So for those of you in central North Carolina, I have two events going on this weekend. Friday night is a Small Life Form, Electric Bird Noise, Mister Science, & Bryce Eiman show at The Nightlight. Saturday I have my buttons & comics & will be showing how to make them at Maker Faire NC at the fairgrounds. Come out to them if you can.
So this past Saturday I finished up things for the hiatus. Put up the final (for now) issue of QRD, sent out a Silber newsletter announcing the hiatus, & got out the last of the promo emails for the new EPs. So Monday, the fact that I didn’t have anything I needed to do hit me really hard. I’d gotten an email from my friend Patricia about how when you take away the thing that was at the center of your definition of self you’re left with a hole; but that over time something will naturally fill it, which is surely true. But I guess it will take a while at least. Also, interestingly I got three people in touch with me about wanting me to do releases presumably as a result of announcing the hiatus. So I may end up lifting things sooner than I thought. Or maybe those three will be a good stopping point. Who knows.
Small Bed (flash fiction)
The last time I slept in this bed you were lying beside me. I thought you’d always be next to me, a reassurance that the world is good whenever I woke up in the night. The bed is too small to honestly say it’s cold or lonely without you. There’s no need for you in it, just a want for you in it. I want you to be my property & me to be your property. I want the ring that I carry as a weight on my right hand to be on your left hand marking you as my bride. To have a marriage that ends with you plunging a knife in my chest in my sleep. But instead, I suppose, I will never see you again.
Last Night’s Dreams:
It’s after some sort of simulacrum event & people are selling there likenesses & memories to be made to create robots & drones. Intentionally developing their lives to be more lucrative to be purchased for such uses. Every life choice calculated & in a certain way dishonest.
I’m playing Connect Four with Karla & I ask her if she wants to be red or black & she says, “You know that I want to be red.” After she drops in her second piece she says, “I don’t want to play this anymore. This sucks.” & I say, “Look, I am just trying to build some pleasant memories, I don’t want to have nothing to remember fondly.”