Tag Archives: six sentences

Mind Games

July 15, 2010

I pulled my eyes away from the Monet on her wall – the one with the infant clinging to his mother’s bare breast – and stole a comparative glance at Brenda’s smallish tits and her long firm legs, asking myself if she’d ever nursed anyone.

In response to her endless nagging, I explained to her about my day, how I’d sat waiting outside for her since before eight, not saying anything, not looking at anyone, pretending to read a magazine for the past hour and a half just so I could come in here and lay on her goddamned uncomfortable couch in her goddamned uncomfortable room and do nothing but complain, again.

She checked her watch and asked me how I felt about that, and as I wondered if she shaved under her arms, or anywhere else for that matter, I asked her how the fuck was I supposed to feel about that, to which she replied I don’t know.

Her eyes told me I should stop looking at her as if she were a sex toy but I couldn’t help it, and I knew she knew that but accepted me for what I am anyway.

She told me that before I saw her again, I should write down ten things my mother should have done differently, upon which she smiled and took my hand, led me to the receptionist, and gently told me that last week I forgot to pay.

I’ll see you next Thursday, she said, and closed the door.

 

This won the Mind Games contest at Six Sentences. The book is available here http://www.amazon.com/6S-Mind-Games-Thomas-Knox/dp/1453709711 I don’t get a cut.

The Smallest Perfect Number

May 14, 2010

Six is the smallest perfect number.

You can reach it by adding one, two, three, like Count von Count, ah, ah, ah, when I was six years old watching Sesame Street on Saturday morning, the sixth day of the week, six years before the madness came for us, and the pastor at the church stood before us, he said that God created the earth in six days, he said that God let his own son hang on the cross for six hours, yet he couldn’t say the right words, not even one or two, to save my brother, my family.

In grade school I learned that Adolf Hitler led six-million Jews to the gas chamber, to the trenches, to the dark woods where the monsters waited, and I wondered why God sat by and watched.

One light-year is six-trillion miles, and the nearest star after our Sun is over six light-years away, and I wonder sometimes if maybe God is out there, that he’s too far away.

Six-hundred thousand died in the War Between the States, sixty-thousand never came home from Vietnam, six died last week in a winter storm, six thousand die on this planet every hour, the numbers drive me crazy and yet…six years ago there were over six-billion souls in the world, now there are more, we make six new babies every hour, we just keep on going, so maybe God has it all figured out.

I hope.

 

Published in the 6S Review, Issue 3, May 14, 2010 http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1452872198/ref=nosim/paperbackswap-20

Training Wheels

February 3, 2010

I walk down the aisle, holding the hand of this stranger next to me.

Once I held her in my arms, a tiny miracle with dark eyes and perfect face and a smile that hurt me just to see it, knowing life could so easily take it from me.

As the years passed, she grew, in joy and wonder and love, and I was her hero, her teacher, her protector, enemy, adviser, friend.

I kept her warm when she was sick, gave her comfort when she grew scared, and tried to keep the world away, to always keep her safe.

Today, I look at this woman and think about training wheels and bedtime stories, birthday parties and brave school recitals, tears and smiles and laughter.

I will miss you, my little girl, even as I place your hand into his, and kiss you goodbye.

 

Originally published at Six Sentences, but it’s gone now. You can order the book at http://www.amazon.com/dp/1450571050/ref=rdr_ext_tmb

To Do List

January 28, 2010

Clean out desk at work, hand in resignation letter, bring good suit to dry cleaner.

Wash dog and bring to kennel, drop cat at Mrs. Johnson’s, water plants, feed fish.

Balance checkbook, make house payment, suspend utilities.

Bring flowers to Dad’s grave, stop on way home to fill gas tank, buy new garden hose and roll of duct tape at hardware store.

Write letter to Mom, change insurance beneficiary from ex-wife to sister, update will and mail to Frank.

Unplug garage door opener, block service door with toolbox, insert hose in exhaust pipe, place other end in rear window, seal with duct tape, start the car and get in – half an hour should do it.

 

Originally published at http://sixsentences.blogspot.com/2010/10/to-do-list.html

Think About It

January 8, 2010

Hey you guys, think about it.

All these social-networking sites – Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Orkut, Qzone, Classmates, Twitter – are all part of an alien conspiracy.

They will round us up, group us by social-networking site, and perform social experiments on us.

We must stop it, before it’s too late.

No, I am not paranoid.

Oh crap, there’s something knocking at the door.

 

My first Six http://sixsentences.blogspot.com/2010/01/think-about-it.html