Brainstorm #14

The banner, satin and red, near the entrance doors of the city hall, showcased it for all who opened its doors. One would stand erect to pay honor to this gentle symbol of Cardezina, circa 1871. I was said that the West was a wild liqueur bar of demons.

As for Handers, he knew quite well where he stood on the issue. For his assured expectation was of virgin white. Long eyes viewed ahead; upon a blurred horizon. Gracing on a grassy knoll feeding for hours at a time. Some of the time the dirty blades would intoxicate me into a slow motion pace. And, yes, it's all short-lived.

The revolver in Johnny's back was cocked and ready if things turned in a deadly duel. Standing yards apart, and face-to-face, a pair of eyes focused on those of his enemy. It was a fight to the death; the woman, the price for the living, stood still behind the railing with tears and outcries filled the air with supplication.

A second after, a gun shot: He was dead, shot in the heart; and surrendering his soul to the unknown. The woman fell weeping and yelped her pangs outwardly. But before the gun man grabbed her by the arm, she quieted and followed him with a bowed head, and as a trophy washed in dark blood.

brainstorm #13

A blind dog in a meat house is exactly what Wilson classified his money maker - Milford, a heavy weight monster plundering the body and head of his bewildered opponent. Milford was bloody and worn from the interchange as he returned to his corner. Milford was glad the twelfth round was over as he dropped heavily on the stool; his breathing lumbered, and his right eye, a baseball size bulge, purple and inflamed; a small cut just below his other eye. 

As soon as Milford sank into his seat, Wilson, his trainer, started his routine of commands - bring up your elbow, bend your knees more.... Wilson pointed out all the weaknesses in the opponents stance; and, just before the opening bell sounded, Wilson spoke some encouraging words while maintaining a frown of assured confidence. 

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brainstorm #12

A blind dog in a meat house is exactly what Wilson classified his money maker - Milford, a heavy weight monster plundering the body and head of his bewildered opponent. Nonetheless Milford was bloody and worn from the interchange at the bell. He was glad the twelfth round was over as he dropped heavily on the stool; his breathing lumbered, and his right eye, a baseball size blot, purple and inflamed; a small cut just below his other eye was not deep enough to bring concern. As soon as Milford sank into his seat, Wilson, his trainer, started his routine of commands - bring up your elbow, bend your knees more.... Wilson pointed out all the weaknesses in the opponents stance and, just before the opening bell sounded, Wilson gave Milton some encouraging word as he maintained a frown of assured confidence. 

Milford listened to Wilson for the simple reason that during Wilson’s hey days, the man was crowned not once, not twice, but three times as champion in his weight class. But as with anything else in life, father time striped him from his majestic, yet brutal, craft of boxing. In the end, Wilson found refuge in teaching prospects, potential somebodies  with a healthy dose of pearls and demanding training regiments.

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Brainstorm #11

Something was terribly wrong with the formula, a fly in the serum as they say. Jack knew that one of the two liquid samples was causing an array of devastating consequences. From the start Jack did not suspect any mishaps for he had, so he thought, perfected the measurements that produced a robust elixir, bitter and thick like mud. Within a few minutes after taking the potion, he dropped to the floor and a small portion of the digested concoction expelled out his throat; he quivered, coughed harshly, and felt his every muscle tighten firmly. Jack was able to stand soon after the cultivations relinquished. In his thoughts Jack searched for an answer to what he had just experienced. But before he could connect the dots an extraordinary serge of energy stormed his limbs and chest making him feel sturdy; fortifying all his faculties.

His vision, crisp and focused, captured an oddity that made Jack fall back, tilting the table to a one side and fragmenting the glass implements - test tubes, funnels and beakers - onto the floor. Jack could not hardly believe it for the walls seemed to quiver like cooked spaghetti strings. The wonderment resumed, becoming even more peculiar as the mix flowed in his veins. An almost translucent brush of sight became apparent to Jack – a distorted perception that made Jack see through the walls themselves!

Jack did not know it but something equally as dreadful was happening to his skin – from head to toe, Jack's skin became callus and scarcely scaly. Poor Jack did not notice his flesh metamorphosis because he was literally burning-up his upper lip and anything near his face. He instinctively bent his shoulders forward in a panic. Fire, small whispers igniting from his nostrils, shot outward in exhaling spurts. Jack quickly found a way to remedy the abnormality: he squeezed together his nostrils, feeling a sharp sting shoot back into his skull.

It was then that Jack started to realize that when he swallowed, his tongue, dry and swollen, did not produce enough spit for his buds to register a taste in his cortex - he was unable to taste anything! Jack found, by feeling his way around the room, a chair in the empty laboratory; he sat in haste. It was then that he felt his skin for the first time. He jumped in horror, settled himself down a bit and, with an easy touch, felt his torso. His eyes could not register anything, transparency veiled reality as Jack sat motionless in fearful blackness. What had he done? What poison possessed him?

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Brainstorm #10

Jacobson was glad that the sun reached him even in dim flush. The stone pressed hard against his shoulder wasting the little energy remaining in his now deteriorating body. He had given up on his futile cries for help hours prior, and was now on survival mode. Jacobson could, in his dreary delusions, feel his every bone. As if what remained of his body was tangled – muscles wilted; hanging heavy in a sack of decaying skin. The crevice enrapturing him seemed, diversely enough, blameless, for it kept him from stumbling into a darker, deeper precipice – the cave's massive throat: a barren, sunless certainty. Jacobson's breathing, stressed in rapid, rhythmic toil, relaxed. His pupils fixed and limbs, numb. He had landed in this snare alone and not, as asserted, with a group of experienced climbers. Jacobson felt very detached for the imminent crept closer with every passing minute, second. He fought, mentally at least, to keep alive, to keep death's stranglehold from eventually swallowing him whole. He had life still; he had to keep fighting for life itself.

Brainstorm # 9

Another hot afternoon; another run, no wait...it was more like a jog than a run. I was just so tired from the mornings happenings that I had to slow my stride. It was not so often that my wife, Jenny, came out with me, but there she was, ahead of me by a few paces: her long legs gliding; her fists up before her chest, moving to the rhythm of her feet, and her ponytail, swinging back-and-forth, seemed to tease me in some sensual manner: such an odd sensation.

As we neared the point in the path where the foliage caped the vista; and points of light dappled the ground, I was able to distinguish a familiar sent - the smell of reefer. It did not seem that Jenny noticed my yielding pace, for she kept ahead; blind to my thread. The pungent whiff had sparked recollections of my first encounter with Jenny. It was a party, a new year's party, 1994, at a friend's apartment where we first met. I was sitting in the spacious balcony with friends: a small group of childhood buddies. We, of course, were discreetly passing a joint among ourselves, getting drunk with smoke, and cracking smiles with goofy, glazed eyes.

That's when Jenny, a neighbor in the building, sat near our circle as if to be noticed, so it seemed. I found her attractive right from the get-go; I also felt bad that she was sitting by herself. I thus invited her to sit with us and she accepted. I introduced her to my comrades with a slurred tongue. Jenny, so it seemed, recognized the happenings around her, yet she appeared and maintained a relaxed posture, demeanor. I looked around, then to my fellow smokers; and they, with adrift eyes, gave me the go-ahead. I looked cautiously at Jenny as I presented what remained of the cigarette. She smiled and, after looking around, accepted. Within minutes we were all talking garbage about what appeared to be, in that dense spell, the deeper things of life: hollow words, nonsense.

When the clock struck midnight, Jenny and I embraced (high from both the smokes and the campaign): the new year had arrived, as with a magnet attraction between us. Jenny wrote her number on the palm of my hand before kissing me goodbye. We rapidly discovered, after only a few dates, that a chemistry existed between us....

Brainstorm#8

The best is yet to come; so she dreams. I lay on the sand next to her as she rambles on about god-knows-what. I just pretend, as always, to look as if I am interested in her delusions of reality. I was just relaxing by bringing the shapes of the clouds into familiar patterns. Eventually she stopped her yacking long enough for me to close my eyes and rest. It was a trying day for the both of us. The car had a minor problem that morning, and Timmy, our four-year-old boy, developed a sinus problem. We drove him, of course, to the emergency room where he was given medication and a follow-up visit.

I've been married to Laura for close to two years now and, even though she could talk up a storm, I fall for her sensual stares all-the-time. It's a seductive trace reflective in her deep, green eyes that captivates my soul. We both, at times, still feel like newlyweds and yet, in other moments, we argue about some silly, trivia subject until the cows come home. Our apartment can be a mad house or it can be a dungeon depending on the mood of the day. She fails to understand my attraction to football and, as she goes, I can't see why she has a desperate need to rescue every single stray animal she sees on the street.

During one particular Sunday afternoon I had a couple of buddies over to see the game on the tube. She gave me the evil eye while seeming hospitable to my pals. After mid-afternoon the last of my friends exited ushering in a whirlwind of nasty words, loud shouts, and slamming doors. That particular event did not simmer until a week later when I brought some roses and candy. I knew she was a sucker for such surprises. I also, as best of an act as I could muster, asked her for forgiveness. She just fell apart and at once she was crying on my shoulder. It's always a nice thing when stressful nerves calm.