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Lying in the darkness while his phone battery slowly died, he occupied his mind in contemplating how he ever reached this low point, sealed alive in a coffin under someone else’s grave, still reading cached texts from the Irish mob boss’ young wife, hopelessly in love to the bitter end.

His howl of anguish broke the clouds as Indy fell to his knees before the vending machine, the blinking red "Sold Out" sign mocking all his hopes.  The quest for the Elixir of Life had failed.

Fifty words...

Smashing Pumpkins’ Concert, Sunday January 19, 1997

Boyfriend said “they’re trite” so he wasn’t included. Seeing them, she was nervous but didn’t know why. Billy looked taller than she imagined. Show over, uptown for an hour, by chance saw the band at a coffee shop. That night, her diary overflowed.

Protesters
How vocal! How earnestly young! Purpose christened as noble by the sincerity with which they pursue it, fourteen of them, seven of either gender, placards disturbing to the eye, thrust at passing cars.
The anti-fur protest at Levitz’s Fashions, by a group, many clad in gorgeous black leather.

17th –Century Puritan Poet
England from Boston, age twenty, Boston again at thirty. Disgruntled wherever he went, he published verse: “Christ, mine Merit unworthiness beside Thee.” Finally losing hope among non-Elect, into wilderness went he to found New Jerusalem.
Pequot Indians took his head that fall and treasured it twenty-years.

Speaker
Evening after touring Cambridge’s art galleries, we heard of a blind man who every Friday recited from memory the entire Koran. Moroccan friend studying architecture took us. In a welfare flat wizened old man on a rug, speaking Arabic before a gathering. Hours non-stop chanting.
We left him alms.

Old Dog
Guarding the porch, duty to protect still strong, he rises stiffly to wag when he thinks he hears her come home. When a child, she’d run to him straight off the schoolbus, and how they’d played...
The child aged and left him, but he waits, believing she’ll return…

The sun was westering in the sky, and his legs were aching from the miles he had hiked.  It was a long way back to the car, but the song of the river and the gleam of the stones beckoned him just a bit further.  Just one more gravel bar . . . just one more arrowhead.

He sat across the table from her, unable to fully contain the smile he wore ever since they had started dating a month ago.
She looked down, stirring her Pepsi with her straw. "We need to talk," she said.
His smile faded.

One Night Is Sometimes All It Takes
Overnight, a secret alchemy, alliance of wind and tug of mother earth conjoining in a conspiracy of transformation. A single autumn night, while your soul is away, that’s all it sometimes takes, as morning reveals crimson maples, yesterday’s prize, now stripped to nudity.

De Profundis
Condemned for crimes not mine, sixteen years imprisoned, all I possessed taken, hope long gone. Finally, my last night, a man comes from the powers that be, tells me of conspiracy and setup, and why I am really to die. He leaves. I wait my end in peace.

Luftwaffe, 1942
An ace, nineteen aerial “victories” hundred strafing runs. Downed not by foe but engine failure. Oh, for an audience to witness his expert crash-landing! Tunisian sand fifty-leagues any direction, walking, sweating, smokes his last cigarette, confident of rescue…
2004, Bedouin finds his bones. His goggles are still good.

Shark
Circling underwater, choosing the one, not too fast, gently rising, not too early, then-- NOW! Strike! Float overturns, water boils, scream comes suddenly, terror-surprise, limbs flying four directions, the victim reaches for anything, the shark twists away.
In his mind, a shark, the eight-year-old swims across the pool, satisfied.

Two brothers rode into the forest to hunt wild boar.  Only one returned.  Thus perished King William the Second. Long live Henry the First!