Another Friday

Robinson Lewis woke up feeling every one of his 82 years. Eighty Three he corrected. Today’s my birthday. He sighed at the thought of this.

He rolled over and managed to sit up. He had slept poorly. He took care in standing up and shuffled towards the kitchen and the promise of a cup of coffee.

One reason for his poor sleep was that, after what seemed like his 25th trip to the bathroom after going to bed, he fell asleep on the couch watching TV. Damn Water Pills. he groused to himself.

He jabbed his finger at the kitchen padd and flicked his fingers upwards to dismiss the advertisement – something about some new type of personal conveyance powered by electricity and Hydrogen from BMW.   “The All New Hindenburg” he said “Brought to you by those nice people who gave you the Luftwaffe and World War II.” He smiled at his own joke until he realized that there was nobody anywhere around him who might get it. Few remembered BMW stood for Bavarian Motor Works, and fewer still thought of World War II as anything other than a subject of history classes. Except for Minnie, she’d know.

Learning the fundamentals

So here I am writing my 3rd Blog post. Yes, third. I didn’t bother to read anything on WordPress before I made my first post as I was just looking to post a short piece of fiction I had written so that I could share it to an IRL writing group to read at their leisure. But now I had another piece I wanted to share and I saw the opportunity of learning about what I am doing on WP so I signed up to learn the fundamentals of blogging via their online course.

Per the WP email – Step 1: publish a “who I am and why I’m here” post.

Who I am: Son, Brother, Husband, Father to 2 and aspiring author.

Why am I here: Much more complicated. As a child, I loved the vast number of creative outlets and freedom of expression I had. Now, as an adult, I find that my time is more limited, my energy more taxed by daily routines and worries, and creative outlets are virtually none.

Damn Dog

Here is a story I wrote for a creative writing class, not particularly good, but I love Berkowitz (The dog).   —PRB

Exhausted from a day that started too early and too many hours before, Ian did not notice the letter on the table despite the fact that he dropped his bag right beside it.

He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out a half-gallon carton of milk.

As vulgar as it was, he knew that there were no clean glasses in the cupboard. The aged dishwasher had gone through its death throes last week and gave up the ghost four days ago.

Dirty dishes overflowed from the sink, which served as the front line in the battle of wills in the ongoing sibling war that was now going into its 6th year. Would this battle be lost out of revulsion or necessity? The microwave had prolonged this skirmish. Heating had replaced cooking entirely.

As a nod to decency, Ian did not place his lips directly on the container, but rather poured the milk into his mouth from about 2 inches above.

A steady beat on his leg caused him to stop pouring and look down.

Some Scars Don’t Show

A friend of mine had the idea of collecting some short stories from his author friends that all centered around a single theme: Pain. Here was my submission. 

—PRB.

I’ve never been shot. Nor have I ever shot anybody. These are facts. I say them with neither pride nor shame. It’s just the way that it is. It is what it is.

Don’t get me wrong, I have WANTED to shoot a few people in my time, and I think that there are a few people in this world that don’t know how lucky they are that at the time of some interaction with me that I did not have access to a weapon, but, again, it is what it is.

I’ve wondered what it feels like to be shot. In the arm or leg. Never hitting a bone or major artery or organ. Nothing serious, just wonder does it hurt more than the pain of say stepping on a nail (awful), or passing a Kidney Stone (worse)? When I was a kid I cut off the very tip of my right thumb with a table saw. Just the fleshy end – maybe  1/8 of an inch and a good bit of the thumbnail, and that hurt like hell on earth. Does a bullet make that same kind of pain? They had to take a skin graft from the inside/underside of my bicep. That didn’t hurt because of the drugs they gave me in the hospital. But, it is what it is.