Bukkhead.com

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

Sits on chair in his hawaiian shirt and his cargo shorts and his birkenstocks. Got the shirt on a trip to miami and the shorts in a department store and the birkenstocks are actual keens but he calls them birkenstocks. The wind moves some of what’s left of his hair around on his head and the sun is threatening one of his toes where its sneaking past the shade of the porch. His clothes are too big for him. His nose is too big for his face. People think he frowns too much but that’s just the way he looks. He’s old, older than the kids on the beach over there, some of them just about ready to not be kids anymore, to make the kind of mistakes that lock you in until everything’s used up and you’re left to sit on a chair in a shirt and shorts and sandals and sun and wind.

He tries to think about things but he doesn’t try very hard. There’s a gin and tonic melting next to him. That wife. An honest to god mumu. Go way back, to wars and barracks and kids who can get ready at reveille before the others because they don’t shave yet, tell one of them they’d be on a porch on a chair in mexico and an old broad in a mumu would give them a weak gin and tonic, and all but one of them would laugh and start talking about movie stars and their bosoms. One of them might sort of smile and go back to cleaning his gun. Guess what. Dead on the shore the next day, too bad.

His names is carl or peter or maybe jackson. He’s not sure. He tries to remember but he doesn’t try very hard. There’s a taste on his lips, salt, and tonic, and weak gin. He looks at the glass. It’s half empty. It used to be half full but he’s not too worried about it.

There’s a screech and a laugh and one of the kids is running after one of the other kids. One of them’s holding a brassiere and the other one’s holding her bosoms. That’s what it looks like from here. They’ll go to school and learn why that’s not okay to do that, get degree and jobs and have kids of their own and teach them why that’s not okay to do that, and then their kids will do it too. Carl or peter or jackson doesn’t have any kids. If he did, he’d teach them something else. Fishing, maybe. He’s never gone fishing.

Grew up in the city, in a building, went to school in a building, joined the military, and there was so much outdoors to deal with, no wonder people lost their minds and shot guns at each other. Explosions and other loud noises, waiting for the next artillery barrage because at least it would drown out the sound of tomlinson over there, screaming his guts out. There’s a joke there, since tomlinson’s guts where all over his lap and the more he screamed, the more guts there were.

Nothing to it put to ignore the smell of your own shit, wait for enough people to die that it was safe to crawl over to a CO, get on a boat, try not to look at clocks. Because then you’re squinting at sunlight bouncing off of buildings again, a bunch of buildings all gathered around a patch of grass, a pretty girl with gaps between her teeth in a skirt and a sweater, a beer in the student union, some fun in the back of a borrowed car, a cap n gown, a suit n tie, a trip to Vegas, a job looking at pieces of paper.

And then a hawaiin shirt and a pair of cargo shorts and birkenstocks. A mumu and a weak gin and tonic. A bunch of kids in the distance. A sunburned toe. Carl or peter or jackson tries to think of something to tell them if they decide to put their brassieres back on and respectfully approach the old man with the wispy hair and the giant nose and the more or less permanent frown on his face. But he doesn’t try too hard.

There’s another gin and tonic next to him, or maybe it’s the same one, or it might have been the one from before. When he was 17, he knew, someday, he’d be sipping G n Ts by the beach and living the good life. Somehow it happened anyway.

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

I have yet to locate my chagrin, but I have been assured that much to it the follies of men continue unabated. To wit, this new Deadpool film, which I feel more than qualified to review despite my not having seen it yet. Nor have I viewed any of the trailers. Did you know they call them trailers because they used to come at the end of movies, not the beginning? Seems people are too eager to leave. And “coming attractions,” frankly, is vulgar.

No, I have not seen the movie or seen the coming attractions, but I have seen movies featuring Ryan Reynolds, and I have also seen movies with comic book characters in them. Furthermore, when I was a young teenager, I had the idea for a coffee-table book called “The Missing Wall,” which was to be artists’ conceptions of the walls you never see in sit-coms, since that’s where the cameras are. “Three’s Company,” “The Cosby Show,” “Friends.” You’ll call me prescient, since I was well into my twenties and no longer a young teenager when Friends first aired, but I give those as example of what the book would be, not an example of what my thinking was.

The point is, nowadays people reference the so-called “fourth wall,” especially when fictional characters break it, which is to say, when they say or do something indicating that they know they exist in a fictional universe. Which is, of course, impossible. I’m no philosopher, and as far as I know epistemology is not something to be trifled with, but it seems obvious that a fictional character can’t “know” anything. It is more precise to say that a fictional character’s creator is the one who breaks the so-called “fourth wall,” by using his character to remind the reader or viewer that what he or she is reading or viewing is, indeed, fictional.

My understanding is that this Mr. Pool breaks the fourth wall all the time, and since I more or less invented the concept of creating a fictional fourth wall, I have probably not only the best but the only point of view when it comes to how a fictional character can break a wall that only exists in a fictional universe. The reader or viewer is unnecessary. That closes the loop on the epistemology of fictional characters knowing things. One doesn’t have to read or view something to review it- indeed, it is exactly those who have not seen something who can best review how it’s fictional fourth wall is broken.

Furthermore I have seen The Dead Pool, a Dirty Harry film from 1988, featuring a then little-known Liam Neeson and the late great Jim Carrey, who isn’t dead, but who’s greatness is a bit tardy. Who better than Ryan Reynolds to play Deadpool than the Jim Carrey that Jim Carrey could have been if instead of playing a punk rock heroin overdose victim he had instead played to the camera and broken the fourth wall in the scene on the houseboat where he dies? What would make this remarkable is that the scene itself was probably shot on an actual houseboat and therefore it’s fourth wall was probably not fictional at all.

Elle MacPherson, some people in Hollywood would say, is a bit past her prime, but I think that’s a bunch of nonsense. I don’t know if she’s in the movie; I just wanted to say that.

But think of it. Jim Carey, a kind of 80’s Ryan Reynolds, (or, if you like, Ryan Reynolds, a kind of “now” Jim Carey in the sense that we tend to cartoonalize the past and have more respect for the future than we should) looks at the real wall, which is fake, and breaks it, making it fake by virtue of it’s being real in a fake world. So it’s fake and real and real and fake all at the same time. And all of this is only happening in our heads because in The Dead Pool, he didn’t do that. This adds a negative co-efficient to everything so now the broken wall is whole again, and real and fake and real and fake.

This unbroken wall, rebroken in our heads, and therefore neverbroken, both real and unreal, reminds us that what we are seeing is made up, which is to say, reminds us that what we are seeing is made up in our own heads. It reminds us we’re us. This is what Deadpool does. And this is why you shouldn’t go see the movie, unless you’re not going to, in which case you already have. And if you have seen the movie, I’m afraid you haven’t seen the one you weren’t going to see yet, but don’t worry- there’s a sequel promised, so you can decide now not to see that one, and write your own review of it right now.

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

Remember that time we went to the fish market, and I kept saying this is so stupid, this is so cliche, this is so tourist. And you just laughed and charged forward, like you knew exactly what you were doing. You have this way, Marjorie, of making people think you know exactly what you’re doing, even if they can’t figure it out at all. Well now I’m starting to think you have no clue what you’re doing, and you’re too stupid to realize that where you end up is as random as where you thought you were going.

I mean I know you take credit for Wallace, since we met him that same night and he was fascinated by our fish market story. One thing led to another, as they say, and he stills loves me, even after everything. But why should I give you credit. We would have gone to that party anyway. He and I would have talked about something. I was wearing that black dress with the red and yellow flowers on it, the one you gave me after the accident, the one you said you couldn’t wear anymore.

I mean, god damn it, Marjorie, you drove your car into the side of a French restaurant and lost your leg, and you have some people convinced that you somehow meant for that to happen. Not literally, of course, no one thinks you timed it so that drunk driver would side-swipe you and force you to hop the curb. But karmically, Marjorie, karmically, people really do think you wouldn’t have had it any other way. Lost your leg, met Carl in rehab, fell in love, got married. And then when he fell out of the hot air balloon, my god.

People hate you Marjorie, did you know that? They’d never say it, but they do, they must, who loses the love of their life in a freak accident, gets a huge life insurance settlement, only to have it taken away when the insurance company somehow proved your marriage wasn’t legal? No one except you, and what did you do when you opened that letter from the bank, saying they’d taken all the money back plus ten thousand extra for costs? You went and got ice-cream. You said Puppy Park only makes Salted Carmichael once a year and you weren’t going to let something like money keep you away from your favorite. God I could just kill you.

Yes, I said I would always be there for you, and I’m going to stand by that promise. I told you, in the hospital, that I would help you with your artificial leg whenever you wanted me to. I felt so bad, my best friend lost her god damned leg, I had to say something, and you, you smiled, and you said thank you, and you meant it, and you made me feel better. Later, I told Wallace that story, and he said I must really hate you for that. I never realized it before. I do. I hate you so much, Marjorie.

You told me that you can’t wear dresses, because of the artificial leg. You said it was ironic that you had to wear pants, clothes that show off legs, and that you can’t wear clothes that hide legs. I still don’t know what the hell you were talking about. Remember, I asked you, So explain shorts to me then. And you made that sweet smile with the wet eyes, the face you make when you’re finally feeling pain for a change. I can’t get that face you of my head.

I’ll tell you what happened. Wallace told me that he loves his baby girl but he hates his ex-wife for forcing him to be a dad. I just wanted to make him happy. I thought to myself, what would Marjorie do? What would sweet happy-go-lucky Marjorie do? What would stupid one-legged flighty miss Marjorie do? So I told his ex that Wallace was giving their daughter funny looks. And I thought of your sweet smile and your wet eyes.

I swear I made it up. I swear I had no idea. And now Wallace is in jail. And it’s your fault, Marjorie, it’s your fault. You want to take credit for Wallace, then take all the credit. Do you know what they did to him in prison? He says he still loves me, and now I don’t know if that makes me happy, or if it makes me feel filthy.

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

He’s sitting in a house he built himself, out of an old grain silo. It’s actually pretty boss; the problem is, he has no snacks. And he needs snacks, fucking snacks, stat.

There are no, for example, Cheetos. No Doritos. No Fritos. Is it crunchy, does it end with -tos? It’s not in his boss house. God damn it.

The first floor is nothing much to look at. A hole busted through the wall, dirt floor, lots of junk and bric-a-brack all piled up, higgledy-piggeldy. Old prams, broken chairs, stacks of lumber from the build, cans of dried paints. Obviously absent: Ho-hos, Ding-Dongs, Twinkies, anything at all made by Hostess, Little Debbie, or their ilk. But there is a staircase against the round wall, and it goes up through ceiling fifteen feet above.

Popcorn: nope. Cheezits: nope. Hardwood floors of polished mahogany: yes. Windows, triple-pain glass: yes. Gorgeous view of a stunning landscape: no. Rather mediocre view of farm building and an old tornado-wrecked house: yes. Can you eat these things? Fucking no.

On this floor there’s a largish area with rugs and couches and a television. Bookcases hide the stairs that came up. Next a few walls go up eight feet, a half-bath, as they call it, there’s a kitchen area. This is the area of doom and gloom, at least today. It has no Funyuns, no cheese cubes, no Lil’ Smokies. There’s a pantry with ingredients, but ingredients aren’t snacks. Cans of things and bags of things and boxes of things. Edible? Strictly only. Enjoyable? You kiss your mother with that mouth?

In the middle of the room, a spiral staircase that goes up to the third floor. Bedroom on one side, study-cum-office on the other, large bathroom in between. This is not an exercise in irony. There’s not going to be suddenly lots of Twizzlers and Gino’s Pizza Rolls stashed in secret nooks and crannies. The bed-side tables flanking the California King. The air-craft carrier-sized desk. The jacuzzi tub, the separate shower with room enough for five peoples. If only there were five people in it now, carrying buckets of chicken wings.

The bedroom area on one side, the office on the other, the bathroom in between along the wall, and opposite that, what could be called either a very steep set of stairs or a lazy ladder. It goes up to the fourth floor. A gym, sort of, a hobby area, sort of. Is he into small appliance repair, as a hobby? Say, vintage Easy-Bake Ovens, with fudge brownie packets to test that the repair was successful? Or perhaps old Sno-Cone Machines? For godsakes, maybe even a box full of old candy wax-lips to make the world’s first edible candle? Fuck me in the ass right now.

The gym area has a treadmill but no Gatorade Chews, a weight bench but no Power Bars, an exercise bike but no Energy Goo. There’s a sound system and a TV screen for distraction. Go ahead, turn on the TV, get distracted from the lack of bowls of salted peanuts with commercials of bowls salted peanuts.

There’s one more floor, and a proper ladder this time, and the ladder goes up to the roof. Oh don’t worry. It’s protected on all sides by a three-foot railing, so you can’t accidentally fall off from lack of energy from lack of snacks. If you ever heard a story about an amateur astronomer who keeps a decent-sized telescope in a large water-proof footlocker on top of a boss house made out of an old grain silo who also kept in the locker bags of Peanut M&Ms, you’re experiencing what we call pure mother fucking fiction. He does have the water-proof foot locker, the decent-sized telescope, and he also has mostly overcast nights and a distant but not-distant-enough small town that barfs up an unexpectedly huge amount of light pollution, and whatever the spiritual hole the universe has created to take the place of bags of Peanut M&Ms.

And that’s pretty much it. He gets up, he goes to work, he comes home, he watches TV, makes dinner, does some work in his study, goes to bed. It’s not a bad life. Except for the fact that it’s pretty much the worst life any human being in the history of human beings has ever led. For there are no snacks. There’s no punch-line to this, there’s no moral, there’s no revelation. If there were, he’d eat those instead. Instead, he just sits on the dirt floor at the bottom of his boss house made out of an old grain silo and pines and pines and pines.

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

I’ve got the days chores done, so I should be able to get to bed early tonight. Good thing, too, as I’m exhausted. I made the beds, which I thought was going to be easy, but I had to go to three different lumber yards to get the right wood, and the stain at the hardware store was more expensive than I anticipated. And since disasters come in threes: Gloria insisted on 300 count sheets, but my sewing machine could only manage 150, so I had to get a new one. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy with the new one, and I’ll be able to do some things with pants I wasn’t able to do before, I’m just saying, it added to the stress. I suppose I should be thankful I have someone like Gloria in my life, to drive me towards successes like these. She calls herself “your own personal Lady Macbeth, but without all those murders.” She’s a peach.

I made lunch, which isn’t really a chore, except it is when the carrots weren’t the right size and I had to grow new ones. An otherwise good salad can be ruined by wrong-sized carrots, and it’s not just Gloria who says that. Other people do too, I’m sure. Still, it’s not every day that you are required to grow an entire season’s worth of carrots in just a few hours, which I guess is why I can’t call it a chore– chores are daily, aren’t they. The good news is I managed such a great crop that we have appropriately sized carrots for several meals to come, and that’s thanks also to the refrigerator I built. Ever smelt aluminum? I don’t recommend it, as a hobby.

But if you’re going to do something, do it right, I say. I washed the dishes, using good old elbow grease and a sponge this time. No power-washer for me. And I can really tell the difference too. Whereas before, when I used the power-washer, the radio signals we were getting from Cygnus-11 were kind of fuzzy. The computer I was using could see through the fuzz (programmed it myself) but I wondered how many picojoules of electricity I could save if it didn’t have to run those algorithms. picojoules add up when you spend most of your free time strapped to bar running circles to power a generator.

So, got the dishes washed, the signal is crystal clear now, and as we suspected (well, as Gloria suspected, since she’s the smart one, and I’m just grateful that she takes the time to explain things to me– the way she holds the knife helps) the patterns coming from C11 are not random, not if you solve for gravitational waves to the 12th decimal. I admit it, I was stopping at 10, and my excuse, that I had 40 acres to plow by hand was a lame one. Like it takes any mental effort to plow! Two birds, Gloria always says, and she’s right. See the result! At the 12th decimal place the pattern emerges, and so all that’s left is to put together a faster-than-light engine to get there before next Sunday and see who’s talking.

And here’s why I’m going to need to get to bed a bit early tonight. Technically, the laws of physics don’t allow for faster than light travel. Or, as Gloria puts it, the laws of physics don’t allow for faster than light travel yet. It’s really a simple matter of discovering new laws or, basically, new physics. Which is what I’ll be doing all day tomorrow.

Gloria’s a card. I promised I would do exactly that, “work on it all day” and she said “when you find the new laws, you can make it so you only worked on it for a few minutes, can’t you?” I laughed, and she did too. She’s such a good sport. I know she doesn’t like it, much, the idea of a project getting done in only a few minutes. I can see where she’s coming from. Sure, one can “buy” a bed, one can “buy” sheets, one can “read” SETI’s latest findings based out of their own arrays scattered around the world… but easy come, easy go, as they say. If you don’t work for something, does it have any value?

Actually, I’m going to let you in on a little secret– I’ve already worked out the equations, and I can, in fact, manipulate time sufficient to make any project as short as I like. Or as long. Which is why being with Gloria feels like eternity. ‘Cause it is!

Daily writing exercise, 750words.com

fiction by Jason Edwards

The puissant knight on his mighty steed. Charges down the hill. At the ogre. The vile ogre. The evil, vile ogre. The real, live, evil, vile, ogre. The ogre that lives, does evils, is vile’s beast of burden, never listens to Elvis, rips veils from maidens, is named Silev. Silev the evil, vile, live, veil-snatching Elvis-hating ogre. At the bottom of the hill. Down which hill the puissant knight charges. On his mighty steed. His steed is a charger, and the knight is a charger, and the steed is mighty, puissant as well. A different kind of puissance. Whereas the knight’s puissance is in the manner of arms and war and saving maidens from ogres, the steed’s puissance is the manner of charging, mightily, down hills, at ogres, with knights astride. Knight with lances. That gleam. In the sun! This steed, with this knight. This knight, with this lance. This lance, with his shiny point gleaming in the rising summer sun. As down the hill they go. Charging. At the ogre. Who was probably, at the moment, not listening to Elvis. Perhaps one of those boy bands. One Directions. This Ogre, sitting at a small table with a maiden fair, listening to One Directions on his iPod Nano. A very small table. The maiden fair, dressed in a gown of gossamer and moonlight. Somehow. In the rising morning sun. The ogre and the maiden. Sitting. Sipping tea. A morning tea, like English Breakfast. Also on the table, breakfast. A rasher of. A scramble of. A toasted. In a glass, Ovaltine. In another glass, Tang. In another glass, a good breakfast drinking chocolate. Something from Spain. Something Spanish. Imported. For this hill is not in Spain. Nay. This knight is not of that land they call Espania. Nay. Nor this maiden fair. The ogre? Who knows. Who knows where evil, vile, etc ogres come from. From where they hail. Maybe Hell. Maybe he’ll hail hell when he hears the puissant knight astride his mighty steed charging down the hill. For now, all he hears is One Directions. Nor does he see the knight. The mighty knight. And his puissant steed. All he sees is the maiden fair, the blush of her cheek, the rosy blush on her breast ‘neath her gown of gossamer and moonlight. For that is all he can see. For the maiden-fair is not exactly the most diminutive specimen in the world. She is not exactly the wee-est lass upon the land. She’s not the smallest gal in the shoppe. She’s actually quite large. In a word, mighty. In two words, very substantial. In four words, a whole lotta woman, right there. She also hates Elvis, but for different reason from the (evil, recall) ogre. For whereas the (vile, to be sure) ogre hates Elvis for reasons sartorial, the maiden fair, gargantuan and practically nude here at the hill-bottom breakfast table, wolfing down bacon n eggs n toast n tea n ‘tine n tang, hates Elvis for reasons conspiratorial. For whereas the ogre hates Elvis and prefers One Directions for the cut of their jibs, the maiden-fair who grows ever larger by the moment is of the theory that Elvis faked the moon landing. If you were to, say, charge down a hill of outrage upon a mighty steed of logic wielding a rather phallic lance of evidence at this maiden fair, making sure in advance that she was not only willing but eager, for it would never do to save from ogres maidens who, in this day in age, are perfectly able to “save” themselves, whatever the hell that means, thank you very much, without express written consent, and only after a period of reflection, mediation, contemplation, and concentration on that classic Zen Koan: “What Does Evil Love.” And who’s to say that, having pierced the maiden-head of her conspiracy theories that you won’t have impregnated her with, one the one hand, the truth, but on the other hand, a babe that bears half her originally-hating Elvis DNA? Such an innocent “bae” as they say would grow up, verily, conflicted. Given to conflict. To, say, fighting. To, say, battles. To which it would become, let us say, accustomed. And acclimated. And skilled at. Knowledgable of. Prepared for. Armed to enage. With, say, a lance. And a horse. And what is a lance, and a horse, without a hill, and an ogre. And what is an ogre, without evil. And what is evil, without Elvis and One Directions, a kind of breakfast. Of Champions!