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- Story Listed as: True Life For Adults
- Theme: Drama / Human Interest
- Subject: Friends / Friendship
- Published: 02/14/2018
What kind of letters do short story writers write?
Born 1951, M, from Wilmington NC, United StatesAloha Bruce of the one time weight gain,
I still tremble at the effort it took to put on twenty plus pounds in three days. And can’t even imagine the effort it would take to lose twenty plus pounds in three days. Like all of Life’s conundrums - it seems unfair; for one can work months to lose twenty pounds, even a year, but only seventy two hours to put it all back on. In my case I have lost more than thirty pounds, but the other extra forty pounds is still hanging around. It gives me a Rubenesque figure, so I would be a delight for fans of his.
Although his “Portrait of a Young Man” - painted at the very end of the sixteenth century - doesn’t have the curves and plumpness of his female subjects. But that giant collar must have been a burden to carry around- and a bitch to clean. In his era, I might have looked transgender- for men were mostly thin and wiry, while women were plump and curvy. So I have that going for me.
It got down to the very low forties yesterday. Today it took a brief foray into the low fifties- tomorrow it will be seventy six. I don’t remember (as a youth) three seasons in three days. Now it seems as though it is a common experience. In fact, Once last week, we had all four seasons in one day! Yep. It went from below freezing (Winter), climbed up the high forties (Fall), traipsed all the way up to the low sixties ( Spring) and then sprinted into the high seventies ( Summer): and it did all that in a single day. Old people bones were snapping like turtles. Clothing was shed like someone had found lice in a Day Care Center. And the Weather Persons just sat at their desks and cried.
Valentine’s Day was fun for Kathy and I. We went down to the River near her favorite sculpture ( A thirty foot replica of a Venus Fly Trap, done with a pale green glass as the actual traps. When the light hits those fly eating replicas- well it is ethereal. We bought over priced ice cream - hand dipped by college kids trying to get by. Chose a bench to sit and people watch.
I gathered a crowd in the Ice Cream/Chocolate Shop (they make their own chocolate candies there- right in front of your eyes) as I explained the History of St. Valentine to a group of mostly Baptists, all of whom were hanging on every word. Not only were they surprised to find out the History, they were stunned that a Catholic was standing right in front of them. LOL
The Highlight of that short interlude came not with the ice cream, for that brought delight to both Kathy and I, but to the sound of a young Millennial who had his phone out. Said individual yelled out in surprise : “That old guy is right. I just Googled it!” Suddenly every phone came out - and people between the ages of 13 and 45 got a quick verification and History lesson. They looked at me like I was some form of Idiot Savant. So I got that going for me too.
FoodLion brought me a slice of Christmas Present. I bought a large bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups- the promptly opened the bag and gave every single FoodLion employee working at that time- one. Bruce, you would have thought I gave them gold, or maybe advice that helped. Even the guys (I don’t discriminate who gets Valentines by gender) faces lit up at the unexpected treat. It might be a kind of a bribe, or maybe just kind, but let me tell you- I got goose pimples from the good will that followed. So I got that going for me too.
This last topic might interest you too. I wonder if you ever had this experience, for tonight was my first experience with it. I thought up a story. A short one (unlike my emails or phone conversations). A complete story: beginning, middle, and end. It had an anti- hero, not a hero. A great plot- but disturbing. For it was a Horror Story. A genre I steer far away from in sheer terror. Let Stephen King deal with stories that make your skin crawl. And there in lies the rub,
My story was about skin crawling. Yep. Right off of your body to surround a life force that didn’t need anything but your skin. So folks would find a perfect circulatory system, like the ones you find in Anatomy Books: Arteries in Red,Veins in blue- sitting up straight in planes, cars, or on benches…but - no spines, heads, hair, bones, or organs. Just the arteries and veins. For the life force that took those other things couldn’t stand blood.
I set it up so that one of those Life Forces with the former sack that contained “Bob” before Bob's skin crawled off to slither over the Life Force- was with a group of healthy people when they discovered the macabre scene in a plane wreck. No one knew (except the Life Force) what the heck had happened.
The ending was not the regular red blooded humans riding out what was going on…oh no. It ended with the Life Force trying to figure out how to fit a plane load of his fellow skin crawlers into Society in a small town without giving away their inner most secrets (how’s that for a pun?).
Well, I did not write the story, except to tell it to you. I don’t want to write Horror Stories. Although technically it could fit under Science Fiction (Aliens). So my question to you is this:
Have you ever experienced having a whole story reveal itself to you, and then not writing it?
It seems a waste in some ways, but I don’t want to add one ounce of fear to the Earth. We have enough as it is on the News Channels. I don’t want to bring a single cc drop of horror to add to the gallons, liters, and barrels of real life horrors we already write about.
I wonder if you have had that experience of not writing a story that wrote itself out to you. I am not talking about not telling a story. We often do that as decent human beings. I am talking about writing a story, and then not bringing it to pen or page (metaphorically - just to show you I am a writer of note (and that is a really bad pun)).
Now, it is tea time, as it is just shy of 3 AM here. In another hour, it will be 4AM, one of the most written about, sung about, filmed hours in a day. Second only to High Noon for the plethora of myths that spring up about it. All kinds of things happen at High Noon besides shoot outs between men cut wide and deep who choose only white or black hats. At 4 AM, all kinds of things happen too. Mostly shades of loneliness, melancholy, or sadness.
So I must make my tea, shut off the lights, and wait for the skin crawlers to get me.
Smiles, Kevin
What kind of letters do short story writers write?(Kevin Hughes)
Aloha Bruce of the one time weight gain,
I still tremble at the effort it took to put on twenty plus pounds in three days. And can’t even imagine the effort it would take to lose twenty plus pounds in three days. Like all of Life’s conundrums - it seems unfair; for one can work months to lose twenty pounds, even a year, but only seventy two hours to put it all back on. In my case I have lost more than thirty pounds, but the other extra forty pounds is still hanging around. It gives me a Rubenesque figure, so I would be a delight for fans of his.
Although his “Portrait of a Young Man” - painted at the very end of the sixteenth century - doesn’t have the curves and plumpness of his female subjects. But that giant collar must have been a burden to carry around- and a bitch to clean. In his era, I might have looked transgender- for men were mostly thin and wiry, while women were plump and curvy. So I have that going for me.
It got down to the very low forties yesterday. Today it took a brief foray into the low fifties- tomorrow it will be seventy six. I don’t remember (as a youth) three seasons in three days. Now it seems as though it is a common experience. In fact, Once last week, we had all four seasons in one day! Yep. It went from below freezing (Winter), climbed up the high forties (Fall), traipsed all the way up to the low sixties ( Spring) and then sprinted into the high seventies ( Summer): and it did all that in a single day. Old people bones were snapping like turtles. Clothing was shed like someone had found lice in a Day Care Center. And the Weather Persons just sat at their desks and cried.
Valentine’s Day was fun for Kathy and I. We went down to the River near her favorite sculpture ( A thirty foot replica of a Venus Fly Trap, done with a pale green glass as the actual traps. When the light hits those fly eating replicas- well it is ethereal. We bought over priced ice cream - hand dipped by college kids trying to get by. Chose a bench to sit and people watch.
I gathered a crowd in the Ice Cream/Chocolate Shop (they make their own chocolate candies there- right in front of your eyes) as I explained the History of St. Valentine to a group of mostly Baptists, all of whom were hanging on every word. Not only were they surprised to find out the History, they were stunned that a Catholic was standing right in front of them. LOL
The Highlight of that short interlude came not with the ice cream, for that brought delight to both Kathy and I, but to the sound of a young Millennial who had his phone out. Said individual yelled out in surprise : “That old guy is right. I just Googled it!” Suddenly every phone came out - and people between the ages of 13 and 45 got a quick verification and History lesson. They looked at me like I was some form of Idiot Savant. So I got that going for me too.
FoodLion brought me a slice of Christmas Present. I bought a large bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups- the promptly opened the bag and gave every single FoodLion employee working at that time- one. Bruce, you would have thought I gave them gold, or maybe advice that helped. Even the guys (I don’t discriminate who gets Valentines by gender) faces lit up at the unexpected treat. It might be a kind of a bribe, or maybe just kind, but let me tell you- I got goose pimples from the good will that followed. So I got that going for me too.
This last topic might interest you too. I wonder if you ever had this experience, for tonight was my first experience with it. I thought up a story. A short one (unlike my emails or phone conversations). A complete story: beginning, middle, and end. It had an anti- hero, not a hero. A great plot- but disturbing. For it was a Horror Story. A genre I steer far away from in sheer terror. Let Stephen King deal with stories that make your skin crawl. And there in lies the rub,
My story was about skin crawling. Yep. Right off of your body to surround a life force that didn’t need anything but your skin. So folks would find a perfect circulatory system, like the ones you find in Anatomy Books: Arteries in Red,Veins in blue- sitting up straight in planes, cars, or on benches…but - no spines, heads, hair, bones, or organs. Just the arteries and veins. For the life force that took those other things couldn’t stand blood.
I set it up so that one of those Life Forces with the former sack that contained “Bob” before Bob's skin crawled off to slither over the Life Force- was with a group of healthy people when they discovered the macabre scene in a plane wreck. No one knew (except the Life Force) what the heck had happened.
The ending was not the regular red blooded humans riding out what was going on…oh no. It ended with the Life Force trying to figure out how to fit a plane load of his fellow skin crawlers into Society in a small town without giving away their inner most secrets (how’s that for a pun?).
Well, I did not write the story, except to tell it to you. I don’t want to write Horror Stories. Although technically it could fit under Science Fiction (Aliens). So my question to you is this:
Have you ever experienced having a whole story reveal itself to you, and then not writing it?
It seems a waste in some ways, but I don’t want to add one ounce of fear to the Earth. We have enough as it is on the News Channels. I don’t want to bring a single cc drop of horror to add to the gallons, liters, and barrels of real life horrors we already write about.
I wonder if you have had that experience of not writing a story that wrote itself out to you. I am not talking about not telling a story. We often do that as decent human beings. I am talking about writing a story, and then not bringing it to pen or page (metaphorically - just to show you I am a writer of note (and that is a really bad pun)).
Now, it is tea time, as it is just shy of 3 AM here. In another hour, it will be 4AM, one of the most written about, sung about, filmed hours in a day. Second only to High Noon for the plethora of myths that spring up about it. All kinds of things happen at High Noon besides shoot outs between men cut wide and deep who choose only white or black hats. At 4 AM, all kinds of things happen too. Mostly shades of loneliness, melancholy, or sadness.
So I must make my tea, shut off the lights, and wait for the skin crawlers to get me.
Smiles, Kevin
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