Barry learned that logic was only logical to the person who crafted the thought. He expressed his belief eloquently, careful to cover every major point and support it with fact. He crafted an argument that was sound, so sound he was stunned when Cheryl flatly refused to accept it. Was she willing to show allegiance to a belief that had no proof? How could she be comfortable with a notion when it was clearly illogical? He watched her, lounging with great satisfaction in her impropriety as if to mock him. If he weren’t so wise, he would have pinched her.

Rosa sat at the opposite end of the couch reserved with her thoughts. Cheryl studied the older woman and realized quickly what she admired; it wasn’t just the soothing purple aura of deep spirituality and faith. It was an understanding of how wisdom worked. Instead, Cheryl implored Rosa to reveal what she saw when she looked at her. Rosa smiled humbly and averted her eyes for a moment to collect thoughts. She returned a warm gaze to Cheryl told her it would be nothing she didn’t already know. Cheryl nodded and waited for Rosa to continue. She was learning already.

“You are always in a rush. To speak. To defend. You have a powerful presence that discourages people from being honest with you for fear of judgment. You will sense their lies and this makes you angry. We are all individual entities. We will follow our own paths and our own beliefs. You must allow others to walk their own paths and listen even when you are dying to speak. Have patience with others and let them find their way and you will ease your own frustration. Yes?”

Rosa smiled. “You wisdom need not always be spoken to be heard.”

If only titles were true indications of anything. Rita reviewed her list of friends on a clean sheet of paper. Ten names, each one with a self-proclaimed title sitting beside it. Mother. Artist. Executive. Teacher. She wondered what the world might be like if people were blunt and truthful with their titles. Liar. Healer. Bully. Leader. Coward. Life seemed less complicated when people stopped pretending to be something other than what they were.

Still, there was the issue of her own title. Sometimes she was a healer, but that was pretentious. Sometimes she was a Liar, but that felt uncomfortable.

A watched pot never boils they say. I love and loathe that notion. I know things seem to move along more fluidly without someone like me meddling with the events. I know that most things have a designed outcome beyond our immediate understanding, and our efforts to move it along or thwart it usually wind up making greater messes. Still it seems for me the hardest thing still to do is nothing. Life is a fly in my face these days, buzzing by my ears and lingering too close to my nose. It teases me for my attempts at reverence.

I seem to attract people who take more than they give. It is a special talent of mine that was nurtured before I found my way to this existence. They search for me, the random giver of things, and take from me with the great gulp of the malcontent. Energy, insight, tenderness, healing. At first I gave because I had no notion of choice. Then I gave because I sought. Now I seem to give compulsively. But only to the ones who will gulp with no consideration of what I need. Now I give to celebrate the pain of it.

You mirror each other, soul mates, the seer offered with a weary nod. You think the same way, feel the same way. Sarah bristled noticeably. How could she feel so comfortable and settled, and he so comfortable and completely unsettled? She was ready to bear his children and watch him age with eyes blinded by total adoration. He was ready to run as far and fast from her as his legs would permit. And here, this talk of a mirror? Of love? Of adoration? Sarah opened her palm flat on the table and asked the seer for a prompt refund.

Linda had every intention of paying attention during this meeting. She intended to create notes in advance and to bring energy to the corporate table. Somehow, her budding social life interfered with her intentions and she slumped in an oversized executive chair looking more like a child brought in for parents day then a recently promoted executive. Instead of progress reports, she mulled the possibility of snacks. She heard that the office manager arrived this morning with donuts. She resisted the urge to perform her best Homer Simpson impression and pondered the recent usability results instead...or, Homer delivering usability results.

Mecca raced around the house in defiance of the quiet her owner demanded. When Cheryl finally relented and knelt to play with the dog after failed attempts to stop the mad gallop. She was rewarded with a head butt to her mouth. A rivulet of blood began its journey down her chin as she sat dazed on the carpet. Mecca stood still, ears perked at first, then immediately flattened at the sound of Cheryl’s crying. They regarded each other curiously, Mecca with sympathy and Cheryl with great rage until finally Mecca lowered her head and offered apology through hazel eyes.

Mecca wandered into the room as Cheryl dried her eyes and held a tattered tissue to her split lip. Cheryl avoided eye contact, and even growled comically when Mecca dared come closer for a look at the damage. Mecca relented for just a moment, then came forward in a show of great sympathy. Cheryl tried to ignore the nose poke and knee licks and so Mecca in her great persistence tried to climb into Cheryl’s lap to be seen. As she wrestled away the affections of a 60 pound dog, Cheryl laughed at the ridiculousness of animals and her tears.

Wes called well after eleven on a Saturday night. If she had been his type, it would have been a booty call. She wasn’t, so she charged it to crisis. Their contact had dwindled significantly since his most recent relationship. His calls were limited to excuses for his lack of contact. No major epiphanies or reflections. She wanted to be angry. To show a cold indifference to his upset and hang up the phone. But she could never be so cold to soul in need. She couldn’t even be passive aggressive enough to wound him with a carefully placed insult.

Brian walked in to find Jill in the throws of a temper tantrum. Not unlike a child, she yelled, threw breakable objects and tossed out wildly threatening promises. Years of this taught him to be silent and wait for the storm to pass. She would later say she thought she was bipolar. She would curl into his arms well after he lost consciousness and murmur apologies into his chest. He would turn his head in the opposite direction as if to shield her from his thoughts. Dawn would break, and they would clean up her mess while she laughed nervously.

“Mom’s dead.”

David looked with great annoyance at his brother. Another statement of the obvious. Any other time, he would have nodded a reply. Today it seemed like an unforgivable sin.

“No shit, Darren. Is she dead? I thought she was sitting in that casket taking a breather from the festivities. What’s next? You gonna tell me that her eyes were green? Shit, lets pop her eyelids open and get a confirmation on that one, shall we?”

It took three pall bearers to pry David from his mother’s coffin to the amusement and horror of an audience Mother’s four lovers.

I cannot write on demand. Making it a to-do item on my daily list just doesn’t work for me. I guess I liken it to prayer. I can’t schedule it in because when that time slot comes, I have nothing. Just clutter in thinking about all the other things yet to be done. I find myself feeling anxious and making it less creative, less about flow and more about getting it done. It becomes mowing the lawn instead of creating a garden. And creativity suffers under regiment; I don’t care what anyone says. I cannot write to the ticking clock.

This business of word counting is a total gift and curse of helping me learn brevity, but limiting the kinds of writing I do because I know I will run out of space before I hit my stride. Well, then again, I suppose that’s the greater point, an exercise in learning to harness your writing skills. Hitting your stride when you start, as opposed to somewhere in the middle. With the attention span of most dwindling before it has started, I suppose this is a testament to our culture. Get to the point. Fast. Still reading? I didn’t think so.

I am currently maintaining a blog, doing these 100 words, trying to breathe some life back into my ficlets...oh, and did I mention write a book? It seems like most of my creativity is finding its way into my blog and nowhere else. I like the immediate gratification of it. The positive feedback, the debate. Writing a novel feels far more solitary. I have no one over my shoulder cheering me on, or marking my words funny or inspiring. With the book, it’s just me and a bunch of ideas scrambling through my brain matter like cockroaches in a cupboard.

He was odd. Studious and intentional in every element of his day, Dave made everything science. From preparing the perfect cup of French pressed coffee to the cultivation of webonality. He reveled in peeling back the layers of everything. I found that amusing at first. I liked the attention and his attempts to find deeper meaning in my words. Compulsion echoed to me from quiet places, but I hate to rush to judgment. I let him peel, so long as he was respectful about it. Layers are funny things. Amusing until nerves are attached to the skin that’s being pulled.

He peeled too far. He tried to slip into a space not reserved for him. A place I hold safe. The distinction between friendship and something else has firm boundaries when something like sexual attraction fails to exist. He went from studious and reflective to creepy and invasive. In one moment of liberty, he went from insightful online friend to immediate threat. I surprised myself with the way I shut down. Not in angry defiance, but childish disappointment. I don’t like when my warmth is taken for something more seductive. I like even less when I’ve been tagged a tease.

Paul was a gay white male in a liberal town. I figured he and I would immediately relate to the negative affects of racism, we seemed to relate on just about everything else. Everything but reverse discrimination. He loathed oppression of any sort, he said. Then he bristled noticeably when we discussed the discrimination people of color feel at a very popular university. Maybe he feels he’s getting hit by reverse discrimination and his sexual orientation. I was both angry and sympathetic in return. Let us not assume rose petals kiss the skin of brown faces. There are still thorns.

Green blue water sprinkled with sunlight crystals all moving toward an endless sky. He would fish, quiet in his own thoughts, relieved not to feel the pressure to do anything else. I would write until the brightness of the day stung my eyes, and then I would shift my gaze to him. We would take turns watching each other, drifting so far from shore that the freedom we sought seemed nearly attainable. We would be the unbound, hiding in our little sailboat in search of an ever elusive peace. I still see it, in my mind. He is still there.

We used to talk of being spread too thin and feeling as if we could never really say what we wanted. It was something we shared in common - a closed mouth and exploding heart, temper and mind. Some people search for someone to fill them up. We longed for someone to loosen the valve. He listened like no one I’ve ever encountered before or since. We always tended our wounds in silence. No interruption. No correction. No filter. No one would ever understand, we agreed in silence. We vowed we would run away, like children. A sweet dream unfettered.

“I don’t understand why you always go this way to the post office. It just doesn’t make any sense.”

Janet considered all of the ways she could respond to this statement. She could choose to not respond at all. She could opt to explain her route and why she liked it. She could defend her right to pick her own path and incite an argument. She could just change her route to avoid any further discussion and swallow her annoyance. No option seemed foolproof, in fact she was sure she could screw up any of them. So, she remained silent.

When I give some thought to where I am right now in my life, I really should have no reason for complaint. I had difficult choices I made nearly eight months ago. Choices I felt would end anything I have known about happiness. Butterflies, moments of clarity and countless hours later, I feel sunshine on my face. I have new things to like and love about me. I have crept from a very comfortable shell. I have emerged, victorious. I am stronger. Wiser. Better. Do I have all that I wish? No. Do I have all that I need? Absolutely.

There is a photo my father mentions from time to time. I was a toddler, possibly no more than two. We were at the beach, the three of us. Mom took the picture, Dad was laying on a beach blanket studying for an exam. I was resting against his ribcage, a bottle the shape of a teddy bear plugged in my mouth. I was busy about playing with something in the sand. We weren’t looking at each other, but we were connected. Sometimes, it feels like that’s always the way it’s been. Both looking in different directions yet always connected.

The hardest part about being an individual is letting other people have the freedom to do the same. We demand so vehemently to be respected for our own beliefs, desires, ideas and plans. And yet, we spend incredible amounts of time trying to twist people to fit into our mold. Do as I do, because my way is better. Think as I do, it’s wiser. If everyone’s path is so different, and we’re all individuals, why don’t we act like it? Is individuality only acceptable if it’s been validated like parking? This choice has been majority confirmed and approved. Cheers.

Clarence didn’t mean to fall in love with her; in fact he wasn’t sure if love was involved at all. He assured himself they just had the same professional and personal passions. She was easy to talk to, even easier to regard. She was lovely. But he really wasn’t after anything hidden. He was just happy to have made a new friend. He whispered it into her ear for emphasis as she traced her name in the hair on his chest. For the first time, he was at a loss for words. She took that as a sign of approval.

“You say stupid things, Clarence. Incredibly stupid things,” His best friend declared. He looked back at her blankly.

“I might DO stupid things, but I think I am very direct in my communication.”

Grace snorted. “Directly stupid.” She watched his new friend pull up to their office and bounce along the sidewalk like a puppy. The look on the woman’s face told Grace all she needed to know.

“Listen...she’ll figure it out sooner or later. We’ll go back to being friends. We’re just in a weird place right now.”

“No,” Grace corrected, “you are in a stupid place right now.”

Grace reflected on poor Clarence. He seemed to be so unlucky in love. Every relationship ended badly and usually with weapons. Thus far, in his years as a bachelor he'd been chased with tire irons, bricks, an aluminum baseball bat and good old fashioned fists. He fashioned himself a victim. A poor misunderstood soul. While certainly misunderstood, he was clearly the author of his own demise. It almost seemed he would determine a good mate by her ability to clock him upside his head. His newest choice seemed like a hot frying pan sort of woman. Time would certainly tell.

“Grace? It’s Clarence.”

“I know Clarence, caller id, remember? It’s kinda late.”

There was an awkward silence on the other end of the line. Grace wondered if he was nursing third degree wounds from a scalding frying pan.

“I need a place to stay, just for the night.”

Grace smiled in spite of herself as she asked him why. He went on in a cluttered explanation. Something about an argument and a bathtub filled with lighter fluid. Something about a boom. She stopped listening when he got to the part about a bed post lit up like a fiery torch.

Grace tried her best not to laugh as Clarence went into wide eyed theatrics about his latest relationship disaster. The poor puppy learned that she and Clarence weren’t quite as exclusive as she suspected. He never bothered to clarify anything, so she felt justified in having a key made to his place. Once inside, puppy began her own reconnaissance to find that she was not the only one he’d charmed. Having seen one too many woman scorned flicks, puppy decided lighter fluid would fuel her emotional and literal fire. How the whole house didn’t explode, was Grace’s most urgent question.

“You’re the only one that understands me.”

Clarence was staring emptily into the bottom of a smudged shot glass at the time he spoke, so Grace wasn’t sure who or what he was referring to. Finally he raised his bleary eyes to her and offered a sad smile.

“Why am I always doing such stupid shit?”

Grace rubbed his shoulder for a moment, a fleeting bite of melancholy clouding her face.

“Clarence, I think you’re afraid of the responsibility of doing smart shit. Either that or you think you’ll fall flat on your face if you try any other way.”