Tag: 20 Minutes

I used to write a lot more than I do now. I wrote mostly about my perception of my memories. The words that described the experiences I was trying to capture seemed more literal than the memory itself. If something didn’t happen exactly as I described it, what I’m trying to provide is the feeling of being there. Isn’t that better?

With that said, here is something I wrote on February 16, 2006 in Rosslyn, VA after a coffee run early in the morning. I had just left my job and felt very free.

I walk the street each morning to get coffee. Rush hour. People look busy – frantic and frozen. Most travel efficiently, cutting corners and jumping signals when they can. Heads down. Hands tucked. Earphones firmly sunk.

They are shutoff to the world around them as if today was nothing more than the indistinguishable middle of an infinite staccato experience. The probability of something extra-ordinary happening is no greater than their chance of winning the lottery, which is clearly stated in the window of the deli down the street as 1 in 172 million.

Bad odds to bet your smile on.

A bell tolls from the horizon. It’s a sound you would pay to hear played in a grand hall by famous musicians. Deep and pure, it resonates as if it were coming from within – but feels more like I am along the inside edge of its hallow drum. The vibrations grab me. Touch the small of my back and run their fingers along my spine until I shudder.

I look around, wondering if anyone else hears it. Nothing. Not a soul so much as flinches.

The hammer strikes the wall again – rings a deep smooth percussion. I shake more. Still, heads down. Eyes glazed. The passing time so meaningless it might as well stop ticking. The bell shakes again.

I’m still this time. I step back a moment. Cautious. Wanting to locate the drum. Others walk through it. No notice. No care. It’s more efficient that way.

McSweeney’s Internet Tendency ran a Twenty-Minute Story Contest. The grand-prize winner was, “Untitled.” Every time I read it I’m left slightly short of breath. And I love the format. Here’s the story:

He had always tried to be a gentleman, courteous, respectful in the most thorough way, and believed he was doing his utmost to continue this philosophy when he realized he was having a heart attack, there was no way he could land the plane anywhere else, and he saw the beautifully ordered expanse of backyards open up before him like a shining path, the center line composed of fences and lit by the glint of the sun. His descent was gradual, the curve asymptotic, and after a few moments it seemed even leisurely, since the backyard-runway went on so far and so consistently, these subdivisions following the line of the Saluda River, which he could see off to the left, close enough to tempt him to change course but just far enough away to heighten the risk of falling short and landing in traffic. It was the middle of the day. Most people would be at work, most kids at school, and those that were at home would be inside because it was cold and everyone was following the war on television. He was doing the best thing he could do, given the circumstances. Tragic circumstances. Laundry. Toys. Carports. He was flying extremely low, and his progress was, or seemed to be, slow and quiet. The simplicity of the subdivision’s design was obvious to him, and the similarity of the houses, but the slight variations that made each passing yard and house unique were being stamped in his memory as the most surprising, significant details he had ever had the ability to contemplate. His point of view, he realized, was entirely, essentially new, and no one had achieved anything like this in all of history. He had flown low over towns in Europe during the war that were architecturally spectacular compared to this, and had buzzed his brother’s farm, but never had he, or anyone else, placed a moving airplane in the space between two rows of houses, and even if they had, it would probably have been over the street, facing the fronts of houses. He faced their backs, the more honest, messy, historically accurate parts, and he felt the taps and clicks of outbuildings and clotheslines as the wings touched them. He felt the fence posts pass through him, and the corners of old cement walls, and recognized the furrowed pattern just under the ground. It had all been farmland at one time, of course, and before that, the bed of a river. The clay was red down here. He felt himself curl like a wave over the houses on either side, some of him entering kitchens and bathrooms. These gardens would yield big, bright tomatoes. Dogs would become obsessed with it back here. The cable company would have quite a time restoring the coverage of the war.

2:02 – 2:22 pm
Monday, 12.15.03
Savannah, Georgia

On the curbless corner of Lilac and Jupiter streets was a maple tree with ruby red leaves. Leslie looked at the tree through a bleeding-glass second-floor window of an old white farm house. Her bedroom smelled of chap-stick and printer ink. The radiators quacked while her feet searched for her slippers that lay somewhere underneath a desk of solid oak. Her elbows ached and her head felt like a bowling ball.

For a few seconds there was a man wearing a yellow parka walking a black labrador retriever in Leslie’s view. She mused whether all things in life would feel so fleeting.

Leslie sat up straight, clasped her hands together and took a deep breath. She wanted to write, but nothing was coming. The TV was calling. Her phone had unanswered voicemails. The kitchen needed to be cleaned. There were indefinite distractions queued and waiting for her attention. But, she couldn’t bring herself to focus on any one thing except the vision of that yellow man with the black dog walking by the red tree. The colors of fall. If the temperature was colder maybe the image would have frozen in the pane of glass she looked through.

There was a knock at the door. Leslie jumped. Her back shuddered and she blinked hard.