Dotted Lines

by Isaac Marion

He made phone calls all day and no one answered, and he knew his service was disconnected, but still he called, and still no one answered.

Someone locked the doors on his apartment, and he could not get out. He made phone calls and no one answered. He called 911 and no one answered. He stood on his balcony and threw pictures and coins and candles down at the neighbors’ houses, tracing their trajectories with his eyes, drawing long dotted lines through the air and imagining that these were connections, that he could speak to his neighbors through these dotted lines.

He kicked his door as hard as he could. He tipped over his coffee table and tore out the pages of all the coffee table books he had bought. He stood on his balcony and screamed at his neighbors. He threw books hard at their windows, but the glass did not break. The glass wobbled and danced, and laughed at him.

He jumped off his balcony and traced his trajectory as he fell, a bold dotted line through the air. He aimed for the neighbors rooftop, but missed by inches. He fell and shattered his legs on the pavement. The paramedics called him “buddy” as they carried him to the hospital. A beautiful nurse told him everything was going to be ok. She tucked him into a clean white bed, and he never saw her again.

Sometimes he woke in the night and saw monsters roaming out in the dark halls. Giant paws and black eye holes, sharp hooves and scaly tails, brief glimpses disappearing around corners. He called out to them, but they didn’t answer. He threw movies and magazines at the monsters, and at the other patients in his room, and out his window, tracing dotted lines in all directions, sending his voice pulsing out like a global broadcast. But he was was disconnected, and no one answered.

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A Small Wedding

by Isaac Marion

They were getting married in the back yard.

The young man saw them setting up rows of folding chairs. From his fourth-floor apartment window he saw them erecting an arbor. Their yard had a fence but he was high above them, and he looked down into their yard and watched them get married. It was the dead of summer and all his windows were open. He could hear their voices and their excitement. He stood halfway hidden by his curtains and watched them from above. The fat uncles, the tanned cousins and bearded best friends. Everyone was plain except the bride and groom. The bride and groom were beautiful. Radiant. The young man watched them stand under the arbor and exchange vows he couldn’t hear. He watched them kiss, and he listened to the crowd cheer. He returned to his couch and resumed the movie he was watching, but his windows were open, and he could hear the sounds of the reception. The laughing and conversation and jovial music, hits of the 80s and 90s. He stopped listening to the movie and listened to the reception. He wondered what it would be like to get married in the back yard. He wondered what it would be like to speak a sacred vow, and then look up, and see a young man watching from above, halfway hidden behind a curtain like a small, distant god.

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Coffeeshop Cataclysm

by Isaac Marion

I meet a girl somewhere, and have a sudden vision of my future with her.

After a brief and basically unnecessary courtship, we will marry without the slightest doubts in our heads. We will embark upon an epic honeymoon that spans the globe, from France to Rome to India to Egypt to Japan. Our love will be an inspiration to all the native cultures we encounter. Small wars will end. Ancient bitter disputes will be resolved in tearful handshakes. Long-held racial prejudices will dissolve under the glow of our beautiful, beautiful love.

We will buy a small house in northern Bellingham with high ceilings and a deck on the second floor. We’ll both work for a few years until we have our first child, a boy, followed by another boy and two girls in the next few years. Soon our house will be full of the noise and laughter of our beautiful little family. Neighbors will gaze enviously at our house from across the street. Elderly couples walking on the sidewalk in the sun will pause and shake their heads with wistful smiles on their wrinkled faces. Everyone who knows us won’t be able to stop talking about how perfect we are for each other and what an inspiration our family is to the world.

More wars will end. Evil foreign dictators will give teary resignation speeches and hand over their countries to benevolent democratic governments, who will proceed to end world hunger.

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The Story of Tomato

by Jason Webley

Tomato was the most beautiful woman in the world. She never knew her mother, but she never gave that much thought. She was the most beautiful woman in the world and there were always plenty of people around to shower her with attentions and affections.

Everyone loved tomato. Men came from far and wide to bury her in gifts, escort her to fancy dances and to invite her to join them in games of Lips and Legs.

Every card in the deck showed up at her door – The Seven of Clubs, the Two of Diamonds, The Six of Hearts. She enjoyed their attention and she certainly liked the games of Lips and Legs, but one by one she grew bored with each of them. The winds in her heart kept blowing the cards out the window. Time and time again- the diamonds got lost, the clubs were dropped and the hearts got broken.

Then one day, she saw a card that she had never seen before. He was handsome, but not too handsome. But there was something in his eyes felt familiar. His eyes were soft, gentle and deep almost not like a man’s eyes at all. He was the Jack of Spades.

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The boy with a heart of string

by Jason Webley

There was once a boy with a heart made of string. You’d never know it to look at him, because he looked and acted just like most normal boys. But if you watched him really carefully, you’d notice that from time to time, he would twitch or jump a little bit. That was because from time to time, something would tug at the strings in his heart.

Sometimes it would pull him up. Sometimes it would pull him down. And often, the boy would sit and wonder who it was, at the other end of the string, pulling him up and pulling him down.

Now as he grew up, he still looked just like most normal boys. Except, if you looked closely into his eyes, you’d know there was some kind of magic working. And pretty quickly you’d get a funny homesick feeling, and you’d say to yourself: ‘why, this fellow has a heart made out of string! And that string leads back to the place we once were before we all decided to come here.’

And pretty soon, you’d be saying to yourself ‘wouldn’t it be lovely, so lovely to see that place again, just once. If I could hold on to the strings of this boy’s heart, I bet he could take me there!’

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The boy with wings on his heart

by Jason Webley

There was once a Great City. Built directly underneath the stars. With big racing freeways pouring though it and tall buildings reaching up to the sky.

One day, an announcement was made in the Great City: A boy was to be born. A boy with wings upon his heart.

Quickly, the word spread to the farthest corners of the kingdom. Everyone was very excited about this boy. For months it was all that anyone could talk about.

‘Surely things will be better after that boy with wings on his heart arrives. This is what we have all been waiting for. Life will be so much simpler, so much more beautiful with someone like that around’ said the people.

As the months went by, the excitement grew and grew. People came from hundreds of miles away, traveling for days and days and days to reach the great city in time for the birth. The day grew nearer and nearer, and the streets of the city became more and more crowded with anxious people. Everyone was eager to see this amazing boy with wings growing from his heart.

Finally, the day of the birth was at hand.
And indeed, the boy was born.
And indeed, he did have wings attached to his heart.

But, instead of growing on the outside of the heart, they had become stuck and had grown on the inside. The feathers made it impossible for the blood to flow. The very special heart was useless. And the very special boy was born dead.

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The Story of Boat

by Jason Webley

Isn’t it interesting how differently people move through the world? One person walks down the street and everyone he passes immediately likes him and thinks to themselves, ‘what a nice pleasant fellow! I should invite him over for dinner!’ But when another person walks down the same street in much the same way, people lock their doors and grumble to themselves, dogs bark, he is met with suspicious glances until eventually someone throws a shoe at him.

But I digress. I wanted to tell you about a lady named Boat. Boat collected dead people. I’m not sure why she did that, I don’t think even she knew. That’s just what she did. Just like some people are waitresses or plumbers or university professors, boat collected dead people.

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The boy with a balloon for a heart

by Jason Webley

There was once a boy with a balloon instead of a heart. At first the doctors were very optimistic, because the balloon seemed to function just like any ordinary heart. But after just a few days, everyone became very concerned. The boy’s heart had grown to three times its original size!

‘Surely he will explode!’ cried the doctors, ‘we must stop the growth of his heart immediately!’

And so the boy underwent a series of tests. He was brought to specialists, professors and experts. They connected him to machines that analyzed and inspected him in many ways. All the while his heart continued to grow bigger and bigger…

Finally, the doctors discovered the source of the problem. You see, whenever the boy saw something that made him happy, his heart would grow a bit. Whenever the boy saw something that made him sad, his heart would grow a bit. In short, whenever he experienced love, his heart would grow.

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Bikini - a short, short story

by Isaac Marion

I’m sitting on a wide, flat beach on the Washington coast. The weather is nearly perfect, warm sun, clear skies, a breeze which is a little too strong. Breakers crash a few hundred feet from me, choked full of kids and surfers. Mostly naked bodies lie gleaming in the sun. Cheap plastic kites flutter overhead, bright red against a liquid blue sky.

A pretty girl in a bikini trips and falls onto my blanket. Laid out next to me, she looks over, and it’s like we’re married. We somehow strike up a conversation. I end up getting into her convertible and we drive non-stop to Montana. There is a gunfight with local desperados at our ranch, but we win. With pliers we take the bullets out of our wounds and make them into souvenir necklaces.

Our crops that year are awesome.

the end

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The Story of Feather

by Jason Webley

Feather was a girl who trusted her feet. She ran so light, so fast and so reckless that she never had time to fall and skin her knees. She had big bright eyes filled with bees a-buzzing and long yellow hair that trailed behind her when she ran through the garden. There was always dirt under her fingernails and snot on her chin. But never a scrape on her knees. Because she trusted her feet.

Nobody knows where she came from, but I can tell you she was raised by a family of pink-haired, tattoo-toting squeezebox squeezers who lived in a broken-up-broken-down van just outside of town. While she grew up, Feather spent her days digging wild onions in the garden to the sound of accordion music. 

On her eleventh birthday she was given a special present - her very own shiny accordion with brass bickerjiggers all over the handles. “Long time you been with us,” said the squeezebox squeezers “and it time you stop digging in that dirt and start doing the thing a squeezebox squeezer born to do.”

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The Story of Balloon

by Jason Webley

What is it about holding a balloon that is so magical and familiar? A hand that is holding a balloon is a content, happy hand. Why exactly is that? I’m sure the scientists and philosophers and marketing people have written dozens of millions of pages about this subject, but I have my own theory.

Once there was a girl. I don’t know her name, so I’ll just call her Balloon, since that’s what everyone else called her. They called her that because whenever anyone saw her, she was always holding a balloon. Always.

Whether she was walking down the street, flipping through dusty old books at the dusty old library or rotating the flowers in her garden, Balloon always was holding a balloon. Always.

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