This is a Lie - Mark Maynard

The following piece of prose was designed and executed to achieve written perfection. It was created by a diverse committee of experts in various fields related to writing, linguistics, the relational probability of the selection of various letters, vowels, consonants, diphthongs, words, word combinations and sentence structures, especially as those combinations relate to the perception of aesthetics of various readers.

By design, an English-speaking person of average intelligence will read the complete piece in 3.14159 minutes. Persons who read this in a significantly shorter time period have missed a great deal of the embedded meaning because of the various shades and degrees of connotation and denotation of words and word chains contained therein. Persons who require a longer period of time to read this are not English speakers, or, if English speakers, are not of average intelligence.

The rhythm and nuance of each carefully selected word will give the reader a deep sense of understanding and will also create an emotional connection with the reader in such a way that the indirect meaning of the words will necessarily be absorbed by said reader.

There once was a man from Nantucket, who kept all his clams in a bucket
He lost them one day
On his way to Bombay
And loudly exclaimed “Well then (CENSORED by the COMMITTEE)!”

Note how the rhythmic patterns are pleasing to the ear and note how the flow of words and stanzas are pleasing as well from a visual standpoint. These are all things that have been carefully studied and enacted by the committee.

Congratulations. Now that you have neared the end of the document, you are, by design, a more enlightened consumer of prose. Our studies suggest that reading this document the first time will result in minor changes to your intelligence quotient, but that continued reading, several times a day over the course of a six week regimen, will increase your intelligence quotient exponentially. This will make more sense to you, dear reader, upon subsequent readings.

This is a Lie - Julie Farrar

This morning I put my head in a vise grip and squeezed until a tiny idea popped out of the top. Other days I take a rusty, jagged straight razor and hack away at my wrists until some words splatter out onto my computer screen. On good days I flagellate myself only at the beginning as an impetus to getting started; on bad days I feel like I should hire someone else to flagellate me all morning to get me to stay in my chair and type.

My physical therapist says he’s done all he can for me right now. So I have to get to the gym to stretch and strengthen all the muscles it takes to sit at my desk and work because writing really is a pain in the butt. Deciding at the age of 50 that writing is what I want to do and what I really should have been doing all along is like deciding after half a century that I really should get up off the couch and climb a mountain next week (there are some days that seems like a better prospect).

I read about the 20-somethings who just had their third novel or book of poetry published, or who took a minor savings account and launched a journal. They knew what they wanted and where they belonged and could start down that path unencumbered so that by the time they are where I am, they can have a lifetime of words on which to look back. So I’m playing catch-up and trying to learn on the fly.

My older sisters think that I have it easy because I don’t have to work for a paycheck anymore like they do. But that’s a lie. There is nothing easy about writing all day, never knowing if the words will ever be read or if I’ll ever again know the satisfaction of earning a dollar from my own labor – or to legitimately be able to put down on IRS and other forms “writer” when they ask for occupation. It’s never easy to get out of bed on a warm spring morning and close a door to that day and close my mind to all that needs to be accomplished everywhere except in this little room at this little desk in the corner. It’s never easy being responsible only to yourself for what you accomplish. Now please excuse me . . . I have work to do.

This is What Scares Me - Anne Wright

Black oxfords on old women, you know the ones: thick stable rubber soles, round toes, hefty laces. The kind of shoes that hide twisted toes and bunions. Tops that come up just a little too high and press into the swollen ankle flesh. The kind of shoes that hide feet that once were smooth and pink, with perfect arches as high as a bridge and pretty painted nails in the season’s new color. The kind of shoes that took the place of the curvy pointy stilettos that helped reach up to kiss him are now grounded black oxfords, flat on the floor, helping the feet along, carrying the awkward body as it trudges along in its aged gait.

This is My Father - Joyce Roschinger

This is my father, nineteen years old, wearing an Army uniform, standing on the steps of a house in another country, wide eyed, big grin on his face, looking directly into the camera.

This is my father standing by a grave in India smoking a cigarette. He washes the bodies of dead American soldiers before they are placed in boxes for the trip back to the states.

This is my father who can't get a job because he was a demolitions expert during the war. But he gets a job as a welder and learns to build bridges and buildings.

This is my father behind the barbecue in our backyard. He turns hamburger patties and burns his fingers as he unwraps corn on the cob. He squints into the camera. It is a summer day.

This is my father, his voice rich and full and purple, fills up the room in the evenings with my mother, lingers in our bedroom after he says "good night". Other times, my father's voice spills out into the street and finds us playing in backyards. My father says he does not pray because he does not know how to whisper, even in church.

This is What Scares Me - Chris Callaghan

Past the field behind our small house in Compton, California is the Sacramento River. One day I plan to build a raft and float down it to the sea like Tom Sawyer. But that will be when I am older, eight or nine.

Today I am five and my sister and I plan an adventure. My sister is three years older than me and cruel; her mouth makes a smile when she beats me. Her fat legs straddle my skinny rib cage imprisoning my arms by my sides and she punches my flat chest and my bucktooth mouth.

She says she has the right to beat me because she is the Chief Explorer and I am only her slave, useful for carrying our equipment, but not necessary. I know better than to argue with her when her eyes are tinged orange with madness and her calm words are meant to dissect my heart.

The gravel beneath my back pushes through my dirty white T shirt. I can feel its marks on the bumps of my spine long before she lets me up.

“Now we will attack the castle,” she commands me. She points to the old water tower near the river. She force marches us to its base and I can see the rusted red and white danger signs on its side. One sign hangs loosely by a nail and whacks itself against the flat gray boards that make up the room beneath the tower.

We squat beside the room while she plans her attack, drawing her maps in the dirt with a stick and consulting with her officers. Slaves are not allowed to speak during this planning, but I am bored and make my own quiet game of throwing pebbles at a nearby stick. I count coup each time it hit it, I am winning.

My sister snatches me up by the front of my T shirt, “Now! You go first.” She orders me with a push. We sneak around the scary room under the round water tank until we come to the door set into the gray planks. She yanks open the door and shoves me into the darkness, where I stand frozen in fear as she slams the door shut behind me and leans hard against it. I can hear her cackling through my hysterical screams.

I whirl around and race to the door, spider webs cling to my eyes, nose, cheeks. I bang my fists against the door begging, “Please, please, please…” and she laughs harder. There are soft things with legs falling on my head, my arms, crawling on me. Through a sunlit crack in the wall I see hundreds of black spider bodies, the red hourglass looks painted on their bellies. I am locked inside that room for eons.

When she finally lets me out, my sister drapes her arm over my shoulder as we walk back to our house. Her arm around me makes it appear to the world as though we are friends, sisters. But we are not.

Fifty-seven years later I am still having nightmares about that day. But it isn’t my sister that torments my dreams; it’s the black widow spiders.

Veggie Love - Anne Wright

I like to watch. I work in the produce section of the grocery store and you would be amazed at the number of people, old ladies included, who come in just to handle the vegetables. Squeeze the cukes, Fondle the melons. Pinch the grapes. Sniff the tomatoes.

Always having been kind of psychic, sometimes I can listen in on their thoughts. If I focus above the soft moans and groans they’re emitting in what they think nobody can hear, I can make out the words.

This one little lady, who is always dressed all in black from her head scarf knotted under her chin, right down to her nun shoes, is one who gets really excited. When she walks in through the automatic doors she always heads for the cucumbers and zucchinis. If I get real quiet in my mind I can hear what she says. “Oh George.” She runs her hands across the box of green cucumbers.

This time of the year they are especially fresh and firm. She will pick one out and place it across her outstretched palm. She pinches it between her thumb and index fingers, starting at the stem and working her way to the end, then cups her whole hand around it and squeezes. “George, you were the only one I loved,” she whispers in her mind.

Sex - Katie Burke

Sex changes everything. I can be stuck in any given rut, going about my days at siren-blaring speed, trying to make dents in my endlessly indomitable task list. I do some writing, tie down the flying sails at the legal practice, return my emails, floss my teeth, and finish my Netflix DVD, mailing it out right afterward, so the next one will arrive soon.

And then, from out of nowhere, I can meet a man. A great man. A sexy man. A man with a voice so deep and male, I am instantly transported in imagination to the moment when our voices intertwine between the sheets, my deep, low moans remaining no match for his lower, masculine noises.

One day I’m dutifully pumicing my feet and doing a little reading before bed, and the next, the low talker and I are foregoing all duties and exploring and stroking each other’s bodies, smoothing away the other’s locks of hair, expressing our love for one another, however fleeting, premature, or manufactured that love may be.

Task list? What task list? I’m just hoping not to get sued for malpractice, and I’m vaguely aware that I must call a few friends, so they’ll get the word out that a search party is unnecessary. I’m still flossing my teeth, but now it’s for the sake of sexual desire, not obligation. And now I’m also shaving my legs, applying moisturizer all over, spritzing perfume in naked places before I clothe them, and blow-drying my hair in the morning, rather than running out of the house with Wet Dog Syndrome.

And I’m writing more than ever; though I have less time, creative energy is oozing from each pore and leaking out onto the page, almost faster than I can arrange it into something delightful and entertaining.

Sex is the answer, though I’ve forgotten the question. I look and feel alive. I’m beautiful, powerful, magnetic, and dynamic in the world. The increasingly rough spots at the bottom of my feet must wait for the next sexless era; duty is calling, and I’m turning the ringer off the phone.