Category: Prose

Pulling the Pen

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Daily writing prompt
How do you want to retire?
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SHORT FICTION – PROSE/LIGHT RANT

Harold Shea is an ordinary fellow, as fellows go. He has no grand stories about this girl or that girl. He is a simple chap who eats tuna on toasted rye. Harold and I are clerks at the Ministry of Useless Facts and Random Memories. A person becomes a clerk if they have a knack for remembering and cataloging trivial information. Our job is to sift through old documents and archives, searching for forgotten tidbits of knowledge that may one day prove useful.

Harold is a diligent worker, and he takes pride in his work. He always arrives early and stays late, poring over old manuscripts and dusty tomes. He has a particular fondness for historical trivia and, from time to time, found regaling his coworker Venus Milo with tales of obscure battles and forgotten rulers.

Despite his unremarkable nature and unassuming demeanor, Harold is a valuable member of our team. Without his tireless efforts, many of the useless facts and random memories that we collect would be lost to the sands of time.

Harold is also a kind and thoughtful person. He is always willing to lend a helping hand to his coworkers. Last week, for instance, one of our colleagues was struggling to find a particular piece of information for a project. Harold spent hours searching through old records until he found what she was looking for. He did all of this without expecting anything in return.

Despite his many admirable qualities, Harold is not without his quirks. For one thing, he can be a bit absent-minded at times. On more than one occasion, he has misplaced important documents or forgotten to submit reports on time. However, his forgetfulness is more than made up for by his enthusiasm and dedication.

Everything changed about six months ago. I came into the office, and everyone was in a tizzy. It isn’t like it was the first time the office was in this state. Harold usually got things in order rather quickly. However today, no Harold. He has never been late a day in thirty years. I tended to the disaster but never took my mind off what could have possibly happened to Harold. Then I was called into the Director’s office.

“Thank you for sorting out that dreadful mess.” said the Director

“It was nothing, Ma’am,” I replied.

“Harold?” She asked. I shrugged and walked out.

After stopping by Harold’s weekly for the next six months, I received a package at the Ministry. The package sat on my desk for another month before I remembered it. When I opened the package, there was a letter from Harold.

Dear Seamus,
I know this package has been sitting on your desk for about a month. I’m well. Venus and I have retired and living in my favorite place. Do you remember? Of course you do, you don’t forget anything. I miss you, ole chap. I haven’t had a decent conversation in months. Perhaps, you can down and keep Venus and me company.

~H

Well, that rascal, I thought. I had no idea that he and Venus had a thing. Why wouldn’t he tell me?

I guess there are a lot of things to consider when you’re thinking about “Pulling the Pen.”

REBLOG: Momoerty’s Latest

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Such a powerful and empowering piece. Take a few moments to read this…

Word of the Day Challenge

My Monster’s Prisoner

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I’ve always been held to a higher standard. I’ve never been allowed to release the monster inside. Unbeknownst to the masses, their actions feed him, and he’s full. Due to the fact others don’t live by the standards they set. So, I sit here trapped in a case. For I’m my monster’s prisoner.

~thank you for reading~

The Day I Lost My Courage

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SHORT ESSAY – REFLECTION

I never dreamed I had what it took to become a writer. It was more than the usual self-doubt, more like an evaluation of my skills. My mastery of the language was smattering at best. Writing for myself was the only way to feel the joy I desperately desired. My sketches were rudimentary, but I still enjoyed the process occasionally. However, writing is the thing that gets my motor running, as they say. Even after becoming a widower, I kept writing; I began my first novel within the first month. Over the next three years, I took loss after loss. Though wretched like a tsunami with no quarter, I continued to write.

Despite all this tragedy, I created a poetry show and taught workshops about writing poetry. In many ways, my writing career had begun to take off. Then one day, I felt a little off. It felt different than previous experiences of this sort, so I went to the doctor. I was fully prepared to be told I was suffering from several underlining symptoms of my PTSD. It’s peculiar how once you have a diagnosis of something, it becomes the cause of EVERYTHING that ails you. However, today was different; the physician stated

“although unlikely, but it is probable.”

Really, bro? This is how you’re going to start things off? I screamed in my head but gave a tempered response, “I see; when will the test results return?”

A couple days later, I got the news. A confirmation of something I already knew to be true. The doctor had a lot to say, but the only thing I heard was

~You have Cancer~

He was still talking. Still, I heard nothing. Then, my once-decent vocabulary was reduced to one-syllable words.

“Well damn!”

“Fuck!”

“Okay, Okay”

“Fuck!”

The doctor finally stopped talking and ended the call. There was a numbness that took hold, and I can’t quite remember feeling much after that. It seemed as if this feeling was my permanent state for the next couple of years. Even through everything, I was just numb. I befriended people I would never have and shared things usually kept private.

It was as if I didn’t recognize myself. It was me talking to these strangers and sharing these private things. Something was wrong. It wasn’t just me, for I share the wisdom of their secrets in the lines I write. As if it is my duty or something I can’t quite name or describe, to share what is learned in the space between clarity and confusion.

Even now, years later, I can’t tell what I’ve learned. Perhaps, as I write these lines and others like them, lessons will become clear. It took me years to talk about my experience, years to write, and years to share.

I could talk about this experience forever; perhaps I will share more one day. However, for now, I’ll share my feelings about the news that day. Tell you how it stripped away my courage. Slowly tearing away the essence of my existence. I barely wrote a word after that. Somehow, I felt I’d had this coming. I deserved this fate.

Somedays, I hear the echoes of the haunting memories of that man. I’d love to say I’ve shed its torment and walked around free. That wouldn’t be honest. It took me years to regain my courage. With a bit of luck, I can maintain it. We all know luck is all a person needs if their courage holds.

~thank you for reading~

Station Break

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It’s the start of the concert season for my friends and I. They have been to several shows already, but finally dragged my butt away from my laptop and notebooks. I managed to sneak one with me. Out of habit, I pulled it to take notes about the show. My buddy, gives me an evil look….oops, my bad

Pointfest

Momentary Lapse of Reason

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In other words, I lost my damn mind

PROSE – REFLECTION

She could have been here; if she wanted. She could have been here; if it meant something. I knew her words were hollow when she spewed them; I heard their echo, such a haunting sound. Still, I hoped that I was wrong. I hoped what I heard was some psychotic break. Is there a sound you hear when this happens? Is it something dismissed, resolved, or mocked with six hundred dollars an hour, a sofa, and a pill? Yea, you know that shit that gets you hooked, but you need to believe you are free. So I sit here, waiting for the doorbell to chime, waiting to hear that familiar melody. The melody, which ends the silence, ends the loneliness. Yet the silence thickens, and the depths of loneliness have no bounds.

With a click, strike, and spark, the tobacco crackles as I take a drag to forget about the pain.

Yeah, she wanted me to get up and come running. She wanted me to stand in line like the others. Suitors plenty, but real men are few. She wanted me to be someone I had never been. She wanted to be someone; if she took the time to know me, she’d know I could never be. Yet, in her delusion, she wanted me to fall in line, like the wiry snake-eyed fellow whose lips were in a constant state of pucker against her gluteus maximus. Her leg would shudder when he kissed it just right. Often, I wondered if he was part fish, Bluegill. Trout?

Then there was the portly fellow whose clothes were two sizes larger than needed. An attempt to hide his predilection for Ho-Ho’s and Ding-Dong’s, but their melted remnants on his lapel and in the corner of his mouth told the tale. I couldn’t resist imagining him as Wimpy from the old cartoon; I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a Ding-Dong today. Since he was always eating them, I wondered how he pulled it off. But, of course, everyone knew he didn’t have a job.

Perhaps, I was the well-dressed fellow who would unleash this girlish giggle every time he hit the blunt. I couldn’t help but picture him in pigtails with pink ribbons in his mouth, chewing on the ends. He sported a five o’clock shadow like it was still something stylish. Maybe for some, but him not a good look. I couldn’t help but wonder if he was wearing socks with lace around the top. I do believe it would complete the look.

I exhale to relieve the strain. I exhale to let go. I exhale to be one step closer to the sanity to which I cling; I exhale.

But I wasn’t any of them. I was a man whose name was spoken in reverence barely above a whisper. There wasn’t a need to speak; people were satisfied with a nod. I know what it means to love a woman for your entire life and be the better. I know how it feels to grab hold of someone, and they grab you back. Never letting go, hearing what their eyes speak when their mouths fail utter a word. Our bodies trembling from its power, our souls quivering, like the Earth shaking beneath your feet. I know one can only get there with love and respect for one another. No plastic smiles, and hollow sentiments can take their place—an honor reserved for the special and the elite, Real men and women. For anyone else, your attendance is futile. Perhaps, one day she will understand. But I know what I really want to know. What has my curiosity stirring? How the hell did she ever get things so twisted?

I stub the cigarette out; the embers glow bright, then fade, and the smoke dissipates.

I know the answer. I had a momentary lapse of reason.

~thank you for reading~

A Moment of Desperation

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PROSE – RANDOM THOUGHT

Perhaps I’ve reached an all-time low. I spent considerable time sending out a barrage of inbox marriage proposals. In these proposals, I removed the obligation of sex, hoping to sweeten the pot. I figured taking sex off the table would increase the number of acceptance. I figured surely one of these candidates would say yes, right? The next morning, my inbox was overflowing with responses. However, all I got in the inbox was filled with laughter.

I received several images of women’s reactions to my proposal. I even got a sexually explicit image with block letters informing me I would never get what was displayed in the image. Sitting back, thinking as I closed my laptop, the whole affair was rather hilarious—the idea of someone marrying a guy like me.

Things that Happen in the Shadows

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The Shadow Journal

March 8, 2023

Truth or Happiness? Never both …

The first time I heard this phrase, I thought it fell into the hukum jazz people say. Yeah, but something about it grabbed hold of me. So, I sat down and let it speak. I felt ready with a pack of Luckies and a cup of java. I added a notebook and pen, just in case. Because you never know what will happen when you sift through fragments of random memories.

Taught to carefully example each fragment; I’m a dutiful student. I came up with the following:

The truth; the world is full of lies we are willing to accept.

Society acts as if we are okay when poverty is an addiction, and there’s rehab on every corner. Right next to the package store and across the street from the church.

On the bench at the bus stop was a man with a two-tone beard singing a melody of the Pretenders, Tom Petty, and ELO with a Gregory Issac flavor. A member of “the gap,” those who make too much money for benefits and not enough to live, stares straight into the madness of their existence.

Perhaps, Denial and Distraction are Huey Lewis’s new drug. Take a hearty dose of Denial, a familiar favorite, while waiting in line for the latest and greatest in distraction served happily in this free tablet.

~thank you for reading~

the bucket list

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What place in the world do you never want to visit? Why?

To me, this is a loaded question. Like there is just one place on this Earth, you would like to avoid. As if you randomly hear of a place and automatically decide never to travel there ever. Since I have traveled a great deal in my life, the question could be, where in the world you never want to visit again.

However, since that isn’t the question, I suppose I should act right and answer the question straight. HA! Anyone, who knows me, knows as an absolute certainty, except on the rarest occasions, I will not answer a writing prompt straight. Today is no exception.

So, here we are without any further preamble. I humbly present …

~the bucket list~

Places with strange names:

  • Topeka, Kansas – I don’t have a solid reason for this one other than I don’t like how they feel when I form them in my mouth. I’m saying aloud over and over right now. Just to make sure it wasn’t a strange occurrence that happens. Yep, I’m certain; still not happening.
  • Bone Gap Illinois – I’m unsure if this place still exists. It might have changed its name. As a child, we read the phone book. You read it right, “reading the phone book” presented hours of fun making fun of the strange names of people, companies, and towns. Who names their town that?
  • Jim Falls, Wisconsin – I stay away from this town simply because when I think of “Jim Falls,” “Where ?” Immediately pops into my mind. Then, ENTER the RABBIT HOLE. Then a seemingly endless list of questions forms in my head. “How is he?”, “What happened?”, “Has anyone fall-proofed his house?”Must I continue, or do you get the point?
  • Slidell, Louisiana – I knew a woman from there once. Yeaaahhh…NO!

Places that may have Cannibalism in their history:

Normally, this would be a thing, but I was planning a vacation with my lady, and she had a list of disqualifiers. Cannibalism was on the list. I can’t say this request is completely unreasonable. I’m a big guy. I have concerns. With a little googling, these names stuck out to me.

  • Cambodia
  • Liberia
  • Congo

Places with a large monkey population:

While you are shaking your head at my response. You know you heard of Planet of the Apes, both versions; don’t play with me. Monkeys like to throw things at people. I’ve been a person who enjoyed things being thrown at them. I know me; I don’t do animal cruelty. So, it’s just best I stay away. These places stood out.

  • Costa Rica
  • Brazil
  • Thailand

There you have it, my Top 3 of my bucket list of places not to go to ever.

Welcome to Madness

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I am known as Mangus Khan. My life has been a turning page in a dime store novel. Nothing steadily grabbing your attention, but enough to keep you interested. Writing for me, is one of those gifts the Master gives, during the time he is putting together the pieces that make you. Like anything in life, talent is never enough. We must work hard at developing the gifts we have been bestowed. This means that we must dig deep; past our fear, past our doubts, and become the best at whatever we are meant to be. Does this mean that you are the next Ellison, Hemingway, Mosley, Morrison, or Angelou just waiting to be discovered? Perhaps you are? Who really knows? However, we can never be discovered by leaving our work, on the pages of closed binding.

Each word, every sentence, and each verse of The Memoirs of Madness, are exactly like that for me. It never was meant to entertain you, but if it has, rock on. It was never meant to captivate you, but if it did, hold on; we just got started. It is simply my heart and soul on a page for all to see. It is an expression of my thoughts, my fears, and my secrets. In its pages, I tell the story of those who cannot speak, or don’t know how. I never imagined through telling their stories, I would wind up telling my own. I am just a simple man with a pen, who writes the Memoirs of Madness.