They all knew Sarah Copsey

Colt Copsey

2008-05-05T20:23:00.000-07:00

Take a pin and tie about a hundred threads to it. Press it into the wall and pull the threads as far as they go.
Last night Colt had dropped a mug of coffee over his arm, now the red was going down and Sarah was on the phone with him.
He said, “So I guess Eric isn’t coming back”.
Sarah, being the shortest thread, said, “Hold on a minute”, and the line went quiet.

The coffee had turned out to be a really bad idea, only being able to stay five seconds in each room before having to change again.

Last night Eric had sent him a text from some seedy motel,
“NEED M SPACE RIGHT NOW. LOVE Y BUT IT JUST ISNT WORKING OUT”.
This was fifty years after telegrams got outdated.
After half an hour he had replied,
“WOW, BIG SURPRISE THERE.” Stop.
“JUST LEAVE ME THE FUUUUUCK ALONE ALREADY” Full stop.
With his body shaking he spilled his coffee.
Poor little Colt who just couldn’t cut off the hanging threads.
The problem with pins, if not falling off, the things pinned down will stay on the wall forever.

Now the cell-phone laid haunted on the table as a silent receiver.
Three four five and he left the room.

There was the sound of brushing against skin from the other side and then Sarah was back on the line.
“So, Mr. Powell is out of the picture. What happened?”.
Colt looked over at the phone and then picked up his keys, “Don’t know, wish I could tell you.”.
He headed for the door.
Sarah asked if she could come over and Colt said, “No, I’m heading out”.
Three four five and he was out of the apartment and he knew exactly what his sister was thinking
What perfect stranger would little baby brother Colt fuck now?
It didn’t really matter that he wasn’t going to.
Sarah said, “Ok.. But I’ll be over tomorrow”.
Colt, almost holding in his breath, said “Ok, love you. Gotta go”.
He kept walking up the hill behind his apartment building and when he was at the top he kept on walking. When he came to a small gathering of trees by the railroad tracks it was already dark.
He took a deep breath and the street lights by the tracks came on, stop.
And he screamed until his lungs couldn’t take it anymore, full stop.

Prologue

2008-04-21T19:36:00.000-07:00

This is a first for me, actually reading a story out loud. I guess, since this is the first draft of the PROLOGUE (!!!), I wanted to do something special.

If you read this, please comment if you think that this is, reading out loud that is, something I should do more often.

Caroline Hughes

2008-04-07T19:55:00.000-07:00

She says, ”Look, there’s us”, pointing at the small screen on her camcorder.
This was all in all the seventh time they’d met each other.
“Just try to ignore it”, she says and Colt slides back on the couch.
“So, school project?”, he asks.
In her bag is tape after tape of interviews of her family,
Brian’s quote unquote borrowed tapes and pictures of aunt Maggie.
“Yeah”, she says but this wasn’t a school project anymore.

Six months ago, as a late birthday present, she got her family tree from her cousin Sarah and after getting her drunk the nonlinear and unpolished history of her family started unfolding. While recording, Sarah pointed at the pencilled cross by her aunt.
“You should have been there. Bricks E-V-E-R-Y-W-H-E-R-E”.

Panning from the bottle of booze to Sarah, she asked her, “Did you call her Mom or Maggie like my mom does?”.

Colt says, “So this is mainly about mom right?“ and looks at his digital reflection on the camera,
“Not to be a bore but I don’t remember much”.
Putting in a new tape, branded “COLT” she says, “No really, that’s ok, you just have to tell me what you DO remember”. She could tell this wouldn’t get her any closer to a rough cut.
Switching the light adjustments to indoor-setting she remembers, “Hey, so how does it feel being an uncle?”.

Laine had given birth a couple days earlier and before she left for Colt’s she had scribbled the baby’s name and birthday on a post-it and scotch-taped it to the enhanced family tree on her bedroom wall, George B. Abrahamsen.

She says, “Nevermind”, as she plugs in the external microphone, “Let’s leave it to the interview”.

After Sarah’s drunken war-stories came her own mom’s sombre retelling of the facts with a lazy hand covering her face and after her came Bill. That was six months ago.
Now she was worried that her student funding would get pulled,
Now her bag was full of DV-tapes marked with names off the family tree.
Now it was Colt and after him Brian if she could get hold of him, which she doubted.

This could be it, the last version of why her gloomy family had curled up behind the walls after that renovation accident.
She takes a breath, now she would leave it to the camera.

“Hey Colt, after we’re done I could show you your sister really drunk”.
She presses the REC-button and then she asks him,
“So did you call her Mom or Maggie?”.

Adam Green

2008-03-14T06:15:00.000-07:00

Her name was Kimberly,
how fucking common.

Three years ago her name was at least Audrey.
One year ago, maybe Andrea.

He always did this.
At this point there was already a short story being published about her.
She, of course, didn't know that.

Kimberly, Kimber even, with her spidery legs and bulimia teeth.

In Adam's old notebooks Andrea/Kimberly had..
Nevermind.
He always did this.

He took a breath and held the air in while trying to ignore her stupid checkstand anecdotes. Kimberly was officially not his muse anymore.

Her name wasn't even the worst part.
She was a single-parent.

In fifteen minutes she has poisoned everything about herself.
Why did he even bother?

Audrey would have been his wife, easily.
In his notebooks she was a virgin, she knew german.

This was just stupid and this was a date.

Kimberly liked his stubble, she said, "Colin Farrell".

For the love of..

She said "her nieces" and he wrote on his napkin,

"Kimberly is a stupid cunt, Andrea is dead."

The story in the paper would probably win him an award, that was why they were here.
On a date.

He folded his napkin and she said "painted a picture in Kindergarten" and he wrote:

"I am forever a retarded fuck who never learns."

Felicia King

2008-03-04T19:04:00.000-08:00

It's a given that even the teachers die.

She wouldn't do so today and probably not tomorrow but the rot in her breasts wouldn't go away.

When the future was already handed to her all she had left was the past.

The linen underneath her had wrinkled and felt moist, her neck was stiff.

She pulls out another memory, they seemed so much clearer now, she remembered Sarah.

Why she didn't know, Sarah had never been a great student, smart but lazy.

She had sent off kids to Ivy League but today everything revolved around that memory of her.

She stood in front of class, her hair still reeked of peroxide, in the light it looked transparent and green.

A book report, that's right, it was a book report.

She opened her mouth with uneven pauses and she hadn't brushed her teeth.

Still, this was why she loved her kids, perfect in their invented imperfections.

If they only could remember to breathe.

This boy whispered, so that the girl behind him could hear, that she looked like a whore.

And Sarah looked at her, perfect in her brittle sand castle body.

The classroom was bright and the sun shone in on all the whores and the fags. The fat kids and the suck-ups. Why this memory was still there, she didn't know.

She opened her mouth.

Josh, that's right, his name was Josh and the book was Uncle Tom's Cabin.

What happened next she didn't remember.

Her mouth was open and now she knew exactly what she should have said, however she knew that wasn't relevant anymore. The guilt was since long over. That wasn't who she is anymore.

A haphazard young woman placed in that classroom that wasn't her.

Eric Powell

2008-01-30T15:25:00.000-08:00

A thing about him was that he always used those never-ending sentences,
No means no
means no
means yes
means no.

He was pulling out photos from a cardboard box in an empty house.
This was the new agenda of Eric, drawing a time-line of truth through his childhood.

Staring at the bruise wouldn't make it heal, he knew that.
But he needed to try.

He checked into a hotel with a bunch of stolen photos, matches and a mental surgical saw.

Scattered on the bed infront of him;
Exibit A, a smiling baby.
Exibit E, a blur forming just above him.
Give a little
to get a little
to give alittle.

At the hotel he outlines the basics for the memory rewrite.

On the back of his prom picture, EXIBIT T, he recognizes his handwriting.
It says, ”Best night ever. ”.

This is why he was here, he reminded himself, to edit the raw-material.
He stepped out on the balcony for air. He said to himself: Find new truth
in the old truth
in the new truth
in the old truth.

Back in the room he scanned the picture to his computer, made a note.
”I wasn't stupid, not knowing better”.

He opened the window and in the bathroom sink he burned the picture.

Looking at the ashes, he thought that this was easier than he thought it would be,
polarizing his youth.

The way the word ”slut” written on your chest dissolves in the mirror,
he desperately needed to know there was something else could reflect the way he was now.

He went back to the computer and sat down,
erasing was impossible, he knew that.
He just needed to change the words he used to describe it.

He grabbed another exibit and put it in the scanner.

The thing with photographs are that when they are taken you're never alone.

When there's a camera around, you never have the chance to wash away the blood running down your legs.

On the screen a scanned photograph of him sitting in the middle of the old living-room appeared.

He wrote,
”My life can start when this is over
my life can start when this is over
my life,
when this is over.”

Lars Gilmore

2008-01-09T10:57:00.000-08:00

A lamp in the corner suddenly went out.
Across from Brian sat Jessica biting her lip.
He wasn't going to leave her,
not yet,
and it worked both ways.

Without knowing why he had said that their loneliness was the home they were living in.

This was ten minutes ago and desperate for a metaphor to explain he asked, "Do you remember Lars?"

Lars from college who died,
Lars with his failing pig heart.

He, Sarah and Scott had talked about going to Europe and two months after the party they did.
Constanly drunk and with Lars on a payphone they came back to the hostel with Lars already in bed, shaking to keep warm.

But this was before Europe, it was before Scott had to call for an ambulance in a foreign country.

Pale and skinny he got together with this girl at the Trash Bag-party.
From the other side of the room Scott had called him Heart Jerky and gave him the thumbs up.
What Scott remembered about him was that he never said much and when he did he said too much.
With a hand under the black plastic he frowned and gave him the finger.
So fucking childish.

And yes, Jessica remembered him.

When they came back from Berlin Lars tried to apologize and Sarah had to laugh.
The punchline would arrive two weeks later.

A calm face against the yellow rug of his apartment.

Jessica asked him what this has to do with anything?

The lamp came back on and in his mind this made perfect sense.

What the Trash Bag-party girl later told Scott was that Lars stopped taking his meds when they started dating
The pills that had made him sick, because a sick body won't reject even the weakest heart.
It's simple biology he said, she said and she was sorry.

Back home, While taking of his tie after the funeral he started crying.
He banged the walls and called him a stupid fuck.

After that he didn't remember.

Scott now knew that this simile wouldn't work, he said "Nothing" and they went to bed.

William Copsey

2007-12-17T02:03:00.000-08:00

Before the accident Bill Copsey had a joke about his name.
Whenever introducing himself, he said,
”Not the black comedian.”.
He was a funny guy,
people told him that.

After Margaret died he tried to off himself but survived.

The concussions and the broken bones got better and the bathroom sink filled with bottles of pills.
At least he wasn't a pussy about it.

When he came home the house was empty.

His kids would from then on slowly scatter away from him.

He didn't mind, he had his memories and Eastwood videos.

On his crutches he paced the apartment and his tv showed a paused image of a dying adversary, with the pistol between his hand and the ground.

The hole in their ceiling was plastered and outlined hanging over him.

He wanted to finish the remodeling but wouldn't, Maggie was gone.

The days were not days anymore but minutes piling up.

One pill for the boredom, two pills for the muscle cramps and one more for eating them in the first place.

Whenever he dosed off on the sofa, he could hear the ceiling giving up again, the bricks would rain down, covering their bodies.

She was there and waving to him on his decent from the second floor window.

The comfort of death, freeze-framed in mid-action.

They were alone in their house and tried to not crack up.

And he woke up laughing.

Side-effects of a side-effect of his persistence of being alive.

He had a joke that he didn't have anyone to tell to,

what do you call waiting for sleep?

Purgatory.

Laine Abrahamsen

2007-12-07T11:50:00.000-08:00

When the forth test still showed that she was pregnant she pulled out his cardboard boxes he'd left behind and found fifteen tapes.

This was Brian's way of haunting everything he'd ever touched.

She finished the letter and called Sarah for his new address.

Smoking up her stow-away cigarettes, she pressed play and listened to his old journals.
He was not one for privacy, his scraping voice;
an unfriendly and poetically partial recap.

She pressed pause and threw up.
Pressed the stamp to her tounge and pushed it down.

Through the old speakers he told her that he would miss holding her as she slept.

When the second tape snapped its end she changed tape and went for a drive.
The car interior echoed her snoring and his voice telling her a story about how wonderful it would have been.

Sarah sat upset beside her scraping the car-seat leather with her finger-nails.
Her brother would be gone for a long time,
this followed a very clear pattern.

These tapes, his DNA, snapped and always someone else left to rewind.
A worthy legacy passed down as they both kissed him goodbye

for now,

and now Laine would stand by as the footprints in the snow slowly disappeared.

Patrick Skinner

2007-10-28T07:51:00.000-07:00

He knew Love was a word with little or no meaning if not put into context so whenever he met a girl, tonight a black hair hipster with a pale cigarette torso, he thought,

"I love her More than toothpaste, I love her Less than sleep."

The girl across the table on the other side of a half empty beer asked:
"If you had the choice to either increase your intellect or the length of your dick by
ten percent, WHAT would you choose?".

To this, rules applied.
And first impressions are all about lies.
This wasn't about the answer, he knew, this was about the question.
He was there with enough money to buy her breakfast in the morning and he laughed like he'd never had heard that question before.
This one taken from a magazine he also subscribed to.

He DID like this one and because of it it would only become a breakfast and a hugless goodbye.

Feeling time run out he heard her asking him, "So?".

He loved this girl, he did, More than his suit, Less than his CD-collection.

As another "Too bad" wiped out his hesitation, he knew and answered,

"Cock size, OF COURSE".

Jasmine Williams

2007-10-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

On the bedside table there are two bottles of water collecting the white dust of the walls. The motel air conditioning is weezing in air like her nephews asthma, a narrow breeze on her fevery forehead.

Here, where a sign is saying "If you lived here, you'd be home by now", time is the friction between water and oil.

Maybe tomorrow she'll start the car again. Under her nails, the white dust collects as she scratch another mark on the wall.

After
two,
three,
days, not too tired but her body like a see through mirror.

The world behind the shutters, not the other way around, turns on the lights where a beat means going to the bathroom, another five to stay in bed.

Last night, someone had knocked on the door.

"Tomorrow" she thought and fell asleep.

Margaret Copsey, 45 y/o

2007-09-05T13:38:00.000-07:00

Buried under a ton of bricks, she tried to move.
What she liked to think is that it was only an analogy, but this time, it wasn't.
A writer writes about what she'll never experience, twenty broken bones, the unablility to walk or to feel her vagina ever again.

The sun, through the window, hit the mountain and she closed her eyes.
Concentrating on staying alive.

Outside her children were screaming for her, calling for help.

Escaping the situation, she thought that THIS would make a killer OPENING CHAPTER.
If only she could get the blood-dust out of her throat and bend her fingers over a keyboard she would write her fucking masterpiece.

A sentence through the Byzantine circuit-board:

"At the bottom of the hole in our house, I lied all these years."

As she pondered the title, her husband came running into the room,
the ambulance was on its' way.

The days to come drifted from sleep to sleep.
And at the end, she had nothing to show for the years of fooling herself.
Songs, books and movies kept at the house,
she dreamt of.

And where were her children?

Brian Copsey 33 y/o

2007-08-31T17:50:00.000-07:00

A room, a job.

The new city had so far treated him with reserved courtesy.
Putting the pins down slowly and under sedation.

After settling in and shaving his head he got a letter.
He'd pay for the abortion and he did.
This new city, it didn't belong to him, he borrowed it.
Smoking packs of cigarettes he realized he was lost.
The signs pointing home, he couldn't understand them.

Undressing, he forgets and starts over.
This time, not going to bed with her.

Wiring the money, this was going to be his home.
Like Hansel following the trail back.

In bars he met people, he took notes and they asked him what they were for.
He asked them back, "If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?".
Leaving early, the answer would never be, "Here".

A girl who looked like her stole his jacket,
she tried to remember his face while reading the notes,

"We are sinking deeper every day. The hopes of the future eats us alive as the past tries to let us go, but can't."

Smoking his cigarettes, she said, "Really?".

Bridget Gault 32 y/o

2007-08-21T19:32:00.000-07:00

Age: 32
Relgion: Jehovah's witness
Status: Single
Favorite Movie: Dancer In The Dark

After he'd read the article he convinced her to put down Miss Harrington.
In retrospect, she now knew that for something to change, something old has to go.
All the way to the veterinarian she cried, he said this was for the best.

This was years ago, she and her then-boyfriend Danny living in an apartment shared with a girl named Sarah.

She knew she heard their arguments through the walls, but she'd never once complained.

She said, she'd been there.
With some John guy.

The article was about this cat, living in a nursing home. Going from bed to bed with potential bodies, the cat would patrol.
The story was that a couple of hours before someone died the cat would jump up on the bed, laying there until it was over. The dying wanting to stroke him but couldn't, knowing with relief what was around the corner.
The cat would purr until the last breath and when the body was gone, he'd start patroling again.

The problem was that Miss Harrington had slept in their bed every night.

But that was before the article and after reading it Danny just couldn't sleep anymore.
He would pace the apartment waiting for the chessplayer.

So after the screaming and the crying, they gave the little miss a shot
and it was over.

The apartment grew quiet and closed off.

A week later, Bridget moved out. She packed her bags on a tuesday while Danny was at work. Sarah helped her, tip-toeing around collecting and packing cd's she'd borrowed.
Untangling months of spiderwebs of knowing the old Bridget.

Sarah had been their cat of death, the scape-goat observer of the end.

No one cried over a car leaving to never return.
Then, not knowing the kid growing inside of her.

Miss Harrington had been the last sacrifice for a dying god.
Danny had been the last burning icon.

She'd be born again in some small town.

In a flowered dress, she'd knock door after door, trying to teach what Miss Harrington had given her.

David Green, 26 y/o (Part 2)

2007-08-20T03:35:00.000-07:00

(Written over a bottle of beer at Holden's bar)

Time spent here
For Jessica Garner

This is the split second, stretched into infinity,
in which I and we could live forever.
The moment, just before you said no,
I thought you were going to say yes.
By default a light switches in what feels like an aeon.
But there's never enough time for those kinds of impulses.

By then you have all ready made a stupid decision,
by then we have become haystacks in someone elses idea of peace.

In every city, a cracked wall holding it together.
Filled with curse-words.

The last, the last frowning first.
Going backwards into the house again.
And its' twilight crawls back up the street, leading to it.
Slowly we become what we've always been.

David Green 26 y/o (part 1)

2007-08-20T03:23:00.000-07:00

Age: 26
Occupation: Writer
Best feature: Good listener
Worst feature: Too kind for own good

[A telephone call made by David Green to Jessica Garner a Thursday, lasting between 2:46 to 2:51 p.m.]

JG: Hello.
DG: Jessica?
JG: Yes, who is this?
DG: It's David.. from highschool.
JG: Who?
DG: David.. David Green.
JG: Yeah.. I'm sorry.. Hi!
DG: So.. how've you been?
JG: Good.. just.. good, you know.
DG: Yeah? Yeah?
JG: Yeah, you know..
DG: So, listen, the reason I'm calling is.. well it's kinda embarrasing.
JG: What?
DG: Uhm, you see I'm a writer.. a poet.
JG: Wow, that's great.
DG: Yeah.. well, how to put this.. Do you by any chance remember the night when a whole gang went to Holden's for a beer.. Sarah, you remember Sarah right, she was there.. We were all sitting at a table and you were sitting over the table from me. You were sitting by.. what was his name..
god!
JG: Scott?
DG: Yeah, Scott. You know what happened to him?
JG: Uhm, yeah I do, we're married.
DG: No? That's great.. just great.
JG: Yes, for three years now.
DG: Any kids?
JG: Just one, Charles, turning two in a couple of months.
DG: That's just.. great.
JG: Yeah..
DG: Well back to the story, the thing is I'm putting together a best of kinda deal,a collection of poems and I remember, that night at Holden's, the others went out on the dancefloor but we stayed at the table and we talked some. You asked me what I liked doing.. and I said, "I'll show you". I picked up my notebook and wrote you a poem, and.. geez it's so embarrasing.
JG: What?
DG: Well, I wonder if I could have it back.. I know it was for you but.. you know. If you still
have it of course.
JG: No no, of course. Yes, I still have it, I think it's called "Time spent here".
DG: Wow, you still remember huh?
JG: It was a good poem.
DG: ..
JG: Hello, you still there?
DG: Yeah.. sorry.. uhm. So are you still living in XXXXXX?
JG: Yes
DG: Well I'm in town, maybe I could come over and pick it up?
JG: I don't know.. I have to find it first. I don't think it's a good idea. But I'm happy to send it to you. I'll get your address online, David.. Green.. right?
DG: Yeah, that's it.. OK.. I can't thank you enough, I'll thank you in the book.
JG: Oh, no, you don't have to do that.
DG: Don't be silly.
JG: No really.. you don't have to.
DG: OK, if that's what you want. Uhm, well, listen, if you ever want to grab a cup of coffee.. catch up.
JG: Yeah.. We'll see. I have your number.. so.
DG: Great.. great. Well, thanks again. I really appreciate it. I mean I feel like a thief.
JG: You shouldn't, it's yours.
DG: No.. no it's not.
JG: Well, I'll send it as soon as I find it. Goodbye.
DG: Bye.

Blocked up.

2007-08-20T01:17:00.000-07:00

Yes, I admit, for the moment I have a small block. But don't worry, I'll be back very soon.

Meanwhile, you can read a short-story from one of my biggest sources of inspiration, Amy Hempel. When it comes to keeping it short and right on point, she is a godess.

Enjoy!

Today Will Be A Quiet Day

Brandon Manner, 32 y/o

2007-08-13T16:39:00.000-07:00

Age: 32
Diagnosis: Obsessive-compulsive disorder
Fear: Deep water

After he had been commited for the third time, he moved out here.
A little house on the side of the gravelled road.

That blue light shining into the room, in his face, on his cigarette.

He'd get postcards from his friends.
On a friday it was a picture of him and Sarah, and over her new address, "What's the outside like?".

The picture was of him and her standing outside their first apartment,
the flash had made his eyes close shut,
she'd kissed him hard on the cheek.
A moment now hanging over his bed as he slept.

Every night at eleven he'd go out for a walk.

An empty road on an empty plain, guided by streetlights.
With a couple of minutes left, he'd stop and light another cigarette.
Exactly at eleven twelve the lights go out, every night his eyes readjust to the lights of the stars.

He'd walk home, slowly dragging his feet, even though it felt like he was floating.

These twenty minutes as his whole life, waiting for everything to change.

To make the days pass he'd chop woods, in three months he'd go home again.

On a piece of paper he'd written down his epitaph:

"Death is just a minor adjustment".

Grace Daniels, 68 y/o

2007-08-13T04:42:00.000-07:00

Age: 68
Occupation: Retired
Hobbies: Baking, Reading

Whenever she has a good day,
one without her body cramping,
one without her knees buckling, she bakes.

Measuring flour and sugar, it's her excuse to invite her neighbors from next door, those cute girls with the beautiful dresses and their stories.

She writes a note and pushes it under their door. They always show up.
They need a stage and audience and she gives it.
For fortyfive minutes every time the painkillers kicks in.

Around the table, this is her imagining that she's on televisions like those New York babies.

Over cinnamon buns and coffee she asks them about
their new boyfriends, always new, every time. And they tell her.

She pretends innocence to perfection as they tell her about what the sex is like. With mouths full of apple cobbler and tea they show her how oralsex makes them gag.

This was beyond humiliation but she doesn't mind.

This is Grace's fifteen minutes of the spotlight of pity before crashlanding in solitude,
before the pills fades out again in her too hot blood.

Brian Stover, 29 y/o (part 1)

2007-08-07T03:39:00.000-07:00

Age: 29
Favorite author: Earnest Hemmingway, Gore Vidal

In college he shared an apartment with John,
John with his girlfriend always sitting in the livingroom waiting for him.

He'd ask her, "What do you really see in this guy?".
"The obligatory bad boyfriend experience", she said underneath a crust of lipstick.

They'd sit in the living room, watching television.

She'd ask him, "Do you love him?".
With the coffeemaker fogging up the room he'd say, "I'm not gay."

All he could do was to lay down and listen as the ground of their relationship fell deeper into the earth.

He had the same name as her brother she said just before John came in with pussy juice on his stubble. John, the guitar-flaunter. Sarah held on to him like she wanted to suck out as much humiliation of him before it'd be over.

At this point, he'd always sneak out, hearing John's loud voice scraping away at
her dignity.

For hours he'd walk around in his darkened neighborhood waiting for the fights to be over.
That summer was a hot one. Without wallets and keys, some nights he slept on a blanket in the park thinking about her, would she come out alright after this?

Some nights he'd bring a bottle of Jaeger and sit on the curb until she'd come out.

They'd sit and watch the streetlights gathered bugs.
She'd start crying and he'd put his arm around her, kissing her forehead.

She'd ask, "You sure you're not gay?."
He'd say, "Do you really hate yourself that much?"

At the end, she'd always laugh and say, "No."

Some words from the author.

2007-08-04T06:01:00.000-07:00

Today I won't post a poem but instead I want to talk about this project.

I started this project as a little hobby for my brain, just outlining basic relationships between characters I made up. And one night I sat down and wrote my first poem about John Firth, in the big picture he isn't a major characthers because I felt I wanted to start off easy with just shallow aquaintences to Sarah. C.
I am still there.

I have realized that it will take some time to complete this project, but I (still) love working on it, everyday getting closer and closer to finding out the true nature of Sarah (cause, to be honest, I have no idea she will come out in the end).

There, I'm done.

But look out for more messages from me. I will post them as I go along.

Before I leave you though, I want to show you guys the worksheet I'm using right now. I keep it to remember all the relationship in this "universe". It will expand and change very much before I'm done with it though.

Take a look.

Goodbye for now!

/Jon Gustav

Corbin Matthews, 23 y/o

2007-08-03T05:52:00.000-07:00

Age: 23
Occupation: Fast food employee
In five years: Being a carpenter
Favorite movie: Beetle Juice

A stroke on the top of the staircase, still he came down with grace.
This was the house they built together as a last goodbye.
And now it was his, with his father still haunting the place.
A chill everytime he went up the stairs,
it was a comfort like no other.

On his first date with the girl, she drew a portrait of him on his napkin.
This was three weeks ago.

In the bathroom, shaving, he told his father "I think you'll like this one".
Putting on cologne, "I know you always had a soft spot for the artsy ones".

On their second date he told her about his father, about the house.
About his secret-secret cancer. She asked him, "Aren't you mad at him?".

He had set the table before for leaving work. When he came home, all greased
up with french-fries fat, he stepped on glass-shards shattered all over the floor.

Was he mad at him?
At times like these he was.

The house was cold tonight, halfway through his glass of bravery-wine, waiting for her to arrive, he had to put on another sweater.
"I swear, sometimes you're so fucking stubborn".

Jessica Garner, 26 y/o

2007-08-02T10:01:00.000-07:00

Age: 26
Occupation: On maternity leave
Status: Married
Discarded dreams: Learning to play the piano, taking up painting again.

Jessica layed in bed when the baby started crying again.
She tried to move but just couldn't.
The weights of everyday-routine pressed her back deeper
into the matress. Her face running down like a landslide.
Maybe it'd stop crying soon, she'd wait.

Scott hadn't been sleeping well and she'd, of course, stopped
asking why. Their house of cards was already swaying too much
to have answers pulling cards from the bottom.
But he kept her awake.
She could feel his dreams from the otherside of the bed
like a burning roof coming down over them.

She kept imagining the worst case scenario as she tried
to move again. And the house grew quiet again.

The alarm-clock told her she was late with starting dinner,
it told her she was late again.

Maybe tomorrow would be a better day, she thought, her feet
touching the floor again.

Scott Garner, 27 y/o

2007-07-31T17:23:00.000-07:00

Age: 27
Occupation: Tax-man
Status: Married
A Clear Memory: His wedding, making her breakfast.

He heard his radio far back, somewhere inside the walls.
But it was right there, infront of him.
Sitting indian-style on the floor with his friend from
way back, he hadn't seen her in years.

He knew the rules, of which there were none.
Without his notes, this just WASN'T.

But she looked at the radio and told him:
"Do you really think this is about you?".
A song was playing at the nightstand in his bedroom,
and here, on this auditoriumesque stage.
He heard the crackles of fire and he said,
"I don't think of it that way".

Her dress was more of a halloween costume, with her torso wrapped
in black plastic garbage bags, than a dress. Pity, he thought.
He asked, "So how have you been?". She smiled.

The ceiling was beginning to disolve,
he wanted to know before he left.
Sarah, the long lost postcard.

But he couldn't hear her anymore, because of that song.

Words that bent his arms backward against the world.

Christina Duncan 25 y/o

2007-07-29T18:05:00.000-07:00

Age: 25
Occupation: Hair-dresser
Appearal: Strapless dress, red.
Favorite song: Death Cab for Cutie - Transatlanticism

This is what she loved most, dancing that is.
Shuffling around to beat-two-three-four music.
A million people on the floor, dancing.
Two million unfinished drinks guarded by the rest
looking in. One disolving pill.
Her clothes were covered with holes to her innards,
a blue and red and green light penetrating them.
Pushing in fingers, two-three-four.

Someone was holding rope, pulling them together.
As they were to tired to kiss or smile.

She wouldn't go home tonight.

Before falling asleep, Christina thought:
This is what life should be.

Sam Larkin, 22 y/o

2007-07-28T13:49:00.000-07:00

Age: 22
Occupation: Student
Status: Friend with benefits

Over the table with three empty coffee cups he starts telling his friend a story.
A year ago, in his late night arts class, he met this girl, right.
In a basement, she was backgrounded by flourencent white in a angle only he could
see. Her jawbone, in perfect accordance to the floor.
He doesn't tell his friend this but his boner was aching all night.
Their teacher, he told them, partner up.

Facing eachother with two empty papers on the desk, without looking, they start
outlining eachothers faces. Never losing eye contact, this was the closest thing
he'd ever gotten to a serious relationship.

Of course the friend starts laughing.
Without looking, slowly.

His paper smugded with ink, her face appears, connecting lines. Her potato eyes, her
celery eyelashes. Every tuesday, they never lose eyecontact. Trailing every bone, every face muscle.

Over the table, the moral of the story is she's by far the ugliest girl he would ever bang.
The ink making her hair look like shredded cabbage.

Now, on his frigde, there is a drawing of a girl, a freak of nature, or simply modern
arty. With the name Sarah. C, underlined with a phone number.

Melissa Brinkerhoff, 27 y/o

2007-07-25T16:17:00.000-07:00

Age: 27
Occupation: Secretery
Dreams: Finding THE guy
Favorite movie: Thelma and Louise

Everytime she meets someone new, she tells them about her nickname,
Sucky. She is of that kind.
What she need and want oceans apart.
Her years of practicing away her shyness until she layed down on
her floors, wiped like bugs on car-windows.
She pulled herself like a puppeteer, ventriloquisting her every thought.

In high school, someone told her a joke in the girls' bathroom, she'd
laughed too hard. This is the core on which all her memories spring.

In her apartment she reads her thoughts aloud taken from her secretary.
This way, she doesn't keep journal. This day, no appointments.
No visitors.

She wants people to call her Sucky and they do.

At the girls' bathroom, in highschool, Sarah told her a joke:
What do you call an Alabama farmer with a sheep under each arm?

A pimp.

John Firth, 29 y/o

2007-07-25T13:28:00.000-07:00

Age: 29
Occupation: Low-life musician
Rolemodel: Marlon Brando, The guy who wrote "Catcher in the Rye"
Favorite color: Dark green

He paced his apartment, checked the window, twice.
Waiting for his lovers to arrive, he did this everytime.
After she'd left he'd always think of someone else,
this girl he once knew, dated even.
Not knowing that right now, everything revolved around
her, not his current lovers.
Where he lived, the sun set later then on most places
he had lived. Really he wanted to sleep.
After she left this evening he'd sit on the porch, waiting
for the street lights to light up again.
He'd count them clicking on, slowly another another step
for his 30th birthday.

If he only knew some people he didn't fuck.
He though about going away on the 8th of july, going down the country,
if he only knew where she lived. Maybe he could meet up with Brian again.
Going down the country he could actually live
in his car, he could, he thought.

When was it? Ten years ago. Her dress like plastic bags
packed for sale. Though she was not the love he was looking
for. Still wasn't. But if only he could see her now,
put a face on that mind sheltered mannequin.

She was late, but that didn't matter. He breathed in fog that tasted of his lawn.

Later, on top of her he'd remember, her name was Sarah Copsey.
The plastic bag girl.
He came quick outside of her.
Later that night he decided he would stay at home on the 8th.