A Theory From My Button

Today, I dressed in cargo shorts, flip-flop sandals, and a pullover, short-sleeved, white shirt with a collar. The shirt did not have a designer emblem on its front or back; I generally hate giving large companies advertising space for free. There were three buttons on the shirt, all of them near the neck. I never wear shirts that have been buttoned all the way up; it is much too restrictive for me. Neither do I wear shirts unbuttoned below the second button; that seems to be a sign of a man who is trying to hard. The two-out-of-three button arrangement is the style I prefer on sports shirts.

Shortly after I finished buttoning the two lower buttons, the middle one spoke to me. “What’s up with all these twigs and leaves on the floor,” it asked.

“The Cheegle brings them in,” I answered.

“You know,” my button went on, “I don’t get out of the closet that often, but it seems to me that little dog is acting like a bird that is gathering material for a nest.”

I was a little surprised my button knew about bird nesting; it had never mentioned the subject before. “I think you’re right,” I said, “and I think that is very perceptive of you.”

“I have a theory,” said the button.

“Yeah, what’s your theory?”

“Well,” said the button with great authority, “by observing all the dogs that live with you, I think a case can be made that dogs evolved from dinosaurs. All I have is empirical evidence, but it seems to me to be a plausible theory.”

“To be honest,” I told the button, “I believe your theory is rather daft. I think the prevailing scientific belief is that dogs evolved from wolves.”

“That’s true,” my button said, “as far as it goes. But, you need to go back further than wolves. Where did wolves come from?”

“Wolverines?”

“Very funny. Wolves came from dinosaurs who came from birds, ergo, your dogs are birds.”

“Get out of here. The six dogs that live at this house came from a shelter.”

“You’re not taking this seriously, are you?”

“Not very. No offense, but you are only a button after all.”

“I understand. Uh, you might want to take a look at the dog bed in the corner. I think the Cheegle laid an egg.”

Read more!

The Test

Last night, as I lay in bed surrounded by six softly snoring dogs, I decided I was going to take a test. Unlike the tests I’ve seen posted on various Internet blogs, the test I was going to take would be able to tell me far more than what percentage hermorphaditic, gypsy arborist I was. It would go far beyond telling me if I was a cartoon character, a liberal spelunker, or a well-regulated sexual gymnast. This would be a test that would absolutely define me in all aspects.

The test promised to inform me of things known and unknown to me. The test would tell me about my character, my health, my prejudices, my desires, my fears, and my altruism. I would find out if any of my actions have led to the death of another person or enriched someone’s life. It would examine the good in me…and the evil. It would evaluate my perceptions, it would test my loyalty, and it would see how well I dealt with joy and tragedy and stress and pain and pleasure.

The test would be long, but there would be a time limit. Many of the questions would be repeated over and over. I could go back and make some corrections, but I still had to beat the clock. There are a lot of study guides available for the test, but many of them are contradictory so, at best, they are unreliable. You are not allowed to speak with anyone who has taken the test, and from what I understand, it probably wouldn’t do you any good if you could. There is really no way you can cheat on the test. You can lie, but that’s part of the test. No, this test is a solo effort.

I couldn’t sleep last night; I kept thinking about this test I was going to take. I got out of bed at 3:00 a.m. and went into my office to prepare for the test. The dogs followed me. When I sat down in front of my desk with a hot cup of coffee, I glanced over at Roxie, my canine friend that is dying. She was doing well this morning, and as I looked at her she walked over and put her head in my lap, hoping for a morning head rub. As I looked at her, something began to dawn on me: I was already taking the test.

The test, of course, is Life. I couldn’t tell you how well I’m doing; I have no idea who is scoring it. I just hope I don’t run out of number-two pencils for a while.

Read more!

The Word Eater

Barlow ate his words. Sometimes he would go to great lengths and lovingly prepare them with tasty sauces made of the ripest adverbs or aged adjectives. Preparation time would not be rushed so the flavor of each letter could be coaxed out and blended with the others in a savory olio. On these occasions, Barlow would uncork a bottle of his favorite sharps and flats, let it sit for a half hour while he plated his expressive meal, and then pour a glass of music to moisten his palate and aid in word digestion.
There were other times when Barlow could not delay his hunger, and he would randomly pick a book off a shelf and stuff his face like he was eating a bag of potato chips. His cheeks would puff with salty verbs and crisp nouns.
Barlow began eating words when he was nine-years-old. His parents bought him a set of encyclopedias, and one day, he nibbled the “ed” off the word “waited.” From that small beginning, Barlow developed a taste for morphemes such as “the,” or “write,” or “man,” and would pop them into his mouth whenever hunger struck.
In high school, Barlow began to broaden his palate; he dined on nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs, conjunctions, modifiers and pronouns as often as possible. He learned French and Spanish and delighted at the flavors masculine and feminine articles could bring out in words. But, it wasn’t until he enrolled in college that Barlow’s etyomological pursuits blossomed into an epicurean obsession.
Barlow enrolled at the University of Texas as an English major. He soon discovered his favorite subjects were Literary Theory and Creative Writing. In the literary theory course, a new world opened up to him, a world of neologisms and the portmanteau. His theory professors unlocked secret recipes and offered up rare delicacies reserved for a cadre of intellectuals and competitive theorists. He wandered through the gourmet kitchens of the academic elite tasting delicious sophistry, philosophy, pseudo-expressions and nonce words, never missing an opportunity to nosh and nibble at the kitchen table. Some of the offerings were hard to swallow, but Barlow found that with a healthy swig of bubbling water, he could get even the most distasteful lexemes down.
The word eater also took classes in foreign languages to broaden his lexicon. He mastered Greek, Latin, Russian, German, Chinese, Chinese and Arabic, adding grams to his brain weight with each new dictionary. His head began to swell.
The words Barlow had eaten served him well as a writer. By age 20 he had turned out a 700-page novel, by 23, a non-fiction text on 13th-century vocabularians. He would lace his work with new words, words he coined to fit his thoughts; they proved to be the most tasty he had ever eaten.
In his last year of grad school, while completing his thesis, Barlow the word eater suffered a massive brain injury. The Finnish and Icelandic languages proved to be his undoing. His thesis, “Culinary Linguistics of Frigid People,” required that he learn those languages. A three–month diet of alphabets with strange, pointed letters surrounded by dots and squiggles tore several blood vessels in his brain, and it began to hemorrhage. Syntax began to leak from his ears, half-chewed Finnish surnames ran blood-red from his nose, and he fell into a coma. An international team of respected linguistic professors was flown in to try to resuscitate him, but their mission ended in failure. Barlow died.
At Barlow’s funeral, his younger brother Chet delivered the eulogy. Obviously distraught, Chet stepped to the podium and said, “There are no words to express our sorrow.”

(c) 2007

Read more!

Barry Eats Sheep

Last week, I started old school, and tomorrow, my first homework assignment is due for my class in memoir writing. I’ve already completed the assignment, and anticipate a fairly decent grade, but I’m worried about my classmate Barry.
Barry is 81 years old, and up until 11 years ago, he was in the poultry technology field for more than 50 years. He says he is gay even though he has never had sex with a man…or a woman. His statement made me a little wary, so I asked him if he had had sex with a chicken. He assured me that that was not—nor would it ever be—the case. I dropped the subject.
I’m worried about Barry not because of his gayness, but because I think he might receive an F on his homework assignment. Our teacher asked us to write about our favorite childhood foods. After class, Barry confided in me that he wasn’t very keen on revisiting his childhood and recalling the slaughter in which he participated. “You see,” Barry told me, “I was raised by wolves.”
Now, I was raised by a military officer, and I don’t think being raised by wolves could be any more traumatic than that, but Barry insists he will be ridiculed and persecuted if he puts down on paper the somewhat grizzly meals he consumed as a child. “I just know that other people are going to write about fried chicken, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and stuff like that,” said Barry. He looked around to make sure no one else was listening, and said, “You know, Em, I wish I could have eaten that kind of stuff, but mostly what my parents gave me was raw, bloody sheep. Damn, to this day, I can’t even wear a wool sweater.”
“Well,” I told Barry, “why don’t you just write that you liked mutton as a child, even if it is a lie.”
“Oh, I couldn’t lie.”
“Ok…uh…I’m sure you probably ate something else besides sheep once in a while; there must have been something you liked.”
“Well…yeah,” said Barry with a guilty look on his face. “There were a few treats.”
“Then write about them,” I suggested.
“I don’t think people would understand Em. I mean wolves have different appetites than humans.”
“How bad could it be Barry? People eat animals all the time.”
“I’ll tell you, but you got to keep this to yourself, Ok?”
“Sure Barry, no problem. I think you’re blowing this way out of proportion, but go ahead.”
“Well, when I was a kid my favorite things to eat were aliens.”
I just sort of stared at Barry, thinking Alzheimer’s hat set in. “Aliens?”
“Yeah, the wolf pack I lived with was based in the hills of southern New Mexico. About once a month or so, dad and my uncles would go out for a sheep kill, and as they were stalking, they’d run across and illegal alien who had gotten lost. He didn’t stand a chance. It was sure a great change of pace from sheep, and I always got the ankle.”
I think class tomorrow is going to be real interesting.

Read more!

Story Accepted

My story "The Therapist's Apprentice" has been accepted by Every Day Fiction and is schedule to go out September 23.

Every Day Fiction sends out a story a day to your inbox, and it costs nothing to sign up for the service. The writing covers all genres, and is a great way to get in some interesting reads during your lunch break.

Read more!