Category Archives: Internet content

Standoff

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“My name is Denali Bins,” He shouted. “I am a baker from Chesterfield!”

Officer Clay Ashton held his stance, arms out and service revolver trained on the target. “Put the gun down Mr. Bins and we can work this all out.”

“We tried that. I didn’t do this! I don’t do things like this!”

“And yet here we are, Mr. Bins. You are holding a gun, you are covered with blood and you’re standing over a dead body.”

“I make bread!”

“Mr. Bins…”

“I make hard rolls…and donuts!”

“And I’ll bet they are delicious, but right now we have to take care of this problem.”

Bins quickly swung the gun back and forth between the two figures stepping up behind Ashton. If it was even possible his eyes grew wider and darted between the now three officers. “Keep them back!”

“They’re just here to make sure nobody else gets hurt.”

“I tell you I didn’t do this!”

“Put the gun down Mr. Bins and we’ll figure it all out.”

“You said that yesterday at the station! We’ll figure it all out! That’s what you said!”

“And yet, you took off.”

“You said there was video! That’s a lie! I make cream puffs and scones!”

A crackle in Ashton’s earpiece preceded the order. The time for chatting was over. The order was given. Put him down.

 

Pre-Internet

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“Look,” Brin said to the sulking Lara. “You kids are lucky. You just don’t realize it. I met your father ‘pre-Internet.’ Do you know what that means?”

Lara pulled the Seventeen magazine on the table to her and began flipping through the pages aggressively. It was a half-baked attempt to show she wasn’t listening, but Brin knew that if she really wasn’t listening, she would have left by now.

“Yes, pre-Internet. Clearly, when I met the man who was to become your father, I didn’t have access to all the information that you people have today. After I met him, I had to talk to him – in person – to get to know him and he was the only source of information I had. You can’t imagine that, because it’s not the world you grew up in.

Sure, he had friends, but they only told me what a ‘great guy he was.’

Had I been able to look him up on Facebook or pull together some kind of Google search, you know…I might have made some different decisions.”

“Ugh…Mom, are you serious?”

“Look, I love your father. I’m just saying pre-Internet people had a huge learning curve to overcome. There was no ‘wikipedia’ to tell me all about what kind of person he was, no electronic photo albums, no friends lists, no texts, no Skype, no unlimited minute phone calls, no Twitter to let me know where he was, what he was doing, what he thought about things…none of it. So all I can say is we did the best we could with the information we had.

You know, come to think of it, maybe I found out he got on the dean’s list once…maybe not, I’m not sure. I’ve blocked so much.

Anyhow, the point is, people today, once you meet each other, and sometimes you don’t even actually meet, you have access to a world of information in minutes that can help you figure out what you might like or not like before you get too invested.”

“You think Daddy feels the same way?”

“Look, pre-Internet or not, your father is very lucky the way things worked out for him. You should have seen him when I found him.”

Lara slid the magazine back across the table. Her phone uttered a short beep causing her to look down immediately. “It’s Phil.”

“You see? How long did that take? Eleven minutes? Don’t even get me started on how long it took to ‘resolve issues’ before the Internet. You kids don’t even know what a fight is anymore. What does he say?”

“He wants to meet…to talk.”

“Uh huh. Let me give you one more piece of advice. One thing we did learn pre-Internet is that when it came time to work things out, we were already pretty good at actual real live talking. Do yourself a favor. If you really want to work on things, put the phone down. Stop texting and go talk to him.

Then…you can text me and to let me know how things go!”

Forgiveness

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He stood there on the doorstep, soaking wet as if he conjured the storm just to appear more pathetic when she opened the door.

She stood in the crack she created by pulling the door open just enough to cover the distance of her shoulders, a gesture to signal an intent to listen, but not an invitation.

He stood in silence. He had a lot to say. Most of it he already said and his intent was to say it again and if there was a way to say it with greater meaning, with a greater sense of promise, he would do it. Still, when the door opened, the practiced words seemed to evaporate.

She looked at him with cautious and hesitant eyes. She bit ever so softly on the inside of her lip. It became a habit over the years that she apparently developed when she was deep in concentration or trying to figure things out. She first noticed it when frosting a cake some time ago.

“I…,” he started.

“Don’t,” she said. “I know.”

He forced his hands deeper into his pockets. “I’m sorry.”

She wasn’t sure how this all landed on her, but the ball, as they say, was clearly in her court. He did some really stupid things. Even now, there was a part of her who wanted to punch him in the face, and she wasn’t taking that off the table, but it was decision time. She was culpable in this too.

She stood in the doorway filling the space between the jam and the door thinking, considering, hoping, debating, cursing, resisting, deciding, redeciding and redeciding again. She took in a very deep breath and looked around him blinking away a tear before slowly opening the door to create an invitation.

As he moved to step inside and out of the rain, he stopped, turned to her and pulled her close.

She hugged him back. Even soaking wet, the greater apology came through.

Maybe she would punch him later.

An Open letter to the new baby of Cambridge

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Java wrote with great determination and focus as she was prone to do in these circumstances.

An open letter to the new baby of Cambridge:

Dear new baby of Cambridge:

I don’t know you. Chances are I never will. The knowledge of your existence has been forced into my life, so I think it only fair that I throw a little back your way, although I have no delusions of your ever seeing this or grasping my intent.

First, know that I in no way hold you personally responsible for polluting the world with the news of your presence. From the moment of your conception, now and for the rest of your life you have been and will be news fodder. You will be followed, photographed, hounded, praised, besmirched, coddled, cheered, booed and more ad nauseam. Every detail of your life will be shared publicly and with very few filters. Ask your uncle about that some day. In that regard, I feel sorry for you. Learn to embrace the good days. Today you were being cheered.

According to fairly recent studies, you share your birth date with over 370,000 other babies around the world, but of all those, guess which one – one of nearly 400,000 – garnered worldwide media exposure? That’s you big man. They interrupted Judge Joe Brown just to share the news. The second coming of Jesus could have happened yesterday and nobody would know about it. Come to think of it, Jesus II would probably prefer it that way.

Unlike the others who share your day, your life will be immeasurably different. I can only scarcely imagine how. You were born into royalty, money and opportunity. The majority of your compatriots are likely not nearly as lucky. There are probably some who already face profound poverty, starvation and the scarcity of basic needs like clean water. Your polar opposites. While the world celebrates you and your arrival, the others seem forgotten. I feel bad for them.

It makes me sad that there are so many people who are so interested in you and your existence. Again, not your fault. It’s not that the time, energy, money and bandwidth are wasted, but they could certainly be channeled to something more constructive.

It may sound like I don’t care that you are here. Honestly, I probably don’t. But since you are, I hope you have a very happy, healthy and productive life. And I hope that one day you will do something great with the resources and opportunities at your disposal. I know it’s early yet, but try not to screw up.

If you ever need someone to listen, I’m here for you.

Your friend in the cosmos – Java

Precarious

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Chester sat still, enjoying the quiet. Everything was good, for the moment.

He tried to absorb as much of the calm as he could, for once the chaos ensued he would ramp right back up to where the doctor said he should work real hard to avoid. The doctor called it the ‘Red Zone’. Who does that?

For Chester, life was a precarious house of cards – at least in his mind. The reality was his life was probably not as precarious as he imagined. Work was solid. Things with Alice were solid, he thought. Nothing had broken in the last 20 minutes…all good.

Still his mind seemed to live under the perpetual notion that he was always, constantly and forever, one misstep away from unrecoverable disaster. That everything he had, worked for, supported, built, repaired or maintained was all capable of being stripped away from him and he would be defenseless to stop it. He tamped all that down pretty good on the day to day, but there was an ever present, very subtle buzz in the back of his mind that seemed to constantly whisper, “Watch out!” as if he was undeserving, as if he was living someone else’s life fraudulently and he needed to be careful or the jig as they say, would be up. He feared the moment someone discovered the truth, whatever his world was would be destroyed.

Petition

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He looked at her and hoped he wasn’t making a face.

She stood on his doorstep young and determined, maybe 19, maybe older, it was hard to tell at that age. She held tight to her clipboard as she quickly ran through her spiel – most of it memorized – before standing quietly and waiting for him to respond.

He hated opening his door for this exact reason.

Ninety-eight percent of the people who wanted him to sign something or join something rarely reflected his personal views. Instead of signing or buying he was often more inspired to give them a good piece of his mind – to help clarify the error of their ways. This time was no different, but he held himself to silence.

She spoke of outrage, but he didn’t see it. He read about the situation himself and at the time he found himself shaking his head, “This is what people are ‘outraged’ over?”

She was clearly moved to action, but it was an action that would result in disappointment for her. The ‘outrage’ was not going to change the magazine cover, or help keep prayer in school or whatever other trivial thing that seems to put a thorn in humanity’s paw for a hot second.

She was a clean cut suburban kid who may be having her first full taste of social outrage. There were so many more things more worthy of her efforts that should not only generate true rage, but make you physically ill once you really understood the depth of the problem. Yet here she was with her petition and her determination. The last true rage she felt was probably aimed at her parents. She’d likely have better luck with a petition about that.

Twins

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Passing himself off as twins was way easier than he thought. Of course he hadn’t planned on taking it to this extreme or doing it this long, but once he reconciled the inner ethical qualms of living in a world of blatant duplicity over relative honesty, it just felt right.

Really, what he was doing was just a more literal representation of how most people live their daily lives anyhow. Sometimes, they were worse. His friend Sal had at least four distinct personalities that she could switch to without a moment’s notice. Depending on her mood, you never knew which Sal you would get.

His circumstance required a bit more finesse. It was becoming art really. He knew at some point the game would be called and one twin would have to absorb the other, but until then, the individual lives of Kevin and Klark were in full bloom and the road ahead was filled with possibilities…two lives worth.

Duck

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Billington Quackmire enjoyed a regal existence in the pond outside of the Third Pentecostal Human Relief Church and Bank and Trust, Inc.

His presence, and that of his neighbors Jacques and Marie (who pretended to be French, but weren’t) lent a certain post-cardesque charm to the locale, especially on those sunny spring days when everything was in full bloom.

For as long as he could recall, the Quackmires have made this pond their home. The act of charm inducing visual support their job. He often saw folks taking his picture as they left the service. When he was younger, he had trouble with his timing and could be caught with his backside in the air as he searched for food in the subtle murk that lie beneath the water. The others pointed out to him that while practical, the timing was undignified.

With time, he worked it out so that his gallant glide across the water took place as most people were leaving the building. If he timed it just perfectly, he would get just below the beech trees as the sun broke through the leaves with bands of light. It was a hard sight to resist.

Return

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He flipped through the stacks. Each one sparked a glimmer of memory through sight and sound.

It had been years since the fire. Years since he touched vinyl. Years now since things seemed to go…sour.

It seemed trivial on the surface. Others might think it irrational to tie fate so closely to something possessed. Yet, while these material items were not his originals, there was still a kinship.

Oh…this one got him through his break up with Mary Ellen Newburgh, and this one was pretty much the root soundtrack to the summer after he graduated college. A consistent presence in a time of change and turmoil.

They were all his friends.

His mind raced to find a way to claim them all, but it was impossible. It just helped to know that they were here.

Then he found it, or it found him. The one he needed. He looked up as a tear welled in the corner of his eye. An embarrassed warmth hit his cheeks as he tired quickly to blink it away. He snapped it up and held it close to his chest as if he had just found a lump of gold. He would have it back now. It was the very first step that felt like the right step in a good long time.

Plan B

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Bits stopped listening the instant Jelly uttered the words, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” And the whole time Jelly extolled the benefits of his ‘Plan B,’ Bits wondered about the phrase.

Where did it come from? What could possibly require one to know how to skin a cat, say nothing about why they would need more than one way? How many ways were there? Did someone at some point change the problem from skinning the cat at the onset to actually working through a number of potential ways to determine which one worked best?

She imagined a small research team charting and plotting the goal of getting a cat skinned only to realize once they finished that there might be many more efficient ways to accomplish the task.

“We are going to need a lot more cats,” she heard one say in the back of her mind.

She was also convinced that Jelly’s ‘Plan B’ was doomed to fail. Just casually throwing out the cat skinning analogy without knowing spit about actual cat skinning implied to her that he really had no idea what he was talking about.

Muffin

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Muffin romped over the top of the hill down into Farrington Glenn.

Gimple’s sigh and following scowl drew Custer’s attention. “What worries you so,” he asked.

“She’s slight and reckless,” Gimple answered.

“She’s smarter than you give her credit for,” said Custer. “And she’s only doing what we all agreed needed to be done.”

Gimple tightened his grip on the wooden lever, the trigger of the trap. He watched as Muffin tumbled down the hill giggling. Nearly blissful, he thought. She should be more aware. The pangs of guilt made his stomach roll. “She doesn’t really realize, does she?”

Custer grabbed his shoulder with a comforting squeeze. “She knows.”

Gimple looked at Custer with a quick side glance, “She’s bait.”

Custer squinted out over the hill top letting a heavy breath ease its way from his chest. Another of Muffin’s giggles floated back to him. “She knows.”

Precocious

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At the age of seven and a half, Criss’s grandmother dubbed her as ‘precocious.’ Since then, it’s been a private goal of hers to live up to that.

She could not remember much about her grandmother or many of the things she might have said to her for as their visits to her stately home in Crendinmore were many, their direct interactions were few.

Their visits were routine. There would be hugs and hearty greetings at the door, then the adults would either step away to the sitting room or gather around a large table in the kitchen to talk. In the mornings they would sip coffee and nibble at coffeecakes. Visits later in the day involved simple drinks of alcohol and the sharing of a modest, yet adequate platter of cheese and crackers.

The children were to play. They were given all the freedom they could handle, but the expectation was that they would play, and play nicely, without raising a ruckus so as to disturb the adults. So they played simply, or flipped through old books and magazines to keep the noise to a minimum and the prospect of getting in trouble at bay.

Shame

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Shame. It was a sad thing.

Jinx did good work. The job proved to be hard and it stretched the end of his skills to a new level – a better development for future work. It was a relief to get it all done and done well. Then the compliments came in.

He would have been disappointed had he not received any, but when they came in, rather than accepting and enjoying, and absorbing a real sense of appreciation, he grew warm with embarrassment and discomfort. He knew others who bask in the glow of praise, still others who belittle any level of praise as inadequate, and insulting. But for Jinx, even a modicum of acclaim carried with it a heavy sense of unease.

The Page

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The page had possibilities.

The page had weight.

The page held within it a masterwork or a ruined scrap.

Much like a sculptor who stands before a block of granite or mound of clay, so eager, yet so hesitant to make that first cut, the writer stares into the depth of potential that lies beyond the surface at the page, waiting for the very right moment to write that very first and most important word. For every word that follows is a step down a path toward a new idea. Every word that follows is a decision that accepts some notions and rejects others. Every word that follows is a vessel that carries with it an intimate piece of the writer.

Aware or unaware, hidden in folly or stated boldly, the words place the writer on the page, bare and vulnerable.

People

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Burke felt great about everything for about the first 30 minutes.

He signed the volunteer sheet for the Ketchum County Volunteer Fire Department Family Fire Awareness Day two months before. Four days ago the call came in and his task was to distribute free hot dogs under the canopy tucked neatly between the face painter and the guy making balloon animals for the kids.

His set up was simple, the cooking team would bring him the hot dogs, each was placed in a bun and wrapped in a piece of aluminum foil. On the side of his table stood dispensers for ketchup, mustard, relish and napkins.

For the first 30 minutes, the guests were lovely and the exchange routine. Would you like a hot dog? Yes, thank you. There are condiments over right over there. Oh, very nice – thank you again. Have a lovely day.

After about 30 minutes, the people…changed.

Are these really free?
Do you have any hamburgers? Why not? I really like hamburgers better.
Do you have any onions?
Could I get some chili?
Aren’t you providing anything to drink?
Are these whole wheat buns?
How many calories are in one of these?
Can I have seven? My sister couldn’t come today?
Are these organic?
Were these made in America?
Are these all beef or made from other stuff?
This seems like it could be warmer. Can you have them warm this up for me?
Can I see how they are cooking them?
Do you know how they make hot dogs? If you did, you probably wouldn’t be giving the away.
Is this hot dog tied in any way to the blood diamond trade?
Hot dogs are not very healthy. You should be serving fruit.

As the afternoon wore on, Burke’s smile was firmly in place, and he performed his task admirably. But…it took everything he had not to pelt people, hard, with foil-wrapped wieners. Not because he wanted to. More because…they really deserved it.