Silver

Bad decisions compounded by sitting at the edge of a stage with a frosty Modelo and scribbling in a pocket notebook about the song choices the dancer has picked for her dances. A languid flow that slows time— there’s a smooth edge to everything as I can’t look away from her leopard print singlet. I don’t think I should have walked in the door, but now I’m wondering how someone decides which songs to dance to. Questions of style mirror the dancer as both spin before me.

***

I sit in the middle of a red leather booth, my hands planted on either side of me. Entranced rather than aroused. She presses her body against mine— the weight of her moving slowly as her hands pass over my hand and onto my chest. There isn’t space to speak as every turn compresses my focus into a singular existence. I want to ask questions about her style— about how someone can be so at odds with the style of others around them.

I speak at the end, but my tongue is heavy with wonder. I thank her for the dances and know that my appreciation is in the craft, not in an illusion of attraction. I wonder at this growing trend I’ve found in myself: the multiplication of destructive behavior spurred by a glaring lack of intimacy. I wonder if I’m crossing beyond— to a place that I won’t be able to return from without trouble.

I return to an empty condo— briefly being held up at the gated entrance to the garage as a white tesla makes me show my key fob before letting me in. There’s a juxtaposition between my 2002 Forest green Ford Windstar and the rest of the high value vehicles in the garage. I’m aware of the divide as the same couple holds the elevator door for me as I hurry to grab my groceries from the back seat. I laugh that I don’t blame them for being suspicious and they respond that they didn’t want another $100 fine from the HOA. We agree to let the matter settle and I step off at the sixth floor.

I walk inside, adjusting the thermostat and unloaded a laden grocery bag with seltzer waters, eggs, and beer. I had been good with the turn of the new year, but already I’ve had a moment of impulse that stretched an entire night. I’ll reactivate a dating app and swipe without feeling. I’m far away from the heavy air that lingered between myself and Silver at the club. I’m a long way from anything at all.

Midst

Ten games over the course of two days. All in the midst of a nonstop rainstorm. The teams age from seven years old to eighteen years old.

I knew I was going to be in the thick of it with the spring season in full force, but I didn’t know that my own estimate for the amount of games I would coach would be significantly lower than what it actually will be.

Red rain-soaked Janowski‘s and durable rain pants made up my aesthetic for the weekend. Little bubbles would foam through the tiny pockets on the top of my shoes with all the excess water. The glamour of a career in athletics is on full display.

On Saturday, I didn’t eat a real meal until 5:30 in the evening. I survived off of coffee and cliff bars. I finished the Weekend with two nights in a row, where I passed out on the couch before dragging myself to bed.

Funny thing is it I will do it all again and I’ll be happy to do so. I’m working with some great kids and I can see the areas of improvement.

Last night there was an inclement weather enforced training cancellation. We had gotten to the last ten minutes of the youth academy trainings when a purple striped bolt of lightning landed a couple streets over from the field. Cue the calm, but energetic hustle to get all two hundred plus players off the pitch and into the blue, rounded clubhouse.

Today it’ll be a triple set of trainings as I work with three different high school aged teams. A change from the seven and eight year olds from yesterday.

Anthology Plug

Shameless plug for both the paperback/ ebook anthologies I’ve written and published on Amazon. If you want to give them a peek— you can find them here for the Anthology of Odd or here for the Howl of the Hamjackal.

I’ve been getting back into the routine of writing— more recently with actual fiction stories with Camp Welby (which will definitely have more added to round it out). It’s been difficult with the winter months and constantly shifting schedule as I return to life over here in Portland.

There are times where I think I’ll never put together a full length book or movie script. But then I stop and ask why that’s important at all. Especially if I just want to write. What has been cool has been learning the process of putting a manuscript together and designing a cover.

It’s been very gratifying to feel a physical copy of an anthology in my hands (which I currently have five copies sitting on my kitchen island, so I’ll extent that joy in due time to some other readers).

All in all, if you like any of the stories on the website or feel like giving a little support to a fellow artist, consider buying a copy of the book or even a ko-fi donation if that tickles your fancy.

A return to the regularly scheduled content will commence hereafter—

Thanks,

A

Camp Welby Pt.2

Gabe saw them right before he jumped. In that moment where you can’t stop, but haven’t transitioned to free fall, he saw the jade green glow of stairs underneath the water. His yell of joy caught in his throat unlike the other counselors. He fell into the lake like a late piano key being played— the water swallowing him in a rush of gurgled noise.

He kicked to the surface, joining the group. He couldn’t see the outline of the stairs with the water mimicking a sheet of obsidian. Gabe sympathized with the fool’s moon shining overhead.

Shouts for another jump were few, but enthusiastic. They swam to the shore and started the trek back to the camp and talked about college, old camp memories, and other legends Gabe had long since gotten used to as their soggy clothes dried out on the walk.

A hand pulled on Gabe and he turned to see Ryder. “Did you see them?”

“Did I see what?”

“The stairs!”

Gabe looked around before nodding. “I thought you said you could only see them at midnight. Or that’s what your brother said.”

“He must have been wrong. Do you think anyone else saw them?” Ryder said looking at the group ahead of them. Spirits were high as they bounced along the trail.

“I don’t know,” Gabe said. “Maybe someone will bring it up later. They’re probably just an old project from the thirties, right?”

“If you say so.” The pair lapsed into silence as they walked back. Their bodies worn like wrung towels from swimming. A soft luminescence filled the night as frogs croaked and fireflies flickered across the path.

The next week wrapped both boys up in camp duties and after hours shenanigans as they made the most of their late teens. Gabe kept an eye open for Emma as his crush proved stronger than ever. Ryder tried not to tease him too much about it, but would offer Gabe’s help whenever Emma needed something. What are friends for if they don’t lovingly embarrass and encourage you?

“Why do you keep avoiding me?” Emma said startling Gabe as he cleaned cutlery in the mess hall. She sat on the counter like a sphinx as she gave him a once over.

“I’m not avoiding you,” Gabe said staring into the dishwater. Foamy bubbles couldn’t hide his reddening neck. “I’ve just been busy with all the tasks.”

“Like cleaning knives?” Gabe looked up from the sink. Emma smiled and handed him a note. “Maybe you’ll finish up in time,” she said walking out leaving Gabe with wet hands and a water logged note.

Meet me at Cairns Point at Moon Rise -E

Camp Welby Pt. 1

They made it easy to follow the rules. Enjoy the summer, don’t leave the cabins after dark, and never, ever, descend the stairs under the lake.

The last rule didn’t make sense to Gabe since stairs under a lake was a looney toons set up, not an actuality.

Gabe had been coming to Camp Welby since he was a little boy. He didn’t like to admit he used to cry himself to sleep. He certainly didn’t say anything about wetting the bed, either. But he’d been blessed with some compassionate camp counselors who helped him skate through the night terror years without public incident. It was the reason he returned to the camp after his freshman year of college.

His return as a camp counselor definitely didn’t have anything to do with the rumor that Emma LaFraigne was also returning in the same capacity. None at all.

Freshman year of college zoomed past like sugar rush roller skaters. He’d received his acceptance letter from the camp in April. He sat on his dorm room bed, under the gaze of a steely eyed Jim Morrison, and dreamed of the sweaty summer nights where a heartfelt confession didn’t fall flat.

Set in the Minnesotan wilderness, the campers had to arrive via floatplane. The popularity of arrival diminished in recent years after a spike in accidents. Gabe thought that was tied more to the age of the average floatplane than pilot competency. Still, camper attendance only made it to sixty campers instead of his childhood average of two hundred. The relative vacancy gave the lake an eerie, sparse feeling.

After the first day of welcoming campers, Gabe and his fellow counselors found themselves free. Willow and Lucas, two friends from Bear Lake said they’d stick in camp while the rest of the counselors made their inaugural trek to Cairns Point above the north end of the lake. There were cairns stacked in various sizes at the edge of the cliff overlooking the lake. The twenty foot drop wasn’t big enough to fully scare off the uneasy, but it did mean cajoling, bribes, and obscure threats had to be made in order to ensure everyone leapt into the water at the same time.

One doesn’t mess with tradition.

One counselor, Ryder, hung back to talk to Gabe about a rumor he’d heard a couple years back. It had to do with the last rule in the unofficial counselors notebook that previous years wrote their names and best (or worst) experiences of the summer in.

“It’s not a joke, you know,” Ryder said as he fiddled with the bark on his walking stick. “My brother told me a kid in his year found the stairs.”

Gabe gave him a look. “Come on, man. I know how brothers are. He just wanted to freak you out before coming here.”

“I don’t think so. He told me this a couple years back. Right after his last year of high school. That was the year they stopped letting high schoolers work here.”

“That’s ominous. Did he say anything else or did he just leave it at that?” Ryder looked around to check that no one else was listening in.

“He told me not to come up to Cairns point past midnight. He didn’t say why. But he made me promise.”

Gabe checked his watch, the aqua blue text read nine fifteen pm before shaking his head. “I think he’s just trying to do that older brother thing. We’re not going to be out here that late anyway, but I think he’s full of it.”

Ryder threw his hands up, “I was just saying…”

“Come on, let’s catch up with the group.”

Glacial Awakening

Walking backwards is always a guess.

A wandering cowboy slips through the snow as the thaw of spring rears its frosted head.

The soft crackle of arched steps sounds through the room. Pacing like a sun-bound polar bear.

An illusion is brewing

It has been for a dogs age.

This medley of confusion and open-ended paths that so neatly disguise themselves as solitary walkways. Instead of the outward spinning circle from which we’ve all originated at the center.

Hesitating to close with grief as no arms find themselves around me.

Hate to accept the cowardice of refusing to face the dark wings of heartbreak in a lush environs. The demi-glacé of reality will not find me there.

Gull

“I’m telling you something is wrong with him. I watched this man punch seagulls out of the sky for 45 minutes. That’s not normal behavior, Karen. I think this is a serious cause for alarm and if you don’t need something, I will.” Karen rolled her eyes as she continued to pack scarfs into a soft-edged cardboard box. The box read “Xmas” in faded sharpie.

“Tom, I already told you to leave it alone. You know he’s from Iowa. he’s got more Four Loko in his bloodstream than he does white blood cells. I am not trying to end up on his bad side.”

Tom shifted a couple more boxes around in the spare room as he tried to handle the volume of his grumbling. Usually threats of avian aggression worked better than this, he thought.

Dinner Time

“You’d be surprised,” she said lighting the final candle.

“I don’t think so,” a man in a velour tracksuit said. The dining room of a Victorian house still fighting to evoke prestige flickered with the dancing lights of thirteen candles. “I’m only here because my Nona told me to come. I don’t brook with all this-“ the man twirled his hand is a dismissive gesture, “nonsense.”

A fey smile crept across the woman’s face. “I’ve heard that before.”

The next couple hours the surrounding houses didn’t notice the eldritch screams or swirling vortex of clouds over the Drasvlin House. The statues in the front changed faces as creeping vines slithered through the yard. Still, no one noticed.

Google Searches

I’ve been looking through the Google searches that have led people to my website— and so far, “are butter menthols bad for dogs” and “Is there an inappropriate time for ham?” are my two favorite ones. “brady bud save our horny queen” and “bottoms summoning tops” are also top tier additions.

I didn’t even know butter menthols were a thing— but regardless of human or dog consumption, I’d wager they aren’t too healthy. As for the age-old question of whether it is an inappropriate time for ham— the answer is a resounding yes. Mid-funeral, any school bathroom, in a bouncy house, on the hajj to Mecca, at a pig farm (or maybe not on that one, depending on the owners), during a standardized test, any moment of seduction, and probably during an induction ceremony. The possibilities are endless for inappropriate ham times, so you have to ham it up in spirit, not physical substance.

Forward Flop

This weekend I failed forward. I was out at my coaching license course getting ready to demo my training session for the instructors and fellow coaches when the script was switched. Up until that point, all of the sessions had been run with coaches serving as players in the drills. I had that in mind as I created my session— the style of play, field space, numbers, etc

Enter seven u10 girls from one of the instructor’s teams. Not only was it not the eleven players I needed to run my drill, but the report I had built with my fellow coaches was out the window as I had seven new children in front of me. I had to switch the drill on the fly and interact with kids (which I wasn’t prepared for).

It was pretty disastrous. I stepped back from coaching— the players themselves didn’t have much success, and I felt like all the coaching experience I did have disappeared into the wind.

I couldn’t ask for a better scenario to learn from. Not only did it force me into an uncomfortable situation, but it clearly showed me things I need to work on. Stepping back from the players because I wasn’t prepared to interact with them isn’t a luxury I’ll have if I stay in coaching or education. There will always be scenarios in which new players or students, classes, teams, etc will need coaching from me in hurried circumstances.

I love soccer. If you know me or have read through my website, you’ve probably known that for a while now. But when it comes to the competitive soccer world, it’s been hard to shake the feeling of not belonging. I know the game—I love the game. I have an obscene amount of niche knowledge of players, teams, play styles, and numerous factoids. But it can be difficult at times to express that knowledge succinctly.

Really, it’s that I’ve had a severe case of imposter syndrome, and my demo yesterday felt like being found out. Only it wasn’t the end of the world. I went on to finish the day gaining new skills and knowledge. I left the field where the session took place and rushed back over to the east side of the town to coach two games for the U19 boys. A 3-3 draw and a 4-0 win weren’t bad ways to alleviate the post-lesson witches brew of feelings.

Learning can be a vulnerable process, especially when one's identity is wrapped up in it. The emotions tendriled around principles one is forced to cut away can be devastating.

I wonder in what ways I’ll grow as I continue along this lightning-forked path of coaching. What avenues will be pruned as I decide to carry forward in specific directions.

Across the Way in Light of Horror

The swish of fresh nylon track pants taking one step at a time. A venonmous grey hallway across the way from big floor to ceiling windows.

A short, melodic whistle with each step. But the steps keep taking longer.

Tension rising as if waiting for something or someone to walk down the dark hallway across the road.

The whistler waiting for chaos to unfold.

The night is otherwise silent, save for the swish and whistle.

No sounds as horrors reflect in the windows across the way.

Of Late Nights in Which We Charge Into Fire

It’s time to slip on the velvet gloves of revolution and kill bad men.

Brother, you don’t have it so bad that the crawdads have started crawling through your dreams. No noisy brook or kicked fence has kept you from aspirations others call foolish.

Kept awake by technicolor memories of reckless glory. Nights where youth sang hot-blooded songs of challenge and like the myrmidons on the beach of Troy, you answered.

It’s not that you lose courage as you age, but ignorance. The brash charge slows to a measured step. And for all the scoffs and regrets, life requires the call of undaunted action.

Powdered sugar steps cross the divide between inane and inviting. Tip toeing around desires like light night bathroom trips in old houses. Floorboard creak regrets for every dream not voiced.

It’s in the slow fall into bed where your head rests on a yellowed pillow when you ask yourself when you became afraid to dream past nighttime.

When did sparkling thoughts lose shine past the divide of what is and what is to come?

And so, and thus, and so——

Eight

For the first time in weeks, I slept long past eight o’clock. My body must have called off the early rise as the week's exercise caught up to me.

I’ve been flitting through books as snow threatens to fall. My coaching license course is disjointed in its expectations, but I’ve found use in its new material. The first meeting made me realize I have to reengage with learning. Too long have I been able to coast by without overt mental effort. It’s nice to reclaim some scholastic energies.

Half the time I write, I find myself wandering through lyric lines. There hasn’t been much impetus for stories lately, even if I have been combing through my archives to release the anthologies.

The other day, I was driving out to Troutdale to see one of my closest friends who had driven in from Montana to look at Portland area homes with his wife when I started laughing at the absurdity of it all. I’ve been haggard from the breakneck pace I’ve put myself on since I returned to the States. Since my first week back, I’ve been coaching soccer and doing anything and everything that’s come across my path to combat the relative inactivity I had during my island stay (although that idea itself is ridiculous when you consider I was doing new things daily in a foreign country) but rural vs. city provides two very different lifestyles.

It’s the beginning of February, and I’m helping coach four different age groups and occasionally attending gym sessions for the high school team. Saturday through Thursday, I have guaranteed soccer involvement, whether it be practice, games, or weight room sessions. The only day off I genuinely have is Friday, but that’s when I might end up on the mountain to snowboard or go to a local show. That being said, I laughed on that drive out to Troutdale because I was doing exactly what I said I’d be doing when I was in Japan. I told my friends and coworkers over there that I would move back and start coaching. Even the coaching license course is part of what I told them.

It’s only been about six months since getting back, and I’ve bedded in like a duck to water, but I can’t shake the feeling of “not enough” even though I know it’s absurd. If any of my friends were to tell me the same scenario, I’d be hyped for them. Especially adding in the artistic achievements.

The pace can trip us up. We’re constantly told (socially and perhaps personally) that we have to achieve more. Year over year, day over day, our output has to become exponentially greater. It's no surprise that unhappiness and stress levels are rocketing. The calm moments necessary for rest and re-energizing have been monopolized and rationed out.

Slowing things down allows the flavor to return to life. If everything is done at breakneck speed, the world is a blur as you move past. I think of sitting at a wooden kitchen table drinking coffee with clover honey as I read a book and imagined a future outside of Southern Oregon. I think of slow walks through the east side of Portland as the summer light faded, but dreams of expansive stories did not.

There’s no grand coherent message to this— just thoughts scattered like leaves and the occasional breath of insight as if knowledge took a sentient form to perch behind the ears of the occasionally receptive.

Starward

I stare out at a room with a bed covered by a patchwork quilt.

The amber glow of the bed side lamp fills the room and leaks out onto the street.

The dragon huff of the heating vent rattles the wall next to me

Expectations collapse inward like the center of an origami star.

A blue lined black hole lays on the table before me.

Ink drenched notebooks sit beside it.

I’m finding the edges of existence in between exhales.

Manners

“The torment of good manners and bad timing. All the hallmarks of seething rage that simmers under a surface of erudite calm. There is a reason the crude provocateurs win— they tug the truth into open air.” - Excerpt from the Wandering Scribe of Alesia

Eras

The present is always the time of consequence.

Too often do we cast all desires into the past or future.

There is no time but this in which we can act.

“History is not inevitable,” Golo Mann said as he watched the rise and fall of the Weimar Republic. Revisionist and cynics claim backward foresight.

“We all knew it was going to happen. Nothing could be done.” Falser words could not be said. We do not live in a hard-set cast like the pour for copper. Institutions for centuries can disappear overnight.

The flicker of flame and black smoke of turned oil vanished under the lambent cast of filament lights— whaling boats lost over the electric horizon.

The illusion of normalcy is maintained as even in the fall of empires you have to rise in the morning and sleep at night. There are still birthdays and smiles. Smaller and brittle, perhaps. But the human spirit does not extinguish in one fell swoop. History has shown otherwise.

There is no escaping the connection to the world. There is no gently laid salt line that keeps the spirits from the door. No pair of headphones, book, or music that can drown out the ever present thrum of the universe that pulses through us.

There is no salvation in ignorance. No prayer in despair that will save you from experiencing the breadth of existence.

The only destiny we can claim is breath.

So fill your lungs with the defiant crush of the unknown— and all that it contains— as if we are to make a wager. If we are to stand as a speck in the vastness of it all— why not dare to breathe once more. To realize that even the darkness cannot remain an unmovable force.

Like a dandelion pushing up through concrete— it’s bit by bit as you move towards daylight.

Tres

I woke to three women standing over my bed. One by the window, one at the end of the bed, and one closer to the bathroom. They stood silently. As if they’d paused the moment I came to. The energy of the room crackled without words.

Porcelain statues looking down at me without word.

I woke again to an empty, dark room.

The lamp light didn’t cast their shadows. There were no shadows at all.

The Creek Hermit

I woke up thinking of you, the man scribbled in his notebook. I don’t know if I’ll ever tell you. The last embers crackled in the wood stove as he sat in the sunken recliner. The morning was chill, and the fog lay low and thick on the ground. Fall was quickly fading before a strong winter.

I wonder if you ever think about me, too. But never enough to move the block of ice holding my fear frozen. Easier to write and wander. Always easier to dream than to live. Worn journals and open books lay across a board, scarred kitchen table. Heavy wood held together with thick steel bolts. It could have served in an old lumber camp. These things aren’t made anymore. Wood from forests long gone. Out of time from lost worlds. Ones that faded photographs and looping script spoke of. The man sat nursing his cup of tea. No mirrors lived in the cabin, but he knew he didn’t present a pretty sight. Not anymore.

Still, curiosity remained as he weaved her initials against the ceramic mug. He was too lost in memories to hear the first birds of the day and the nattering of the chipmunks that followed.

Too lost to remember what still lay before him.

I would have been a different man, given the chance.

Bancorp Pink

There are days when I wonder to what ends I will follow for this path I am walking. Behind me is defined, but before there’s no arc to be followed— only what my imagination can craft and feet can sunder.

I’m laying in an empty king sized bed. I haven’t drawn the shades yet. No lights are on inside the condo, but down below is the ever-present Glisan fluorescence.

In the distance, the US Bancorp building is topped with a pink ribbon around its top.

Back ordered Girl Scout cookies set for a February arrival.

Weary mind and achy legs.

The disappearance of goals amidst a sleepy mind, but the small torch fire of hope that they remain intact and in pursuit.

I believe tomorrow I’ll wake in a sunlit room with a smile nearby.

As I age, I’ve begun to no longer trust the emotions that snarl beyond nine at night. They’re capricious little fucks and I won’t let their grubby hands steer the boat.

You are a haunting melody

I wonder if we will talk again

But I don’t know what’s left unsaid

That will cross between past and present

More of a ghost than a muse

The notes grow more silent as time wears on

Like soft creased kisses left atop the head

I don’t have anywhere to hold this

You know this

Further time unraveled

And letters left unsent

Nothing to be traded beyond glances across the bow.

Ships in the night

Bite Size

“Stop biting me! I’m trying to save you,” a gruff voice said as hands the size of cinderblocks pulled the boy from the wagon’s wreckage. “Nasty little sewer rat,” the voice added.

Roscoe looked up to see a small group of men pick through the broken boards and spokes of the wagon to try and get the supplies that Khallundun had sent him out with.