Refracted Neurons

Picture by Eryn Nikkole , edited with Photogrid He sat under the bridge, waiting.  On days when it rained, the water would pool up around his feet, seeping through his toes, wrapping his legs in coolness.  When he was tired, he would lean against the abutment and stillness would slide into his mind. One day, the decking above him creaked, the piles shifting as someone thumped their way across the bridge.  Just as soon as they reached the other side, they turned around and did it again.  So alarmed was he, that he climbed over the parapet to see what was causing the racket.  It was a grey satyr, pipe in hand, her hooves clicking as she skipped. “Stop skipping across my bridge or it will fall into the water,” he felt one of the boards on the decking, found it loose. “But Troll, have you heard the sound the boards make as I trip across them?” the satyr demonstrated. “Stop that!”  Now that he was on the bridge he could feel it shimmy and roll, “We’...

It's that time of year again; time to clear out all the drafts that sit hang around my blog.  I'm going to do this stream of conscious style, so grab your bongo drums and snap your fingers: ????????????????????? You ever have that dream? You know, the one where the motorcycle tries to run over you?   Well, maybe it’s just me, then.   When I was young, I used to have this dream a lot.  There were two immediate problems in this dream: 1. I was laying in the street and 2. I couldn’t move.  If you’ve ever experienced in-dream paralysis, you know what I’m talking about. Maybe because of this, I’ve always been afraid that when there’s a crisis, I will do nothing.  Up until now, I’ve always reassured myself with the thought that my adrenaline will kick in and spur me into action.  But apparently, that’s not always the case. I have a bad habit of placing holds on library books and then completely forgetting that I was ever intereste...

As she left the conference room, all Gina allowed herself to think was that the office smelled of peppermint and pine.  She slunk back to her cube, glad it was tucked into the corner.  “Too many errors,” she thought, logging back onto her computer, “Not good enough.”  Taking a deep breath in through her nose, she visualized a tree with a candy-striped trunk. “The Holiday Party is starting,” Mayra called out.  From Gina’s perspective, she looked like a disembodied head framed in grey curls, floating above the cubical wall. Gina slid down in her chair as Mayra’s shoes clicked across the floor, a flurry of managers shuffling behind with their notepads and tablets.  Gina watched them, her eyes drawn as always to Dalton, who moved with a peculiar march-step. “He’s a cyborg, you know.” The voice made Gina jump. “Like in a legal sense, like fifty-plus-one percent robot,” Jaime dropped a stack of envelopes on Gina’s desk, “Can you mail these to my client l...