Terminology

"So you're basically leaking."

"What? No. I'm bleeding."

"Which means you're leaking blood."

"OUT OF A BULLET HOLE!"

"Yes, yes, the blood--normally contained within your body, a mostly-sealed unit, is now leaking out of a hole in that unit."

"Because I was shot!"

"Because you were shot. You're leaking."

"You asshole."

"Hey, man, I'm not the one who refuses to acknowledge--"

"You colossal asshole! You total fuckup! This is why I wanted to take an ambulance, this is why--"

"--and here I'm letting you leak all over the leather in my new car, all because you--"

"I'M NOT LEAKING!"

At that moment, the engine died.

"Uh."

"You king of douchebags."

"I bet it's the alternator. There's been some bleeding in the engine, and--"

"Oh, so the engine bleeds?!"

"It's a mechanical term!"

"IT'S A BIOLOGICAL TERM!"

"We have to walk."

"I've been shot! In the chest!"

"Your shoulder."

"I'm not walking!"

"Well, clearly, you're just sitting there bleeding. The hospital's like a block away, you didn't get shot in the legs, come on."

"Emperor of assholery..."

"Lean on me. We'll be there in a second, god, don't--leak on my suit, would you?"

Perfect Moments

A rainbow.

Right out of a storybook, rising from the rumblings of an unwanted storm on a wedding day. It rained just long enough to merit the brilliant arc above our heads, looming intangible and achingly beautiful just above the Mississippi River. I looked through it, to the treetops of my own state; looked behind me, to the reception inside; beside me, to the pretty girl who, thanks to the concrete bench, was for once smiling down at me.

I rose in my tux shoes to kiss her on tiptoes, tears stinging my eyes, smiling so hard it hurt. Around us, the world turned so pleasant and happy it seemed to be applauding.

Congratulations, James and Christine Gregory.

----

God, the thought of holding him was terrifying. A brand-new, screaming, above-all fragile inductee into the human race, held above me by his father (my brother) who sternly lectures on the proper way to cradle a newborn. My exhausted sister-in-law smiling with that wary look in her eye; we all know I'm the klutz, but he is my nephew and, yes, I must hold him once.

I take this bundle into my arms, and he is so warm, and he is so light. 7 pounds 15 ounces is nothing, and at the same time everything, my arms struggling to be powerful and gentle at the same time. There is no more screaming; there is only soft, almost inaudible breath, the invisible rise and fall of a baby's little chest. And the pride, so thick in my throat that I must swallow, so fierce I must give the baby back.

Michael Fitzgerald Smylie, born June 8th, 2008. Welcome to your life. I am so happy to be in it.

It was 8:13 AM on August 8th, and I was late for an interview with God.

I tried to reason with my editor, pointing out that I wasn't on-duty until 9:30. I could hear the clock on my phone shoot forward. I explained that I only covered local news. My editor promoted me. Desperate, I reminded him of my many (completely inane) appointments--if I could not listen to council meetings and fill the police blotter, who would?

A cold breeze off the river blew open my appointment book. From 9:30 AM until 5:30 PM, in bold letters half a page in size, was simply the word GOD.

Well, you had to give Him one thing. He sure was a stubborn asshole.

Some days, he pondered murder in an almost scholastic sense. The logistics of it. How, if he leapt across the counter at his dead-end job in his dead-end life and dead-ended someone else permanently, he could get away with it. He was not the type to act out of passion; he would never kill someone without weeks, no, months of planning. And yet he wondered, with ten witnesses and a security camera, how he would escape.

It wasn't so much malice as it was distaste. Irritation. The sound of voice after voice clamoring for service, the look of people desperate for service and heedless of the line. Every "uuuummmm..." and "uhhhhhh..." as they stared at the menu added a new dimension of cruelty to their imaginary deaths.

Some days it was more visceral. He didn't consider body disposal, evidence disposal, any kind of disposal except the tossing aside of one suburban bastard's life with a spray of blood and the wet mulching of gore between his fingers. I could kill you with this espresso machine, he thought one day, the image unbidden. It bothered him that the subsequent thought as just, but I'd have to blind you with hot coffee first.

All this behind the bland, fixed smile of retail, and he would have worried if he hadn't heard his coworkers saying the same things.

Way to ruin it

The physicist tells me that we live in a multiverse. Picture a filing cabinet, he says, thousands of sheets of paper always right next to one another but never, ever touching. Picture it on a galactic scale, a universal scale, an infinite scale--and keep right on picturing it, until there's nothing but sheets of paper, all in perfect rows.

"That's so cool," I say, eyes alight. "How do we get from one paper to another?"

"Oh, we don't," he replies, holding up a sheet. "Otherwise--" He crumples it and tosses it towards the trashcan.

Science ruins everything.

The Little Things

Jeremy’s day began with the utmost triumph: perfectly toasted toast. The bread, teetering on that oft-sought step between cooked and burnt, took butter and jelly in equal measure and crunch-squished between his teeth, every bite a testament to his culinary prowess.

Jeremy’s day continued with a lesser, though not inconsiderable victory: the shower was hot when he stepped in. The streams above his head, which so often yielded nothing but cold water thanks to Mr. Paulaski’s daily neverending bath, today lapped gentle and warm across his back. He scrubbed in peace, still proud of the toast.

Next was the drag of his favorite comb through his messy hair, which—normally uncooperative—yielded to each plastic stroke. He tilted his head, considered the calmed shock of black atop it in the mirror, and beamed. The crack in the center only slightly distorted his nose. Brushing his teeth and getting dressed and getting ready continued the trend of minor but not trivial successes, and it was with an unusual bounce in his step that he took the ten paces from his bathroom to his front door.

He nodded at the Collection, lining three walls of his studio at various wobbling heights. Monitors glowed, LEDs blinked, fans hummed, and a lone Apple logo blazed; all, it seemed, in cheerful response.

Jeremy relished the triumphs of the morning, grabbed his broken doorknob, and stepped outside ready to seize the day.

Judging by the wave of icy water a passing car immediately kicked up; the suddenly mussed hair soaking on top of his head; the muffling gray of the sky, and the flat tire on his Honda across the street, the day would do some seizing of its own.

He still had the toast.

Your Monthly Resurrection

I suck.

I'll hang my head and bow and scrape, but the truth of the matter is, I am just terrible at keeping a schedule without any pressure attached to it--especially when I have other things occupying my time, like a show or a trip to paradise.

I need to fix this, obviously, so it's time to start YDI up again. Expect great things in the future! Just, you know, don't necessarily expect them on time.

If anyone is still checking this: I missed you and I'm back.