Tales From the Tomato Patch #8

Story number eight:

“August Closing His Mouth After a Long Summer’s Yawn”

Yuri walked unnoticed among people. This would seem surprising given that he was a large man who sweated profusely even in the cool night air, a handkerchief always dabbing at his forehead.

Yuri was used to the lack of attention, as if he were a tree or a bench or an ill dog in the street, they grazed his body as they passed but didn’t look. He felt the press and sting of their presence.

Yuri rarely had fun, only sometimes in the early morning hours before the world woke up. In quiet moments while the birds flew and the sun rose. Then the air was warm and dry and breathable.

Story title from Jason Webley’s album Viaje, 1998


Tales From the Tomato Patch #8: August Closing His Mouth After a Long Summer’s Yawn by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Tales From the Tomato Patch #7

Story number seven:

“Quite Contrary”

The ladybird alighted on the branch above the spider’s web, her hindwings folding under their red and black shard. She stared at her fellow predator, asleep in the center, surrounded by the mummified corpses of recent meals.

She sighed.

“Why are you sad, little ladybird?” The spider asked, waking up.

“I wish,” the ladybird replied, “that I could make such an elegant home as you to trap my prey.”

“Ah,” the spider said, his eight eyes shone. “But I can share mine with you, and a meal as well.”

“Really?” The ladybird rushed onto the strands with joy.

It wasn’t until her second leg stuck she realized what the spider meant.

Story title from Jason Webley’s album Counterpoint, 2002




Tales From the Tomato Patch #7: Quite Contrary by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Tales of Pending Rejection: Time Traveling

Hey Gang,

Forgot to update this with all of the holiday madness, but I had another acceptance recently. There's a cool little e-zine out there called 50 to 1, they publish 50 word stories and first lines (ostensibly of longer works, basically what they want is something intriguing that makes you wonder what the story is).

I submitted two 50 word stories and two first lines, and they accepted one of the first lines! Whoop!

You can find my entry to the most recent issue here, but check out the other pieces, it's cool what you can do with only a few words.

Tales From the Tomato Patch #6

Story number six:

“Eleven Saints”

The first saint was there when she was born on a mild sunny afternoon.

The second saint loomed under a tree when she fell off her tricycle.

As she entered her teens, the third saint sabotaged her first date, thus losing her only chance at everlasting happiness.

The fourth saint smoked heavily and told her weird stories.

The fifth, sixth, and seventh saints guided her haphazardly through her twenties.

She listened to the eighth saint patiently as he worked through his issues.

The ninth saint chatted with her baby’s first saint in the delivery room.

The tenth saint was… best forgotten.

And during her final breath, the eleventh saint was ready.

Story title from Jason Webley’s and Jay Thompson’s collaborative album Eleven Saints, 2006


Tales From the Tomato Patch #6: Eleven Saints by Christian Berntsen is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Unported License.

Stomping around the homestead and a long overdue return to the Tomato Patch

Happy Christmas Eve!

Today is the first day of an eleven day vacation for me. Day Job is a distant memory until January 4th, and things are winding down here at home. The rest of the year will be a holiday festivities-filled, life assessing, office organizing, TV show catching-up on, book reading bonanza.

Things good and bad went down this year, and I think I inadvertently grew up a little more than I planned, which is OK. I also have more focus on the future, and a better handle on the present than I've had in a long time. I continue to learn to live.

One bit of unfinished business that's been buggin' me, though, is my Tales From the Tomato Patch series. I left off back in July at tale number five, and due to various events both in and out of my control, I never finished.  The good news is, I have now. I spent part of the past month polishing the unfinished fragments and laying out the final stories in an acceptable order. So to celebrate the end of 2009, and continue the party for Jason Webley's eleventh anniversary of his first album's release, I will post the final six stories in the series between December 26th and December 31st. One each day at 11:00 am.

While they're all short stories (some as short as 11 words), finishing the series is actually pretty big for me. I have a habit of not following through, and the fact that I did with this makes me happy. Hell, the fact that I've kept up with this blog all year makes me happy.

For those that need a refresher, you'll find the first five stories here:

2 AM
February Relaxing Her Fingers After a Short Winter’s Grip
Days With You
Artichoke
Clown Car to Mulberry

Now, enjoy your Christmas, make merry on the New Year (obviously you'll hear from me before then, but just in case), and we'll talk soon, kids.

Winter... not so magical anymore

I'm sure most know by now of the massive storm that hit the east coast over the weekend.

In my last post I remarked out how the Lego Hoth pictures made me almost wish there was snow outside my window right at that moment. You can see where this is going--be careful what you wish for and all that.

I did enjoy looking at it as the snow fell overnight. I enjoyed it less so during the two shoveling sessions (one a midnight jaunt, the other a clear morning adventure) with brother-in-law Ben and my Betrothed.

26 inches in my part of the world is more than enough to keep me going for the rest of the winter, so let's hold off with any more, Mother Nature, shall we?

The magic of winter and legos

Haven't posted in a while, and will start up again soon with a bunch of cool stuff, but I couldn't resist showing off this:

I have a personal ban on Star Wars* going on at the moment, however the internet conspires against me constantly, and the above picture is just one example. Aside from the fact that it features Chewie (my favorite character, to whom I have a shrine... really... sort of), it's part of a series of awesome pictures of Legos on Hoth by photographer Avanaut on Flickr. There's even a cameo by Dr. Jones.

They're beautiful, funny and haunting all at once. Almost makes me wish there were snow outside my window right now (but I'm cool with there not being any). It's amazing what people can do with something as silly and wonderful as Legos.

This made what had been a kind of crappy day end on a high note, so I thought I'd share.

*It's more of a ban on the unwieldy and overbearing juggernaut it has become since the prequels (as opposed to the one it was before - you know what I mean), but awesomely creative people keep doing cool things like this, and I'm reminded of why the world can be a wonderful place.