A much younger writer.
Today is the Monday after Thanksgiving in the place where I live and with gratitude to Beyond and it is October 9 2023.
I was in a cabin that was also a cottage and some of the building was unfinished and I could see the floor joists and beams and the framing and the studs of some of the walls and there was already pink insulation batts in some of the spaces and sometimes the batts were falling down and folded over from where they were supposed to fit in. I walked into the garage and there was a truck and also a tent set up inside there and I went to the tent and opened the door with the zipper that went around from the base of the door and all the way around the door to the other side. Inside the tent there was a canteen like something that held water and coffee and a sleeping bag that was thick with the down feathers it contained. I could hear lights and see the reflection of sirens through the translucency of the roof of the tent.
I was driving my truck and I stopped at a stop sign and was about ready to go while I was waiting for another car to pass cross-wise and I heard his voice and felt his breath through the closed door on my driver side and he told me to get out of the truck and that he was going to punch me in the face if I kept driving and his hair was blond-red in color and he had a shadow of a blond-brown beard on his chin and upper lip and I woke up.
Later that same day, I was in the the office of my studio apartment and in the bedroom at the same time. I was looking at the window and treating the window well, I figured, by whispering pleasantries and sweet sonnets in the direction of the blinds. The sun shone rays between the slats, painting an imaginary image on the wall of a picket fence with 9 fenceposts and 8 slats itself.
I had an excellent idea this afternoon while driving around in seek of sundries. A book. A novel. An idea for one or the other in terms of topic. A collection of eulogies. Creative fictional writing about the lives of others in celebration or in haste or in glory toward their demise. From miserly chap to forthgiving countryman. All assembled in the same place.
He was a lovely man. Known to his friends and family. Known to fellow Sunday and Monday churchgoers. He was described as an upstanding character by those fond of him and by those who found him this way. He enjoyed walking and riding a bicycle both ways up and down the street. He stopped regularly at signs that told him what to do there. He admired those who liked danger and the species that found their way onto his list. The end of Day 29304918901.
Excellent tipper he was.
June 14th 1982
It was a sunny day. A beautiful day for a baby to be born. I weighed 680 grams. Just over half a kilo. I was born a quiet addict. A tar baby. Through no fault of my own [Days 1 and 2 of life]. The # of mg of suboxone is printed on my birth record. I am the world’s oyster.
March 7th 1984
The tread on me.
I was teething. My mouth was sore. I would purse my lips together and blow out my cheeks to help ease the pain. My face was flushed. A rosy-pink hue. It was around this time that I was also learning to walk. She would prop me up with towels and blankets inside the walker on wheels. My feet barely touched the ground. I would glide awkwardly along the floor using my tiptoes for traction. Today, she left the door open; the door that lead to the basement staircase. I landed at the bottom of the flight. Rise over run. Run over rise. Into darkness came the light.
March 8th 1984
Bruised C3-C4.
September 21st 1986
I started going to preschool when I was nearly 3 and a half years old. It was at the complex attached to the high school 6 blocks from my own house. We used to drive there and arrive just before 9:30 in the morning. The kids that had mom’s that went to the high school could go there too and they would get to start at 9:00 and stay all day until 4:00 and the kids could visit with their mom’s on their lunch break after bell time. There was no nap time and there was a snack of cut up apples and a glass of milk or juice. Chocolate milk in the small carton with the tear-up spout with a straw was my favorite choice from the tray. There was a rug for reading and magazines named after birds from February and March 1985. I liked word search and what is this where they would show a picture of something close up and you had to guess what it was knowing what it was from far away. The sand table was my first favorite I told them. The rice table and water table were close seconds and thirds. I liked the walk to the store with neither rope nor tie nor colored pinnie. My home time was at noon and I wished I could stay longer but I was happy to go home too.
June 21st 1986
The mr. turtle in the backyard was a non-invasive species. I saved the sandbox with a hammer and some finishing nails. All in a day’s work, as such.
This was the summer of 1989. I went to art camp at the Art Gallery. The Orient and The Landscapes. One week at a time for 2 weeks with 2 weeks off in between. I was asked to draw a picture of my house. I used every color in the box of crayons and I colored the colors in layers. Red first. Then orange. Then blue. Then green. Then yellow. In a cross-hatched pattern. My house had windows and a chimney with smoke and billows. It had a front door and a juniper tree out front and a two-car driveway made of concrete. The concrete had a small crack in it that I filled in with black lines. I showed my teacher at the end of the class that day. She looked at the picture and asked if my house was black. Like siding. I said no it wasn’t. I smiled and I put the picture on the desk for grading. My teacher picked it up and showed my dad and he smiled. He said good job, Jenny. I smiled again and put on my windbreaker jacket and we walked to the parking garage and drove to pick up my sister and then we went for ice cream and a snack and then we went home.
Limestone. Outcropping. Limestone.
This is with regards to double dutch and the summer of 1990. It occurred to me that the people holding the ropes and the people twirling the ropes are helping the person jumping in the ropes.
Present Day Current Time
June 18 2023
A brown rabbit and a red balloon.
Where?
The red balloon was on the grass.
Where was the rabbit?
He was on the sidewalk and he hopped away.
A pinwheel on the balcony.
On the third floor of the building I saw a bicycle. It was blue.
The bicycle was next to a lawn chair.
There was a man waiting for the bus. He wore a vest. His vest was orange. He sat down on the bench while he waited.
I looked at the man again.
He wasn’t wearing a vest after all.
He was carrying a bag.
The strap of the bag was slung over his shoulder.
The strap was orange and it looked like a vest at first glance.
There was a candy wrapper on the seat of the bus. I sat down across the aisle from the blue seat and the candy wrapper. The man sat four rows up from me, on the same side as the candy wrapper.
“1205”. That’s what the sign said.
The sign was white with black lettering.
One man, then another, got on the bus.
“I will get off the bus at the next station”, I thought to myself.
The sign said “50”. It was a white sign with black numbering.
There was a girl drinking chocolate milk out of a cardboard box.
There were five ducklings sitting on the slough.
One was in front of the yellow line, 5 were behind it.
There was also me.
I got off the bus at the station.
Later that evening, I saw a black balloon on the boulevard. It blew onto the road and stayed there.
The next morning, the black balloon was gone. It had blown away.
I got on the bus.
Any way.
June 19 2023
Ebola virus subcultured into white milk (more effective) or chocolate milk (more attenuated) is the vaccine.
June 21 2023
Counterfeiting currency is the worst way to make money.
September 24 2023
package robotproject037;
import java.util.Scanner;
import java.math.BigInteger;
class showandtellwiththegumballs {
/*this is an episode or a skit or a segment on my show and it is called show and tell with the gumballs*/
public static void main(String[] args) {
Scanner jennsScanner = new Scanner(System.in);
int gumballs;
int human;
int gumballsPerhuman;
System.out.print(“How many gumballs?”);
gumballs = jennsScanner.nextInt();
System.out.print(“How many humans?”);
human = jennsScanner.nextInt();
gumballsPerhuman = gumballs/human;
System.out.print(“Each human takes home: ”);
System.out.print(gumballsPerhuman);
System.out.print(“gumballs.”);
}
}
October 9 2023
The room numbers are 505 and 509. It’s a hotel. The lock for the door of 505 is broken. It doesn’t lock. I’m the guest staying in room 509. They’re chasing me. I open the door to 505 because I think I can get away from their chase. There’s someone sleeping in the bed covered by a bedspread and I can’t see their face because they’re curled up in a ball and I’m sure it’s not me. I leave the room. I can hear them calling while they’re looking for me on the radio. I take a door that leads to the back staircase of the church that’s also or attached to the hotel. I look straight ahead and it’s the wooden boards or maybe slats to the steeple. I reverse and turn around and go down the stairs while I hold the handrail with my right hand. Down around the corner to another flight down and I can see the top of my head and my brunette ponytail and my back that’s wearing a green jacket left undone. I’m on the grid looking for the hotel and I get close but am lost in the maze so I rest in a parking lot but I can see where I need to go from across the street.
As he was sleeping, I touched his moveless body and he may have moved then but I couldn’t say for sure because I realized I was in the wrong room and I heard a loud sound from the door I came through and I was back in the hallway.
I heard the word “macadamia” and I closed my eyes. I read the word “macadamia” but I read it wrong. So did he.
There were 2 of them sitting in the room and then I looked again and there were 3. Two of them fit together in terms of how I know them. The other was talking like she knew them while she sat on the bed. The other 2 were kneeling or sitting on the floor. The latter looked similar to someone that I thought she was at first but later realized she wasn’t. She had been the person to give me a user name and password. The login credentials I needed for authentication. I realized my first thought was in error and I clarified with Beyond that my interaction with her from before was a good one and the evil in her twin was another human not to be mistaken. They said O.K. and they can tell the difference and I went back to the party from above the door I came in. Argent.
The man holding the pen was overly dramatic and he swung from the ceiling in his swing. He had mandarin oranges and a robotic voice. He held up the number two hundred and ten, the four car diversion, and the critically wounded 14:50.
November 9 2023
For the other social media platform with the messages then slash then numbers then dash then numbers then the number that is 6 in from the right is the number of times the individual or business has interacted with you and/or your profile like messages/1654949548429815809-1675446227431833600 as an example and that number is 8.
December 1 2023
We are on the way to the parlor. It seems like we are herding slow cattle that are hungry and thirsty and need to be milked and the game ends when someone hits their shin on the coffee table.
January 19 2097
To write in one’s own name is not to spoil the ballot.
Spare the rod.
Their first failed attempt. The pellets of serin. They placed in the showerhead. The one in the stall one cool day that late summer. The warmth from the water rushing in with the spray. Admixed with the solid to vapor my breath. The year was 1991. It burned my eyes like shampoo.
March 7 1984
She took the baby walker straight out the front door and dropped it next to the curb for the garbage man to take away. It was lime green khaki-colored plastic and there were circus-themed stickers half way up the tapered semi-cylinder pyramid and they went all the way around it and there were 4 interlocking wheels at the base. I heard the garbage truck 2 days later and the garbage man took it off the curb and crushed it for her in the back of the truck. “Thank you for doing this”, she said to him. I waved.
Jennifer Joy Brenley Nyhof 