Musings of JR Simmang

To my readers, I've reached out into cyberspace and ran into Chuck Wendig. He runs a blog called "Terrible Minds," and he posted a prompt the other day I thought I'd respond to. His challenge: roll the dice and see what fiction subgenre smash-up you get. Write a story under 1000 words to fall into this category. I rolled: Psychological Horror/ Alien Invasion So, without further ado... HAPPY YOU CAME The house was completely silent. I asked for it to be that way. The lights were out. The doors were locked. All these little bodies, warm and radiating heat, were where I wanted them, perfect little dolls. Almost as if on cue, the front door opened. "SURPRISE!" Macky was nearly knocked off her feet. "Happy Birthday!" And the whole house erupted into a chorus of the Happy Birthday song. Macky saw me, smiled, and shook her head. She knew all along, but she was a good sport. She started to make her rounds while I watched her hungrily, waiting fo

There is a place somewhere in the middle of the ocean where the sky no longer wastes time separating itself from the waves. Acceptance, it says, is when you find that there is only one true mirror, and that loneliness is but a temporary game of tag; eventually, you will find your reflection, you will stop running, and you will embrace each other as you have embraced your once-held impatience. I sat in my boat, listening, and holding the hand of the mirror, her heat radiating back at me, and I thought (for a moment) that the heat I feel is the heat I give. This sky I once believed foolish and naïve for denying itself compassion, I suddenly found the most noble and wise for waiting until there was no noise. For only in this silence could it whisper its love and be heard by the quietly calming sea. -JR Simmang

Education should be a priority. I think that's easy enough to agree upon. But, there are ideas surrounding this simple truth. One: it's not a right; Two: it requires balance. To address the first point, I propose that in order for a right to exist, it must exist wholly by itself, be held by itself, be universal, and not demand anything of anyone else. It cannot be controlled. Life cannot be controlled once it is conceived. Liberty cannot be controlled once it is gained. The pursuit of happiness cannot be controlled once it is realized. Life demands nothing of another.* Liberty demands nothing of another. The pursuit of happiness demands nothing of another. Education, on the other hand, demands that one or more people deliver unto another individual information gained. It demands time. It is not a right for it requires the will of others to operate upon it. To address the second issue, that of balance. It is not the job of the teacher to espouse their own beliefs in the

Women and men: Love your curves. Most people have them. Some people don't. You see, we went through a phase a little while back, where men and women were expected to look like Twiggy and [name a male model of the 60s]. Women were skinny, men were building muscle in all the wrong places. Then, we evolved. We started looking at these models and began asking ourselves this question: if these models can't go into a department store and buy clothes off the rack that fit them, are they representative of the overall population? The answer was, and still is, no. No. Models who starve themselves so they can fit into ridiculous fashion trends are not representative of the overall population. So, we swung, as we are apt to do, in the opposite direction. We began focusing on the "real woman" and the "ideal man." We became comfortable with ourselves. We became (and please bear in mind that I am not criticizing the plus size/fully figured woman) complacent with our

Think tanka (5-7-5-7-7 syllable count, 5 lines) in two stanzas, where each stanza is traditionally written by separate people. These two people would traditionally write a love note to one another, using their stanzas to respond to the other. Here's my attempt (both stanzas written by me). BE CAREFUL I found the locket you gave to me Christmas Day. I’ll wear it around my neck, I swear, if only you’ll find the silver polish. That Christmas day, I gave you a box. Inside the box was a necklace, true. But, it was not a locket. Here’s the polish. Rub it clean. -JR Simmang

This is my take on a superhero story. I turned 840 on Wednesday. That's forty times twenty-one, and I had been drunk forty times over since Wednesday night. My wife told me I was getting ahead of myself, that my 840-year old liver and kidneys couldn't handle a drunk's lifestyle anymore. I told her I was 840, and that she could just keep talking because I wasn't listening. I couldn't listen. I thought people were immortal. Turns out, the only other immortal died on my birthday. Happy fucking birthday to me. I guess I could finally take a vacation. William Dicrest. That was his name. We'd known each other since 1193, the Crusaders class. There was a lonely road through England. We happened to be there at the same time. In nature, they say, things that are alike, tend to grow together. He couldn't fly. He didn't have laser vision. He wasn't stronger than the average man. He suffered like I did. Wake up one day and the woman you love is dead, a

I have only read some Arthur Conan Doyle. Personally, I didn’t care too much for “A Study in Scarlet,” though is sits on my desk, lit by candle, and picked up only when I can’t seem to close my eyes at night. My wife tells me to put it down if I abhorred it so much. I couldn’t, however, and that is one of the reasons I didn’t care too much for it. At a quarter to one, Friday afternoon, I received a letter from young Charlie Wales. He is our mailboy, short and stout with a lazy eye. He’s the son of Chief Constable Wales, brother of Admiral Wales, and is apparently fit to run mail in our little corner of the Yard. The letter was simple, written by someone who has had a least some cursory education, and requested, rather urgently, that I should meet a Missus Regina Carver at St Paul’s cathedral on Paternoster, an area I’m well acquainted with. It is, after all, just a short jaunt to the north and east. Why I felt compelled by this is no coincidence. Regina Carver was complicit

They tell you that fish breathe in air, so why do they die on the shores? -JR Simmang

Here, the walls bend inward and shadows cast on curves. I wonder how doors close when they must open so strangely… Lately, I find solace when the black cat goes. - JR Simmang