The human mind is a worktable, about four feet in length. Some superior intelligences are about six feet long. One time I was cornered by a culture critic at a benefit dinner who might have been six and a half feet. Regardless, all human minds are three feet in width.
On the table are a hammer, a chisel, a saw or two (depending on the versatility of your studies), sandpaper, screws, nails and sundry items. You can build things with these. You can fix things with these. Most people will also use these to break things in half and bang on them.
Altogether, this 4x3 table with various utilities is your mind. When ready, you drop the problems of the world on it.
When this happens they rip the roof off of your garage and drop a sperm whale on your table. It is not a miniature sperm whale, nor a baby sperm whale. It is a full adult female, hurtling down on your table-mind. The sperm whale here represents all the problems of the world, but they are complex and so it is difficult to anatomize what organ represents what problem. It would be silly to assign poverty to the liver or overpopulation to the reproductive organs. However I believe we are all silly and tired enough to agree that taxes are the blowhole. It is such a large thing that you cannot see if the problems of the world were dropped upon you by a skyhook or a crane. Your 4x3 (or if you’re lucky, 6x3) worktable is crushed beneath the whale.
I’ve thought it over with my roughly 3.5x3 mind, and the only flaw I see to this metaphor is that in real life you don’t get to set up your table before they drop the whale on it.
Tuesday, July 7, 2009
Monday, July 6, 2009
Bathroom Monologue: Unexpected Aquatic Protection
“I’m going to admit up front, not a lot of people would dig a mote around their RV. But that’s why they won’t expect it. Assassins will sneak up in the night, figuring on solid footing, and ba’am! Into the jaws of hungry baby alligators. They’ve got to be babies, since I couldn’t really dig a big mote on short notice. Plus, last time I tried digging a big one I sort of forgot to put on the break and rolled into it mid-festivities with my wife. Don’t know which was worse – paying for the new suspension on that thing, or the adult alligator getting in through the rear window. I miss my nephew…”
Sunday, July 5, 2009
Bathroom Monologue: Going to the Good Battle
Going to the Good Battle
Ron broke his fast at dawn. As he cooked the eggs he wondered murky thoughts. Why had he never dedicated that nightly period when he didn’t eat to the gods? Sleep made him fast anyway, so why not hand them the honor? While the men ate, he dedicated their meal to the gods. When he marched with the rest of the troops for Ral’Hom, to fight the good battle, he dedicated the walk to the gods as well. There was no prayer or symbol. The actions drifted into the ether like any others, save that they were earmarked by a thought.
Ron had always abstained from tributes, but that morning came a question – not a revelation, but a mere question. If the gods were good and necessary as he’d heard, then were not all his good and necessary actions for them? As the troop passed through a mill town, a girl gave him a dipper of water. He thanked her, and wondered as he marched on if he had not thanked the gods in that same sentence. Were not the gods served by the millers baking honey bread and sweet beer to joy up the nights? Were they not served with every meal? Back at Braintree, up the road from his house, where the scholars studied powders and cures, was not every laboratory test and attempted equation was not a prayer? Was father, the great mathematician, more religious than he knew?
His theological epiphany lasted until that afternoon’s good battle, which was not good or godly at all. Never, even in his agnostic years, had he felt so distant from the gods as when tore into another man. He lived, though, and there would be more questions.
Ron broke his fast at dawn. As he cooked the eggs he wondered murky thoughts. Why had he never dedicated that nightly period when he didn’t eat to the gods? Sleep made him fast anyway, so why not hand them the honor? While the men ate, he dedicated their meal to the gods. When he marched with the rest of the troops for Ral’Hom, to fight the good battle, he dedicated the walk to the gods as well. There was no prayer or symbol. The actions drifted into the ether like any others, save that they were earmarked by a thought.
Ron had always abstained from tributes, but that morning came a question – not a revelation, but a mere question. If the gods were good and necessary as he’d heard, then were not all his good and necessary actions for them? As the troop passed through a mill town, a girl gave him a dipper of water. He thanked her, and wondered as he marched on if he had not thanked the gods in that same sentence. Were not the gods served by the millers baking honey bread and sweet beer to joy up the nights? Were they not served with every meal? Back at Braintree, up the road from his house, where the scholars studied powders and cures, was not every laboratory test and attempted equation was not a prayer? Was father, the great mathematician, more religious than he knew?
His theological epiphany lasted until that afternoon’s good battle, which was not good or godly at all. Never, even in his agnostic years, had he felt so distant from the gods as when tore into another man. He lived, though, and there would be more questions.
Saturday, July 4, 2009
Bathroom Monologue: Ways to Read
The reader reads your book.
The good reader underlines things on your page.
The editor corrects things on your page.
The aspiring writer corrects things on your page, leaves suggestions in-between words, and will rewrite entire sentences in the margins.
The master writer will retype your whole manuscript to get a feel for it, changing words, sentences, paragraphs, back story, conflicts and context on the fly as he discovers how it is that he actually writes from rewriting your book.
The typesetter, dreading all these people, stays as far away from bookstores as possible.
The good reader underlines things on your page.
The editor corrects things on your page.
The aspiring writer corrects things on your page, leaves suggestions in-between words, and will rewrite entire sentences in the margins.
The master writer will retype your whole manuscript to get a feel for it, changing words, sentences, paragraphs, back story, conflicts and context on the fly as he discovers how it is that he actually writes from rewriting your book.
The typesetter, dreading all these people, stays as far away from bookstores as possible.
Friday, July 3, 2009
“It was his turn” on Blink Ink
Blink Ink has accepted "It was his turn" for e-publication. It's a tweaked version of a 55-word story from last year, about a magician who vanished - and it wasn't part of his act. You can read it here: http://blink-ink.com/content/2009/07/it-was-his-turn/
Bathroom Monologue: Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody…
A bride with a bloody gown and knives for fingers stood in Chantal’s door. Her lipless mouth grinned, asking, “You said Bloody Mary in the mirror three times on October 29, 1984, right?”
Chantal ran for the window, but it was stuck shut. One serrated finger slid up her shoulder and neck, until it caressed her ear.
“The folktale that I come for anyone who mocks my name in the mirror is true. I just never said when.”
Chantal ran for the window, but it was stuck shut. One serrated finger slid up her shoulder and neck, until it caressed her ear.
“The folktale that I come for anyone who mocks my name in the mirror is true. I just never said when.”
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Devil Gone Missing on Thrillers, Killers & Chillers
My flash story, "Devil Gone Missing," is story of the day over at Thrillers, Killers & Chillers. It's about something that happened in a dump, because dumps are scarier than supermarkets. You can check it out here: http://thrillskillsnchills.blogspot.com/2009/07/devil-gone-missing-by-john-wiswell.html
Stories set in supermarkets are pending.
Stories set in supermarkets are pending.
Bathroom Monologue: Two Horns, Six Sentences
The agent said they could cut off one of their horns and increase their chances at marketability. Unicorns were always in demand, but “bicorn” sounded like a farm subsidy. Most of them refused self-mutilation to masquerade as their more popular cousins, and stood by their virtue as a taller, sturdier breed with natural handholds for children who wished to ride them through dreams. All their endorsement deals fell through save one with a glue company, and when a protestor explained to them why they’d gotten the deal, they were pretty angry.
Anyway, that’s why those beautiful steeds are down there amongst the army of darkness. Hell gave them work when little girls wouldn’t even draw them on their notebooks.
Anyway, that’s why those beautiful steeds are down there amongst the army of darkness. Hell gave them work when little girls wouldn’t even draw them on their notebooks.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Channel Surfing
I watched twenty minutes of 28 Days Later on the TV, waiting for my favorite bit, where the camera pans back in the church to reveal the note from survivors of the apocalypse, which reads: "THE END IS EXTREMELY FUCKING NIGH."
Having seen my favorite bit, I switch channels and get some kind of documentary on Ronald Reagan, who says, amidst background laughter, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”
I change the channel up to the triple digits to flee this coincidence, only to find a gaunt man on a rooftop, holding a dry-erase board over his head with the question: "WHAT’S THE BAD NEWS?"
Desolate music swells behind him and I change the TV to anything else, and this anything else turns out to be the recently departed Charlton Heston bursting through a door and screaming, "Soylent Green is people!"
I turn off the TV, rub my eyes and wish there was some way I could share this with others.
Having seen my favorite bit, I switch channels and get some kind of documentary on Ronald Reagan, who says, amidst background laughter, “My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes.”
I change the channel up to the triple digits to flee this coincidence, only to find a gaunt man on a rooftop, holding a dry-erase board over his head with the question: "WHAT’S THE BAD NEWS?"
Desolate music swells behind him and I change the TV to anything else, and this anything else turns out to be the recently departed Charlton Heston bursting through a door and screaming, "Soylent Green is people!"
I turn off the TV, rub my eyes and wish there was some way I could share this with others.
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