OneWord Exercise: Anxiety (Day 30 of 30)

Sasha's train sped past her in a gust of wind. She watched it diminish into a single point on the horizon and thought, How am I going to get to the match now?

[ One Word]

Whoo! That was fun.

OneWord Exercise: Stereo (Day 29 of 30)

Natasha set the stereo on a rock far from the water and turned the volume up as far as it could go. Even though the music couldn't follow her into the waves, she had the pulse of it in her head by the time she dove in.

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OneWord Exercise: Licorice (Day 28 of 30)

Alex left most of the licorice in the car before school. What he brought with him he ate in homeroom and spent the rest of the day wondering whether or not licorice melts.

So he's kind of caught off-guard when the gym explodes.

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Cigarette (Day 27 of 30)

After her family leaves, Cynthia spins a cigarette between her fingers like a small baton and stares out the window of her hospital room, mildly hating everyone and everything. She's so intent on maintaining a constant degree of hatred that she doesn't notice Royce enter the room, pick up the remote and change the channel to America's Top Model.

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OneWord Exercise: Constant (Day 26 of 30)

The only constant in Joey's life happens to be a Border Collie with co-dependency issues. So after all the devotion Michaela has showed him, what kind of merciless asshole would he be if he didn't repay her by keeping her company every Friday night?

Joey kind of starts to hate himself if he thinks about this too long.

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OneWord Exercise: Fate (Day 25 of 30)

Nicholas meets Kelan in 1912 a week before the Titanic sails. Kelan watches from across the pub as Nicholas meticulously drinks his way to senselessness. Nicholas wakes up the next day under Kelan's arm and never receives his mother's telegram offering him a second class ticket.

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OneWord Exercise: Pit (Day 24 of 30)

Milo changes direction and skids into the pit. Despite his solid grip on the handlebars, sticks and rocks and mud make for a clumsy descent that nearly flings Milo off his seat. Up on the road, he hears Samantha yell, "Give it back!"

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OneWord Exercise: Teacher (Day 23 of 30)

"You weren't a very good teacher," Mika said.

Johnny shrugged. "I wasn't trying to teach you. If I'd known you were paying attention, I would have done things differently. I'm actually an excellent teacher, but a poor human being, so if you wanted to learn, you ought to have warned me before you took notes."

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Assume (Day 22 of 30)

"I assume you didn't mean to come here," Lucas said with a smile.

I kept trying to push the door shut, but with a hinge missing, the door was uneven and had gotten stuck between the floorboards. I used this as an excuse not to answer him.

"I'm not letting you stay unless you talk to me," Lucas continued cheerfully.

I considered.


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OneWord Exercise: Sneeze (Day 21 of 30)

Class ended on a low note. Mr. Addison wouldn't look at them when the bell rang, and most kids seemed relieved to be let go silently. Only Danielle stayed after everyone else left, and only she stayed when the Headmaster appeared at the door.

(...This had nothing to do with sneezing. Oops. Take two!)

Melanie let the kite soar above the trees for an hour before she dragged it down again. She began to coil the string around her fist when she heard an unusual sneeze. Above her, a small voice said, "Pardon me."

(That's more like it. Stay with me, brain.)

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Habitat (Day 20 of 30)

Wild cats aren't meant to live in houses, no matter the size or luxury. This is a belief Thalia has held ever since she watched Aladdin as a little girl. But apparently jaguars can be very happy in a castle after they've been domesticated over six generations and tied to humankind by a love of baguettes.

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OneWord Exercise: Bars (Day 19 of 30)

Someday, Elliott won't need to use public transportation to get to work, because he'll work from home in the countryside. He'll have a house somewhere in Europe, maybe Spain, and he'll own a bar (pub, that's what they call them over there) or a sheep farm or maybe he'll just keep a blog about his hilarious escapades as a lifetime New Yorker owning a sheep farm in Europe.

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OneWord Exercise: Gym (Day 18 of 30)

The front of the gym is the first thing Miranda notices as she climbs out of the bus. The windows are glowing and the walls have been fractured. Charred pairs of shoes surround the blinking angel whose landing destroyed half the block.

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OneWord Exercise: Destination (Day 17 of 30)

They go straight on through the storm, undaunted by the sky splitting in two. They walk into the forest and ignore the tree branches that crumble into sand as they get closer to the way out. When first light of the new millennium touches Roan's face, they close their eyes and see through the back of their heads.

[ One Word ]

(A three day lapse! A pox on yo' momma, lightning storm!)

OneWord Exercise: Optional (Day 16 of 30)

Monica silently ran through a number of ways she could get out of this if she tried -- and if she wanted to. Her coach had called the test optional, but the thought of passing up on it made her ears burn with guilt. And so, after a deep breath, she quieted her worry and picked up the brick.

[ One Word ]

OneWord Exercise: Gong (Day 15 of 30)

Avery took the stairs at a run, keeping a close watch on the gong ahead. As he nocked an arrow on his bowstring, the clocks called out the passing of another hour and the gong began to dissolve.

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OneWord Exercise: Course (Day 14 of 30)

Aidan finishes his final course in October. The chill seeps through his jacket and rain drips from his hair as he focuses on the target one hundred and thirty yards away. His instructor's arms stay folded until Aidan's arrow sinks deep into the center of the straw-stuffed sack.

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OneWord Exercise: Itch (Day 13 of 30)

Ilia wrapped himself in a scratchy blanket from the cell's floor and listened as his grandfather told the history of his pocketwatch to the guard. The watch was the last piece of valuable property Ilia's grandfather owned, and the only thing he had left to trade for Ilia's freedom.

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OneWord Exercise: Match (Day 12 of 30)

Anna put the matches under her pillow and fell asleep almost immediately. In the morning, the matches were gone, replaced by sticks. After wrestling her jacket on and stuffing her head into a hat, she ran into the backyard with the sticks clutched in her gloved fists. At a safe distance from the manor, she snapped the first stick and watched as pure, liquid fire seeped out from the deceptively common-looking hollow casing.

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OneWord Exercise: Pastime (Day 11 of 30)

Kale put an hour aside every afternoon for the tigers. He left all other work and responsibilities to wait while he visited the menagerie in the backyard, never happier than when he had the paw of a white Bengal tiger resting companionably on his shoulder.

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OneWord Exercise: Conditioned (Day 10 of 30)

Noah's been conditioned to think of the ocean as a place to avoid. His sister sailed on the Serian Ocean at sixteen to assist in the very first navigation to the mainland and never came home. Secretly, Noah doesn't believe she's dead.

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OneWord Exercise: Radio (Day 9 of 30)

The radio falls over the side and into the Atlantic, and no one even thinks to grab it. The crew simply watch as the water churns and knocks the boat off-balance, sending their only source of entertainment into the swirling, frothing abyss, never to eke out another one of Captain Lonestar's country oldies again.

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OneWord Exercise: Cleanse (Day 8 of 30)

Heather dropped her mud-slathered boots on the carpet and hurried to undo the lock on the bay windows. She stumbled back just as the doors burst inward and ricocheted off the walls. The ghost smiled at her, and she offered him a brownie.

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OneWord Exercise: Gallery (Day 7 of 30)

"Don't go in there," Kelly warned.

Shane ignored him and pulled back the curtain. Inside, the gallery had been completely altered -- his mother's paintings stripped off the walls, replaced with Jonah's photographs.

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OneWord Exercise: Geese (Day 6 of 30)

Ben didn't think it was funny. More than that, Ben didn't think it was much of anything -- funny, unusual, questionable. Anything at all. In fact, his only reaction to the gaggle of geese staring at him before the small spaceship was to look down at where one of the landing spokes had pierced his sandwich.

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OneWord Exercise: Brushed (Day 5 of 30)

Sylvia led Jones to the property's edge, both of them blinking against the sunlight. In another few minutes, they would be far enough from the barn that no one would hear Jones galloping away from the ranch. Tomorrow morning, someone would notice the horse missing from the stable of sixty, but by that time, Sylvia and Jones would be on a ship heading south.

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OneWord Exercise: Idol (Day 4 of 30)

Sean lived under a bridge for a week, the length of time it took Abigail to find him. He ran away the month after that and managed to stay missing for two weeks. Abigail dragged him home over and over, but Sean continued to disappear whenever her focus wandered away from him. He was nine when he ran away -- left -- for good. And all he seemed to have brought with him were a map of the enemy-occupied territory and his sister's medal of honor.

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OneWord Exercise: Idle (Day 3 of 30)

"I'm going to get my helicopter off the roof!" Michael shouted as he ran through the kitchen.

"'Kay," his mother said. Then, "Wait, what?"

The front door slammed.

His mother briefly considered following, then closed her eyes and resumed her nap.

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OneWord Exercise: Collapse (Day 2 of 30)

The building collapsed before the ceremony began. Undaunted, the bride and groom surveyed the damage, figuring it would take more time than it was worth to find a new location. They spent an hour looking for the largest flat piece of debris upon which to make their vows.

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OneWord Exercise: Humid (Day 1 of 30)

The air was humid, but they walked until the road ended. The ocean was rough, but they waded in until the water was at their hips. The sky was getting dark, but they waited until the stars came out. They started to shiver, but they wouldn't leave until the king returned.

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Photographs

Based on this photograph by Arnold Pouteau:




Some memories stick because in the moment, you thought, I have to remember this. You were caught somewhere without a camera, so you had to depend on your memory to hold an image and a feeling.

Road wet from the rain, white paint washed bright in the lamplight, somewhere a fork of lightning, and you on your bike finishing a lap around Central Park in a thunderstorm. You were alone and felt new.

You wonder if it was better in those first few weeks, back when the City was unfamiliar. Before you had convenient routes and comfortable routines that your footprints sank into. You remember that summer afternoon in that part of the City you have never found since, the day you took a sandwich and a bottle of pomegranate juice and a quarter-finished book to the stoop of a brownstone. You didn't read the book, and while you wondered idly if the brownstone's resident would emerge to ask you to leave, you looked up at the sun through the patchwork canopy of leaves.

You weren't as busy the summer after that. You spent hours in the park, lying on your stomach with a new computer and a new idea for a story. You spent more time watching the clouds. You didn't think of what they resembled, because you never got past being happy you had the time to watch the clouds. You had a plastic container of red grapes by your elbow and another bottle of pomegranate juice. The sweet tang of both melted down your throat as you listened to a song by a band you don't listen to very much anymore.

One night, you remember, you were in your dorm room. It was meant for two people, but that summer you had it to yourself. Even though you didn't realize at the time how happy you were, you had an inkling. You turned off all the lights and stood at the window to watch the lightning play over the spires of the skyline. An illuminated sign in Times Square stuck out from the gloom like the folded corner of a bookmarked page. You were listening to a song sung in a language you didn't understand at the time. You decided on that song because its sound enhanced the buoyancy of the moment. You don't think it could ever work as well again with another moment. Some songs are like that.

Some memories don't need to be photographed, as long as they're remembered.

Rainy Day on a Bus to New York Fragment

Some of it is too much to explain. Some of it is too beautiful to photograph. Some of it can't be felt more than once. Some of it can only be felt by one. Some of it hurts too much to put away. Some of it doesn't mean anything to anyone but you. Some of it falls apart before you can show anyone what you made. Some of it is better after it's broken. Some of it seems meant to be something it may not ever be. Some of it turns out better than you wanted.

Fragments

Something in the music is both metal and elemental. The ivy tails of eighth notes wrap around iron bars of music. Words don't belong -- they only interfere.

-

The town of Nepenthe is densely populated where it begins at the shore, a long sleeve of white stone houses with thatched roofs. Windows are never closed. Doors are always unlocked. Trade is considered the best currency.

Yesterday, Emperor Lucas abandoned the throne.

Today, he will arrive in Nepenthe with his wife and son to live in a house no larger than the baker's shop next door, or the cobbler's across the road.

-

In reality A, January and West are twins. Both are enrolled in MIT's graduate program.

In reality B, they are unrelated and have never met. January is a prodigy pianist, and West is lonely.

In reality C, West is a graffiti artist in Tokyo, and January was never born.

In reality D, West is searching for January in the remains of Los Angeles.

In reality E, January is West's personal assistant and unpaid masseur.

In reality F, January is taking a nap in the shade of West's tombstone.

In reality G, West is the son of a Japanese mafia boss, and January can't feel his hands.