It is Thursday when the letter shows up, which is odd because Thursday never really had a ring doom about it. He picks the letter up off the floor near the doorway, which is also odd since there is no mail slot. Monday’s kind of a given with regard to bad news. And then of course, Saturday and Friday—it’s just so ironic when something bad happens then. 9/11 forever ruined Tuesday—at least for Travis. Sunday is the Lord’s day, it’s special for a lot of people on the planet. Wednesday, hump day. Harmless. The envelope’s mostly blank. No address on the front. No return address. There’s just a refined logo that reads: “Mischance, Misery Misfortune & Mishap, esqs.” which certainly doesn’t seem to bode well. Thursday. It’s almost got a jolly sound to it given its proximity to the weekend. He opens the letter and reads it.

Read the whole story so far: Incunabula

Ian lived in a fraternity house on Milledge Avenue up the street from 3D. He was the expatriate of the foursome, a photographer among the natives. He had first met Travis when the two lived in the dorms together their freshman year. Nothing much had happened then in that first year, but in their sophomore year, the two figured out that they had a common thread: the criminal element. After a long discussion at a coffeehouse one night, they had decided that between the two of them, they could make fake drivers licenses at quite a profit—Travis doubly so because he could increase the number of people at his shows. A friendship was born. There was more at stake, of course. It wasn’t long before Travis as a musician came to know and appreciate the nuances of photography, and Ian came to know Travis’s music. Even as artists of different mediums, they both “got it.”

Read the whole story so far: Carousel Cowboy

John gets up of the floor and sits down on one of the couches along the wall, beneath three of Nicks strange and colorful four foot by four foot pastel renderings of bar scenes. The characters in the paintings are grossly twisted and faceless as they bend and melt over the bar and each other against a dizzying and meandering background. Striking, they never failed to catch the attention of any guest who entered the apartment. “Unmute it,” John says.

Fetching the remote, Travis unmutes the television in time to hear Yosemite Sam scream as Bugs throws a match into the powder room. The two sit mesmerized by the classic cell animation. “Where’s Nick?” Travis asks. He and Nicks rooms were next to one another on one side of the apartment, and Travis had heard him leave earlier.

“He said he had to get some supplies or something. You still wanna’ get that amp fixed?”

“Yeah, you bet.”

Read the whole story so far: Carousel Cowboy

The sky overhead has crushed all movement. The horizon is always out there and far away, until low clouds roll in and cover you and quietly the world becomes a bowl at the bottom of which you sit. You do not contemplate the distance but just the gray of what is near. It is never harmful to ask on such a day, Why do I bother? as the sky pulls you under. He is looking at this world covered over until he sees the brilliance of the red brake lights in front of him. What’s he doing? He’s stopped! Shit! He slams the brake—grabs the wheel—pulls hard right. The rearview mirror: nothing but a truck grill. Fuck! Hold on. Oh God, I love you, Jodie. But now he belongs to the weather.

Read the whole story so far: A Low Cloud Reflex

Characters and Places: Allen Lawson, death, Jodie Copeland

In September of 2159 (the precise date is not entirely clear yet), the world, as Homo Sapiens know it ends, thanks in large part to an entity known as Z, a collective networked intelligence installed in the body of a genetically altered human being. Even Fleeting, son of Jack Fleeting, son of Travis Fleeting, son of Clarrisa Fleeting, discovers an ancient artifact known as the Imagineum. The Imagineum is, by most accounts, an interactive, immersive database intended to collect the history of humanity in order to eventually store that information outside the entropic forces of the time-space continuum or what is referred to in some documentation as the “common universe.”

Read the whole story so far: Unthreaded

Characters and Places: Dendratic Timeline, Even Fleeting, The Axons, The Coburns, The Copelands, The Dendrites, the Fleetings, The Gunns, The Imagineum, Z

Bailey’s name isn’t Bailey—it’s James. James had to be in the humane shelter for more than two weeks after November 23. But since he was such a beautiful Irish Setter, there was no question among the volunteers at the shelter that he would eventually be adopted. They did a good job of keeping his long hair shiny and clean and he was a genuinely happy dog. That’s why Linda Davis adopted the dog whose name isn’t Bailey and named him James: he was a beautiful and genuinely happy dog. It was low clouds that named Bailey, James.

Read the whole story so far: A Low Cloud Reflex

Characters and Places: Animals, James the Dog

Travis just sits and stares as the dream lingers his head—painted horses on a circular journey. He’s not ready to go, but he’s not ready not to go either. The indecision is a lack of melody. It is a song inside his singer head that demands recognition, but guilt keeps it from coming out. Still, decision seems a necessary inconvenience, and judging from some completely arbitrary internal clock (or just guessing really) Travis figures it to be three-thirty in the morning. At this point he is running on pure, unadulterated stupidity, and he stares blankly at John who has begun to ponder his gut, sitting on the couch. “I think I gained weight while I was sleeping,” remarks John.

“Only you could manage that.”

Read the whole story so far: Carousel Cowboy

Looking for someone to talk to and joke with was a natural instinct driving on a day like today. The massive, gray, nimbostratus rows have a mesmerizing effect as they line up with a road that is the same color and has been since South Carolina very early this morning. Gary Travers hears a really good joke about short women with large breasts on the CB. He laughs hard for a minute—laughs like he hasn’t laughed in a long time. He has to close his eyes he’s laughing so hard, and in the next instant realizes two cars have stopped dead ahead in the left lane and he must slam on the brakes. He does so. Had the moisture and light rain not brought the oil in the road to the surface he might have stopped in time.

Read the whole story so far: A Low Cloud Reflex

Travis turns the television off with some effort, and darkness encompasses the room. Only a dim flare of blue light filters in from the parking lot to set a glow to everything in the room before John turns the phosphorescent overhead lights on. Travis winces, shutting his eyes.

“Sorry,” John says.

“That’s all right.”

“Where’s Nick?”

“He never came in.”

Read the whole story so far: Carousel Cowboy, Unthreaded

Travis calls back, “I think the TV’s broken, man!”

“Really?” comes the reply, floating through the kitchen, bouncing off dirty metal appliances.

Watching the channels flip by, too quickly to discern their content, Travis absently hollers, “Yeah! There’s nothin’ but crap on!” He pauses momentarily to watch a news anchorman ramble on silently about a helicopter shot of a brown SUV. Travis rolls over a bit his hackles raised, even in the silence. The lack of a practiced, Midwestern-accented, lightly emotion-tinted voice narrating over the images, reduces their power, and leaves Travis amused. “Today,” Travis begins alone in a serious tone, “more crap happened. One individual lost his shit and ran away from myriad obligations at high speeds. Some other things fell apart due to a complete lack of foresight on the part of their leaders, and a number of people you’ve never heard of or met, died pointlessly.” Travis watches as the truck continues speeding down the road and then cuts back to the anchor. “My wife left me because of my toupee and I’m quite sad about that.”

Read the whole story so far: Carousel Cowboy, Unthreaded