The Last Thinly Sliced Raw Fish

Here, today. 

Thanks for reading.

Disembodied, Backwards

More backwards! The idea is to take a small work and reverse the sentence order. The story I've used this time is Disembodied, another from Thinly Sliced Raw Fish, found here.

The new "backwards" version:

Fractured formulas of identity.  Why.  Where.  How.  Memories of rain on flowers and the cold steel of buildings under construction.  I’m thinking in hazy.  I’m floating in nebulous.  I’m here but don’t know where.

The original version:

I’m here but don’t know where.  I’m floating in nebulous, I’m thinking in hazy.  Memories of rain on flowers and the cold steel of buildings under construction.  How Where. Why.  Fractured formulas of identity.

Gravity Gone, Backwards

Backwards! The idea is to take a small work and reverse the sentence order. The story I've used this time is Gravity Gone, another from Thinly Sliced Raw Fish, found here.

The new "backwards" version:

She rests her forehead on the window, inhales.  Between them there are stories, there are years. He wants to say, what are you thinking, but he can’t. They’re looking out an 18th floor window. He stops, thinks about unbound bodies floating upward, colliding with rising cars, street lights and wires, stuff.  If gravity were gone, she said, the world would be a better place.

The original:

If gravity were gone, she said, the world would be a better place.  He stops, thinks about unbound bodies floating upward, colliding with rising cars, street lights and wires, stuff.  They’re looking out an 18th floor window.  He wants to say, what are you thinking, but he can’t.  Between them there are stories, there are years.  She rests her forehead on the window, inhales.

Watching the House Burn, Backwards

The return of backwards fun! See previous entries here.

The idea is to take a small work and reverse the sentence order. This story I've done this with this time is Watching the House Burn, another from Thinly Sliced Raw Fish, found here.

So, here’s the new “backwards” story:

You clutch my hand, won’t let us leave. We don’t believe in this stuff. We’ve come here since childhood, stealing kisses in the shadows. I stare, transfixed, think I see silhouettes, black snakes of smoke moving uphill through bare trees.  We watched the flames, screaming demons eating oxygen.  The house sat on the grounds of either a prison cemetery, a typhoid-ravaged boarding school, or an abandoned psychiatric hospital.  Every other family moves in, stays awhile, abruptly leaves.   A psycho father kills his family, hangs himself.   For years we talked about its history.  We watched the house burn, holding hands.

The original:

We watched the house burn, holding hands. For years we talked about its history.  A psycho father kills his family, hangs himself.  Every other family moves in, stays awhile, abruptly leaves.  The house sat on the grounds of either a prison cemetery, a typhoid-ravaged boarding school, or an abandoned psychiatric hospital.  We watched the flames, screaming demons eating oxygen.  I stare, transfixed, think I see silhouettes, black snakes of smoke moving uphill through bare trees.  We’ve come here since childhood, stealing kisses in the shadows. We don’t believe in this stuff. You clutch my hand, won’t let us leave.

New Thinly Sliced Raw Fish Today

Here, and Happy Thanksgiving tomorrow!

Thinly Sliced Raw Fish #60

Work #60 of Thinly Sliced Raw Fish, here. 

Thinly Sliced Raw Fish

New one today, here. 

Fiction under 100 words.  New post every other day.  50 posts total.

Kindly Redirecting You

Thanks for stopping by, but you should really go here. 

Thinly Sliced Raw Fish = fiction under 100 words, new post every other day, 50 works total.

The Return of the Fish is Imminent

Thinly Sliced Raw Fish will be up and running again starting this Monday, October 25, 2010, with post #51 (picking up from the previous run).

It’ll follow the same setup as before. One post per day every other day, 50 posts total. Each post will be a work of fiction under 100 words.  Follow along, if you choose.

More Thinly Sliced Raw Fish

I’m continuing Thinly Sliced Raw Fish with 50 new works. New posts will begin on Monday, October 25, 2010. So much for the end of that blog, which I declared when I finished the original 50.

It’ll follow the same format as before. One post per day every other day, 50 posts total. Each post will be a work of fiction under 100 words.  Post numbering will begin with 51.

A Sampling of Complaints

She said, the coffee tastes like cigarettes, pushing it across the table, offensive. Over there, pock-faced man sad, the pot roast was stringy, conquered carcass hoisted by fork, lame with gristle. A sampling of complaints written on paper scraps: the bathrooms smell like urine, the pay is meager, the owner has octopus hands. Two youths sat across the street, heads full of unwritten grievances, spray paint cans in backpack, lighters in back pocket and pondered, who will they deface, how will they burn.

Electric Boogaloo, The Wrath of Khan, etc.

More of these coming.  October?

Hubble, Backwards

More backwards fun! See previous entries, here.

The idea is to take a small work and reverse the sentence order. This time it’s Hubble, another from Thinly Sliced Raw Fish, found here.

So, here’s the new “backwards” story:

Now he had the answer. Jill always wondered, was the universe expanding or contracting? The auroras of planets, burning balls spinning in cold. Swirls of galaxies, stars born in dusty light. Soon he realized he was in the Hubble Telescope. He died, felt an upward swoosh, a bullet’s journey.

Here’s the original:

He died, felt an upward swoosh, a bullet’s journey. Soon he realized he was in the Hubble Telescope. Swirls of galaxies, stars born in dusty light. The auroras of planets, burning balls spinning in cold. Jill always wondered, was the universe expanding or contracting? Now he had the answer.

Two more TSRF works @ Camroc Press Review

Two of my Thinly Sliced Raw Fish pieces, “Dale Murphy" and "Clearing the Table," are now up at Camroc Press Review. The permanent link for these stories at CPR is here.

"A Story About Glass” and “The Letters” appeared at Camroc Press Review in January, found here.

Thanks again to CPR editor Barry Basden for publishing these pieces at his excellent site.

Transcriber, Backwards

More backwards fun, following on the heels of A Particular Sunset, Backwards from two weeks ago. Perhaps I should institute Backwards Wednesday as a regular feature.

So again I’ve taken a small work and reversed the sentence order. This time it’s Transcriber, another work from Thinly Sliced Raw Fish.  To clarify, I’m not just picking a story at random and saying, voila!  I’ve gone through a bunch of them that don’t make sense in reverse.

So, here’s the new “backwards” story:

Through the open window a jeep backfiring, scents of sea water, pork roasting in a pit. He laughs. Her piano player’s fingers—they’d have to be bent, broken, rendered unusable. He is the end. The man from the sea. He imagined her hands of concrete bone moving across pages, leaving ink trails. Smooth skin the color of wet sand. Young, she could be his daughter. The colonel sees her in the chair, sitting erect, staring straight ahead. A man emerges from the sea. She wrote by hand their book of revolution.

Here’s the original, in case you didn’t click the link:

She wrote by hand their book of revolution. A man emerges from the sea. The colonel sees her in the chair, sitting erect, staring straight ahead. Smooth skin the color of wet sand. Young, she could be his daughter. He imagined her hands of concrete bone moving across pages, leaving ink trails. The man from the sea. He is the end. Her piano player’s fingers—they’d have to be bent, broken, rendered unusable. He laughs. Through the open window a jeep backfiring, scents of sea water, pork roasting in a pit.

(One thing I did notice doing this is that I made an error posting this work originally. The words in italics were supposed to be that way in the original version but weren’t. I’ve changed them at the site and used the intended italics for this experiment.)

The Last Fish

The 50th and final post of Thinly Sliced Raw Fish is up today, here.  Thanks for reading and following along!

The Last Days of TSRF

The Thinly Sliced Raw Fish project is coming to a close. 48 posts already, with just two left. The last will be Tuesday, February 23. For all of those who’ve read any of the posts, thank you!

The site will stay up after the 50th post but I’ll turn comments into moderation mode soon after. I’ve seen too many dormant sites get flooded with garbage comments for discount drugs and other spam nonsense. I’d rather things not go that direction. Moderating will also help me see if anyone is still reading and has anything to say, so please, feel free to chime in there if you tune in late!

What’s next, you might wonder? There will likely be some more “project” type blogs in the future. I’ve got a few ideas and hope to get another off the ground by summer.

A Particular Sunset, Backwards

Here’s an experiment I thought I would try: try reversing the sentence order in some of my works and see what happens (make the last sentence first, next to last second, etc.). I tried this with a few and it seemed to work best with “A Particular Sunset,” originally published as part of my Thinly Sliced Raw Fish project here.

Here’s the new “backwards” story:

The three of us in the hospital room and it’s more like sunrise, tired eyes and delirious smiles. Outside, snow and rain, white pellets tinkling against the window. The world a blur, sleeping an hour at a time. I remember her wrapped in pink blanket. Beautiful, certainly, but I didn’t understand. The sky orange and red, the day’s blue washing away. You described it as like a baby being born.

In case you didn’t feel like clicking the link, here’s the original:

You described it as like a baby being born. The sky orange and red, the day’s blue washing away. Beautiful, certainly, but I didn’t understand. I remember her wrapped in pink blanket. The world a blur, sleeping an hour at a time. Outside, snow and rain, white pellets tinkling against the window. The three of us in the hospital room and it’s more like sunrise, tired eyes and delirious smiles.

I think I still like the original better, though I don’t think the reverse version is that far off.

Winding Down

My Thinly Sliced Raw Fish project is winding down. Today marks the 40th post. Only 10 more left! 

Read here. Less than 100 words.

Two TSRF works @ Camroc Press Review

Two of my Thinly Sliced Raw Fish pieces, “A Story About Glass” and “The Letters,” are now up at Camroc Press Review. The permanent link for these stories at CPR is here.

These stories originally appeared at my companion blog, Thinly Sliced Raw Fish, a project site where I'm posting 50 works of fiction each under 100 words, with a new post appearing every other day.

"A Story About Glass" originally appeared here.  "The Letters" appeared here.

Thanks to CPR editor Barry Basden for publishing these pieces at his excellent site.