Nonfiction
The Dose
“It’s unclear to me what the right remedy for Tyrone might be. I could be prescriptive, suggesting the cold turkey quitting of this vestigial worldview or that trans-Pacific trade agreement. What is clear, from both objective data and personal experience, is that Tyrone is not positioned to thrive into the future. Along with much of the rest of Blair County and many other gutted industrial communities across America, I believe that Tyrone is in desperate need of a rebirth.
I will always be grateful for Tyrone. It is my home in a way that nowhere else can be. And the people of Tyrone will always be my family, even with their homogeneity that borders on xenophobic and their anisotropic stubbornness that borders on self-destructive. Yet in light of these people of the yew’s resilience that feels more bred than learned, I believe there is cause yet for cautious optimism.”
The Blender
“With no one to fill it up but no one to push its buttons either, the blender sulked alone on the counter. Vestigial vessel! Sans contents, discontent; content sans contention. No more mixtures but no more admixtures. High hopes of morning routines brought low then crushed, but how about that blessed clear peace without the roaring from the kitchen.”
Thankfully the blender box was still around, saved because wasn’t there always an inkling of a hint that its days of use were numbered from the start?
One last rinse and a wiping for the dust and back into the box the blender went. Back across the country the blender went, and then up into the attic, into a tote with a few left wool socks too good for tossing, a hand-knit scarf too soft for keeping, and past-date pictures that maybe just maybe might yet be good if brave or stupid.”
Cut Tomatoes
“Help! It’s bad! The wife neighbor shrieked through our paperboard door with its gauze curtain and plexiglass window. I remember a dull but constant worry each time I’d leave mom home alone, separated from that maelstrom by such thin materials. I opened the door and there she stood, so drenched in blood that it looked fake, I remember. What did he do to you? It’s him, she said. Help, please.”
From behind her drifted the husband, his gray face leeched of color that now trailed out thickly behind him on the stairs. The blackest blood I’d ever seen dripped from his clothes. Dark ropes of the stuff spooled from the sticks and knobs that he seemed made of. He clenched the inside of his bony right arm for dear life, trying to keep it in, but I remember it pumped between his fingers and uncoiled onto the walls anyway.”