MVP

When he rode in their spaceship he was given the MVP treatment.  MVP, they called it for him, because he was only 9 and it had more enchantment than VIP because of little league.  They set him up with a tv with flickering cartoons, sugary rainbow colored cereal, and gallons of blue Kool-Aid.  It was maybe a week into summer vacation, that year of cicadas, their shrill dying chirp.  It was also the year of his parents falling apart, the nights of silent rooms, the only comfort the hum of air conditioning units.  He looked through the ship windows but all there was was black, distant specks of starlight.  The aliens onboard were different shapes and sizes and colors.  Some were stout and green.  Others were tall and yellow.  Some looked almost like humans.  Others were more like cartoons, bulbous masses, multi-headed.  None were scary.  They watched him like they were being amused by his presence.  The circus-like noises of the shows filled the cabin.  They didn't speak but had a screen that posted brief responses in English when he asked questions.  Where are you taking me? Out and about.  How long will I be gone?  For a bit.  Are you real? Yes. Do you have popcorn? No.  Do my parents know I'm gone? No.  Do you have a bathroom?  To the right and down the passageway. And, after some more cartoon cacophony and silence, is it my fault, which was met with multiplying ellipses.  So, after a bit, he woke up in bed at home, hazy morning sun through his window, the neighbors having their oak tree cut down at 8:00 A.M.  Downstairs he could hear clanking dishes, his mother's voice, words indistinguishable.  How long was he gone, and did it really happen?  In later years, after mom had been remarried and widowed, and dad again divorced, and he'd bounced back and forth between the two and their strangers, he'd tell his therapist about his time on the spaceship.  She would listen, nodding her head as if she understood and believed, but inevitably, there would be more sessions, more prescriptions, more breaking down of the overarching metaphor, as she called it.  Even as he lost jobs and fumbled through doomed relationships and buried his father and left a child in some different stepparent galaxy, he thought, come back to me, let me go with you, just for a bit.

What I Was Thinking: Alien Invasions

What I was thinking was that a good idea for a story is a list of alien invasions.  This comes from reading too much Jim Shepard.  Now, what would the character angle be?  Like, who would be the main character in this?  Sometimes the premise comes first.

Ostrich

Dear A, I'm sorry I didn't realize you were allergic to ostrich.  I mean, seriously, how could I?  How did you?  Anyway, you took the fork of food I offered you, and I felt giddy because the moment felt sensual, your mouth inviting, the world between fingers and tines.  But after you swallowed, it's like life froze.  You put a hand to your throat, gagged for breath.  I thought you were choking, so I grabbed you from behind, pummeled your abdomen with my fist, even as you fought me off.  Then you're on the floor, convulsing, the room filled with gasps, the wait staff rushing to you, and I'm standing there like an idiot.  It wasn't right for me to just hightail it out of there.  And I'll reimburse you for the meal, of course, though I thought we had an agreement to go Dutch.  Anyway, I still question, how could I know, since ostrich is not even the other white meat but, at best, an other other white meat.  I remember going to the zoo when I was a child, my mother telling me an ostrich will steal your watch if you're too close.  My mom—we never got to talk about her.  It might've explained much.  Best, C. 

I'm Not Emilio Estevez 2.0

So I've decided to unearth the blog.  I'm still I'm Not Emilio Estevez.  By the way, does anybody read blogs anymore?  Oh, well, what harm could be done getting back into this thing?