Joe Swanson

“Origin of Species” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #98

“I thought you told me he came from Poland.” “No, Austria technically. They were close, and when he moved to a part of town primarily inhabited by Polish immigrants, he went with the flow, easier, safer. His village was close to the border, they spoke the same language, easy default.” “Yes, but then it was not true. Claiming to be from one country when you are from another, seems fraudulent. Why couldn’t he just say he was from Austria?” “I don’t see what difference it makes. Where you are from, should have nothing t...

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“Coming Home” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #97

All the overly stated cautions come to mind when your eyes first see the vacant opening in the door, and its shattered remains scattered about the floor. Burglary, vandals, fear, anger, the violation of our sanctity, all the emotional upheaval we experience, and yet there is no solid evidence to back up any of our initial assumptions.  The cause for the condition of the door, and the glass pane that once was, and is no more, manages our immediate response.I can only assume it is the shock of the change in normalcy, that brings...

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“Looking Glass Opportunity” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #97

A window of opportunity. What is a window of opportunity, if not the possibility of becoming someone we are not. Someone we wish to become, or something we wish to change, anything different really.Hershel Watts was a person, average by his own estimate, looking for neither fame nor fortune, not that either would be dismissed for cause. He just needed a change. Life had become, the walking exercise tour in the gymnasium on Tuesday mornings, accompanied by swimming aerobics on Fridays and of all things, Interdenominational...

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“Middle of Destiny” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #97

There is something about the rain knocking on your window in the black of night. As I peer through the glass, droplets streaming down its invisible surface, give me a sense of being in that place where life has stopped, the world is standing chastised in the corner. All cares and worry have been washed away. Each drop sliding down the glass carrying with it…? You know that lyric, “Take the dark out of the night time and paint the day time black.” Some nights feel like that. But when you take out the dark, what’s left...

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“The Tent” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #97

“Step this way. For just a mere pittance, you will experience the mystery of the Orient, the secrets of the Universe, the truth about…”  A small car of figures dressed in outlandish clothing, their faces emboldened with accentuated expressions, sped past to the sounds of bulbus horns and laughter. I didn’t hear the prophetic end to his proclamation about discovering anything, and everything, you’d ever considered experiencing. I had to insert words and meaning suitable for the occasion. It didn’t matter. I didn’t have a ...

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“Pink Light” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #97

There was this sound. The kind of sound you hear when asleep. Your mind takes that sound and turn it into a dream. I don’t normally remember my dreams. Most people I’m told, don’t remember their dreams either. That is why I guess this dream must have some significance. It must have a meaning, but I can’t figure out what it is.  The sound I remember, and most of the dream, some of the dream. It was a tapping sound, as if coming from under water. Or that thumping sound when you are testing a melon, by ta...

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“Appearing to Appear” by Joe Swanson

Excerpts from: Purpose and Intent. “Friend!” The word slithers towards you like a serpent from the deserts of Armageddon. I dislike that word, friend, well not the word, as much as the context in which it is used. It implies so much, and offers so little. It is also an overused word, that begs an introduction while offering no security, or vouching for the intentions of the conveyor. I know that in most instances it is not meant to be anything other than a way to introduce yourself cordially, to someone you do not have a re...

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“Last I Looked” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #96

When I found Amos Bunk, he was a mess. I don’t know what happened exactly, he wouldn’t say. I think he is one of those people, who only find the good in people. And we all know where that leads. It took me nearly an hour to get him to tell me his name. He kept apologizing for having appeared to have been beaten to within an eye lash of death. He looked normal to me in most every way, except he was short. I don’t think he was much over four feet tall, but he appeared much taller. There was just something abo...

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“Six Slices of Toast” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #96

I just landed, my first flight, my nerves still on the plane, me waiting for redemption, in a box car terminal. I was to be to plucked from the land of sand and pines, and deposited in my new home away from home, by the sea. A year they said, possibly. The “possibly,” never nudged my complacency from its excited state, as I was leaving the place I had spent the previous minutes, days, years of my life, and was finally escaping into the unknown from the nebulous consistency of a past. It left my envy, envious.  I was ...

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“Tracks ” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #96

“Come in! What are you doing out there. No one ever comes up here. This place is miles from anywhere. That is why I come here. I can be alone. No one around, can hear yourself breathe, think, scream if need be. I don’t get visitors. Few if any know this place is here. How did you find it?” If it hadn’t been for the car stalling, and in my haste to be someplace, anyplace, but where I was, this place would have remained his exclusive secret. And yet my arrogance brought me to his door step. I’v...

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“Improvisational Inventory” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #96

There is something about twilight that sets the stage for improvisation. Inventing a place where things can retreat back into a shell of anonymity, where choices can be prioritized, remembered, forgotten, dismissed, as having no longer the hold on you they once did. Of course that is fantasy. We do not have the power or will to transform the past to suit the present, yet, it is more than transformation, because conversion is simply rearranging facts to provide a basis for becoming oblivious to reality.  Reality is the wit...

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“Where's the Key?” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #95

Choices, always choices. White socks, black socks, blue tie, yellow, this show, that movie, all choices we make every day, but have little to no consequences, other than the ones we anoint them with. I feel like I’ve spent an inordinate amount of my life deciding about one thing or the other, and what has it gained me? I’m sure I’ve benefited from my choices as much as they have added to my disappointment, so it is the fact that we have the ability to make a choice, that is important. Imagine having to stand before a door, two...

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“Could Be!” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #95

Look at this tie. Do you think it goes with this shirt, my suit, these pants? Do they seem wrinkled to you? I don’t know why they couldn’t have stayed with the polyester, it never wrinkled. You could put it through a car wash, and it would come out looking like it just jumped off the rack. Do you suppose that when this jacket gets wet… it’s supposed to rain you know. Will I begin to smell like an old sheep? I worry about things like that, because once I was accused of smelling fishy. It was a long time ago...

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“Luck of the Draw” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #95

Times change, things change, people change, but the past only changes when we purposely change or distort it for a reason. Today we talk about slave history, the assignation of JFK, Martin Luther King, and Emmett Till. All tragic stories about death and injustice perpetrated by hate.  We have a tendency as human beings to create stories, myths, our own history, to lessen the impact, make the results more palatable, because we share a shame in the fact that these atrocities were allowed to happen, condoned by inaction.  Th...

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“Albert” by Joe Swanson

Submitted to Contest #95

“Did you notice I seem to be aging at an accelerated rate. I can’t figure it out. I don’t remember these furrows in my brow yesterday. Were they there, or have I just not been paying attention?” “What else would be new. You tend to forget what century it is when you are busy playing with those theories of yours. I ask you to pick something up from the store, and you bring me the equation necessary to calculate the likelihood of their being life in other solar systems. Your mind has a mind of its own, you know th...

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