Procaffeinations Five Through Eight
Back in ‘17, Procaffeinations was a weekly series of short fictions, fables and fabrications, all written in the time it took to finish that first coffee of the day. Here’s a few more that still remain.
Five: Stray Dog
I lost my dog over a fortnight ago. An impetuous bastard, reckless in the hunt and forever bound for carnal calamity. He scarpered off in search of tail and must have gotten lost. He was returned to me last week, dishevelled and destitute, by either a good Samaritan or a bounty hunter (the line is so often a blurry one). This isn’t the first time he’s run away. But he’s different now; changed somehow. He ignores my calling, he snaps and growls at my displays of affection. He will no longer sleep in the same bed as me and, perhaps most hurtfully of all, he refuses to hold my hand or kiss me when we walk in public.
Six: Essential Tremor
The doctor calls it an essential tremor. Coffee makes it worse. Alcohol makes it better. I’m told it’s nothing to worry about, but all the same it feels like my left hand no longer belongs to me. It has betrayed me. In fact, it has become quite the defiant little dancing deviant. A real sinister stranger. Nowadays I try to ignore it altogether. I pretend not to notice when it spills my coffee or drops my keys. I go along with it throwing up a wayward, vexing middle finger at unknown passers-by. I even feign indifference when – late at night – it crawls up my chest, wraps its fingers around my throat and tries to choke me in my sleep.
Seven: Tiny Failures
I
As a child, I remember reading – or imagine reading (and really, what is the difference?) – about Alberto Giacometti’s trouble with his stubborn, shrinking sculptures. He would craft these things from memory, and with each new attempt he would despair at their defiantly diminutive dimensions, each one smaller than the last.
Revolting little rejects – weightless and without volume – locked away in tiny prisons. Three small matchboxes sealing sickly sculptures born in spite of their artist.
Older now, I can’t help but wonder how clumsy and grotesque his imagined masterpiece would have looked amongst the perfection of such tiny failures.
II
As a child, I remember reading – or imagine reading (and really, what is the difference?) – about Alberto Giacometti’s trouble with his stubborn, shrinking sculptures. He would craft these things from memory, and with each new attempt he would despair at their defiantly diminutive dimensions, each one smaller than the last.
Revolting little rejects – weightless and without volume – locked away in tiny prisons. Three small matchboxes sealing sickly sculptures born in spite of their artist.
Older now, I can’t help but wonder what tiny violence Giacometti was so afraid of that he would lock his little beasts away in cardboard coffins.
III
As a child, I remember reading – or imagine reading (and really, what is the difference?) – about Alberto Giacometti’s trouble with his stubborn, shrinking sculptures. He would craft these things from memory, and with each new attempt he would despair at their defiantly diminutive dimensions, each one smaller than the last.
Revolting little rejects – weightless and without volume – locked away in tiny prisons. Three small matchboxes sealing sickly sculptures born in spite of their artist.
Older now, I can’t help but envy anyone who can hide their failures away in just a few tiny matchboxes.
Eight: Pragmatism
Tired of hyperbolic verbal beatdowns and desperate for a more wholesome diet, meat-eaters strive for compromise by only eating organic, free-range vegans.
