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September 11, 2005

Volume 6, Issue 11

Something has been taken from you. What is it?

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Comments

"We don't talk anymore," he said.

"Maybe we have nothing to talk about," she said.

"Mmm." He looked at the street. "You've changed."

She laughed. "So have you!" she said.

"You're drinking, you stopped volunteering, you have this - I dunno, this provincial anger - "

"Don't judge me. I'm doing well."

"Something's missing. Did someone do it to you? If someone took something from you, take it back. Isn't that what we used to say?"

She put down her glass and punched him. He sniffed, grinned, and punched her back.

She walked away, angry.

"Don't you stop believing," he said. "I won't."

Posted by: G-Do at September 11, 2005 8:27 AM · Permalink

"Come on, man, where's your sense of decency?" He strained against the ropes holding him in the chair.

"Fresh out," I replied, sending a jacketed .40 caliber slug into his right knee, shattering bone and shredding cartilage. He screamed again, and I asked calmly, "Where is it?"

"Have mercy!"

"All used up." Left kneecap, same treatment. "Where is it?" I asked when he stopped screaming.

"Please, have pity!" he wailed.

"No," I replied, firing again, shattering his left shoulder. "One more and you'll be a rag doll the rest of your life."

"I ate it ... I ate your damned Snickers..."

Posted by: hnumpah at September 11, 2005 10:21 AM · Permalink

I had had it.

I posted every day this week, for God's sake, and my stuff got dissed. Totally. Every piece rated zero or below. I felt lower than Nessman and needed more band-aids than he had ever worn for all the cuts I was inflicting on myself with each rejection.

I lost all patience. Gone. Gone, gone, gone. Damn it.

I spat at the screen, cursed the editors, deleted the blasted bookmark, and swore never to back. That was this morning. This afternoon I was back, typing, gritting my teeth and wishing, pretty please. God damn it.

Posted by: bgfay at September 11, 2005 10:50 AM · Permalink

For a thousand years, my ancestors worked to create the ultimate invention; a device that would, once and for all, eliminate the sole obstacle to astronomical perfection. Countless generations tried, but I alone succeeded.

And now it is gone. Stolen. Worse, my repeated attempts to retrieve it inevitably fail.

But as I tie my shoelaces and position my helmet at a rakish angle, I swear once again that I will never give up.

The Illudium Pew-36 Explosive Space Modulator will be mine! And I alone will be the Martian who finally destroys the Earth that blocks our view of Venus.

Posted by: Jim Parkinson at September 11, 2005 1:46 PM · Permalink

Lately, I've been feeling a tad bit... off. I don't really know how to describe it, but it just feels like something is missing. Something I can't quite put my finger on. And then, I look at my notebooks. My last entry is dated around the middle of last month. I don't like that. I used to write stories everyday. Sure, they were kind of odd, but... I wrote. One of my favourites was a fictional memoir, but I didn't finish. Almost as if I had stopped for a soda, and never restarted.

I think my muse has left me.

Posted by: Edminster at September 11, 2005 8:25 PM · Permalink