Monday, March 12, 2012

Dead Lines

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[For last week's quotable quotes, click here.]


The drama has heightened as the second season of The Walking Dead draws to a close, and last night's episode ("Better Angels") was filled with terrific speeches.  For example:


"In the end he was talking about losing our humanity.  He said this group was broken.  The best way to honor him is to unbreak it.  To set aside our differences and pull together.  Stop feeling sorry for ourselves, take control of our lives.  Our safety.  Our future.  We're not broken.  We're going to prove him wrong.  From now on we are gonna do it his way.  That is how we honor Dale."
--Rick's graveside eulogy


"This is real.  And we can't keep it at bay; it's already got us.  And it just keeps coming, doesn't it?  [beat]  I made a mess of things.  And put you and Rick at odds.  I don't even know whose baby this is.  I can't imagine how hard that is on you."
--Lori to Shane


"Yeah.  Yeah.  Feels like there's a lot of that [i.e. death] going around.  That's why I need you.  No more kid stuff.  I wish you could have the childhood I had, but that's not going to happen.  People are going to die.  I'm gonna die.  Mom.  There's no way you can ever be ready for it.  I try to be, but I can't.  Best we can do now is avoid it as long as we can, keep one step ahead.  I wish I had something better to say, something--something more profound.  My father was good like that.  But I'm tired son.  Please, take it [Daryl's gun]."
--Rick to Carl


"What you know about what I have to live with?  You got no idea what I can live with, what I live with.  You talk about what I can do, Rick: how about what you can do?  Here I am [lowers gun].  C'mon man, raise your gun....What happened, Rick, I thought you weren't the good guy anymore?  Ain't that what you said?  Even right here right now you ain't gonna fight for her?  I'm a better father than you, Rick.  I'm better for Lori than you, man.  'Cause I'm a better man than you, Rick.  'Cause I can be here and I'll fight for her.  But you come back here and you just destroy everything!  You've got a broken woman.  You got a weak boy.  You ain't got the first clue on how to fix it.  Raise your gun."
--Shane's last words to Rick

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Flash Flood

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Flash Flood
By Joe Nazare

For many, the storm had assumed seriously biblical proportion within two days and nights, and any facetious talk about needing to build an ark was scuttled once the rain-swollen Sabine slipped its yoke and ran wild through the town.

The sudden flood washed out the grid of civilization, made flotsam of mailboxes and fence posts and so much else.  In both its surging nature and fecal color, the river gave the area the look of an open sewer, and even a hundred feet up in the Channel 7 Skywitness chopper, Ian could detect a fetid stench.

Awed by the fury he witnessed, Ian aimed the video camera he shouldered.  The flood waters had nearly engulfed the neighborhood’s single-story dwellings, whose roofs now suggested wedge-shaped rafts.  From Ian’s panoramic viewpoint, the scene below exemplified paradox: inundated, and yet starkly desolate.  Except—yes, over there...

Ian turned to signal to his partner, but Charlie had already seen for himself and moved to pilot the helicopter accordingly.  The object of their attention: a slender, middle-aged man—apparently one of the few who’d lacked the wisdom or the initiative to evacuate—squatting on the apex of his roof.  Barefoot, wearing a sopping, sleeveless T and a skewed toupee reminiscent of a drowned rodent, the man sat hugging his blue-jeaned knees.  Chin tucked to chest, he slowly rocked on his haunches, no doubt meditating on the extent of his property damage.

The man sat there so huddled, he didn’t even notice the shadow cast onto him by the helicopter as it hovered overhead like some outsized dragonfly.  Finally, the rhythmic thunk of the propellers drew him alert.  After craning his neck, he unfolded his gangly frame and stood gesturing.  But the upraised arms weren’t scissoring, Ian realized.  Rather than beseeching attention, the man was waving them off.  Silently urging them to leave him be for the time being, to go search out others who might be caught in more dire straits at the moment.

Awash with admiration of such utter selflessness, Ian kept recording.  His thoughts flashed to tonight’s news; this captured footage would make for a great human interest story.

He quickly nixed the idea, though, when he saw the first of the bodies come floating out the various apertures of the swamped home.  The corpses—none of which were fully clothed or limbed, and all of which had long since ballooned and blackened—moved as leisurely as the faux boats in an amusement park Log Flume.  Ian expected them to be swept up by the current and sent racing down the submerged street like entrants in a grotesque regatta; instead, the bodies all ended up snagged by tree branches or folded around telephones poles.  The unruly Sabine proceeded to roll the corpses onto their sides, until the baker’s dozen all appeared to lay facing toward the same roof-bound figure.  Sunken, unblinking eyes stared distantly, leaving the stranded man cowering, and Ian wondering if the deluge of the past few days hadn’t in fact brought an end to a terrible reign.



***
This piece of flash fiction was previously published in Issue #3 of Untied Shoelaces of the Mind.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Countdown: The 10 Most Grotesque Residents of Winesburg, Ohio--#4

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[For the previous entry on the countdown, click here.]


#4.Elmer Cowley

Young merchant Elmer Cowley is so preoccupied with "public opinion," is so self-conscious about his family seeming "queer" (i.e. odd) in the eyes of the townspeople, that he unintentionally transforms into a figure to gawk at.  When chased out of Cowley and Son's at gunpoint, a traveling salesman pronounces Elmer (who is ashamed of his bumpkin father's lack of business acumen) "crazy."  The sentiment is echoed (after listening to Elmer rail about his parents' shabby habiliment, and the "queer jumble" of goods cluttering the family store) by no less an authority than Mook the half-wit (a man given to conversing with barnyard animals).

Still friendless after a year of living in town, the insecure Elmer wallows in a sense of ostracism.  For all his concerns about being marked off as different, though, Elmer proves a typical resident of Winesburg, Ohio in his inability to express himself.  Like many a character in Sherwood Anderson's story collection, Elmer is denaturalized by a frustrating inarticulateness.  On more than one occasion, Elmer tries "to declare his determination not to be queer" to George Willard, but stumbles each time in the attempt.  In a climactic confrontation, Elmer aims to make an impassioned speech to George, yet only manages to spurt "I'll be washed, ironed, and starched"--the despised catch-phrase his father Ebenezer always spouts.  With this, Elmer is sent into a fit of rage; he snarls and flails his arms in the air before proceeding to pummel the innocent George.  Jumping aboard a departing train, Elmer says to himself in the story's final line: "I guess I showed him I ain't queer."  The author Anderson, of course, has just demonstrated the exact opposite about Elmer in this tale well-fortified with irony.

Thursday, March 8, 2012

Zombie Nominee

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