It's probably a good thing I'm no longer a copy editor.

Some days I feel like my brain just doesn't have time for my crap, so it makes up its own shortcuts when I'm writing.  For instance, as I typed that last sentence it decided that combining the words "my" and "brain" would be easier, so I typed "I feel like by just doesn't have time." 

And sometimes my brain decides that the word "of" would look prettier with a "v" like this: ov.  It was funny the first few times in college, brain, but now not so much when I have to correct all my emails. 

What really concerns me are the days when my brain thinks with an accent.  Like when I had to write the word "wives" yesterday and it came out "woives."  That's not a typo.  I'm actually thinking "woives."  What is that, cockney?  I like England, too, brain, but no one understands your dialect.   

I get the idea of thinking phonetically when you're just learning a language, but words like "of" should not be tripping me up at this point in my life.  Is this some kind of latent disorder that's emerging or am I just really tired?


The Local Language

The way she puts her fingers to his chest when she greets him.

The way an old man quiets himself,

or that another man waits, and waits a long time, before speaking.

It’s in the gaze that steadies, a music

he grows into—something about

Mexico, I imagine, how he first learned about light there.

It’s in the blank face of every child,

a water that stands still amid the swirling current,

water breaking apart as it leaves the cliff and falls forever

through its own, magnificent window.

The way a young woman holds out a cupped hand, and doves come to her.

The way a man storms down the street as if to throw open every door.

And the word she mouths to herself as she looks up from her book—for

that word, as she repeats it,

repeats it.

 

- Ralph Angel

Transplant gangs are sooo 2004.

I was going to introduce this next installment a la Masterpiece Theater, but then I got sidetracked reading an article about former M.T. host Alistair Cooke.  The poor guy died back in 2004, and before he was cremated his body parts were chopped up and sold for profit by "rogue morticians."  Geez.  Sounds like the plot to a CSI episode.  So I guess this is more in the vein of Halloween than Christmas, but The Brute continues nonetheless:

The Brute bolted up, blinking. The sun had gone black. No one knew the reason. There was no great crack, no explosions, no fizzle, no fireworks shot. Simply what once was there happened now to be not. The world grew quite cold. People huddled together. The Brute stood alone while they debated the weather. As the children’s teeth chattered, their breaths froze in the air. But what The Brute saw was strange. All the words remained there.

Good words and bad words and gossip and jokes. The words tumbled out of their mouths as they spoke. They floated up to the trees, took a perch, looked around. Their movements were graceful. They made not a sound. Rude words cracked open, flashed their innards and leered. Some jokes came out moldy. One or two had on beards. A “thank you” dropped lightly. It curtsied and bowed.  Gossip tended to slither and leap bough to bough.

The Brute wondered if this was something he should mention, for none of his classmates was paying attention. They were all playing tag with the flashlights they’d found. A boy in his haste knocked The Brute to the ground.

“Idiot,” The Brute snarled, “I’m standing right here.”

The sentence took off like a shot at his peer. The words chugged along like a train on a track from The Brute’s mouth to boy’s head in two seconds flat.

There was howling. It seemed like the boy had been stung. The Brute watched it all happen. He knew what he’d done. He had not raised a hand, but the fact remained true: his words were what bruised the poor boy black and blue.

Questions popped up, hopping this way and that. Through the crowd they scurried. They darted like rats. One circled The Brute, sniffed his ear hole and hair. He swatted it off with a series of swears. The swears formed in a cyclone of prickles tiny as peas. They swirled and they roiled. They exploded like bees.

Only one target was set in their sights. The Brute’s eyes grew wide. He prepared to take flight. But from every direction the prickles advanced. They flew up his nostrils. They prickled his pants.

The Brute sneezed and swatted at what no one could see. The children all stared, some were grinning with glee. Their bully was making a fool of himself. The children all whispered, “Look at the elf!”

Their giggles erupted while The Brute tore at his clothes. They mocked as he picked prickles out of his nose. The words soared above them. They pointed and dived. They crystalled like ice and sharpened like knives.

The Brute raised his head up, eyes tearing in pain.   But then his eyes narrowed:

“So you want to play games.”