Happy New Year! Having taken a break, I’m back with a quick poem. Every piece of writing is now outside of the 365 base collection (I hope you’re right chuffed by quite sporadic posts of prose and poetry). Without further ado, “weird (love)” 

-

I got a new pair of black jeans. They smell 

like your studio. Like the reason they’re 

black is that they are coated in charcoal.

I feel like that’s the start to a song. One

that only you and I’d listen to, but 

that’s all right. Cause we’ve walked off to look for 

America. In a Greyhound bus. With 

men in gabardine suits and moons over 

open fields. Even if we’re only on 

the living room floor. Booming Beethoven 

and soaring over Elysium. Seid 

umschlungen, Millionen! Diesen Kuss 

der ganzen Welt! Ueber’m Sternenzelt Muss

ein lieber Vater wohnen. Heiligtum.

Hello, everyone!

Thank you so much for accompanying me on this journey of 365 stories. I know there were some times when I missed a day or two (especially in the last month), but the collection is finally complete. I’ve had a wonderful year writing these, and now it’s time for a break to focus on my screenplays. I might be back once in a while with a little something special, though. I hope you enjoyed yourself as much as I did, and I thank you for all your kind words, favorites, and reposts.

As my “job” changes from shorts to scripts, I leave you one last story of an attempted job switch.

May your year be filled with stories of magic,

Jessica

-

An older man and a young guy sat down in a coffee shop. The older man wore khakis and a plaid shirt. His hair was silver, and his eyes were sparkling blue. The young man wore jeans and a black T-shirt. His hair was a chocolate brown, and his eyes were the same sparkling blue. They looked like the rebellious grandson and his grandfather out for the day. They sipped their coffee in silence for a minute as the older man looked out the window.

“Lovely day,” he said.

“Mm hmm,” was the reply.

There was a longish pause, and the older man looked at the younger guy.

“Why don’t you talk to me.”

The younger guy looked up.

“Listen, I…”

He sighed, ran his hand through his hair, and stared into his coffee cup.

“I don’t think I can do this anymore.”

“Why not?”

“It’s just…ugh…you know.”

“No, really, I’m not quite sure,” the older man answered honestly.

“Of course you are! You always know what I’m thinking!” exclaimed the other.

“Is that what you think I do? Read minds?”

“Hell, that’s what I’d do.”

“Just shows why I’m me and you’re you.”

The older man raised his eyebrows.

“But I don’t want to be me anymore.”

The older man picked up his coffee.

“Well, what would you rather be?”

The younger guy slouched in his chair.

“I dunno. Something better.”

“What’s better than—”

“I’m just not cut out for this, okay? It’s not my thing.”

“But it’s a wonderful thing that you do,” the older man reassured.

“Not to everyone else! Not to those people!” The younger guy motioned to the world outside the shop. “They’re frightened, man, they…they think I’m like Satan or something.”

“Oh, you’re far from Satan,” the older man said.

“I know, right? But no, it’s just terror. Utter terror. I don’t want to be…I just…I mean, there’s the few who…who get it, you know? The ones who understand, and they’re not scared. They’re okay…but it’s the others…I can’t…”

The older man reached out across the table.

“Relax.”

The younger man flinched.

“Relax? You look at their faces! You spend time with them!”

“I already do.”

“Not like I do! Not like me! You’re—you don’t see them the way I do.”

“How do you see them?”

“Why you always doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“Damn it!”

The younger guy slid back in his seat and shook his head. He looked out the window as a woman walked by with her toddler son. He turned back to the older man with ferocity.

“You’re like a psychiatrist, you know that? Of course you do. I shouldn’t even be talking. You already know what’s wrong, you already know what I’m gonna do – even if I have no fucking clue – you already know what every answer is, and I just can’t take it! I wanna know!” He pointed to himself and accented every word with a jerk: “I want to know!”

The older man put down his coffee, and there was genuine sadness in his eyes.

“I’m sorry. I truly am. I…I don’t want you to feel like that, ever. I know things are tough—”

The younger guy snorted.

“Do you? Do you really?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Uh huh.”

The older man narrowed his eyes.

“Don’t do that.”

“Huh? Do what?”

His voice pierced the air before him: “Do not doubt me.”

“Doubt you? Doubt you? Ha, I’ve learned from that already. I’ve doubted you enough times, and damn it,” he paused and bit his lip, “you’ve always gotta pull through. You have always…”

He trailed off as he turned away to watch the world blow by. The older man sipped his coffee.

“So tell me.”

The younger guy looked back.

“What?”

“How do you see them?”

The younger guy sighed.

“I don’t know anymore. I guess…I just…it’s so hard to look into their eyes…to…feel their pain, and their confusion and frustration…and fear. I know that things are okay, but I can’t tell them. I can’t touch them. I can’t help them.”

“But you do—”

“Not in the way I want!” The younger guy leaned across the table. “I want to heal them! I want to comfort them—” The older man opened his mouth but the younger guy stopped him: “And not in that way! I want to cradle them in my arms and show them that things are going to be fine! I want to show them…” he slowed down, “I want to show them all…I want to give them all a taste, just…just a little taste so they can see, so that they can really see…”

“But if you did that,” said the older man, “then there would be no reason for them to be there in the first place.”

“I know, I know,” said the younger guy as he shook his head.

“Are you sure?”

The younger guy looked up.

“Huh?”

The older man gazed at the younger.

“Do you know why they’re there in the first place?”

The younger guy thought for a moment, then said softly, “…I never thought to ask.”

The older man smiled.

“You already have so many questions.”

“Yeah, but I never really thought about that. I just accepted that.”

“And you can’t accept your job.”

There was a longish pause as the older man sipped his coffee and the younger guy’s eyes wandered from the table to the shop to the streets. He finally spoke again, quietly.

“Why are they there?”

“Haven’t you been watching?” asked the older man, “Haven’t you been paying attention?”

“Anything I’ve seen has been…odd. And a lot of times unhappy. Is that the point? Because if it is, I don’t see why they all don’t hurry up to see me in the first place. I mean, they just stay there. Even through the shit. They stay. Why? Why would they stay?”

He paused to consider his own question. The older man wouldn’t answer.

“I know,” he continued. “Because they’re afraid of me.”

The older man gave a tiny nod of half consent.

“And maybe because there’s things worth sticking around for.”

“Like what?” asked the younger.

“Pay attention and maybe you’ll learn something.”

The younger guy sighed and grabbed his cup. He took a sip of his coffee and looked out the window.

Then he finally turned back to his boss with a half smile.

“So I guess I didn’t get outta my job.”

The old man smiled and winked.

“Nice try, though.”

Starring the infamous Howard, his ghost companion Harriet, and others.

-

“Howard.”

He was having the most wonderful dream. Who was calling out to him?

“Howard.”

It was Harriet. Where was she?

“Howard.”

He opened his eyes. She stood over him, smiling. 

“Come on, let’s go.”

“Mmphgowhere?”

“Come with me.”

She held out her hand. He chuckled, pretending to oblige her by reaching out, knowing full well that his hand would pass right through hers.

Only it didn’t.

“What! Harriet—”

“Come on!”

She pulled him out of bed and to the door. He stopped in the threshold.

“Wait a tick. How is this possible? Is something…”

He looked down at their joined hands and was shocked to find that his looked quite different. Younger, in fact. A hand of his own that he hadn’t seen in years. He looked back at his bed and saw his old man self still nestled in blankets. He felt his chin, prodding for the Sean Connery beard he’d spent the last twenty years perfecting, only it wasn’t there. His skin was smooth, unwrinkled, scars gone.

“Am I?”

Harriet gave a half-smile and tugged him out the door. His home had become one gigantic library, full of towering windows and shelves and delightful nooks and alcoves, all spilling out volumes of books and voices.

“What do you mean you’re through!?”

“Well it’s almost up…”

Harriet tugged him to the source of the conversation. With a knock on one of the beautiful fireplaces, a bookcase opened to a secret room. Inside, Howard saw a Harvey Fierstein type man in a tuxedo standing across from a young woman. The Harvey Fierstein bellowed.

“I can’t see how this is even possible!”

“Three hundred sixty-five. It’s as simple as that.”

“Excuse me.”

Harriet stepped forward, and the two finally noticed their presence.

“This is—”

“Howard Keaton,” beamed the young woman.

The man stiffened up and peered down his nose.

“Who is this?“ 

“You treat him with respect, Tumblr God. He’s one of the greatest. This is the one who was in Paris, the one with the tuning fork, the one who scales buildings,” she looked at Harriet, “the one who finds companionship in the most unusual and beautiful of places.”

The Tumblr God threw his head back even further.

“Hello, sir. I am the Tumblr God. And it is time I bid you all adieu.”

With a toss of his white scarf, he was gone. The young lady took Howard’s hands.

“I’m so proud of you.”

“For what? What did I do?”

“Everything! You just were. You lived, you conquered, you saw and adventured, you did the impossible more than once. You did things even I couldn’t imagine, things that make an incredible life.”

Howard stared at his feet.

“But now it’s over…isn’t it?”

The young woman smiled.

“I don’t think you’re quite ready yet. You have plenty more to do. Years of wonder!”

She placed his hands in Harriet’s and opened the door.

“But who are you?”

“I’m the writer, Howard. And it’s not your time to go.”

She touched his forehead and he came to a start in his bed. Panting, he felt his body, felt his beard, touched his sheets, made sure that he was actually in his own old self.

“Harriet!”

She materialized at the foot of his bed.

“Harriet, was it real? Was it a dream?”

The edges of her lips lifted into a smile as her image faded into the night. And Howard lived many more long years full of wonder and awe and life.

“When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie, that’s not amore. That’s a lawsuit.”

“Why you always doing that?”

“Doing what?”

“Taking Dean so literally. You don’t do that with Frank.”

“That’s cause we got Sinatra in our blood.”

“Cause we’re from Jersey?”

“Palermo! We’ve got Palermo in our veins!”

“Yeah, but I got Naples. You keep telling yourself that.”

“My great-uncle was a Sinatra.”

“And so was the butcher’s wife. There’s enough of ‘em.”

“You’re just jealous.”

“Of what? Frank’s dead. And I’m eating cannelloni.”

“What, you’d rather be dead?”

“No, I’m saying I’m glad I’m eating your cannelloni instead of looking down off a cloud thinking, ‘Damn, I can’t eat.’”

“You want seconds?”

“I’ve been waiting for thirds.”

Based on a George Carlin joke

-

5. Kokomo is an island that was sung about by the Beach Boys. No matter how far and wide you search in the Florida Keys, you will never find Kokomo. Unless, of course, you dig beneath the abandoned house on Craig Key. There you will find a trap door leading to a tunnel that will take you on a journey further than Seven Mile Bridge, and just when you think you’re about to crack under the tight, dank concrete, you spot another door. Reaching out, you will emerge on Kokomo, the most beautiful island in the Gulf of Mexico. This is the only way to access the island. Many who have walked to Kokomo have tried to get there again by boat and have failed - no one is able to locate it in the water.

4. Atlantis is another watery location that never seems to be spotted, and most speculate whether or not it truly existed. Those who do believe in it think that it has sunken into the Atlantic Ocean, possibly near the Bimini Road. Of course, they’re wrong. Naturally, you need to fly into the Bermuda Triangle, wait until the clouds spin into a vortex, and pilot yourself right to the center. Eventually, you’ll be spun out in a blast of lightning and deposited on the lost continent. There is no way back from Atlantis.

3. Santa’s workshop is not actually located at the North Pole - one of the reasons no one is ever able to find it. The so-called “Santa”, his wife, and the elves live in the northern bits of Svalbard. He is a Norwegian man named Eilif, and he is the only man in the world to possess a time machine. This is how he and the elves (yes, real elves) are able to make so many toys and deliver them in a timely fashion. He doesn’t like surprise visitors, but if you manage to get your boat or plane over there, he’ll still give you a cup of cocoa and a complimentary quilt.

2. Hell is in your mind, and

1. Heaven is in your heart, and never the twain shall meet.

Hidden behind a half cloak tossed over

the shoulder, scratching away at a piece

of paper, a hint of light that is just

draped over his eyes, his hands, and his pens—

Composing ‘neath a silent persona,

tossing around each slight happy wonder

with a fearsome plight and wallowed terror

but triumphing over evil with love—

He hurls all his poetry across the

streets, the alleys, the meadows and valleys,

peppering lands and people with his words,

giving them hope with the joy he unfurls—

Quietly, tenderly, adoration

art for the masses, anonymous love.

Every night as I fall asleep, I hear snippets of the world, tiny bits of conversation right in my ear. It’s like turning on a radio and slowly sifting through the channels.

I hear a young man struggling with something, yelling in frustration. If he’s yelling at a person, I should call the cops, but one, I don’t know where he is, and two, somehow, I feel like he’s shouting at a car or computer or something. His voice fades out as the strains of a complicated Chinese takeout order fill my head. I wouldn’t get the number four, but this is probably a completely different restaurant with a completely different menu. Not like I can change their order anyway.

I hear a sweet murmured conversation in a dialect of Spanish I don’t understand. Pillow talk, I think. Then the sudden interjection of a child and laughter. I hear someone else praying, rhythmically, with dedication, something she does every night. I hear someone else crying through his prayers, hoping that somehow in some way that someone, anyone, will hear him. I do, but I can’t help him. I can’t call him and tell him it’s going to be okay. I can’t give him what he wants, what he needs. But I’m listening. He probably wouldn’t want to know that it’s me who’s listening, who can hear him. I worry as his prayers pass through me, wondering why on earth I can hear him and all of them and what am I supposed to be doing with this? Can I fix them? Can I help them? What’s the point? 

I hear an old woman on the phone, but I only hear her part of the conversation. It’s just a few gentle “mmhmm”s. There is so much love in her simple “mmhmm”, and that’s all she says. I wonder who she’s listening to.

I wonder if she’s listening to me.

“Mmhmm.”