tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-198158722024-03-23T14:13:32.659-04:00NEW LOVE STORIESnow featuring symbolismSam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.comBlogger713125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-48859482339981333722018-09-18T14:34:00.000-04:002018-09-18T14:34:29.384-04:00When people are rewarded or punishedLooking east from her office there's a cement building which she places between 48th and 52nd, and a man there is standing on the balcony with an electronic cigarette and a book. She imagines the life of such a man, who is not sitting at a desk on a Thursday at eleven and who lives in midtown in a building surrounded by glass. She imagines him waking early in the day and watching the city sleepwalking towards his neighborhood, she imagines him watering a bamboo plant and kneading a pain in his lower back. But mostly she imagines him as she does all people: with you, at first as a person in your close orbit and then just as someone walking past you - the man puffing on his e-cigarette with his dog; you, looking down, with the wisps of vapor trailing behind you like delicate magic.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-20973913106219305782018-08-16T13:34:00.001-04:002018-08-18T16:44:07.919-04:00new love stories (from a long time ago)1<br />
You pulled me onto the sand. We were drunk and you lay down and then grabbed my hand and pulled me on top of you. And you were wearing a dress, a black dress, and a new black sweater, and they got all sandy, the dress and the sweater. Even your hair got sandy, but you just lay there like you didn’t care at all.<br />
<br />
I was so taken by you at that moment, the way you looked, the way you didn’t care. All I could say was, you’re so beautiful, and you laughed and said, <i>please, I dated a writer before and did not care for it. </i><br />
<br />
2<br />
Or like when your roommate’s brother visited and we tried mushrooms and I freaked out. Do you remember that? I was sure I was going to die, and then you said, <i>It’s okay, Mote. I’m here </i><br />
<br />
3<br />
The way you speak to strangers, fearlessly, like when we were in line behind that woman eating raw rhubarb and you said, excuse me, can I have a bite of that? And then she broke off a piece and you chewed it thoughtfully. <br />
<br />
4<br />
After the Christmas party I double-rode you down the hill to your apartment. The wind was coming so fast by the time we were at the bottom, and you pressed your nose against my back and kissed me on the shoulder. <br />
<br />
5<br />
The nights you are in the city and I am back home at East Greenbush, how you call me on the way home from the bar. You are drunk, and you tell me how your boots are not suitable for the icy conditions. Or that we should drive to California together. Or that you met a woman in the bathroom and gave her your sunglasses so no one could tell she had been crying. <br />
<br />
6<br />
When I sleep in your bed I can self-regulate perfectly. Your window is cold and you are warm, and when you fall asleep I can always situate myself so that I am at exactly the right temperature. Some nights I hold you closely. Others I can make myself very small against your window. <br />
<br />
7<br />
The time you made a passing joke about how Milton, my goldfish, was ugly, and then you could see that I was hurt. It was a little thing, too. It was a silly thing. But you still knelt down by his bowl and looked in at him and said, <i>No, I'm only joking. Sorry, Milton. </i><br />
<br />
8<br />
Mornings in bed when I would have to get up, how you would climb on top of me and put your arms around me and say,<i> I’ve died. I’m in rigor mordis. </i><br />
<br />
9<br />
The way you came to my concerts and would play tic-tac-toe with yourself in the margins of the programs. <br />
<br />
10<br />
How strange and wonderful your text was that night in December after I drove to Rennselaer by myself: <i>mote. i called to see how you are. it was very cold today, and it made me miss you. </i><br />
<br />
11<br />
When my mom was sick and you came to the hospital and just sat there with me, only getting up that one time to buy me skittles from the vending machine. <br />
<br />
12<br />
This line, from the ending of your poem: “I still can’t believe there was a time I thought I’d never be able to tell you I love you.” I know it wasn’t about me, but I liked to pretend.
Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-90157289068570891652017-11-17T10:53:00.001-05:002018-08-16T13:36:12.506-04:00Dog with hatOn the plane I finally got connection and saw you tagged me in a meme of a man wearing too many coats, which said, tag your friend who is always cold. I stared at the picture too long and the man's face disappeared, it was my father for a second, or it was a person from a movie the name of which I couldn't remember. I was drunk because the flight attendant had asked if I wanted a double or a single, and I had never been asked that before. After - as we were approaching the airport - I looked down at our apartment. I was remembering the time I got home from work and the dog had knocked down the bromeliad, how the dirt had spilled onto the carpet and how you had taken a picture of him staring, with a dull shard of ceramic on his head. And you were laughing and said, what should we call it.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-44684908978558968772016-03-09T13:26:00.001-05:002016-03-14T18:01:29.839-04:00Another Story About FrisbeeI noticed this when we were playing winter league on Tuesday night in the snow, the way you handle the disc when you catch it right outside the endzone. How you pivot up onto your left toe and step deep into the endzone, holding your arm out, wrist up, palm up - looking between your teammates as they form and disperse, offering it to them as if to say, look how close we are, kindly, with wide gestures and a thoughtful flat draw.<br />
<br />
In the second half when the wind had died down I tried it myself, extending my whole body into scoring territory with the disc held out in front of me. Even as I looked from cutter to cutter, though, the stance felt inauthentic. I was not offering the disc, as you were - instead, I was trying to rid myself of it. It was an object whose presence I was imploring to be separated from. When I finally turned behind to drop it to you, I saw more clearly the difference. The way I stood wide and fearfully, and the way you extended the disc sensitively, as if it were something to be loved.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-73503105156152737172015-11-04T16:46:00.002-05:002017-05-09T21:21:04.993-04:00MosquitoesBut that was the year we had an Indian Summer through November and our apartment was overrun by mosquitoes. They came in through the windows at night because we didn't have screens and we didn't have air conditioning. In the evening they were invisible to us. Our only proof that we were there was whining next to our ears and the raised red welts. We would sit on the couch sweating with our shirts off and feel them devour us. Or when we would go to sleep they would leave bites where we weren't covered, on our necks or our shoulders. Michael got a bite on his eyelid. In the mornings when they were fat and slow with our blood we would go on a rampage, crushing them with books against the wall, leaving the guts spattered there as if in warning against the others. They were still as we lined up the rolled magazine inches above them. They didn't care. They had already left their mark on us.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-46395340775549827322015-11-03T11:42:00.001-05:002016-10-26T19:26:36.472-04:00The Reaper1.<br />
I am the Reaper. I am drunk on sweet berry wine<br />
and here to harvest the souls<br />
<br />
of your pets. Dogs and cats mostly.<br />
I was late on the day they were assigning jobs<br />
<br />
so I got domestic animals – I fish the soul of Simba<br />
the crustacean out of the toilet<br />
<br />
or claim Boris the terrier,<br />
run over by his owner in the driveway.<br />
<br />
2.<br />
In death, as in life - your animals are playful<br />
and irreverent, nipping at the angels<br />
<br />
and slobbering out the window<br />
of the carriage of death.<br />
<br />
I come home late for dinner and my wife takes sympathetic note<br />
of the pale indentations on my skeleton<br />
<br />
where the ferrets have been knitting their claws.<br />
She kisses the top of my skull and says, “oh, honey,"<br />
<br />
and we eat noodles and butter<br />
in front of the television.<br />
<br />
3.<br />
When I first started<br />
I would see the faces every night
in my dreams,<br />
<br />
The lizards that got and trapped<br />
behind the furnace in the basement,<br />
<br />
the old dogs, guileless, and with silver fur<br />
around their eyes.<br />
<br />
I thought it was to be permanent.<br />
I thought these ghosts would be a mystical curse of the job<br />
<br />
until one night I went to bed stoned<br />
and dreamt that I could breathe underwater.<br />
<br />
I lay down on the ocean floor and closed my eyes<br />
and have not dreamt of animals since.<br />
<br />
4.<br />
It is twilight at the veterinarian's office when you bring in Mittens,<br />
fourteen and with a bad liver.<br />
<br />
I wait in the corner. You put your hand on<br />
her side, and she looks up at you with love<br />
<br />
and with understanding. When the doctor takes out the needle,<br />
Mittens does not make a sound.<br />
<br />
She will come quietly,
I can tell.<br />
I am tired and she is tired. We have had long days.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-13040737038760595992015-08-16T02:03:00.000-04:002015-09-24T10:53:05.153-04:00o too to be the kind of
person who goes to
the store to buy an onion,
o to walk more quietly,
o to be able to stop picking at my fingers
and to stop whistling in the house,
o to stop showing up to parties at people's
apartments on the east side but then deciding to leave while i'm
walking up the stairs, o to be able to say good morning to the receptionist like
a normal person, o to be able to smoke a cigarette without coughing, o to walk to the river
and jump in and breathe deeply in the water and sink to the bottom and live there forever,
with my feet in the mud without worrying anymore about whether i have something stuck in my teeth or whether
i should buy renter's insurance, o to stop drunk texting my sister things like "am i a sad person
or do i just perform sadness" and later that night i borrowed michael's citibike key and you and i double rode up to van cortland park and lay in the of the cricket pitch and it was warm and i felt something new when we looked up at that orange sky and i realized
i could walk as far as i wanted and you would keep your head down the whole time,
or that i could assume some agency and be responsible for something small but significant
Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-28972658346492346312015-02-03T19:46:00.000-05:002015-03-13T10:20:25.315-04:00Signal Problems On The JSQ-33rd LineI attended a weekend seminar<br />
in time management<br />
in an effort to solve<br />
the problem I have where<br />
instead of working I sit <br />
in front of my computer<br />
picking at the skin under<br />
my fingernails and thinking<br />
about how you said to me<br />
<i>these years will be hard</i>,<br />
and how upset <br />
I was with you because<br />
I knew you were right.<br />
<br />
Will I never learn to sleep<br />
with the night sounds of<br />
the street cleaner and the police?<br />
Or with the orange glow<br />
from across the river,<br />
like a detonation frozen in crystal?<br />
Could I not be the kind of person<br />
for whom moving to a new<br />
city could be a great and<br />
wonderful adventure?<br />
I will light a small fire<br />
and then call<br />
to say that we haven’t<br />
talked in a while but you should<br />
know I printed out the poem<br />
you wrote for me and I read it<br />
on the PATH train<br />
whenever there are delays,<br />
which is every day.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-65322772033407872212014-12-02T12:01:00.000-05:002016-03-09T13:17:46.652-05:00Letter From Milton The Goldfish Upon His Graduation From Life1.<br />
The accident was your fault.<br />
I forgive you. It is all okay.<br />
You were very sad<br />
and because you were very sad you became very drunk<br />
and because you became very drunk you decided to practice your golf swing<br />
in your bedroom next to the dresser.<br />
It was a little thing.<br />
I was a little thing.<br />
<br />
2.<br />
Like all goldfish<br />
I have been granted the power to see the future<br />
now that I’m dead.<br />
I can confirm that she will never love you again.<br />
You are damaged now – affected permanently, like everyone.<br />
While certainty is enough for most species<br />
I know for you this is not of much comfort<br />
and so I’m sorry I can’t offer you more – you were good to me,<br />
in spite of everything. You fed me and kept my tank clean<br />
and loved me as perfectly as you could.<br />
<br />
3.<br />
There is no use standing there<br />
looking down into the porcelain bowl.<br />
In my buoyant repose I have no answers.<br />
Just let me go. Push the lever now<br />
and go look at yourself in the bathroom mirror blankly<br />
in the way that you love to do when you have had too much to drink.<br />
What you’re thinking is true:<br />
that’s you, that’s really you, looking back,<br />
physically manifest as the person<br />
who has made a living manufacturing<br />
your own brand of unique and terrible mistakes.<br />
<br />
4.<br />
You’ve had a long day.<br />
Go lie down now,<br />
take off your socks,<br />
plug your phone into the wall,<br />
shut your eyes against the darkness.<br />
<br />
Don’t be embarrassed to cry.<br />
Things will change for you now.<br />
Of course you are wrong to think of giving up,<br />
but it is appropriate<br />
to be fearful.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-39194453590238908052014-10-30T11:43:00.000-04:002014-10-30T11:43:26.292-04:00Unanswered Questions Following Rocket ExplosionWALLOPS ISLAND, VA - As scientists scrambled to explain what went wrong during the disastrous launch of the Antares rocket, an unmanned commercial supply spacecraft that exploded during its lift-off on Wednesday night, the public was asking their own questions, namely, "What rocket?"<br />
<br />
"There was a rocket launch?" asked Bill Walsh, a local mattress salesman.<br />
<br />
News of the explosion left many puzzled about the rocket's purpose or even its existence in the first place.<br />
<br />
"I honestly did not know we were still launching rockets," said Amy Jacobs, a local business owner. "Where was the rocket going in the first place? Did anyone get hurt?"<br />
<br />
Ms. Jacobs seemed as relieved as she was even more confused when she found out the rocket was unmanned. "We can, like, fly rockets without anyone in it?" she asked. "When did we start doing that?"<br />
<br />
At press time, scientists were explaining that the rocket's payload was intended to be delivered to the International Space Station, and local residents were wondering aloud if "that was actually a thing."Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-73930860501191282882014-10-22T10:25:00.001-04:002014-10-23T13:33:18.185-04:00Black Jellybeans Fucking Gross, Study ShowsDURHAM, NC - In a new study released Tuesday that challenges common ideas of candy flavor parity, researchers at Duke University found that black jellybeans are fucking gross.<br />
<br />
"After examining the vast amount of data we gathered over the past several years, we confirmed that the suspicions we had from the beginning were indeed correct," lead researcher Harry Fisch said. "Black jellybeans taste like shit and no one likes them."<br />
<br />
The experiment involved several rounds of scientifically rigorous double-blind trials. Fisch said that the results "determined once and for all" that the licorice-flavored gelatin treats are "super disgusting."<br />
<br />
"Ugh," he added.<br />
<br />
At press time, researchers were picking out the purple skittles from a bowl of candy and throwing them in the trash.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-28825625903193859412014-09-30T01:18:00.000-04:002014-09-30T11:37:12.166-04:00How we were when we were here beforeI moved back to the city. My new apartment is smaller than the one we shared but it is in a nice neighborhood, you'll be glad to know. It is less cluttered than how we were. I have fewer furnishings. There are things I no longer require.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-77676160397964950872014-09-12T01:07:00.001-04:002018-03-13T13:48:05.514-04:00An Alternate UniverseThe way you held my hand and led me into the party, the way you smiled at me as we danced together on the table, the way you pulled me close and the music was loud and we were surrounded by your friends. I knew it was too late for us then, but still - still, it was like this sudden glimpse into an alternate universe. A universe where I wouldn't have been afraid to touch your hand that night after we were together, or where I wouldn't have been afraid to wake you up in the morning to tell you I had to leave.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-40206498547559773692014-07-13T15:55:00.000-04:002014-10-08T23:01:05.244-04:00The Edge of That Man's AffairsOccasionally I returned to the edge of that man's affairs. The problem of his marriage had become clear to us immediately: she only knew how to depend on him and he had never learned to rely on her for anything. In his present state then - after he arrived where he arrived - she found herself at a loss for ways to be of assistance. All she knew how to do was to bake him cakes, which she did without fail every single week. And all he knew how to do in return was to eat them, the entire thing, in one sitting. He would cut off a slice and then stash the rest under his bed until he was done with what he had and then he would cut himself some more, promising with each additional bit that this would be his last for now until with some sense of desperate resignation he would realize he had finished the whole thing and now felt very sick. Each time one arrived he knew he should share it with those that were with him, and yet at the same time he knew he could not give any away because of what the cake represented to both of them: her love, her perfect love, which he could do nothing but consume.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-23574936607406385832014-04-28T23:48:00.002-04:002014-04-28T23:48:08.814-04:00new love storiesyou pulled me onto the sand. i was drunk, and you were drunk, and you grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the sand. and you were wearing a dress, a black dress and a new black sweater, and they got all sandy, the dress and the sweater, and even your hair, but you just lay there like you didn't care at all.
<br />
<br />
i was so taken by you at that moment, i remember. all i could say was, <i>you are so beautiful</i>. and you said, <i>please, i dated a writer before and did not care for it.</i>Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-88442848926764109652014-03-04T18:29:00.002-05:002014-03-04T18:31:13.270-05:00The Adventures of Conor & Muffin and Other Exciting StoriesMeanwhile, Conor meets his friend Jesse for lunch at Panera. It is an old friend, from high school. Conor has driven a long way but he does not mind. He has nowhere to be in particular. His cat, Muffin, waits in the car with the windows cracked.<br><br>
Jesse and Conor reconnect in a way Conor did not think was possible. They talk at length about their friendship in high school and the individual lives they have led since, the way their trajectories have diverged, the way they’ve changed for the better or worse. They bring up old jokes and lost loves. They laugh and sigh and remember.<br><br>
When they are done eating, Jesse walks Conor out to his car and hugs him and says, what a wonderful lunch, you have become a reminder of what I once was and so I’d like this to be the last time we see one another. And then he walks away and Conor just stands there, staring at his cat through the car window, like, what can you say to that.
Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-76268598440963595212014-02-10T16:12:00.000-05:002014-03-14T16:10:13.743-04:00Your Middlebury SelfIn the afternoon my ex-girlfriend Anna and I hike up the hill behind the art museum to the North of campus. At the top you can see the whole valley, which on this day in March looks muddy and gray.<br />
<br />
“I have something to tell you,” she says. “I imagine it might be important to say. We broke up in September.”<br />
<br />
We dated for two and a half years, and so I remember our break-up very clearly. We were outside the coffee shop. As she explained why the relationship was unsalvageable I had the familiar and troubling feeling that I was a few feet above myself watching it all unfold. All I could say was “Okay.” Then I went home and drew the curtains and lay down.<br />
<br />
“Okay,” I say. “Yes. We broke up in September. I know.”<br />
<br />
“I know you know,” she says, “I wasn’t done. I wanted to say that we broke up in September and now I’m seeing someone new. Eric. From our poetry class. You remember Eric?”<br />
<br />
I remember Eric. His poetry was dark and beautiful. He always seemed very sad.<br />
<br />
“Yes,” I say. “I remember Eric. He always seemed very sad.”<br />
<br />
“Yes,” Anna says. “He did. And he is. He’s very sad. And I’m seeing him.”<br />
<br />
I don’t really know what to say to this. I don’t say anything.<br />
<br />
“Are you okay?” she says. “I never know with you.”<br />
<br />
“Yes, I’m okay,” I say, because I guess I am. It is hard to know. I make a concerted effort to feel upset but all I can manage is a muted contempt for Eric’s poetry. I say, “He seems nice.”<br />
<br />
She says, “Yes, maybe.” She does not look sure.<br />
<br />
We stand there quietly. I think of whether or not to put my hands in my pockets. I think of the time we went to see the monochromes at the modern art museum and she said, what do you think, and I said, it’s a lot to take in – how bothered I was that I could only think of that to say.<br />
<br />
“There was a hill like this at Middlebury,” Anna says after a minute. “At the program this summer we went up there after dinner all the time. Except it was closer to campus.”<br />
<br />
“Yes, this was a bit of a hike,” I say. “But look at the view.”<br />
<br />
“The view was better at Middlebury,” she says in an almost sudden way. Then after a pause, she adds, “Everything was better at Middlebury.”<br />
<br />
I’ve never been to Middlebury. I didn’t even visit it. “Everything was better at Middlebury,” I repeat. I look at her blankly.<br />
<br />
She looks back at me and says, “I mean, everything is better at Middlebury.”<br />
<br />
“Everything is better,” I say. Am I agreeing, I wonder. Why can’t I know.<br />
<br />
She says, “The food is better.”<br />
<br />
I say, “The food.”<br />
<br />
She says, “Yes, the food is better. And the dining halls are less crowded. And also the weather is better.”<br />
<br />
“It’s farther North than here, though, isn’t it?” I try. “Isn’t it just as cold?”<br />
<br />
She says, “Yes, but the cold is crisper. It is a more perfect cold.” She is pleased with this, I can tell. “At Middlebury,” she continues, “Everything is a more perfect version of what it is here.”<br />
<br />
I say, “What about the people?” Maybe I am trying to joke.<br />
<br />
“Ha, that’s funny,” she says, not smiling. “I like that. Like if Eric went to Middlebury he would not be so sad. Or if you went to Middlebury you would be more open.”<br />
<br />
We are still looking at each other levelly. “I would be more open?” I say.<br />
<br />
“Yes,” she says. “Your Middlebury self would be able to better communicate his emotions, I mean. That’s what I mean by open.”<br />
<br />
This is where I turn away and look out over the valley again. “Okay,” I say.<br />
<br />
I can feel her staring at me still. I can feel her about to say something terrible. “Ha,” she says again, which is a sure sign she is only pretending to be joking. “See? Your Middlebury self would have had some answers. Maybe if I could have dated him we would still be together.”<br />
<br />
“Okay!” I say loudly. I realize I snapped. “Okay. Yes.” I say, and then without warning I am yelling again: “How can you say that? I worked, I really worked! I tried to be honest! I tried to share myself!” <br />
<br />
“Right,” she says. “What you would share was, ‘I don’t know,’ or, ‘It’s hard to say.’”<br />
<br />
“I didn’t know!” I say. “It was hard to say! I was confused and that was me being honest!” I realize how feeble this sounds. I find myself upset that I am even getting angry about this – about her.<br />
<br />
She looks right at me. “If that’s true,” she says, “that’s even worse.”<br />
<br />
And then she leaves. She just walks down the hill by herself, and I’m left standing there.<br />
<br />
Without meaning to – hating myself for it – I suddenly find myself thinking about what my Middlebury self would do in this situation. What exacting thing he might call to her as she’s walking away from him; the way he might feel, precisely upset, precisely devastated. He would experience his emotions so presently, I’m sure of it. Instead I’m left wondering why my anger can only flare up now. Even now, watching her walk away, I feel it fading into the usual confused resignation. I imagine my Middlebury self might be able to cry about this. Instead I sit on a rock and say out loud as if to try to do so some regulation, “Okay.”
Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-54448520435632026702014-01-15T03:25:00.004-05:002014-01-28T22:47:45.191-05:00On The Night Before (Revised)On the night before I had to leave, an angel visited us in the darkness. We were crying in your bed, I remember so distinctly, just holding each other and crying. It was all over and we knew it, and then this angel descended from heaven and spoke to us. <i>You made one another so happy, </i>it said in its golden lilting voice. <i>Your love was as perfect as it could have been, and for that you should not weep</i>, and you said tearfully, don't you think we know that.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-34986250297086388562013-12-31T01:20:00.002-05:002014-01-01T15:03:17.741-05:00To Be TransformedIt is morning and there has been a blizzard. The house is empty. I wander from room to room in boxers and socks. The power has gone out and the light from outside is clean and pure. The empty street has become a perfect gleaming version of itself. I stand very still and watch it through the front window.<br />
<br />
Last night when we got stoned you showed me your poetry and I was overcome. It is so wonderful, I said tearfully, and as you touched the back of my neck softly I realized what I meant was, this is a part of your life that is so separate from myself. I will never captivate you fully.<br />
<br />
I put on sweatpants and boots and walk outside with no shirt on. The snow is so deep I can climb up to the roof of the little beige shed in the side yard. I stand out there for some time, looking at my neighborhood from nine feet higher than usual. The cold is biting and fresh and feels just right, maybe. I'd like this moment to mean something. I'd like this to be beautiful. I'd like to be transformed.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-8083008159693277292013-12-01T17:29:00.001-05:002013-12-01T17:30:16.538-05:00SAM AUSTIN IS UP LATE WORRYING ABOUT HIS NAGGING ANKLE INJURYANKLE<br />
I am confused about feeling sore.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
Yes I know.<br />
<br />
ANKLE<br />
Sometimes running hurts me. <br />
<br />
SAM<br />
Yes.<br />
<br />
ANKLE<br />
And other times it doesn’t.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
I know.<br />
<br />
ANKLE<br />
Sometimes it hurts to lift weights but not always.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
I know. Yes.<br />
<br />
ANKLE<br />
Sometimes sitting too long hurts but other times it makes me feel better. Other times a brace can help but then later it just makes things worse.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
I know all of this.<br />
<br />
ANKLE<br />
I wish I were a master assassin’s ankle.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
Yes I kno- what?<br />
<br />
ANKLE<br />
If I were the ankle of a master assassin I would never hurt. I would always be fine.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
What? How is that- why?<br />
<br />
ANKLE<br />
Because we would always do sweet stuff together. Master assassin stuff. I would climb up sweet walls and help him steady his aim so he could shoot poison crossbow darts.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
That would not help. You would just hurt more. That would be very strenuous.<br />
<br />
ANKLE<br />
I would help him run away from the police after he commits and artfully staged and flawlessly executed hit on an evil foreign diplomat.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
You seem to be losing sight of the problem at hand. Or at foot.<br />
<br />
An uncomfortable beat.<br />
<br />
ANKLE<br />
You are unfunny and rarely commit planned murders. At best your murders are uncreative and spur of the moment.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
What do you mean. I’ve never committed murder.<br />
<br />
ANKLE<br />
Don’t remind me.
Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-26006000991564972592013-11-06T21:04:00.003-05:002014-03-14T16:11:37.548-04:00The Unending Sadness of Intersecting LinesThe story that follows, "The Unending Sadness of Intersecting Lines," was written for a fiction workshop as a structural imitation of Yiyun Li's short story <a href="http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2008/10/13/081013fi_fiction_li">"Gold Boy, Emerald Girl"</a>, which, like my story, features a style of third-person narration that is alternatively close with one character and then with another.<br />
<br />
The conceit of the story - that is, the idea of two people floating through the void after the end of the universe - is based on the third section of a poem I wrote in April 2013 called <a href="http://talleyrandbanana.blogspot.com/2013/04/three-love-poems-for-alyssa.html">"THREE LOVE POEMS FOR ALYSSA"</a>. In that poem, a narrator is floating in post-universe space and sees in the distance a love interest heading towards him. "The Unending Sadness of Intersecting Lines" makes this conceit a bit more present: two people ARE meeting up in the void and have only a moment to decide whether to grab onto one another.<br />
<br />
I guess the reason I make this point is that a lot of people have compared the story to the recent film <i>Gravity. </i>For what it's worth what follows was conceived before and is accordingly not inspired by or based on that movie.<br />
<br />
****<br />
Granted immortality due to a spiritual mishap at his nephew’s Bar Mitzvah, Tim floated aimlessly in the void after the heat death of the universe for a hundred trillion years and then encountered a beautiful woman.<br><br>
The only thing he had crossed paths with before was a little chunk of quartz but it had fallen out of his pocket. It had been his prize possession, and when he awoke one morning to see it was just out of arm’s reach, he could only watch with some dismay as it floated away on a slightly different trajectory. He had lost sight of it maybe a billion years back.<br><br>
“Hey there!” he said to the woman, and then cleared his throat. His voice sounded creaky with disuse. “I’m Tim! Hello!” He suddenly got nervous he was coming on too strong. “I’m Tim,” he said, more quietly.<br><br>
“Hi,” she said, “I’m Susan.” Susan could see that she was a bit older than Tim, who was maybe only in his early twenties. She regarded him with a kind of sad curiosity. She had not seen another human since she and Anders had broken up only few millennia after the universe ended. The two had met while she was in Sweden for a conference and he had promised her eternal life one night while they made love at his summer home. She did not think much of it until she fell off a cliff while skiing and climbed out unscathed. As it turned out he was a direct descendent of an ancient Norse deity.<br><br>
Susan and Anders had spent the rest of the universe together – she was at the time convinced she loved him but lately was wondering if she had only stayed with him to avoid getting into anything committed with someone else who was just going to end up dying. Even after the universe ended they had lashed themselves together with rope so they would not ever drift apart, or at least not until after only a few million years of floating she woke up suddenly consumed by panicky feelings of being trapped in the relationship. That night she untied them while he slept.<br><br>
He cried when he realized what had happened. “How could you do this?” he choked out in his heavy Scandinavian accent. “I loved you so truly. I only wanted to make you happy.”<br><br>
“I’m sorry, Anders,” she said, watching him float a little further away. “It’s not you. I just- I need some space right now.”<br><br>
After a few days she realized she should have pushed him harder after she undid the knots. They were still fairly close. Every now and then he would call things to her matter-of-factly like “You are a thoughtless bitch,” or “You deserve to be alone.” She had to see him every day for a year and a half before he was finally out of sight. It reminded her unpleasantly of when she had broken up with James, her sophomore year boyfriend at their small liberal arts college, for roughly the same reason.<br><br>
“What were you so afraid of?” James had asked her once after at one of the thousand parties at which they kept running into each other. Susan, drunk and tearful, found she didn’t have an answer.<br><br>
“Susan,” Tim interrupted her thinking. He was trying to calculate. “I think,” he began, and then coughed. “I think we might get close enough to grab one other. I think if you reach out, and I reach out, I think we could maybe grab hold of each other’s hands.” He knew he should really only be considering the prospect of having some company, but he was having trouble not thinking about how pretty she was and how he had never worked up the courage to kiss a girl, even during his billion years of life, even when Maia Heyworth had been making such lengthy eye contact with him at the senior prom.<br><br>
What Susan said next was a glum and drawn-out, “Well,” and then suddenly they were too far apart. The moment had passed.<br><br>
And then there they were, just specks floating in an endless empty universe, destined never to encounter anyone or anything more until the end of time. All that was left for the two of them were questions, then: questions like could it have worked out with him and how in that moment did she decide it was not even worth a shot, questions like could he have just reached out and grabbed her shoe, questions like had they both made a terrible mistake. These questions occurred to them as they gradually lost sight of each other. They came to realize quickly that at least they would have an eternity of solitude to consider the answers.
Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-6564950380885546002013-10-28T17:17:00.000-04:002013-10-28T17:17:06.836-04:00Short PresentationSAM, nine, is lit center stage. SAM is quite short. He holds a piece of paper. He is quite nervous and his way of speaking makes it clear he is reading from the paper, pausing at awkward times or running together sentences.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
This is my report on what I want to be when I grow up and the challenges I might face. When I grow up I want to be tall. I will be six-foot-five-inches, and when people meet me they will say things like, “wow you are tall, how is the weather up there.” Sometimes I will even hit my head on things because they are low to the ground, or else I will have to duck when I walk up stairs in people’s basements. Sometimes I will play pick-up basketball and I will be okay at it and no one will say, “Sam you are too short to ever be good at sports, just go home.” When I visit my parents for Thanksgiving my mom will ask me to get cans of cranberry sauce from the top shelf for her and I will not have to stand on a chair, and afterwards my mom will hug me and tell me she loves me and my sister the same amount even if my sister is pretty and good at sports and I have early onset backne.<br />
<br />
SAM pauses then continues.<br />
<br />
SAM<br />
One challenge I might face when I grow up to be tall is that I will lose all my friends. It will be sad. I will be too tall for them, and it will make me sad to lose them as friends but I will be tall and they will be short so what can you do. I will make new taller friends, and we will all play pick-up basketball together, and they will say, “Sam, you are so tall and handsome and the way you only listen to soundtracks from anime is cool.” And I will say, “yes, we are all tall and we all love anime soundtracks.” And they will say, “That is true. Let’s go to Dave & Busters for dinner.” And after that we will go to Dave & Busters for dinner and Eva, the girl that I like from Ms. Valnetto’s class, will be there. She will be grown up too, and she will say, “it is okay that you spilled popcorn butter on me at Maia’s birthday party, I did not mean those things I yelled at you about how ugly and weird and short you were.” I will shrug it off and ask if she wants to watch me play skee-ball, and she will say, “okay,” and I will be tall enough to put the ball right into the hundred hole, and with all the points I win I will get two stuffed animals that are Mr. Resetti from the Wii game Animal Crossing, and I will give one to her, and she will kiss my cheek. That was my report on what I want to be when I grow up and the challenges I might face.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-75184814907781023052013-10-16T00:11:00.003-04:002013-10-16T00:11:43.861-04:00Investigation Reveals Fatal Error in 2006 Mission Quinoa OrderMISSION PARK - A recent investigation at Mission Dining Hall revealed an error in an old order for quinoa, the Mexican grain known for being rich in protein and fiber. Investigators report that the mistake in the order - placed in October 2006 - resulted in a surplus quantity of quinoa in the magnitude of ten thousand. This slip-up proved fatal when the quinoa, delivered too quickly, ended up crushing a Mission chef.<br />
<br />
"We were hearing a lot about quinoa," a dining hall source reports, "so we thought we'd try to order some for a dinner to see how people liked it. Well someone must have typed a bunch of extra zeroes because we ended up ordering like five truck fulls of the stuff. We were knee deep in quinoa for a week. One of the chefs drowned."<br />
<br />
Investigation revealed that the surplus quinoa was eventually stored in empty singles in Dennett Basement and has been served ever since.<br />
<br />
"Sometimes students come in joking and acting surprised about the quinoa," the source said. "For me, it's no joke. I still have nightmares."Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-50667363390874750592013-08-25T02:27:00.000-04:002013-08-25T02:27:03.785-04:00GHOST STORIES0.<br />
After there are rumors of ghosts in the canoe shed by the lake, my best friend and I sit on the dock on a night with no moon. I say to him, I do not believe in ghosts, and he says, neither do I, except for here.<br />
<br />
1.<br />
At the end, my best friend stumbles into the woods with his best friend (a young woman) and they have tearful sex. She loves him and he does not love her but he says anyway, I love you, because he has had too much to drink and because in that moment it seems easier and maybe even as exacting as what he really means. Except now she has ghosts of her own to deal with.<br />
<br />
2.<br />
I sit in the parking lot drinking with a different friend, one from high school. I say, man, what a summer, and he says, you have become a reminder of what I once was and so I'd like this to be the last time we see one another.<br />
<br />
3.<br />
In the morning I wake up on the shore with a monster headache and a gritty mouthful of sand, and Stephen, a maintenance guy who has been here forever, is pulling up lane lines at the end of the dock in the yellow morning sun. He has gray hair and a heavy Maine accent, and when I ask him if he believes in ghosts he just spits into the lake and says, I guess I do.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19815872.post-80360257302539796642013-06-05T03:37:00.003-04:002013-06-05T03:37:15.890-04:00The CollectorYou find a Hawaii quarter in the parking lot<br />
outside your job and decide to collect every state.<br />
You start by only sorting through the change<br />
you get each day, but before long<br />
you’re at the bank trading in twenties<br />
and hundreds, spending afternoons and weekends<br />
pawing through grimy tupperwares full of coins<br />
and wading around in fountains<br />
at the mall. You call your friends and tell them<br />
to be on the constant lookout out for Idaho and the Dakotas.<br />
Your wife leaves you, your daughters<br />
break off all contact, you quit your job<br />
and sell your clothes and start holding up coffee shops<br />
for their tip jars.Sam Austinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00668682766434069529noreply@blogger.com3