Perhaps you have heard of the restoration of Tally Ho, an English sailboat that won the Fastnet race in 1927, and was recently rebuilt by Leo Sampson in Port Townsend. Every single piece of wood in a 52' boat replaced with new, one piece at a time. Way more work than starting from scratch, but, we're talking the soul of the boat here. A brand new boat from scratch would not have the same soul. I realize this is a bit beyond where you were going with this, or maybe not. Now, the same analogy with a person is something else. Maybe, but remember all our molecules or whatever replace themselves every 7 years or so anyway. So, if you break up with someone and then get back together after 10 years say, are they the same person or a new person?
I think some of my molecules are lagging behind, Tod. But your comment made me pause to consider all the money people spend on trying to turn back the inexorable ravages of time. When it’s all going to be replaced anyway…
A seven year project, the first two Leo worked mostly alone, then gradually gained enough subscribers he could hire people. One unique thing - I've watched every video - is he often showcases individual craftsmen and their work. This is pretty rare today, as are true craftsmen and women ( there are many female shipwrights in Port Townsend) and people just ate it up - Read some of the comments and you see the story brought thousands of people to tears as the project came to completion . Tally Ho is on the cover of Woodenboat magazine this month.
weirdly, we get Woodenboat magazine! (well, PKT gets it. His dad was a boat guy and several of his boats can be rented at the Wooden Boat Center on Lake Union in Seattle). So i'll take a look at that issue. So many videos--what a beautiful project.
That is amazing! I sent it on to my Dad. It's rare that I find something on the internet to interest him, but I think this one's a winner. Thanks for sharing!
That's moving and disturbing, with Floyd's morning coffee right in there with his parts slowly disappearing. Then the metaphor crowned with "the ship of you". Great guns!
Theseus, who got a clue from Ariadne, then forgot her, leaving her on an island and sailing on, forgetting that he should change his sails from black to white so his father, watching from the battlements, would know he had triumphed over the Minotaur and was alive, and so his father read the black-sail signal and leaped into the sea and drowned. What a story.
A wonderful fresco from Pompeii of Theseus coming out of the labyrinth and looking amazed:
I am not joking when I say that you know everything. And it's wonderful. What a story--I didn't know that one. I've got huge gaps in my knowledge base.
I'm finding that children will pay rapt attention to stories from Greek mythology. (Which gives me a chance to fill some of the woeful gaps in my knowledge base.)
So much mystery. Why does Theseus just plain forget the lovely Ariadne, who saved his life? And forget the signal for his father, who is driven to suicide? And the gods, always poking their nose in and following their selfish desires. Fascinating.
I love inserting some of the Greek mythological characters and tales in my writing—like the 3 Fates—three women who just show up as though borne on the wind and who know so much. Or—Pythia.
Did you know that our word 'clue' comes from the Ancient Greek for 'wool' or 'thread', after the manner of Ariadne's clue, a ball of thread which traced the exit from the labyrinth.
It makes the hairs stand up on my arm when I learn how some abstract words we have today are borne from either a tangible noun or from the actions of a verb.
"clue" or old-spelling "clew" meant, for many years, a ball or bobbin of thread, twine, etc, before being applied to an element that may help to trace, track, or find one's way, like Ariadne's ball of twine in the Minotaur's maze.
The fantastical plot contrasted with the narrator asking whatever is left of Floyd if he had his morning coffee is my favorite part, along with the last four phrases.
Mary, I can't believe that even in a short sentence story you got me, but you got me! The last bit, where the story twists for me ("and I think, Floyd, I still love you, wherever you are, wherever you’re going, the ship of you still anchored, still holding for now") felt like a punch in the gut. Suddenly I really feel for Floyd!
When we first met on the street, letting our dogs say hello, the third thing she told me was that her first husband hung himself in their basement when they were twenty-nine and how it set her free.
The specificity makes this story live for me. Also wondering but not wanting to know if the first was the weather and the second how their dogs were, before she launched that confession? tale? on the narrator.
What did it matter which way she went through the woods as long as she could find her way back again and meet Daddy searching for her and calling her name so loud, so scared, and she would laugh?
I like the implication that someone is telling her to go in a certain direction and she is dismissing it as immaterial. Which also begs the question, what is so important she is leaving the safety and love of Daddy in the first place? What is she seeking there in the forest? Or, in fact, is she fleeing? Something tells me her fantasy Daddy may not at all be the same as her reality Daddy.
I really don't know anything about this flash fiction. But the questions and doubts it raises (to me) are around something unsettling that is happening at home. Divorce in the air? Daddy will be going away?
"someone is telling her": to me that was all part of her interior monologue. Faced with not knowing where to turn in the deep, dark woods, she reassures herself by thinking it doesn't matter. I think she's about six years old and Daddy better prove he's a good Daddy and find her quick, there are wolves.
The boy had the idea, but he should have known better, being the adult, experienced in boats, with a lifetime albeit not a long life so far, of experience on the water and the local conditions around the islands which by all consensus were treacherous and could be and had been deadly often enough over the years even in the boy’s lifetime six years at the time two had drowned after poor decisions although one of those could be blamed on alcohol but of course that was a bad decision in itself before getting in a boat similar to what they were in the day it happened, I mean the boy and he setting out for the island in an old boat with rusted screws that already leaked, nevertheless they sang on the way out yo ho ho and a bottle of rum and so on until he shifted his weight to get comfortable and the seat collapsed and pushed the sides of the boat apart so far the seams sprung open and water came in faster than they could bail, another shortfall, as they only had their hands about as effective as bailing with sieves so the boat settled down and they swam for the island he keeping the boy in front helping along with encouraging words until they could stand and wade the rest of the way, then, then, of course what does the man do but instruct the boy to stay put on the island while he swam for the other shore for help and that’s what they did the boy sat and watched the man, his father, swim out, and out until he couldn’t see him anymore it was so far, then, then, the boy stood, and climbed on a rock and looked and looked where he last saw his father swimming but he didn’t see him which made him think he got mixed up climbing the rock and lost track of the spot where he last saw his dad, which was just exactly the way it did happen.
Well, he certainly hadn't woken up that morning thinking he'd break the world record for being stuck longest at the top of a Ferris wheel with someone who'd just turned down his proposal of marriage.
Ah, but the visuals over the city provide such a cinematic backdrop for the imagination, it's why the "story" works, I think. But your suggestion is well-taken. I like the notion that at first it seems that disaster has struck, that he is frozen in humiliation, but as he starts to calm her down through her rising acrophobia, he senses that he is turning the tide, and a new panic sets in -- that they will become unstuck before he has a chance to finish convincing her to say "yes." [Further twist, that after he succeeds, and they leave the fairgrounds, arm in arm, he realizes that her initial rejection sticks in his craw, and that he will be unable to forgive her for it. Whether it ruins the marriage or they never make it to the altar I don't know, that will become clear, hopefully, when I write it. Thanks for the prod!]
One night in a lowly bar, the drunken fight, the knife…the knife, the blood on his hands, the look on his face, the police, the trial; Sunday afternoons at prison gates – back and forth, back and forth, her eyes go over the men milling in the yard…searching, searching, searching.
But once he heard the noise — hoping it wasn’t real, knowing it was inevitable, thinking of the consequences for himself, for everyone — sky-splitting, world-ending consequences — and finally accepting the reality, the responsibility — he calmed his breath, wiped his brow, and pushed open the door.
\ \ \
PS, I wrote a version of this the other day for Nina Schyler's fabulous substack Stunning Sentences.
She arrives early to snag the secluded two-top, hoping she’ll recognize him but sometimes people look so different in real life, on screen he’s a male version of her, a type Ozempic is erasing, but she isn’t disappearing, she likes her body, when he arrives, after getting stuck between the hug of friends or more and the handshake of strangers, they go to the counter, he says “you first”, she orders a latte and a scone, he orders coffee “with just a tiny touch of cream” and the barista says “the cream is on the table, you’ll have to do your own touching,” and then she can’t bring herself to touch the scone because it feels too exposed to eat in front of someone who has declined to eat in front of you, like wearing a swimsuit on a date with someone wearing a three piece suit, and is he thinking that she’s fat and eats too much even though he’s the same shape as she is, so after an uneasy moment of silence she asks about his family and he tells her about his sister who is a “hot mess”, when he finishes he doesn’t ask about her family until after an uncomfortable pause and then all she can think to say is that she and her brother are twins and it’s almost like they have telepathy and why did she say that, she wanted this to go so well and here she is comparing her good situation to his awful one, then he crosses one leg over the other and balances his hot coffee on top of his knee and tells her about his job, but she can’t listen because she is mesmerized by the precarious coffee, and when he finishes, he doesn’t ask about her job, and she wonders if he doesn’t ask questions because he’s nervous or because he’s self-absorbed, and then a woman from the next table comes up to her, leans down, and whispers in her ear, “Dear, I don’t know that you noticed, but the sales tag is still on your sweater, you might want to sneak off to the restroom and remove it” and she looks at her scone and takes a bite and wonders whether she’s about to get into a great or a terrible relationship or whether she’s just wasted a new sweater on a lost Saturday morning .
Lately, I've noticed how no one asks me anything about me, no matter where i go. It's like a bad joke--they'll ask my husband all about him and it's like i'm invisible. This little story is so painful and well done. "you'll have to do your own touching."
I have noticed this a lot, over the years, that it is VERY rare for people to actually ask and listen; sometimes there's turn-taking and swapping similar-ish stories, but hardly ever asking and listening.
Perhaps, and I moot this tentatively, people who ask and actually want to know, are the people who read out of love and who want to write to find out about others.
I was so relieved when I turned invisible and no longer had to listen to random men's opinions (positive or negative) about how I looked. (Maybe this should be my one-sentence story.)
I guess it depends on your definition of fun! I'm working on a series of paintings at the moment. Hmmm...your question has kind of thrown me! I think you mean writing, right? Well, I write every day. We'll see what comes of it. Meanwhile, I feel like the luckiest person in the world. A very enjoyable (fun!) life I'm leading. OH I JUST NOW SEE WHY YOU ASKED ME THIS. hahahaha. Thank you.
I’ve allowed my hair to go gray. A lot of it is still quite dark, but due to my experience of being even more invisible, I feel, I’m considering dying it again. I can’t make up my mind though because I hate the cost and maintenance!
Anne! I went gray a few years ago and kept it like that for about three years. Then, I realized that I was being patronized by young people! I also hate the maintenance, but now i get lowlights every two to three months and I feel good about my hair and myself and i don't have to do it very often. And the patronizing, i swear, has stopped. I still have gray, but it's all mixed up with other colors instead of being just gray. It's terrible to feel ignored--I honestly think the low lights have made a difference in the way I'm perceived by others.
I am so torn between yelling at her to get up and run away because he's self-absorbed, and yet...I wonder if he just needs someone to listen to him...but then I really want her to join the kind stranger at her table and they become new best friends. This is so complex and fun!
This story caught me up at Ozempic and didn't let me go. So many people would resonate with this. Women, as others noted, more than men as we are too often invisible or uninteresting.
-it feels too exposed to eat in front of someone who has declined to eat in front of you, like wearing a swimsuit on a date with someone wearing a three piece suit
-he tells her about his sister who is a “hot mess” (says so much about this guy in so little)
-she can’t listen because she is mesmerized by the precarious coffee
Her taking a bite of the scone anyway, I feel like, is that big shift. I loved this so much.
I'm not really the first person to comment, am I? (I'll probably goof around with the text so long that half the rest of the regular commenters will have already posted.) This would be then my first first on the internet. For me, a day of note, and a better reason than some others to remember 20 January, 2025. Here is my quick-take on a one-sentence story
She knew very well the disease crawling about in her body and its deceptive languor would kneecap her every chance it got if she was not careful, and still at this very specific moment, the first time it happened, she was both delighted and relieved, like the underdog boxer winning his first title, at how tenderly her new vinyl floors caught her when, at the speed of gravity, she landed.
She tortured herself by creating reasons for his illness that left her to blame, like perhaps as a baby in her womb, maybe he sensed the time when she experienced dehydration and severe abdominal pain that left her hoping she was having a miscarriage because she wasn’t sure she was up to the task of having not just one but two children, or the time she left him in less than ideal daycare, and much later, the time she had an affair with one of his schoolmate’s fathers and he seemed to know or sense her absence in her marriage and family life, which is why he viewed her as a fraud and perhaps thus caused an irreparable split in his personality.
Well here goes. This came at me out of the blue this morning when my daughter shared the email the CEO sent out companywide this morning to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. The email began with the words: “I love watching documentaries about people who rose to notoriety." (And yeah, I thought of Al Capone and a few others, too...)
It was her final, desperate and anguished response to his abject stupidity on display– his privilege and power of wealth and birth-endowed status of gender and race emerging in the thoughtless company wide email message: his attempt to celebrate the accomplishments of Martin Luther King, Jr. by referring to the man’s “rise to notoriety,” and no amount of jaw clenching, hard eye-rolling, or throwing her stapler through the window could dispel her anger; she stormed his office door, knocked aside his curvaceous assistant, and entered his private domain where she flung the oversized hardback Cambridge English Dictionary at his head and became, herself, notorious for the action and for screaming: “Look up the word “notoriety,” you complete fuckhead!”
Do I need all these medicines ‘cause I’m asking why they are necessary for me to live a longer life that may not be worth living another day until I reach 81 or is it eighty again as you see I seem to forget my age which I believe is a normal thing for a man to do at my age when all it does is snow and the only female I ever see is you––except my daughter was here your prior visit so I want to apologize for what I said when asking you to take a hand at reducing the swelling of my you know what I really forgot she was here that she heard me when we weren’t alone and your laughter was perfect like we were joking around but I think you understand, as any good nurse would, that I wasn’t joking
I loved it too. Especially the acknowledgement of this kind of deeply painful, physical invisibility that comes for us all, sooner or later and that we never talk about.
Pulbur Pilbins, that’s what he called himself when he strolled through the grand oak doors of the National Bank of Gargatoon, sporting a sport coat like a good old sport, on his way to no funny business over at counter seven, where he, a regular man with his briefcases and a 12-gauge walking cane like it ain’t no thing, softly asked through the opening if missy would just hand over the loot, or else he oughta swing the sparkly sticky, to which she replied, “That ain’t no regular Sunday Whopper, Mr. Pilbins,” and he exclaimed, “It sure ain’t, but please do keep them pretty hands above the counter so we can see ‘em folding those little green faces into these briefcases—and yes, it’s crocodile skin, I don’t mind you asking—but do hurry, sweetheart, I oughta be going ‘fore the—” and just then, what in the name of a god-awful racket was that there, Mr. Pilbins inquired, spotting the right hand over the counter missing its reflection under the table, the briefcases only half-full, so he slammed them shut, picked them up, and ran aloof with his firecracker of a cane, right into the sunlight, where he came, and was met with silver rain.
That Silver Rain local to Gargatoon has for centuries passed saved the branch of the National Bank as they call its latest incarnation from the not so much regular as frequent attempted perpetrations with menace by generations of the Pilbins who everyone knows to be and knows to keep well wide of as nothing but the meanest and most malign clan of of thieving vampires who had ever taken up residence in the Troglodite Caves carved out aeons past by who but God Knew Who high in that section of the scarp of the Happy Valley Hills that ran right along and on and on south-east by north-west above Gargatoon the town in which nobody had the least clue never mind knew what the Silver Rain was or where it came from but which all were better than pleased to say Amen to to in response to each and every mention of it by Pastor Gustave Leadbetter in his otherwise unutterably tedious and totally irrelevant Sunday Sermonising
My friend since childhood telling me about finding himself outside the rehab facility walking naked on the side of a highway reminded me of the time in 6th grade when he walked around on everyone’s school desks during lunch when no one was around
Doing our dishes, buds in, radio on, a beat, a man stutters oh! that rap “Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan, let me rock you, let me rock you, Chaka Khan” drop sponge Stevie's sweet harmonica close eyes, in floats Chaka “Baby baby when I look at you, I get a warm feeling inside” yes yes that night that dance floor that beat that dance floor we danced that night yes you “I feel for you” look to the ceiling turn twist to the floor you “this feeling that I got for you, baby, it makes me wanna sing” take off your tee wipe your sweat turn and “I feel for you” turn let me see you lift your “Chaka Khan, won't you tell me what you wanna do? Do you feel for me the way I feel for you?” arms in the air sweat on your face sweat on your chest joy in your eyes I’d “This feeling that I got for you, baby, there's nothing that I wouldn't do” do it all for you baby turn slap the floor sweet Stevie harmonica you look nod I “Chaka Khan, let me tell you what I wanna do” nod we come together we turn together I “Chaka Khan, let me rock you, let me rock you, Chaka Khan, let me rock you, that's all I wanna do”
I know I love you.
\ \ \
I heard Chaka Khan’s version of Prince’s Feel for You on the radio today. So, a mix of last week's hot words and this week's one sentence.
oh dear lord, you sent me down the rabbit hole!!! I saw Rufus a million years ago and i think they opened for the Stones... So yeah, just watched Chaka Khan and then the Stones and now I have to go pass out for awhile. Thanks, Kevin!
well, to quote the first commenter on the video: "You can almost feel the coke, the grime, the sweat, the sticky JD bottle, the filth. God I love this!"
Definitely two sentences Kevin, case to be made for at least one more on the back of a question mark which, ever, rides high above a full-stop or period depending which side of The Atlantic Ocean colloquially referred to as The Pond your looking through your telescope from and of course fully aware that what you'll be seeing depends of which end of your telescope you happen to be viewing things from which reminds of a guy who housed a long with me and five others up in the North East way back, decades back, in the day who'd studied Agriculture, graduated with a degree in said subject bit chosen to build big and by big I mean massive Burman Speakers to advanced his sideline as a bookable DJ in our collective kitchen, I mean can you believe the cheek of it, but it worked out so well for him that he got a slot on a Local Metro Radio Station and was rung up one live call in night by an Astronomer who gave his name as Stuart who vouchsafed to him the vital knowledge that on a clear cloudless night it was a dead cert that with a half decent fifteen inch Reflector you could without fear of disappoint see Uranus in all its glory; shortly after which the DJ and two others - an astrophysicist who played three boards simultaneously for the University Chess Ream and a handy 400 metre runner whose Paleoanthropological PhD was hinged on the delivery of very recently deceased crocodiles from the Reptile House at London Zoo or other such foster homes for bred, displaced or questionably acquired suitable specimens for post-mortem dissection within range of short-haul delivery - did a midnight flit which resulted in three new and very different house mates arriving...
Thanks for the heads-up. I removed the period (full stop as you might say) after the final wanna do. It's not resulting in a traditional sentence form but who's gonna stop me? As for those interrogatives in the middle, I think they're camera-ready art as we used to say in the days of paste-up, so as such aren't real text in the way the rest of the words are real text. I can't help it if Prince put in question marks. Who am I to judge? or question? or ..... ?
It sounds as the North East was where it was at decades back. Question: did he see uranus?
Alas Poor Stuart was, so reports from reliable sources told it, blinded by the intensification of a torch light shone into his Reflector by a passing prankster... his last visual memory is his excitement of appreciating just how spotted, blotched, trough and ridged the contours of his own nether regions were as he began tweaking and twiddling the knobs available to him to being Uranus into focus.
How on earth did James Joyce do it... that is, write blockbusting fictions known to us as 'Ulysses' and 'Finnegan's Wake' in essentially unpunctuated stream of consciousness mode... I've started off, enthusiastically, from making it onto the landing beaches of both but never had the stamina to prosecute either reading endeavour very far inland...
...ask me, in contrast, about how I succeeded in reading, re-reading and re-reading Joyce's 'Dubliners' short stories over the years and I can furnish a response as short as it is simple: Dubliners stories are short, simple as that, I can
came to realise when over in Story Club we tackled one of them in the past year or so.
And yes "The Fog on the Tyne" really was where it turned out to be for me to be for six years back in the 1970s,
I have never made it very far into Ulysses. Alas? Maybe I need someone to do an extended read here on Substack. I am doing the year long War and Peace this year. I mean, why not? A good distraction. One of my English Dept colleagues said he laughed out loud the first time he read Ulysses.
Where the land rises, belts of trees dot the landscape, before the sparse inclining swathes, sparse except for the pines, ancient and untroubled in their half dozen or so redoubts, and I fancy those pines had watched the unfolding folly below across centuries, across millennia and, at each bloody turn, crooked their branches to mimic, and to show their contempt.
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Perhaps you have heard of the restoration of Tally Ho, an English sailboat that won the Fastnet race in 1927, and was recently rebuilt by Leo Sampson in Port Townsend. Every single piece of wood in a 52' boat replaced with new, one piece at a time. Way more work than starting from scratch, but, we're talking the soul of the boat here. A brand new boat from scratch would not have the same soul. I realize this is a bit beyond where you were going with this, or maybe not. Now, the same analogy with a person is something else. Maybe, but remember all our molecules or whatever replace themselves every 7 years or so anyway. So, if you break up with someone and then get back together after 10 years say, are they the same person or a new person?
I think some of my molecules are lagging behind, Tod. But your comment made me pause to consider all the money people spend on trying to turn back the inexorable ravages of time. When it’s all going to be replaced anyway…
love this comment
https://sampsonboat.co.uk
this is a most amazing story on so many levels. take a look.
Wow, there is a LOT of information there. I'm envious of that crew working together like that on such an amazing project.
A seven year project, the first two Leo worked mostly alone, then gradually gained enough subscribers he could hire people. One unique thing - I've watched every video - is he often showcases individual craftsmen and their work. This is pretty rare today, as are true craftsmen and women ( there are many female shipwrights in Port Townsend) and people just ate it up - Read some of the comments and you see the story brought thousands of people to tears as the project came to completion . Tally Ho is on the cover of Woodenboat magazine this month.
weirdly, we get Woodenboat magazine! (well, PKT gets it. His dad was a boat guy and several of his boats can be rented at the Wooden Boat Center on Lake Union in Seattle). So i'll take a look at that issue. So many videos--what a beautiful project.
That is amazing! I sent it on to my Dad. It's rare that I find something on the internet to interest him, but I think this one's a winner. Thanks for sharing!
The ship of Theseus.
Gradual departures demand so much love and strength.
So hard.
That's moving and disturbing, with Floyd's morning coffee right in there with his parts slowly disappearing. Then the metaphor crowned with "the ship of you". Great guns!
Thank you, John. I did just learn about that paradox--the Ship of Theseus. And I keep thinking about it.
Theseus, who got a clue from Ariadne, then forgot her, leaving her on an island and sailing on, forgetting that he should change his sails from black to white so his father, watching from the battlements, would know he had triumphed over the Minotaur and was alive, and so his father read the black-sail signal and leaped into the sea and drowned. What a story.
A wonderful fresco from Pompeii of Theseus coming out of the labyrinth and looking amazed:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theseus#/media/File:Wall_painting_-_Theseus_victorious_over_the_Minotaur_-_Pompeii_(VII_2_16)_-_Napoli_MAN_9043_-_01.jpg
I am not joking when I say that you know everything. And it's wonderful. What a story--I didn't know that one. I've got huge gaps in my knowledge base.
I'm finding that children will pay rapt attention to stories from Greek mythology. (Which gives me a chance to fill some of the woeful gaps in my knowledge base.)
So much mystery. Why does Theseus just plain forget the lovely Ariadne, who saved his life? And forget the signal for his father, who is driven to suicide? And the gods, always poking their nose in and following their selfish desires. Fascinating.
I love inserting some of the Greek mythological characters and tales in my writing—like the 3 Fates—three women who just show up as though borne on the wind and who know so much. Or—Pythia.
Did you know that our word 'clue' comes from the Ancient Greek for 'wool' or 'thread', after the manner of Ariadne's clue, a ball of thread which traced the exit from the labyrinth.
It makes the hairs stand up on my arm when I learn how some abstract words we have today are borne from either a tangible noun or from the actions of a verb.
I did :) <-- not smug.
"clue" or old-spelling "clew" meant, for many years, a ball or bobbin of thread, twine, etc, before being applied to an element that may help to trace, track, or find one's way, like Ariadne's ball of twine in the Minotaur's maze.
Etymology is a gas. See Douglas Harper: https://www.etymonline.com/search?q=clue
My soon-to-be-launched substack will be called Getting a Clue.
And, weirdly, my ny resolution is to learn knitting this year.
A few days ago I dropped my dad off at the airport and I'm not going into exact details here but this story of yours made me tear right up.
Love this one, Mary! "Still him but then again not"--so devastating.
Thanks, Angela!
The fantastical plot contrasted with the narrator asking whatever is left of Floyd if he had his morning coffee is my favorite part, along with the last four phrases.
Thanks so much, Sherri.
I loved this so much. The putting the TV in the box detail got me.
Thanks so much, Samantha.
'this is what I'm thinking as I'
Lovely device to draw together character, description and action
Niall, I love what a close reader you are. Thank you for this!
Mary, I can't believe that even in a short sentence story you got me, but you got me! The last bit, where the story twists for me ("and I think, Floyd, I still love you, wherever you are, wherever you’re going, the ship of you still anchored, still holding for now") felt like a punch in the gut. Suddenly I really feel for Floyd!
Thanks so much, Imola. Much appreciated.
a particularly moving story. Dear Floyd. and Dear you Mary
Thank you, Dinah. He's being moved today to a new living situation. Fingers crossed on that one. xo
When we first met on the street, letting our dogs say hello, the third thing she told me was that her first husband hung himself in their basement when they were twenty-nine and how it set her free.
This one is so good. Love the embedded mystery.
Thanks, Mary!
The specificity makes this story live for me. Also wondering but not wanting to know if the first was the weather and the second how their dogs were, before she launched that confession? tale? on the narrator.
Wonderful how this story ignites so forcefully within forty words and opens into infinity. Great work!!
Thanks, David!
Love this.
Ooh, I want to know more, and yet I don't! So nice.
Thanks, Angela!
And the first and second things she told him?
I would wager the name of her dog, and that her late husband was the only human being Bingo had never liked,
Second husband died slow. I think she said her name was Sharon.
Don't spoil the mystery, Tod!
What did it matter which way she went through the woods as long as she could find her way back again and meet Daddy searching for her and calling her name so loud, so scared, and she would laugh?
So good, John. Love the way you wrote an entire story here that set my mind ticking in the space of so few words.
Thanks, Mary. I wanted to do a short one, and I ran through several lead-in words before this came through.
Writing this short and managing for it to hold an entire story is really something.
I like the implication that someone is telling her to go in a certain direction and she is dismissing it as immaterial. Which also begs the question, what is so important she is leaving the safety and love of Daddy in the first place? What is she seeking there in the forest? Or, in fact, is she fleeing? Something tells me her fantasy Daddy may not at all be the same as her reality Daddy.
I really don't know anything about this flash fiction. But the questions and doubts it raises (to me) are around something unsettling that is happening at home. Divorce in the air? Daddy will be going away?
"someone is telling her": to me that was all part of her interior monologue. Faced with not knowing where to turn in the deep, dark woods, she reassures herself by thinking it doesn't matter. I think she's about six years old and Daddy better prove he's a good Daddy and find her quick, there are wolves.
This is deceptively simple. Good one.
Thank you, Angela.
She's been through these woods before, seems to me. That's why it doesn't matter.
sounds a little creepy, she.
Or in need of reassurance.
The boy had the idea, but he should have known better, being the adult, experienced in boats, with a lifetime albeit not a long life so far, of experience on the water and the local conditions around the islands which by all consensus were treacherous and could be and had been deadly often enough over the years even in the boy’s lifetime six years at the time two had drowned after poor decisions although one of those could be blamed on alcohol but of course that was a bad decision in itself before getting in a boat similar to what they were in the day it happened, I mean the boy and he setting out for the island in an old boat with rusted screws that already leaked, nevertheless they sang on the way out yo ho ho and a bottle of rum and so on until he shifted his weight to get comfortable and the seat collapsed and pushed the sides of the boat apart so far the seams sprung open and water came in faster than they could bail, another shortfall, as they only had their hands about as effective as bailing with sieves so the boat settled down and they swam for the island he keeping the boy in front helping along with encouraging words until they could stand and wade the rest of the way, then, then, of course what does the man do but instruct the boy to stay put on the island while he swam for the other shore for help and that’s what they did the boy sat and watched the man, his father, swim out, and out until he couldn’t see him anymore it was so far, then, then, the boy stood, and climbed on a rock and looked and looked where he last saw his father swimming but he didn’t see him which made him think he got mixed up climbing the rock and lost track of the spot where he last saw his dad, which was just exactly the way it did happen.
What a story!
This is really good Todd!
sorry, Tod!
Everyone does that.
Impressive. This feels like a very real lived experience.
Pure fiction. But I do live on the water and imagine disasters all the time :)
Wow. You kept me on edge, hoping...and hoping...just like the boy! Well done.
That's a smart quick switch in the final clause!
Exit stage left, via a neck hook.
Ha ha!
Gosh you somehow made this run-on work so well such that it's more pacing, and like the rush of water coming into the boat. Well done.
Reminds me of Barthelme, the way the mythic and quotidian gel and hold you close.
OK.
Well, he certainly hadn't woken up that morning thinking he'd break the world record for being stuck longest at the top of a Ferris wheel with someone who'd just turned down his proposal of marriage.
hahahaha! Well done!
Oh you have to write this story. It’s like being stuck in an elevator.
Ah, but the visuals over the city provide such a cinematic backdrop for the imagination, it's why the "story" works, I think. But your suggestion is well-taken. I like the notion that at first it seems that disaster has struck, that he is frozen in humiliation, but as he starts to calm her down through her rising acrophobia, he senses that he is turning the tide, and a new panic sets in -- that they will become unstuck before he has a chance to finish convincing her to say "yes." [Further twist, that after he succeeds, and they leave the fairgrounds, arm in arm, he realizes that her initial rejection sticks in his craw, and that he will be unable to forgive her for it. Whether it ruins the marriage or they never make it to the altar I don't know, that will become clear, hopefully, when I write it. Thanks for the prod!]
Love your ideas! Keep going!
All of that, just like real life. Can they overcome all that, or will they stay soul-stuck?
And one imagines there will be some wobbliness in the emotions - the way the Ferris wheel would jerk like it’s restarting and then not a few times.
Some of you will be glad to know I have actually started a short story based on this.
LOL! Wonderful!
I bet he hadn't! 😩🎡
Yow!
well then, there's time to change minds. get to work!
Yes, there is! See my reply to Angela.
One night in a lowly bar, the drunken fight, the knife…the knife, the blood on his hands, the look on his face, the police, the trial; Sunday afternoons at prison gates – back and forth, back and forth, her eyes go over the men milling in the yard…searching, searching, searching.
So good, especially because we're not sure if she's searching for someone she loves or hates.
Great compression of time, Vishal. And the complication of who she is. You have lots of avenues to go down with this!
Thanks, Kevin!
Somehow this is at once closed and open, exterior and interior, past, present and future…lovely!
David, good to hear from you! Thanks for your wonderful comment.
Wow. You have the beginning of a novel, here.
I'll have to save the idea then! Thanks for the suggestion, Angela.
ah... that phrase "searching, searching, searching"
But once he heard the noise — hoping it wasn’t real, knowing it was inevitable, thinking of the consequences for himself, for everyone — sky-splitting, world-ending consequences — and finally accepting the reality, the responsibility — he calmed his breath, wiped his brow, and pushed open the door.
\ \ \
PS, I wrote a version of this the other day for Nina Schyler's fabulous substack Stunning Sentences.
Such a great tiny mystery!
And it is a stunning sentence, Kevin!
.....and?
who knows?
She arrives early to snag the secluded two-top, hoping she’ll recognize him but sometimes people look so different in real life, on screen he’s a male version of her, a type Ozempic is erasing, but she isn’t disappearing, she likes her body, when he arrives, after getting stuck between the hug of friends or more and the handshake of strangers, they go to the counter, he says “you first”, she orders a latte and a scone, he orders coffee “with just a tiny touch of cream” and the barista says “the cream is on the table, you’ll have to do your own touching,” and then she can’t bring herself to touch the scone because it feels too exposed to eat in front of someone who has declined to eat in front of you, like wearing a swimsuit on a date with someone wearing a three piece suit, and is he thinking that she’s fat and eats too much even though he’s the same shape as she is, so after an uneasy moment of silence she asks about his family and he tells her about his sister who is a “hot mess”, when he finishes he doesn’t ask about her family until after an uncomfortable pause and then all she can think to say is that she and her brother are twins and it’s almost like they have telepathy and why did she say that, she wanted this to go so well and here she is comparing her good situation to his awful one, then he crosses one leg over the other and balances his hot coffee on top of his knee and tells her about his job, but she can’t listen because she is mesmerized by the precarious coffee, and when he finishes, he doesn’t ask about her job, and she wonders if he doesn’t ask questions because he’s nervous or because he’s self-absorbed, and then a woman from the next table comes up to her, leans down, and whispers in her ear, “Dear, I don’t know that you noticed, but the sales tag is still on your sweater, you might want to sneak off to the restroom and remove it” and she looks at her scone and takes a bite and wonders whether she’s about to get into a great or a terrible relationship or whether she’s just wasted a new sweater on a lost Saturday morning .
Lately, I've noticed how no one asks me anything about me, no matter where i go. It's like a bad joke--they'll ask my husband all about him and it's like i'm invisible. This little story is so painful and well done. "you'll have to do your own touching."
I have noticed this a lot, over the years, that it is VERY rare for people to actually ask and listen; sometimes there's turn-taking and swapping similar-ish stories, but hardly ever asking and listening.
Perhaps, and I moot this tentatively, people who ask and actually want to know, are the people who read out of love and who want to write to find out about others.
This is the scourge of the world right now.
I've had that happen a lot too. It is hard to navigate the world when you are invisible.
I was so relieved when I turned invisible and no longer had to listen to random men's opinions (positive or negative) about how I looked. (Maybe this should be my one-sentence story.)
It's a strange feeling.
Mary, I’ve been meaning to ask about you :). Other than pleasing this grateful mob of writers, are you working on anything fun?
I guess it depends on your definition of fun! I'm working on a series of paintings at the moment. Hmmm...your question has kind of thrown me! I think you mean writing, right? Well, I write every day. We'll see what comes of it. Meanwhile, I feel like the luckiest person in the world. A very enjoyable (fun!) life I'm leading. OH I JUST NOW SEE WHY YOU ASKED ME THIS. hahahaha. Thank you.
You answered it perfectly. Thanks for giving me a look into your world!
How are you Mary?
Thanks for asking!!! (I'm good.) xoox
You may not be the only woman who wonders if she's invisible.
Right. Especially older women--there's an assumption that we don't have anything to offer. Or that we aren't interesting.
And older men are such know-alls they pump the air out of the place.
I know, I know.
Not you, John. Never you!
We do know a thing to two.
I know!
I’ve allowed my hair to go gray. A lot of it is still quite dark, but due to my experience of being even more invisible, I feel, I’m considering dying it again. I can’t make up my mind though because I hate the cost and maintenance!
Anne! I went gray a few years ago and kept it like that for about three years. Then, I realized that I was being patronized by young people! I also hate the maintenance, but now i get lowlights every two to three months and I feel good about my hair and myself and i don't have to do it very often. And the patronizing, i swear, has stopped. I still have gray, but it's all mixed up with other colors instead of being just gray. It's terrible to feel ignored--I honestly think the low lights have made a difference in the way I'm perceived by others.
I think I’m going to do the same thing! So glad to know I’m not imagining the patronizing!
You're not older yet so get over that. I think you're very interesting. So there. Let's not invent stereotypes, ok?
Your comment here may be for John and not me(!) but I'll take the compliment. Thanks, Tod!
It's for you. Well, and John too. Hell, for all of us.
Oh, I'm not worried about it (any more than you are, and I think you're very interesting too). As long as we're not just plain "old".
Being told I'm interesting is just about the best thing anyone can say to me. So thank you.
Oh, I've been in that situation only He was the one to point out the tag on my sweater.
Yeah, that's a fashion statement among a certain crowd.
As my aunt would say—“Honey, drop him like a hot potato!”
Just his balancing act with the coffee-cup on his knee would be enough for me.
If I were an invisible woman, of course.
That was my first thought!
So much going on here in just a few minutes and in one sentence. I love all the 'touching' going on, or not going on.
What is going on?
I am so torn between yelling at her to get up and run away because he's self-absorbed, and yet...I wonder if he just needs someone to listen to him...but then I really want her to join the kind stranger at her table and they become new best friends. This is so complex and fun!
She does have a lot of options. I don't know what would be best . . .
This story caught me up at Ozempic and didn't let me go. So many people would resonate with this. Women, as others noted, more than men as we are too often invisible or uninteresting.
Some great lines here:
-a type Ozempic is erasing
-it feels too exposed to eat in front of someone who has declined to eat in front of you, like wearing a swimsuit on a date with someone wearing a three piece suit
-he tells her about his sister who is a “hot mess” (says so much about this guy in so little)
-she can’t listen because she is mesmerized by the precarious coffee
Her taking a bite of the scone anyway, I feel like, is that big shift. I loved this so much.
Such great interiority!!
I'm not really the first person to comment, am I? (I'll probably goof around with the text so long that half the rest of the regular commenters will have already posted.) This would be then my first first on the internet. For me, a day of note, and a better reason than some others to remember 20 January, 2025. Here is my quick-take on a one-sentence story
She knew very well the disease crawling about in her body and its deceptive languor would kneecap her every chance it got if she was not careful, and still at this very specific moment, the first time it happened, she was both delighted and relieved, like the underdog boxer winning his first title, at how tenderly her new vinyl floors caught her when, at the speed of gravity, she landed.
Your first story? It's a winner! Love this.
Not my first story, but certainly my first in a very long time, a decade maybe so it feels pretty firsty. :-)
That firstiness after not writing fiction for a long time - mine was twenty years - tastes like ice cream, but it doesn’t disappear as quickly. Enjoy!
Nice. I liked "how tenderly her new vinyl floors caught her..."
Thank you!
How well you captured a such a complex emotional state.
Thank you, Deborah. :-)
Wow.
Thank you! I love the name of your newsletter, btw.
Oh this is so good!
Thank you Angela!
love this. Tender vinyl floors. Underdog boxer. Deceptive languor
She tortured herself by creating reasons for his illness that left her to blame, like perhaps as a baby in her womb, maybe he sensed the time when she experienced dehydration and severe abdominal pain that left her hoping she was having a miscarriage because she wasn’t sure she was up to the task of having not just one but two children, or the time she left him in less than ideal daycare, and much later, the time she had an affair with one of his schoolmate’s fathers and he seemed to know or sense her absence in her marriage and family life, which is why he viewed her as a fraud and perhaps thus caused an irreparable split in his personality.
Oh, wow. This story! Well done!
perhaps, perhaps, perhaps so many things we'll never know.
What a wonderful story! Very human.
Wow. This story has some legs...!
Well here goes. This came at me out of the blue this morning when my daughter shared the email the CEO sent out companywide this morning to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. The email began with the words: “I love watching documentaries about people who rose to notoriety." (And yeah, I thought of Al Capone and a few others, too...)
It was her final, desperate and anguished response to his abject stupidity on display– his privilege and power of wealth and birth-endowed status of gender and race emerging in the thoughtless company wide email message: his attempt to celebrate the accomplishments of Martin Luther King, Jr. by referring to the man’s “rise to notoriety,” and no amount of jaw clenching, hard eye-rolling, or throwing her stapler through the window could dispel her anger; she stormed his office door, knocked aside his curvaceous assistant, and entered his private domain where she flung the oversized hardback Cambridge English Dictionary at his head and became, herself, notorious for the action and for screaming: “Look up the word “notoriety,” you complete fuckhead!”
Ha! Love it!
Of course, maybe he meant what he said. Just saying.
Either way, the Cambridge Dictionary solution works.
indeed.
Love this! It’s one thing to have a sexist, racist boss but when you add stupid it’s just not tolerable.
Yes she did!
Additionally he doesn’t know what tariffs are, nor how they work….
Was there a tariff on that Cambridge Dictionary?
I laughed out loud! Love it!
Thank you. I need laughter, today. Especially laughter in the face of utter stupidity.
All those notorious people strutting around. Well, one in particular.
Do I need all these medicines ‘cause I’m asking why they are necessary for me to live a longer life that may not be worth living another day until I reach 81 or is it eighty again as you see I seem to forget my age which I believe is a normal thing for a man to do at my age when all it does is snow and the only female I ever see is you––except my daughter was here your prior visit so I want to apologize for what I said when asking you to take a hand at reducing the swelling of my you know what I really forgot she was here that she heard me when we weren’t alone and your laughter was perfect like we were joking around but I think you understand, as any good nurse would, that I wasn’t joking
Well done, Ruth. I feel all of this.
I loved it too. Especially the acknowledgement of this kind of deeply painful, physical invisibility that comes for us all, sooner or later and that we never talk about.
Oh boy. Old age . . .
love it!
Thanks Lady D. for your suggestion. I edited line 3 & 4 to clarify that the patient is an elderly man and the nurse is a female.
Love this one--the forgotten thing just out of reach.
"when all it does is snow and the only female I ever see is you"
<3
Pulbur Pilbins, that’s what he called himself when he strolled through the grand oak doors of the National Bank of Gargatoon, sporting a sport coat like a good old sport, on his way to no funny business over at counter seven, where he, a regular man with his briefcases and a 12-gauge walking cane like it ain’t no thing, softly asked through the opening if missy would just hand over the loot, or else he oughta swing the sparkly sticky, to which she replied, “That ain’t no regular Sunday Whopper, Mr. Pilbins,” and he exclaimed, “It sure ain’t, but please do keep them pretty hands above the counter so we can see ‘em folding those little green faces into these briefcases—and yes, it’s crocodile skin, I don’t mind you asking—but do hurry, sweetheart, I oughta be going ‘fore the—” and just then, what in the name of a god-awful racket was that there, Mr. Pilbins inquired, spotting the right hand over the counter missing its reflection under the table, the briefcases only half-full, so he slammed them shut, picked them up, and ran aloof with his firecracker of a cane, right into the sunlight, where he came, and was met with silver rain.
Fun little story with great details!
That Silver Rain local to Gargatoon has for centuries passed saved the branch of the National Bank as they call its latest incarnation from the not so much regular as frequent attempted perpetrations with menace by generations of the Pilbins who everyone knows to be and knows to keep well wide of as nothing but the meanest and most malign clan of of thieving vampires who had ever taken up residence in the Troglodite Caves carved out aeons past by who but God Knew Who high in that section of the scarp of the Happy Valley Hills that ran right along and on and on south-east by north-west above Gargatoon the town in which nobody had the least clue never mind knew what the Silver Rain was or where it came from but which all were better than pleased to say Amen to to in response to each and every mention of it by Pastor Gustave Leadbetter in his otherwise unutterably tedious and totally irrelevant Sunday Sermonising
I hope there really is a town called Gargatoon!
Considering the lore circling the interwebs, I can’t see how it wouldn’t exist! Great story, Rob!
My friend since childhood telling me about finding himself outside the rehab facility walking naked on the side of a highway reminded me of the time in 6th grade when he walked around on everyone’s school desks during lunch when no one was around
Really good, Charlie.
I love both the images here!
So simple/complex/elegant.
Doing our dishes, buds in, radio on, a beat, a man stutters oh! that rap “Chaka Khan, Chaka Khan, let me rock you, let me rock you, Chaka Khan” drop sponge Stevie's sweet harmonica close eyes, in floats Chaka “Baby baby when I look at you, I get a warm feeling inside” yes yes that night that dance floor that beat that dance floor we danced that night yes you “I feel for you” look to the ceiling turn twist to the floor you “this feeling that I got for you, baby, it makes me wanna sing” take off your tee wipe your sweat turn and “I feel for you” turn let me see you lift your “Chaka Khan, won't you tell me what you wanna do? Do you feel for me the way I feel for you?” arms in the air sweat on your face sweat on your chest joy in your eyes I’d “This feeling that I got for you, baby, there's nothing that I wouldn't do” do it all for you baby turn slap the floor sweet Stevie harmonica you look nod I “Chaka Khan, let me tell you what I wanna do” nod we come together we turn together I “Chaka Khan, let me rock you, let me rock you, Chaka Khan, let me rock you, that's all I wanna do”
I know I love you.
\ \ \
I heard Chaka Khan’s version of Prince’s Feel for You on the radio today. So, a mix of last week's hot words and this week's one sentence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW0sxgYAmLM
oh dear lord, you sent me down the rabbit hole!!! I saw Rufus a million years ago and i think they opened for the Stones... So yeah, just watched Chaka Khan and then the Stones and now I have to go pass out for awhile. Thanks, Kevin!
It was this concert that I was at (the clip is Los Angeles, I was at the Seattle show): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tgx8uNWKnOE&t=460s
Well, I was at Altamont! I asked the Hell's Angel at the top of the stairs if he was the "guardian of the stairs." I'm lucky I'm alive.
we have Guardian Angels in New York, so it's a fair question.
You win! Wow, you were at Altamont. That's amazing.
well, to quote the first commenter on the video: "You can almost feel the coke, the grime, the sweat, the sticky JD bottle, the filth. God I love this!"
hahahahah! Totally!
Definitely two sentences Kevin, case to be made for at least one more on the back of a question mark which, ever, rides high above a full-stop or period depending which side of The Atlantic Ocean colloquially referred to as The Pond your looking through your telescope from and of course fully aware that what you'll be seeing depends of which end of your telescope you happen to be viewing things from which reminds of a guy who housed a long with me and five others up in the North East way back, decades back, in the day who'd studied Agriculture, graduated with a degree in said subject bit chosen to build big and by big I mean massive Burman Speakers to advanced his sideline as a bookable DJ in our collective kitchen, I mean can you believe the cheek of it, but it worked out so well for him that he got a slot on a Local Metro Radio Station and was rung up one live call in night by an Astronomer who gave his name as Stuart who vouchsafed to him the vital knowledge that on a clear cloudless night it was a dead cert that with a half decent fifteen inch Reflector you could without fear of disappoint see Uranus in all its glory; shortly after which the DJ and two others - an astrophysicist who played three boards simultaneously for the University Chess Ream and a handy 400 metre runner whose Paleoanthropological PhD was hinged on the delivery of very recently deceased crocodiles from the Reptile House at London Zoo or other such foster homes for bred, displaced or questionably acquired suitable specimens for post-mortem dissection within range of short-haul delivery - did a midnight flit which resulted in three new and very different house mates arriving...
Thanks for the heads-up. I removed the period (full stop as you might say) after the final wanna do. It's not resulting in a traditional sentence form but who's gonna stop me? As for those interrogatives in the middle, I think they're camera-ready art as we used to say in the days of paste-up, so as such aren't real text in the way the rest of the words are real text. I can't help it if Prince put in question marks. Who am I to judge? or question? or ..... ?
It sounds as the North East was where it was at decades back. Question: did he see uranus?
Nah!
Alas Poor Stuart was, so reports from reliable sources told it, blinded by the intensification of a torch light shone into his Reflector by a passing prankster... his last visual memory is his excitement of appreciating just how spotted, blotched, trough and ridged the contours of his own nether regions were as he began tweaking and twiddling the knobs available to him to being Uranus into focus.
How on earth did James Joyce do it... that is, write blockbusting fictions known to us as 'Ulysses' and 'Finnegan's Wake' in essentially unpunctuated stream of consciousness mode... I've started off, enthusiastically, from making it onto the landing beaches of both but never had the stamina to prosecute either reading endeavour very far inland...
...ask me, in contrast, about how I succeeded in reading, re-reading and re-reading Joyce's 'Dubliners' short stories over the years and I can furnish a response as short as it is simple: Dubliners stories are short, simple as that, I can
came to realise when over in Story Club we tackled one of them in the past year or so.
And yes "The Fog on the Tyne" really was where it turned out to be for me to be for six years back in the 1970s,
I have never made it very far into Ulysses. Alas? Maybe I need someone to do an extended read here on Substack. I am doing the year long War and Peace this year. I mean, why not? A good distraction. One of my English Dept colleagues said he laughed out loud the first time he read Ulysses.
Took Ulysses ten years to get back to Ithaca so making an extended reading trip into Ulysses in just one year would be a tidy achievement.
Where the land rises, belts of trees dot the landscape, before the sparse inclining swathes, sparse except for the pines, ancient and untroubled in their half dozen or so redoubts, and I fancy those pines had watched the unfolding folly below across centuries, across millennia and, at each bloody turn, crooked their branches to mimic, and to show their contempt.
love this--i was thinking of doing a prompt on trees!
Mmmmm...I love the quiet intelligence of the trees.
Trees know all, don't they?
Should do, Kevin, they've been around for a while!