James, your no stranger to yourself, but you are a stranger to me! So this works. I laughed several times. I like how you mix up such humor with such tragedy, and note in the end how the little things make daily doses of irritation, while leaving the idea that the big things are so encompassing that their irritation goes beyond the daily grind. Very interesting.

Yeah, I usually like to bend the rules a little. Everyone is use to that about me. :)

Here is my submission, which I also sent in to the mailing list. And no, it isn't truncated. It really is only a paragraph. :)


The sounds around me fade; the mist in the air, the heavy dirt smell of smog, everything receding to a respectable distance in the background of my consciousness. I am aware only of the weight of my self. My hands. My head. The swing of my arms through the space around me. My feet making contact with the hard surface beneath them. I am walking. I am movement in it’s purest form. I am free of constraints, of the bonds of gravity, the expectations of movement. I am perfect balance. I am not ready to learn to fly.

Argh. Nothing good, didn't finish, whatever. Promised I'd submit it, so here you are.

Prompted by http://inapcache.bost..., more or less.




The first few times, he’d used a real sledgehammer, which was a mistake. He’d chosen it for the look - the fearsome hexagonal head, its metal glinting brightly through abraded paint, the flat yellow fiberglass shaft jutting out, the rubber grips etched with a distinctive rip pattern suggesting heavy use. It was 20 pounds. He had trouble carrying it to his car after purchase, but he found the strength to swing it when everyone’s eyes were on him. It kept plunging through the drywall behind the mirrors and had to be wrenched out with even more force, except for the third time, when the center had concrete walls on two sides. Then, the hammer jolted out of his hands on contact, its force directed efficiently back into his body. It was an embarrassment.

The greater embarrassment, for him, was his inability to get out of bed the day after each orchestrated smashing of a ConfidenceCenter. Luckily, no one had to see that, not even his wife; they’d been sleeping in separate beds for the past fifteen years. (Once, he’d slept in many different beds, a different one each night, he remembered, and his wife had done the same. The marriage had survived that, it would survive more.)

The days after each smashing, his body betrayed him, but this was the morning of his next triumph, and he felt fine. He felt young, even. Well, at least younger. He looked into the screen in his bathroom, which showed his face in four angles, in full color and fine detail.

There was the dirty white hair, thin, with occasional slivers of pink showing through (not the jet-black curls of yesteryear). The eyes, watery, surrounded by sagging skin (which could still produce his once-celebrated tenacious gaze, if the weather cooperated). The wrinkles, the light spotting of his skin, the worsening asymmetry of his jawline (which he couldn’t explain, and tracked via daily video stills). Time sends everything to ruin. He believed in seeing its effects, every day.

“You look fine. Stop staring at yourself, Adam”, said his wife, as she walked past to the water closet. It was an affectation of hers, gained from summers in London when she was young. There were no cameras there, which irked him. “Maria’s got your clothes and tools laid out. The cameramen will be here soon.”

He continued inspecting himself in the screen. “We’ve got time, this morning. It’s...” Bright sky on the edge of the window - the wood slats hid the sun well. He looked around, hunting for a clock. How long had he been in here? “...early enough, I’d say. We’re on for noon this time.” He noted approvingly that his voice did not betray any concern.

Maria wasn’t in the bedroom - she had probably decamped for the laundry room and its small shelf television, by now doubtlessly engrossed in some bizarre telenovela, he thought. No one else was in the room. Once, he’d had a secretary present on these mornings, reading him his schedule : listen to the still-drunk meanderings of a young starlet from 8 to 10, providing minimal ‘therapy’, and doodle ideas for spending her producer/husband’s money; writing his next book (Dr. Adam Vaskey’s Guide To Surviving Narcissism) with an editor guiding his hand, three hours; a long, late lunch at whatever fashionable eatery his wife had heard mentioned in Variety; then until midnight at the studio for either the radio show, the television show, near the end, the reality show, whatever format he could wrest his pop psychology into. He’d spent a decade and a half as the Therapist to the Stars, each day driven by multiple, overlapping projects. At the time, he’d thought of a future retirement as a just reward, time to enjoy his own life. Now he viewed a every empty hour as just that : empty.

People had already forgotten his name. That was the most disturbing thing to him.

On his bed were some simple clothes. A loose button-down shirt, faded black, made of rough fabric, and jeans of the same color and wear. The sort of demolition he’d be performing called for a workman’s clothes, and their bagginess helped hide his body’s trembling as it fought to lift the weight of a sledgehammer. Dress shoes and a panama hat : the clothes were lowerclass by design, but he wanted bulwarks against appearing fully as a peasant. And the new sledgehammer, stagecraft if there ever was any. A shaft of ashwood with a hollowed wooden head, sturdy enough for its work but weighing under three pounds. A bit of paint, a judicious splash of griptape, and it looked real enough on camera. But it worked well, too - one small metal spike on either end of the head. All you needed to shatter glass is concentrated force; simply embedding a nail into the head of the hammer would transform it into a pickax.

He idly watched himself dress in one of the three screens above. He'd specified that the cameras should be at shoulder height. A direct angle, along with a few tricks with contrast, would, he'd hope, bring out all the flaws in a person's body. The camera would already show a person at his correct weight, rather than have a mirror's effect of subtracting ten pounds. Add contrast to emphasize of every crevice from every roll of fat, every mottle marring once-fair skin, every misplaced hair. This impartial airing of flaws would, by visual force, true the mind of the viewer. A mirror, he knew, flatters in ways a camera never can, and such flattering could never result in any form of mental health.

Which was the problem with the ConfidenceCenters, and a problem which he aimed to correct, one blow at a time.

A horn honked outside, twice. He dressed slowly. The cameramen would wait.

Continued :

Now in the passenger seat of the Econoline van, with Tom massaging the transmission into 3rd gear. Keith idled in the back, surrounded by grey nylon equipment bags. Keith and Tom were part of a subset of technical freelancers that exist in media-centric cities, the sort of people who would spend a month on a movie shoot in the salt flats of Utah, then two weeks wiring the poolhouse of a rich would-be mogul for recording pop stars, then grabbing window-installation jobs on a skyscraper construction team downtown. They were mercenaries with a mercenary outlook on life, which Dr. Adam found useful. He paid them to shoot video and to not interfere with his demonstration, and they did.

Tom hung his left arm out of the window, slapping the side of the door in beat with the tuneless noise on the radio. From the back, Keith shout-screamed with the singer a half-beat behind. The song was tripe about working for ‘the man’, which made Dr. Adam smile inwardly. What do these fools know about work? Holding a camera cannot compare to helping thousands of people to healthier lives.

Together, Tom, Keith, and the radio : “THIS AIN’T NO PICNIC. THIS AIN’T NO PICNIC.”

Dr. Adam kept his expression relaxed, bemused, even. Legs apart, arms at his side, a posture to indicate openness. He could ask them to be silent for once but he wouldn’t do that. A bit of noblesse oblige in these cases could do a world of good.

Tom glanced sideways. “Hey, Doc”, he said. Adam cursed his decision to have a calm composure. He did not want to engage his hired help in conversation.

“Yes?” Adam kept his voice carefully neutral.

“So, second one of these we been on,” Tom said, while turning down the volume on the radio. “We’ve heard the spiel, okay, and understand, we like the paychecks-”

“And if you like the paychecks, you should have no problem with the work.” A sharp response, well placed. He hoped that would end the conversation.

Tom’s brow furrowed for an instant, but it appeared he had made up his mind to ask his question. “Do you... believe in this stuff?”

“Of course I do.” Again, a curt response, finishing before Tom had exhaled, causing him to choke on his reply.

Keith, who had crept up behind the front seats of the van, was unusually skilled in ignoring tone of voice, and he was hard to deter when interested, as he was now. “It doesn’t matter to me, man. Broken glass is awesome. I always wanted to shoot a demolition. Shit flying everywhere, it’s great.”

A good response to unwanted interest was to be uninteresting, so Adam chose to remain quiet. The van shuddered over an uneven shoulder as Tom guided it onto a freeway on-ramp, and the sound of the creaking struts filled the cabin. But no one turned the radio back up, and as they merged with traffic, silence settled back in. Tom, probably the sort who couldn’t stand the monotony of road hum, began again.

“Well, okay,” he said, “it’s far-fatched, you know? I mean, I get it, right, I read one of your books?”

Keith chuckled. “You skimmed it, man.” Regardless, Adam began listening, mentally caressing the old prefix to his name : Doctor. He longed to hear one of these workmen refer to him with his full title.

“Yeah, I did,” and Tom glanced over his shoulder with a jocular grin, “you fuckin’ bitch, but I got it.” He turned his attention back to the road, and to Adam. “The Vanity Cancer, right? I got up to the chapter with the golfer.”

Adam smiled and closed his eyes for a second, reminiscing. “That was Greg Norman. A serial lover and a serial businessman. The man was showing all the signs of the classic narcissist philanderer. He’s fallen back into some destructive old habits, so I’ve gathered.”

“Whatever.” The quick dismissal irked Adam. He hadn’t even began to detail the treatment that he led Norman through. “It’s just, you treated some big names, right? People like that... they don’t go to a ConfidenceCenter.”

From the back : “Tom doesn’t wanna tell you that he’s used them.”

“Fuck, Keith! Shut up. I... yeah, you know, yeah. I had a date. Production assistant. It was a good shot, and I’ve fucked those up before, you know, so I decided to try to pump myself up for it, right?”

Adam pointedly looked out the window and contemplated the LA cityscape.

“Now, I mean, things didn’t quite go off, but I was good, you know? Telling jokes and shit. Just needed a boost. So they had me talk to myself in a mirror, saying all that dumb shit? Date went well. Found out later she was a bitch, but whatever. I dunno, I think it worked, is all.”

After a pause, Adam gave that opinion the snort he thought it deserved.

Hey folks, I didn't join the group until October was nearly over, but I enjoyed the responses to this writing prompt so much that I jotted down my own. I bet you can guess which picture I responded to.


Jellybeans. A couple is more than two I meant more than two. Mom smells sweet flowers ballerina where's Dwight? Pink and black black tastes like blue.

I know she won't take my toys away. She doesn't live here, she's not in charge. That might work on other kids. Grass green chocolate jellybean. Top of the fridge go up when she's not looking.

Big box it's all mine. Fit inside quiet, loud. Nose cold toes cold knees turns brown Coke bottle! Brown liquid inside it's no one's I can have it. Tip it up into my mouth NOT SWEET. Wriggling on my tongue. Spit spit. Dad turns around blue eyes bigger? Spit cry water.

Sun water. Dad brought a new pile of sand. Water dish. More water splats splat hands splat little drops. All done take a big bite.

NOT SWEET. Teeth, not chocolate. Sand teeth tongue hurt. Spit water cry. Dad chicken noodle soup. Noodle noodles. Mom home from work! Flowers soft microwave news dress hug.

I LOVE READING THIS STUFF!!! You guys are great!

I wish those who used pics had them uploaded so I could view.


Dana: Very poetic, I enjoyed it very much, especially the last line.

Ken: I am so into that story. I especially love (and this is just my perspective) how the Doc. is so incredibly narcissistic himself--which of course would make him an expert! ;-) Really though, the imagery is awesome and I want to read more, so I hope you write more. Oh, and I'm into that subject matter (the Confidence Market, I call it) so that makes me more interested!

Sarah: so sweet! I like your style for that a lot.