- Calvin - From Calvin & Hobbes
Almost Winter.
- Truman Capote - Re: Editing
Benjamin McGregor weighs two hundred and forty seven pounds. Most of which catches me on the left side of my jaw. I’m dazed for a second then push my glove up to my cheek before he’s able to come at me again. He’s six foot seven, he has five inches on me, though I have five pounds on him. Five pounds and a bum shoulder that seems to tear open every time my jab fails to make contact with his head.
I move my foot to duck out of another hook, but I’m too slow and his reach cuts over my shoulder forcing me to tilt my head. It hits my neck as the bell rings. End of the sixth round.
I go to my corner. Frank throws up the stool and I take a seat while he talks into my ear. He wants me to keep my left hand up and go for the body with my right hook, right under the arm. I look across the ring.
McGregor is standing. He shifts his weight back and forth from one leg to another rolling his shoulders back trying to show off. Trying to intimidate me. He’s the biggest I’ve ever fought, not the heaviest, but the strongest, and that reach, man he can reach. I swear under my breath, spit again into the bucket that Frank holds under my mouth while Bruce shoves a Q-Tip into the gash under my eye.
McGregor Breathes through his nose. I’m panting form my corner trying to slow my heart rate This is going to be the seventh round and I’m a brawler. He should have been knocked out by the third. I’m not made for this. I’m fast hard blows, I’m the inside. I’m not supposed to last this long.
Frank slaps the right side of my face a second before the bell. I stand up.
“Get that hook un there, under the arm. That’s your chance.”
December starts.
Don’t tell Alex. David thought as he pushed the last of the snow to the end of the drive way. It was clean now, slow even strokes formed tidy piles at either side of the concrete. David had spent the last hour taking more time than he needed to, but the time before he would actually need to see Alex was a welcome procrastination.
David stood upright, pushed his back as far as he could and let his shoulder sag while he still clung to the snow shovel. His glasses were fogged, his cheeks rosy with thin veins pressed close to the brink of his skin. He was exhausted and knowing that he wouldn’t have the time to sleep tonight made hims all the more conscious of his lower back.
End of Semester Art Party.
Ecotone for the Painfully Alone.
I do not fear God.
Not death.
Nothing. Keeps me awake.
If I die what is left of me? Nothing.
If those that loved me forget me? Nothing.
If the memories fade? Nothing.
What is left? Nothing.
So I write at this window. I leave my name. My words. Myself.
If they burn the books? Something.
If they burn the living? Something.
Through this window. Something.
I will not be. Forgotten.
- Harper Lee, To Kill a Mockingbird
Indian Summer.
By: Dylan Lenz
He assumed Abilene would save him, but those novice notions left with his footing. There was no grandiose gesture, she did not rush in at the last moment just before the chair stumbled on palsied legs, leaving his own to shake and grasp at nothing. Instead the whole precession was matter-of-fact. He was left suspended a few feet above the cracked wooden planks that lay like crooked teeth across the hotel room floor. Below his lifeless body that still swayed slightly as the rope groaned under his weight, lay the wooden chair who’s casters held fast now that their work was done.
He had wondered if the soles of his feet would fell the same pain they did when he would climb absent stairs, or let them hover over the edge of his roof. The pain that is more a frustrated fear of falling, that leaves when you don’t think about it. His feet did have that same pain, but it was quickly gone as his fear of the emptiness of God was realized.
David had chosen that hotel for two reasons: first, it was there that David had first seen Abilene, and second, because he did not want to tarnish his mothers home with this…thing. David had planned the event carefully. He had made the appropriate arrangements incase Abilene did not come, saving his mother the trouble of distributing his limited estate, and arranging burial. He bought a double plot so Abilene could be buried next him if she wished. The graveyard was where her father was buried, which David had found out during their time together.
They would drive out of Guthrie to visit her father’s grave, then stop at a cousin’s house for lunch, and then return to her apartment. David loved those trips, just him, her and the open road. He had forgotten the cousins name, it had been painted on the side of her mailbox, but he could not see it anymore.
Afternoon Walk.
The Feild Reading room was one of fourteen donated rooms by alumni. The others were dotted throughout the various faculties, and housed a respected collection of works pertaining to the dicipline of the room. The History room, donated by Ellis Graham in 1956 featured old tattered texts concerning assorted wars and politcal and economic sanctions. The bilology reading room, donated by Sara Bruggeman house books and even a human skull in a plexiglass case that had been vandalized every year since the room was opened, most often by simply wearing a fake moustache or hat.
The Feild room was new and donated by James Feild who had graduated six years prior and made a name for himself playing Major League baseball. He had left college and was immediately inducted into MLB by playing for the MInnesotta Twins. After four years and a great demand to return to the game he decided to retire and work at his PhD like he intended before he made his name as a baseball player.
On a drive home to New Hamshire during a particular snowstorm near Christmas he lost control of his car and died on the spot with the gifts for his children, wife, and parents in the back seat.
- The Fox & the Hound
