Ape Infinitum

"Treppenwitz"

Sat, 05 Jul 2008 16:49:16 -0500

When the surge came, it marked the fifteenth hour of the baby’s ceaseless crying. Jean-Pierre pulled it close to his chest, shielding its eyes and squinting his own against the bright wash of light, whispering nonsense and “shhh” into its fresh, new ear. At its peak, the surge, the electricity could be felt on the skin, but it faded quickly, leaving post-coital hollowness in everything that could feel. The surge was what passed for celestial time in the place they called Treppenwitz, and fifteen hours, whether night or day, was a long, long time.

“Shut it up, then,” said Luc, done with cleaning his pistol for the fifteenth time in as many sleepless hours. “Shut it up or I will.”

"Things half said, half thought, and mostly empty"

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 22:04:57 -0500

“Seems sorta specific,” I say, my hand stretched over my eye to better hide those parts of you that offend.

“So are swans,” you say.

It’s a point worthy of concession, but never that. Instead, I say, “I saw some glass in the yard, broken, reflecting potential. I saw some glass,” I say, “and only part of the bloody futures were you. None of them were me.”

"Points of Impact"

Wed, 25 Jun 2008 07:27:40 -0500

We only heard it, at first, a sort of whistle, broken and thin. Then Ally pointed it out, added, “Make a wish,” even. When it kept falling, we kind of figured it wasn’t a shooting star, though, mostly on account of how they burn up after a minute. This one just got brighter and brighter, and then it hit. It hit so close that it knocked all four of us over, the shockwave or whatever, and it was all hot and dark for a while, ringing. It was me, Ally, and Bug that got up, after. Cassie was bleeding where she fell, her head nice and busted on the rock, there.

"Port"

Wed, 04 Jun 2008 09:47:35 -0500

If it was her shirt, she stole it. It wasn’t hard to picture some other guy volunteering it for a morning, supposing he’d see her again. Maybe he would. Maybe stole was too harsh.

“Take it off,” I said, and she did.

"And We Waited Out the Days"

Wed, 02 Apr 2008 00:10:31 -0500

The winds had died down by the time Olfstead arrived. Still, he made a show of the trials of his travel. An hour earlier and we might’ve cared. If he’d swung wide the great-wood door, soggy with the storm behind him and launched into his story of spooked horses and no-good assistants, of the roofs of houses spiraling skyward, their subsequent groundward falls, and of walls of impenetrable cold we would’ve sat at seats’ edges in anticipation of the next detail. Instead, it was the door swung wide, Olfstead dry and warm, and a sunlit backdrop that belied the week of wind and rain we’d come to loathe and fear during his absence. And he blathered through the details. And we tapped feet, checked watches, and imagined finer moments as we awaited the point to which it was all preamble.

"Shoes and Ships and Sealing-Wax"

Fri, 28 Mar 2008 09:25:35 -0500

She hadn’t read them all, not hardly. She’d touched them, though; moved them; stacked them. She’d read the spines. She’d felt the paper. Each had a smell of its own, something suggesting the content of the unread words within. She sometimes considered sitting in the high-backed, green chair at the corner of the room, a room as set aside as any library in a television house might be, and opening one of them under the yellow light of the floor lamp. She’d consider it, but only long enough for the same thoughts to come. In the chair, she was small. Among the words, the deeds they described and their complexity, she was smaller, still. So she built things with them, instead. The books—whole in themselves, their stories aside—made fine bricks and planks and tiles for a world of things scaled to her needs and fancies. They’d formed the substance of fort walls, tables, and grandfather clocks, and, today, they’d compose the shell of her finest work, yet: a seaworthy boat of bind and page and wax.

State of the state of the state

Wed, 26 Mar 2008 17:29:26 -0500

Back in April of 2003, a few iterations of this site ago, I wrote my first short story in something like nine years. I was working on some crappy novel at the time, and I needed to take a break. Since then, I've written more. I've always seen them as exercises, practice. That's not to say garbage, just practice for the big game. After finishing Bear Season, I noticed I was nearing a good, round number--a hundred, to be precise--and I decided I'd put together a book of short stories when I got there. A hundred's a nice place, I figured, plenty for there to be a few decent pieces.

I have six to go, and I'm working on most of them at the same time. A few are fairly old, unfinished projects--two years, in one case--and a few are based on the ideas of friends from recent conversations.

When I've hit the mark, I'll be taking the site down for redesign and new focus. When it comes back, I'll no longer be posting new stories. I've given thought to my career, in recent times, considered the advice of friends, and, given the length of time and loss of readers, as well as the unfortunate nature of First Serial Rights, I think the time has come to start submitting work to publications--reserve rights, all of that bullshit.

This will affect the handful of you who happen to be reading this entry. It's a small number, but it means something to me that you've continued to read over the course of time. So, thank you. There are six more to go. Here's hoping they don't disappoint. Furthermore, maybe we can find something on the other side of all of this to talk about. Also, there'll be a book over there to memorialize these last five years of my on-again, off-again romance with short work, one of those self-published numbers from the good-old days.

"Fair Game"

Sun, 16 Mar 2008 16:45:57 -0500

“I’d never steal your wallet.” That’s how they said it. “I’d never steal your wallet if I needed money.” Otherwise, it was fair game. Wallets, wives, heirlooms, and money—all of them were worthy of theft or destruction as long as the theft or destruction was in no way necessary. It was a matter of romance, of honor.

"Principle uncertainty, soft miles"

Tue, 04 Mar 2008 09:10:31 -0500

If there was food, it was gone before she said it. There were other things in the course of the conversation, though, the word “dewlap,” maybe. If there were plates, they’d been cleared. She liked to compare things to dinner plates, size and shape. The table was a coincidence, probably. A breeze probably blew when she said it, fluttered the umbrellas above the patio’s tables. If they stood or if they sat, he didn’t know. There was only the timing of the breeze.

"The Cincinnati Show"

Tue, 19 Feb 2008 08:31:49 -0500

He tested its weight in his hand, the feel of it across his palm. “How does it connect?”

“Well,” said Hep, “I suppose it connects like a hammer. You know, ‘cause it’s a hammer.”

It felt better than most. “No,” said Slesh. “To the show, I mean.”

Casey Childers has no tattoos or piercings at the time of this writing.

Mon, 18 Feb 2008 19:54:17 -0500

Likewise, he dresses like Eddie Haskell. Additionally, he fosters a longstanding fear of hooks and a longstanding disliking of the music they play in clubs in movies.

However, Casey is nothing if not a drinker and a fan of the endeavors of his fellow man.

"Respite"

Tue, 12 Feb 2008 07:34:18 -0500

He knows the hand will come through the window. White-gloved and sure, he knows it will come. It will raise the pane. He will run. He’s had this dream before. He doesn’t need to turn to see how far the rows of empty, crisply-made beds stretch into the distance behind him. He should run before the hand comes. He should close the window, bar all entry. He doesn’t move. He knows he should, but he can’t. Through the window, the night pushes down on the trees with its thick weight. He hears shapes beyond the glass that are too poorly lit to see. The wind blows, whistling through the thin opening. The hand comes through, its traffic-director’s glove, its tight, black cuff.

"Time"

Sun, 10 Feb 2008 17:16:23 -0500

The wheels, stoppers, gears, and shafts had been precisely machined by men long dead. “Back then,” to hear the boys say it, “way back then.” But that’s the boys, the ones who line the wall below its face. “Only clock of its sort,” they say between drags on their smokes and throws of the dice. Powered, as it is, by the spin of the earth, wind resistance, and seismic vibrations too weak to feel, it’s not too hard to believe the claim.

"TKO"

Thu, 07 Feb 2008 10:13:58 -0500

The koalas stared out of their enclosure, bored with their lots or certain some other shoe was about to drop. They paid no mind to the eucalyptus branches the zookeepers had prepared. They paid no mind to one another. They paid no mind to the patrons, Craig and Jess included. Craig had had it.

"It's nice without an umbrella, with no morning to worry over."

Tue, 05 Feb 2008 15:13:49 -0500

It’s not the darkness. It’s maybe not even the rain. Beyond the way the grays stack up on one another—the moon leaking down in graduating pales, reaching for the bay—there’s the weight of the street, your hand in mine, the cold, pushing us into one another, eyes forward. Where the light sticks, it’s bruised, lost in the mediation of arguments between colors best left to the sea. It’s all drowning with dry necks out here, and where are we going? Maybe that’s it more the anything. It’s darker, on ahead.

“I know how you’ll die,” I say.