Traffic Light

The state route leading to the town branched off at Water Street, which lead to most of the residential sections; the state route continued past the branch to the commercial and government areas, as well as the schools. Traffic volume was rarely large enough at this branch to warrant a timed red-yellow-green traffic light, but a number of accidents twenty or so years ago provided evidence that STOP and CAUTION traffic signs (always difficult to pick up on snowy winter evenings) could not ensure safety. The town therefore installed a flashing light, colored yellow to warn incoming traffic from the state route, and red to alert traffic from Water Street to stop before entering the state route.

God Part 4

"I take it you do believe in God?" asked Bernie.

Billy smiled, looked down. "Well . . . I don't know, really. I hear what you mean about how silly the whole cosmic vending machine thing is. But -- well, this is going to sound kinda strange, but what the hell. I just have this feeling, that there's something out there, up there. I've felt that way since . . . remember back at the Moore School, at the end of recess when we'd all get in line to go back to class?"

"Yeah. They had the youngest ones, the third graders, line up against the wall. Fourth and fifth graders lined up along the edge of the basketball court, and try to pelt the third graders with snowballs or rocks when the teachers weren't looking."

"Right. Well one day I was leaning up against the brick wall, waiting to get into Miss Guthrie's class with everyone else, and the teachers were actually paying attention this day, that was right after Jimmy Jordan got that cut over his eye. Anyway, we're all lined up, and everyone's being quite because the teacher's aren't taking any guff that day, and all of a sudden, as I'm leaning against the wall, staring down at the ground -- I felt something. Literally, felt it. Some kind of existence, a being, something that was singular but part of everything at the same time, something I couldn't touch, or speak to, but -- there."

"Sounds spooky."

"No, it wasn't like that, wasn't scary, it wasn't like it was calling to me, it was just letting me know that it was -- there. It was a comforting feeling, made me feel that I wasn't alone in the world, no matter where I was. It was kinda cool, really.

"Then all of a sudden I heard Skinner call my name, and all the fourth graders were laughing at me, so I ran into school."

"So that's what made you believe in God?"

"Don't know about God. But I believe in something."

DJ

He knew a good idea when he saw one, and could be relied on to execute it efficiently, but he rarely came up with an original idea himself. He was like a successful radio disk jockey, able to retell, even improve jokes heard at a comedy club the prior weekend, but rarely coming up with his own material.

God Part 3

"Fair to say you don't believe in God?"

Bernie breathed loudly out his nostrils. "If you're asking if I believe in some kind of supernatural, all-powerful being who answers prayers, a cosmic vending machine? No, course not. I actually hope God doesn't exist, for God's sake instead of humanity's, because how would God feel about all these clowns doing all the crazy, evil stuff they do in the name of God?"

Sugar

Uncover the sugar bowl, insert the teaspoon, lift out. Pour into first cup, do not stir -- need to leave the spoon dry. Musn't add moisture into sugar bowl. One teaspoon, pour into second cup, a second. Stir first cup (decaf) then second (caffienated), the order preserving the integrity of both cups.

Residual

And even though the root cause of his anger was gone, and he knew he no longer had reason to be angry, the emotion stayed with him, not as strong, but still there, affecting his mood (snappish), his focus (inconsistent), his appetite (nonexistent). It felt similar to a hangover -- alcohol gone from the system, his body still recovering from its recent presence -- or, it seemed to him, more like the residual smell of turpentine on his hands, even after a thorough washing.

Trophies

He looked at the trophies on the shelf. For years they had served as pleasant reminders of his youthful accomplishments, convenient conversation starters (hey I didn't know. . . ). But he hadn't really noticed them in years, they had blended into the room furnishings like three dimensional wallpaper, and he wondered now what his motivation was for not placing them in storage years ago. Perhaps, he thought, he hoped they were still noticed by visitors, would still generate appreciation -- a realization which made his trophies now seem vain and self-serving.

God 2

"Ever been to church?" Billy asked.

Bernie shrugged. "My parents used to take my sister and I at Easter and Christmas to the Congo," he said, referencing the familiar nickname of the Congregational Church, "but that stopped a while ago, around the time my father started complaining about how the churches don't have to pay taxes. I always hated it -- music more than anything else, that awful organ, sounded like the person playing wished they were dead. And the smell -- you can tell most men never wear cologne in this town, because for some reason they think they need to wear it at church, and because they don't know what they're doing they always put too much on. It's like they feel they have to smell pious as well as look pious, and unless they can really smell their cologne they think they're not fulfilling some kind of religious obligation."

God

"Can Harry make it Sunday?" Billy asked.

Bernie frowned. "Nah. Says he's got some church thing he's going to."

"Ah," said Billy. "Harry's really into his church, isn't he?"

Bernie shifted in his bus seat, his vinyl jacket swishing against the green plastic. "Apparently."

"Sounds like you don't approve."

"Nah, it's not that. Just -- I don't see the point, or rather, I don't see what he sees when I look at a church."

"OK. What do you see?"

Bernie straightened against the stiff back of the seat. "I see -- a whole lot of pretentiousness. People putting on their nicest clothes, acting real nice to each other, just to make sure everyone sees how respectable they are. It's all a show."

"So you don't think they're there because they want to be there?"

"Oh, they want to be there. But not because of God, or religion or anything like that. It's all just a show."

Fingernails

He wanted to know the answer simply for the sake of having the answer, not really caring what that answer was, or how useful the information would be, or even if the answer was correct. His interest in the answer was similar to his interest in how often he clipped his fingernails, a thought which came to him each time he sat down with his nailclipper. Ten days, two weeks? He once thought of marking the date of his nail clipping on the calendar, but worried that someone would think of this as obsessive. Perhaps, he had thought, he could write a code for the clipping that only he would understand, but quickly dismissed that thought since it would prove his obsession. So while he never thought the effort to obtain the nail clipping frequency answer was worthwhile, he still wanted to know, if for no other reason than he didn't like coming up with a question that he couldn't answer.

Sleep

She was constantly busy, and the combination of early alarms and responsibilities at work and home left her exhausted by week's end. She found that her creative talents were particularly inhibited by Friday, could almost actually feel the creative parts of her brain trapped, suffocated by her mental exhaustion. Despite her father's warnings about the dangers of oversleeping, she found that the longer she slept on Saturday mornings, the more she was able to tap into, release, her trapped creativity.

Superstar

His presence moved the fencing team out of the sidelines, as he was not only an accomplished football and basketball player but also within two years one of the most accomplished fencers in the state. The fencing coach found him easy to train and spent extensive hours with his star pupil. Fencing appealed to him because it was all on him -- he didn't have to rely on teammates like he had to in other sports. He is the first child of a mechanic who had been high school quarterback, and a secretary at the mayor's office.

He placed second in epee at the state tournament his senior year, and went to the state university expecting to continue his success. However, he found it difficult to adjust to the higher level of competition not only in fencing but also in the classroom, and by winter of his freshman year has all but quit the fencing team and is in danger of flunking out. He returns to the high school team to "give a few pointers," but winds up bullying the team, including the current year's captain, until he is trounced by the coach.

Fencing Captain

A senior, she was the second-best fencer on the team the past two seasons, and is both excited and apprehensive about being the team leader. Her father is a lawyer, mother a dentist, her family one of the most respected in town. Her mother's family has been influential in town for many generations; her parents had met in college, and when her father came her to visit his girlfriend's parents for the first time he fell in love with the community. The captain is very ambivalent about her family's history -- she's proud of her family's accomplishments and altruism, but is uncomfortable with their arrogance.

Fencing coach

He was born to a Jewish family in Detroit, and was a good but unremarkable student and athlete in the public school system. He attended Wayne State University, where he majored in English and Education, and was a member of the renowned fencing team, where he was good enough to make the varsity team but not good enough to be the top fencer in any category. When a knee injury his junior year limited his fencing activity, he became a de facto assistant coach on the team. Upon graduation he earned an assistantship at a New England college, where he earned his Masters in Education and was an unpaid assistant fencing coach. He then taught at several high schools in New England before accepting his current position as honors English teacher and guidance counselor. Three years into that position, he received permission to pursue his dream -- starting a high school fencing club.

Stickers

As she walked through the front door, she noticed again the stickers attached to the inside glass. There were three stickers, each having the call letters and company logo for different radio stations. In her earliest memories of her uncle's home, from decades ago, those stickers had been prominent, so much so that she could not think of that home, or even her uncle, without recalling those call letters. All three radio stations had long ceased operations, and she was not sure whether the stickers remained for the sake of nostalgia -- memories of happier times for his uncle, before his wife had left him? -- or because they were glued on, not easily removable like the window static clings from more recent times.

Concrete

He came to his decisions carefully, only after much debate and deliberation. His mind ruminated on issues with the steady deliberation of a cement mixer, never stopping until a decision was made and then announced, poured out to the world, quickly becoming concrete, steadfast, never to be changed.

Door

The bottom of the door at the top of the staircase was dirtier than the rest of the door, which was the direct result of the door's function. The family liked to invest less money on energy for the upstairs bedrooms than the downstairs living areas, and to maintain the distinct climates between the two floors the staircase door was kept shut. The spring they installed to keep that door closed was strong, and when left to close on its own the door would slam swiftly and loudly, especially within the enclosed area at the top of the staircase. All the family members quickly learned to catch the door before it closed (new in-laws were quick to catch on to this as well), and when going down the stairs it became routine to stop the door from slamming shut by catching it with their left hand. While the middle to top of the door had remained clean, years of dirt and oil from the family's hands had left the bottom of the door with the brown, blotchy look of a door well-used.

Attention

He desired celebrity, but not the attention that came with it -- the knowledge that people should recognize him on the street, without having to actually go through the experience.

Career

He managed his career with the diligence and enthusiasm of someone caring for an ailing in-law.

Cousins

Their cousins lived in a rural community outside of town, not close enough to see during weekdays but close enough for regular visits on weekends and holidays. Although they lived in different worlds -- his family were merchants, the relatives farmers and lumbermen -- they enjoyed each other's company, although the rural cousins had two standing complaints whenever they came into town to stay overnight -- his family drank powdered milk, and the city water was terrible (a goldfish the cousins had brought with them one visit died immediately after its water was changed).

Change

As a boy he had seen a movie about a pickpocket, which left the impression that the world was filled with nimble-fingered sharks circling his left rear pocket. When he started carrying a wallet as a teenager, he decided to carry his wallet in his left front pocket, as he found it more comfortable to retrieve his wallet with his left hand. Accepting change from a cashier, he found, involved a more complex sequence of manual dexterity than he thought should be necessary -- he would accept coins and bills in his left (catching) hand, and insert the bills into his wallet with his pointer finger and thumb while clutching the coins with his other three fingers. Bills inserted, he would then put his wallet into his right front pocket while still clutching his coins awkwardly, sometimes dropping them. Wallet properly disposed, he would then bring his left arm across his body, and insert the coins into his right front pocket, the same pocket where he carried his keys. Change finally stored away, he would then retrieve his keys, sometimes dropping coins in the process.

Cry

He fell down to his knees, jeans crunching noisily in the wet snow. He could not let go of his anger, could not make himself ready to join the sea goddess. He would soon get up, walk back home, walk back to his life at school, walk into the uncertain future -- as angry and bitter as he always was. He cried low sobs of anger.

Anger

Wispy steam rose from his mouth into the frigid night air. He looked up at the faceless sea goddess. Part of him wanted to accept her offer, to leave this place where all he knew was pain and suffering. But . . . if he did leave, the cause for his indignation would be gone, and he would have no need to be angry. And anger, as bitter as it felt, was still the only thing he felt he truly possessed, was the thing that made him who he was, and while he didn't particularly like who he was, he was too proud to let go of his anger. Which meant he could not go with the sea goddess.

Beckon

And she came to him over the snow that covered the ice that covered the lake, at least he thought it was a she, the long curls of her hair he could not see her dark face. She called to him, beckoned, promised to take him where there was no pain, no cold, no loneliness.

Lake

His footsteps broke the icy surface of the snow, the cracks echoing sharply against the trees in the silent stillness. He walked slowly towards the moonlight bouncing in vivid whiteness off the frozen surface of the lake. Stumbling occasionally in the uneven footing, he eventually passed the woods and reached the edge of the lake. It was an artificial lake, born from a downstream hydroelectric dam that had been build decades earlier. The turbines were too far from where he stood now to be heard on most days, but in the clear crisp air of that evening he heard their low hum.

Suffer

Prior to her current job, Kathy had worked as a project manager for a software company, and was responsible for one of her firm's largest clients, an insurance company that had earned a household name through decades of television advertising. Kathy's client was replacing their computer systems with software purchased from her firm, and were exacting and at times exasperating in their demands.

"What happens if we enter the wrong data in this field?" they had once asked Kathy.

"The software would detect an error, and advise the user to make a correction," she replied.

"But the user could ignore the error, yes?" they asked.

"Well, yes," Kathy responded, "but the error would become obvious the first time they ran the Daily Revenue Report."

"But what will the report say?"

While she generally hated conference calls, at times like this Kathy did appreciate the free opportunity to roll her eyes. "The report will generate an astronomically high figure, and the validation subroutine will print a message on the report saying that a setup error has probably occurred." That message, she thought, should actually say something like Jesus Christ, will you check your goddam setup, dumbass?

"How high will the amount be?"

"I don't know. I've seen it in testing, and anyone who'd been working for your company longer than a week --"

"Yes, I'm sure, but how is that figure calculated? Is it based on a date range?"

"I don't know," Kathy replied, holding back a sigh.

"Is it a cumulative total, or some average?"

"I'm sorry, I really don't know."

Temporary silence. Kathy knew from experience this meant the client wasn't letting go, but rather catching their breath. "Well, can you find out?"

Temporary silence. Kathy wasn't catching her breath, but stopping herself from screaming. "Again, the user gets a warning when they enter an incorrect value in the setup, and, should the user choose to ignore this" -- Kathy silently added REALLY FREAKING OBVIOUS--"warning, the Daily Revenue Report will clearly show that something is wrong, and where the error was made."

Temporary silence. Oh God, Kathy thought. "We understand that," the client said in a slow, patronizing tone. "But that's not what we're asking. What we're asking is how the total shown on the Daily Revenue Report would be calculated if a user entered an invalid value during the setup."

"Again, I don't know --"

"And that's OK. So what we're asking now is that you find out. That isn't such an unreasonable request, is it?" Kathy hated the way the client ended each of their unreasonable requests with this rhetorical question, but hated even more that she couldn't answer this question honestly.

As the months turned to years on the client's project, Kathy had come to the realization that it was her charge to suffer fools gladly, and forbid them not to come unto her.

Backside

She was generally perceptive, but not entirely so, the type of person who is clever and coordinated enough to carry a long object -- a bench, for example -- through the front of a door without hitting the doorway, but would always forgot about the backside until she heard it bang against the doorway behind her.

Anger

"I don't want to direct my anger at you -- don't want you to feel threatened. But I don't want to push this anger to the side either, don't want to shut off this emotion. Anger is what fuels, drives me, it's the source of my energy, it's the reason I've been able to accomplish what I have so far in life. Get angry at people? No -- but never get angry? No, I'm not interested in an emotional lobotomy."

Rage

Rushing into the room, he grasped the door and felt a surge of energy, wanted to hurl the door behind him (slam!) but he knew that would draw a reaction and he didn't want any attention, wanted neither correction (for God's sake control yourself) nor comfort, whether sincere (would a hug help Daddy?) or politely placating (well at least it's Friday). And, while releasing that energy surge with a mighty goddam slam might have feel mighty goddam good just about then, he knew the relief would be short-lived, and would soon be followed by embarassment for his impotent outburst. He knew anyway that he didn't need to release that energy, because he knew it would soon dissipate -- but before it went away, he wanted to feel the anger that fueled his rage, not to enjoy it, but to acknowledge that it was there and should be there, he wanted to say that yes he was angry and yes he had a right to be angry. Just for a moment, he wanted to hold onto that anger, not have it dismissed with a platitude or banished by an assault on furniture. So instead of slamming the door, he closed it slowly, let the lock catch -- then turned into the room and, bending forward, silently screamed, mouth gaping, lips curled back, canines portruding.