fiction and musings from a gay black dude with delusions above his station
Patricia Dunn and I stayed up long nights back in college to put together an alternative campus newspaper. She had a friend who owned a computer – exciting enough in the mid-80s – but it also had desktop publishing software. We were in awe. I remember having to space out columns the old-fashioned way in…
Monday, February 27, 2157 I found myself in a bed. It has a white frame with arching head- and footboards made of metal. The sheets are clean and the mattress is comfortable. It looks like one of those hospital beds you see in old World War II movies, but this bed looks too new to…
Friday, February 24, 2157 Destitute was one of those words my great-granddad did not believe in. Whenever he heard that a group of people were destitute, the first thing he would ask was, Well, do they have a television? A car? A dishwasher? If they do, then they don’t sound ‘destitute’ to me! If pushed…
Wednesday, February 22, 2157 I had to get out of there, fast. I exited as gracefully as I could, seeing how they took me in and listened to my tales of woe and fed me, etc. But I had to get the hell out of there. I found out more about their “embrace” with water….
Sunday, February 19, 2157 I found what looks like a large, concrete building along the shoreline. And as the sun shifted, I could see solar panels reflecting on its roof. So I started walking towards the shore and figured I’d let it guide me along to what I hoped was my destination. That’s when I…
Thursday, February 17, 2157 I can’t write today. I know I should, but I can’t. I’m still at the mouth of the tunnel and the voices returned. They won’t leave me alone and I left my medicine at home. I was stupid and didn’t think bring it. I put it out of my head. No!…
Thursday, February 17, 2157 I made it through the tunnel, but I have to tell this story first. The last flight I ever took – I was probably 14 or something – we were coming back from Europe. We flew over Greenland part of the trip. Great-granddad told me about how it was this large…
My sister Betsy and her partner Sue got married today. They had been together for 14 years, but the wedding was a spontaneous thing. They were getting ready for work, getting the kids ready for summer day camp, the usual routine. Then they heard that the court struck down the gay marriage ban. Betsy said…
Tuesday, February 15, 2157 I rarely left the mansion much and when I did it was to take walks up in the hills. Trees crop up on the lower edges of north-facing slopes. There aren’t that many trees, just a few, the hardy ones. The survivors. I am a tree, a moving, walking tree. I…
True confessions. As a kid I watched the Go-Go Gophers cartoon. It was one of those “shorts” that was part of a serial cartoon series, in this case the Underdog Show. The Go-Go Gophers were buck-toothed, anthropomorphic gophers dressed in stereotypical Native American garb, replete with feathered headdress. They were the last of their tribe and lived…
