action a serious one, considering the long journey ahead. Some say, silly goose. But, from thousands of feet overhead, listening to what we consider worthy dialogue, they might say, silly humans.

166 Extracted Words – The Tease – September 2020

September 2020

I write flash fiction, non-fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a crisis in progress.

The two mobs run toward each other. The only distinguishing difference is that one approaches from the left and the other from the right. Signs, clubs, guns. Shouts, laced with righteousness, jab at the air, as if meaning to poke God in the eye.

And then it happens. A protester falls, twisting his ankle in a pothole. And then another and another. Years of budgetary neglect has created a minefield out of the boulevard. Perhaps they could have built a few less bombs, a few less prisons, a few less green belts, and none of this would have taken place. No one would have had to get hurt.

26 Extracted Words – The Tease – August 2020

 

August 2020

 

I write flash fiction, non-fiction, essays and novels. This month’s Tease is from a thought in progress.

 

Time, coffee, dust, sage, divided highway, brush, Cooper, big blue waters, landscape, power, drapes, trash, iron, grid, time, pillars, salt, basalt, foam, big gray waters, time.