10 Word Story

The dragons returned. Low misty clouds lit brighter than day.

10 word story

It was just then she fell upon her bloodied sword.

10 Word Story.

I am but a humble compilation of spare, broken parts.

10 Word Story

Red and thick, it pours. Sweet elixir of fried potatoes.

10 Word Story

They think I don't know. I do know. I think.

In Which I Wax Poetic About Lost and Found

Ok. So I have this fascination with the Lost and Found box. Every place I have ever worked, I have been fascinated with it. Sometimes, I will go through it for entertainment. I am amazed by what people leave behind. A million pairs of sunglasses, CDs, flash drives, car keys. 

The car keys thing always gets me. I have never worked in a place where there wasn’t at least one set of car keys in the lost and found. HOW DID YOU GET HOME!?? I have the same bewildered amusement toward things left in the scanner—birth certificates, military orders, hundred-year-old family photos. You name it, it’s probably been left at a library at some point. 

I also have a fondness for the winter coats that get left behind. Ok, maybe it was warmer when you left than when you started out. But at some point along the way didn’t you wonder… hey. When’s the last time I had my $200 Steelers Starter jacket? 

Sometimes there are greeting cards. One was a Transformers card with Optimus Prime on the cover with a lovely “missing you" note on the inside to a service member spouse. Or children’s toys. I get a little sad for the child who has lost their favorite stuffy. But I am really sad when a parent comes in and asks if we have a stuffed animal, and it isn’t in lost and found. You know there’s a child who will shortly be inconsolable with grief for a lost friend. 

Then there are the bits and bobs. Pens that end up getting recycled. Barrettes and hair clips that never leave the bottom of the box. Weird connectors for devices you have never seen. And a pocket U.S. Constitution. There always seems to be one of those. 

And the thing about those sunglasses and car keys and even coffee mugs and water bottles filled with liquid is that they always seem to stay there. They never go away. They accumulate. They eventually get tossed after six months or a year. Some end up at Goodwill. But no one comes back for them. They’re forgotten. They’re lost, we find them, but they’re never claimed. They never get to go home. Well, some find new homes. Any USB stick over 8 gig is fair game after a whole year of being in the Drawer of Flash Drives That Time Forgot. I once got a really cool pen that way. But… most items left at the library never go home. 

Maybe I search through the Lost and Found not so much out of curiosity (though there is still that), but to visit the items relegated to that Island of Misfit Toys. To spread a little bit of attention onto those once beloved things that are now lost and forgotten. Or worse: lost and replaced. 

I may be anthropomorphising. No, I know I am. But how depressing must it be, to be those car keys? You were once shiny and new. Someone never left the house without you. They showed off your automatic starter button with prideful glee. And then they left you at a public computer. And after two days of searching for you in the bottom of a bag, they spent $200 to have a new key and dongle made, and then they went on with their lives, no longer mindful of where you ended up. 

Some people cared too little for the things that ended up in Lost and Found. I seem to care too much. 

A list.

1. I look at a lot of crime scene and autopsy photos.

2. It started with an old job. We had go through a box of them.

3. I don't know why I look at them now. They are not upsetting.

4. We are but meat suits. Walking, thinking meat suits. Emphasis on meat.

5. The pictures don't bother me. Even the ones of children.

6. I gave myself a panic attack and swerved into oncoming traffic to avoid hitting a turtle.

7. I don't deal well with the fake deaths of fake animals in films.

8. Where do we go when we vacate our meat suits?

9. I would like to haunt an amusement park. If we have choices.

10. I miss my nana.

Things I Learned Today

1. Smiling makes you happier. Unless smiling sans reason makes you unhappier.

2. Standing with your hands on your hips in a strong heroic pose makes you more confident. Wonder Woman wears tiny clothes.

3. Memorization can be improved by filing facts within your house absurdly. This includes Britney Spears.

4. Printing errors can perforate pages but not completely shear them. My book looks like a coupon.

5. No matter how big or small the cat, they all seek to capture their own tail. It is an illusive stranger, stalking them all of their lives.

6. Happiness precedes success. Apparently we were lied to when we were told success would bring happiness. Mostly it has only brought student loan debt.

7. Life is a game. Gameplay adds minutes to life. Live forever. Make everything a game.

8. Everything I have ever known about tying shoelaces is wrong. I shall endeavor to correct this immediately. Just as soon as flip-flop season is over.

9. Who's more crazy? The fool, or the fool who follows him? Apparently the second man in is the trend-setter. Or the one most likely to be thrown in the penalty box.

10. Life may or may not be judged in actual experience points. It depends on who you assume is keeping track.

I really do mean to use this more. Truly.

I got to the end (or as much as I could humanly tolerate, given my mental state at the time) of my 100 word project. And while it was a little more disjointed toward the end than I was intending, I still produced quite a lot of work. I visited a lot of worlds in the course of one year. One tiny scrap of paper at a time.

Yes, I did actually write them every day, on quarter-page scraps of already-used eight and a half by eleven for the sake of recycling. I didn't always get them typed up on time. But it was what it was, I suppose.

I'm not sure what other projects I will cook up here. Maybe a little more free-flow, maybe some variety. For the handful of you still tuned into this station :) Um... thanks for sticking around and such.

If you're still out there, give a wave :)

They even have a golf course

They iive in a dome, 

you know. 

Those people. 

The ones that live in the dome. 

The weather is always pleasant. Entirely

climate controlled. The grass is always green

The lake stocked with fish. 

There is a turtle who suns himself on a rock on the shore

year round. 

The people in the dome

don't have freeze-thaw cycles. 

Potholes are extremely rare. 

No one waters their plants

in the dome. 

It rains on scheduled days, always at the same time. 

Regularity is the hallmark of the dome. 

School starts September 6th. 

Christmas always falls on a Wednesday

no one remembers a not-white Christmas.

Except for the one year, 

when the snow generator was on the fritz

but they made due with popcicles 

and iced candy canes.

It's always DST. GMT -6. 

Days are long, nights are short. Roosters

only crow on schedule

And cats never wake anyone up early

for a meal that isn't due till dawn.

There are no alarm clocks in the dome. 

People are happier that way. 

Work with the sun, sleep with the dark. 

listen to someone play piano in the moon light

and if they're lucky, the Vanderhorn boy's voice

has not yet changed. He's always had

such a lovely soprano. 

Things do not change in the dome

they are not meant to.

They are as they've always been. 

Green glass, gloss and glamour. 

And you are most certainly not invited.