Category: Outside
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The Emperor of the Alley
Who is this man, walking ahead of me down this small side street? He is wearing a very expensive-looking dark suit, and he is trim and walks as briskly as I do, so that I can’t catch up with him without breaking into a run, which I do not wish to do. He has a…
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The Nereid
This is what I want to show you, this right here: Bez, standing barefoot in the sand, her skirt hiked up mid-thigh as the cold and ceaselessly slipping waves splash against her legs, as the sun turns more and more orange and red as it slips lower and lower below the horizon, as I sit…
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Wabbit Season
Bez and I come up the stairs from the BART station, and the first thing we see is a woman on the corner wearing a plastic rabbit mask. It’s a standard Halloween effort, with an elastic band going around the back of her head, a cartoony-Bugs Bunny rip-off. “I’m in love with her,” Bez says…
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Anachronism
Who is that man sitting across the restaurant from me, in a pinstripe suit, tie, hat and goggles? Yes, goggles. They are pushed up on top of his hat, like he’s just gotten off a 1920s racing motorcycle, and come in to have a quick bite before resuming his cross-country journey. They’re rather fetching, actually.…
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Finch
I haven’t been able to get my head in the rewriting game today while at home, and so I’ve gathered up my things and walked down to the coffee shop for a change of scenery. It’s too easy to get distracted in my own space sometimes, and I find that putting myself into a noisy…
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Twenty Is Not a Prime Number
A blonde from afar has something interesting for you. This is the fortune I get from the cookie at the end of the meal I am sharing with Parker, a few blocks from my house. “Do you know any blondes from afar?” he asks. “Any of them disturbingly wealthy and willing to share?” I turn…
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The Ocean’s Pull
It was too cold today to do more than get my feet wet in the ocean, although I longed to peel off my jeans and to wade out to my waist in the water and let the ocean caress me. That wouldn’t have been wise though, since I hadn’t planned on coming to the beach…
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Paper
I only saw him once, the origami man, but in my neighborhood, for months you could see evidence of his passing wherever you looked: a paper crane, leaning against a napkin holder at the coffee shop down the street; a pyramid of expandable balloons piled inside the newspaper dispenser outside the liquor store; a different…
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The Ladder
I was watching a girl in the park today, all alone in the middle of the polo fields. I didn’t know she was there when I started walking across the fields, because the fog was thick coming in off the water, but she gradually emerged from the grayness as I got closer to her. She…