Bearded Jon's Stories

Boom Boom Boom (pop)

2007-03-29T06:33:30Z

And things just kept getting bigger and bigger and more and more out of hand until, well, you probably saw the footage on CNN .

A Light in the Distance

2007-03-26T06:16:09Z

The day the Sutton Roadhouse burned we were taking a new washer and drier to Valdez for the house down there. I was 14 or 15 and Dad was in his late 30’s, probably the age I am now.

Coming down the hill just past mirror lake we could see a light in the distance where there should be. I had been reading the Dungeon Master’s guide and working out some Dungeons and Dragons character details by flashlight because the sun was hours off from rising but I put it all away to speculate about the light.

It was in the wrong direction to be Wasilla. We could see the lights of Wasilla as we rounded the corner at Eklutna.

It wasn’t Palmer. It was beyond Palmer and Palmer didn’t have big lights like that.

It was closer to the prison but it wasn’t the prison. We could see the lights of the prison clearly from the hay flats. They were tall towers with individual lights the shone directly onto the prison yard.

The miles passed and we rolled down the hill into Sutton and saw the roadhouse burning. We said nothing.

I Am Empty Like the Ocean

2007-03-20T06:09:45Z

I am empty like the ocean.

I am turbulent wind swept roiling foam. I am the dead calm of doldrums. I am the giant rolling swell of the deep sea.

I am flotsam and jetsam and the filth that collects in the corners of the harbor. I am the treasure sunken to the bottom of the sea.

I am the soulless predator. I am the unknowing prey.

I crash upon the shore and lap lazily at the beach.

I am warm and frigid, soothing and harsh. I am a friend and an enemy and a tool. I am worshiped and feared. I am untamed.

I am empty like the ocean.

On the Cusp

2007-03-18T06:24:06Z

Tomorrow will be my 14,245th day, the first day of my 40th year.

I have been around for 14,244 days. I was born on a Monday in a leap year but after the leap.

I recall, vividly, about 100 of those days. Not all of the time of all of those days. Maybe a few instants of those days.

I don’t know what I recall. Days in the Volkswagen convertible with Mom spent driving nowhere and everywhere. An evening at the dinner table learning to write numbers with Dad. Pets.

Idle hours spent assembling LEGO structures, then disassembling, then reassembling. Air travel. Exploring new places, a new home, far from the concept of home I had been born with.

Playing doctor with a friend and a couple girls. Chaste kisses. Running around trailer parks and jumping ditches with my bike.

Rain. Lots of rain. Inner tubes on a small lake in the rain. Canoeing in the rain. Building earthen dams in the rain. Watching my innocence, my youth, wash away like so many grains of diseffected sand. Pebbles in the water.

Aged.

Sunrise

2007-03-18T03:41:06Z

It was light but the sun had yet to break the mountain tops to warm his face. He was in the foothills and could see the sun’s caress far to the West and watched its slow steady progress towards him, spreading across the plane before him. With each league, yard, foot the sun came closer he could feel the air warm. The sun crossed a stream casting glittering light i all directions as it illuminated a stretch of long broad rapids. He longed to bath in its warmth but could not rush to it, he had to wait for it to come to him. The sun caught the top of the trees that about him and crept down their trunks, bathed their limbs, crept closer and closer until the first rays caught his hair. He turned to face the warmth, the light. His brow, his nose, his cheeks, his chin. The warmth of the sun spread through his arms, his torso, his thighs to his feet. Immersed in the warmth and light of the sun he was cleansed, fulfilled, fully aware and alive, ready for the day and all that it would bring. A day of promises.

Tis The Season

2007-03-16T19:25:18Z

The ache creeps into my shoulders, spreads down my arms.

Is it from hunching over the keyboard? Is it my posture?

A tickle in my throat. A mild headache. Sinus pressure. Its not from the computer.

Pop some pills. Plop, plop; fizz, fizz. It never beats sleep but the workday, the social calendar, life is prohibitive.

And when I do roll into bed the congestion comes. I can’t breath so I snore. I snore and I don’t rest. I don’t rest and I don’t get any better. I don’t get any better and I stay sick and behind closed doors.

Sunshine. Sunshine and warmth are what I need. Winter keeps me from fresh air, keeps me locked inside. Keeps me breathing the same stagnant diseased air that brought the sickness, recycling the germs.

There is no winning. Cold, flu, they all win. They always win. The sun will come, heralding Spring. Summer and warmth will follow but the diseases of the long and cloistered Winter shall return.

Can I wait it out? I have no choice, but will I make it? Can I last? I must.

the stolen... more

2007-03-16T06:58:30Z

We’re not that different, you and I he thought of the mosquito. We both prey upon others. We both just want to be in and out, our job done without being caught.

He trained his scope on the man in the Nehru jacket. He trailed him as he walked from the grand entrance of the pavilion towards the limousine.

He waited, wanting to take the man as he stooped into the vehicle. Shooting through the crack between the door and the body of the car. He had used this move before. If he timed it just right the body would slump into the seat and the driver would close the door thinking the man had merely wanted to stretch out.

The man approached the car. The driver opened the door. The flesh was pierced.

He did not cry out, but he squeezed the trigger and the shot went wide, striking the hand of the driver. The mosquito had changed his focus, had pulled him out of his zone a half mile away and drew him back here, into his own personal space.

He needed to run. Instead he watched the mosquito feast on his blood.

De Luxe Olympia

2007-03-16T06:45:43Z

I started on a typewriter just like this one, maybe this one. A De Luxe Olympia. I didn’t know QUERTY and was not acquainted with Mavis Beacon either. I would hunt and peck and hours later I would have a few paragraphs filled with youthful enthusiasm if nothing else.

I was tentative with the keys. I’m surprised that I didn’t end up with TMJ . I would grit my teeth with every strike.

I had amazing speed. Somewhere around 10, maybe 15 characters per minute.

I remember staying up late at night, my bedroom door closed, a solitary lamp close to my desk illuminating the keyboard and the paper. I could not stream my consciousness, only think in phrases and catch up with my fingers at the end of each word.

My only companion with the click, clack, tick of the keys. They typewriter and maybe a dog.

And what crap I wrote. Science Fiction. I never finished anything. I wonder where those pages have gone? Lined a bird cage? In a folder on a book case? Where have those old works gone? Where are the words?

The Pencil

2007-03-15T16:49:13Z

He hadn’t held a pencil in his hands in a long time. The octagonal shaft felt good, its weight comfortable, the paint tacky, gripping his fingers lightly.

He loved pencils when he was a kid, almost to the point of fetish. He was probably eight or nine and all alone in his classroom. He found a brand new unopened box of a dozen Faber No. 2’s and he sharpened them all down to tiny nubs.

The sharpener was near bursting. He gripped it firmly with one hand, the desk with the other. He twisted the metal basked until it disengaged from the sharpener base then pulled it free. Shavings hung from the sharpener spindle. He wiped them into the basket, the smell of graphite and shaved wood pungent, flaring his nostrils.

He was in a sharpening euphoria. A rush he had never known. A high that would never be surpassed.

He began to twirl. He twirled and twirled and twirled spreading the shavings around the room. He danced in the shavings spreading their dust around the huge room, not a care to the consequence.

The Bottle

2007-03-15T08:35:08Z

Its just a bottle. It is cold and smooth and glass. It is green with the residue of glue where the label has been peeled off. The cap is still tightly on top. He wants to open it but does not. He picks at the glue like he picked at the label. Soon the glue will be gone and the cap will taunt him.

“Open me.” “Fuck you.” “Please.” “Fuck you.”

He wants to open the bottle. The bottle wants to be opened. What is the problem. Just open the damned bottle. He can not.

He is weak but he is not that weak. The bottle stares at him; he stares at the bottle.

“Please.” “FUCK YOU ,” he screams and hurls the bottle across the room. It catches the large chrome handle on the old Frigidaire and bursts, spraying the kitchen with froth. Glass skitters across the floor. Yellowish foam slithers down the refrigerator and becomes rivulets which become streams which leap off the bottom of the door landing on the freezer door and crawl towards the floor.

“Fuck you,” he mutters without much enthusiasm. “Fuck you.”