Chiaroscuro

A man lives in black and white. He dreams that one day he'll be excited by his own life. He dreams he will be Sam Spade, who would give up everything to do what's right. He wonders how much "everything" is worth and if it fits his budget this quarter.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Phonte, We Go Off (feat. Pharoahe Monch)

A farm in the early morning

The barn caught fire just before sunrise, so that when it finally reached its peak, the smoke became an eerie pastiche of Afremov paintings as it drifted with the clouds. The surviving horses ran out into the enclosure once the front door collapsed, soot trailing behind them like dissolving shadows.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
The Tallest Man On Earth, 1904

Zero

There is an awkward humor in the way a battery-powered motor whirrs down its final rotations; or the way I've always assumed the flavor of blue-raspberry lollipops is how the color blue really tastes; or the number of syllables it took to ruin a perfectly good night on the town.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
The Wailin' Jennys, The Parting Glass

We gathered to wait

My voice bathes the hall's fortifications, stone and ancient, breaking left to right and up to down in constant, wobbling echoes. The masses stare up at me, not privy to the intensity with which I scan their ranks. It's strikingly funereal, which is ironic since no one has died. Yet.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Arcade Fire, My Body Is A Cage

We've all got wood and nails

 
Halfway through his experiments on the human psyche, he discovered what an inconsequential species mankind really was. After pouring thousands of his own dollars into this research, he sat in his office, cursing how empty his bank account was. He could write only one thing in his notepad: "It was fun while it lasted."
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Okay, yeah, so it's actually 54 words. You caught me.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
The Go! Team, Get It Together

What year is it?

 
Dual inspiration today - one half from the aptly named Inspiration Monday and the other from the piece below by Sabrina Tibourtine.

 

If the heavy, electric thump kills your enthusiasm, consider this: Only when the bright lights falter will our future become clear. Let new construction tear you down, replace your skepticism with blind faith and help you remember the truth. They vomit into prisms and all we see is clean, white light.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Radiohead, Sit Down, Stand Up

Take one

 
The punch drew blood, loosened a few teeth, started skin-deep capillaries wailing - it shouldn't have. "Cut!" the director screamed. The crew had watched the tension build for weeks and now gasped, surprise laced with satisfaction. Supporting looked down at Lead's ruined face, sneered. "That's for sleeping with my wife."
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Grizzly Bear, Cheerleader

Snowflake

 
In the cold she could tell his breaths were becoming more rapid, heavier, angry. "Don't believe everything you hear," she coaxed, and put a hand on his shoulder. He shuddered and cursed, felt his fury start to melt, dripping in half-frozen morsels from his elbow, collapsing softly in the snow.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Bob Dylan, Don't Think Twice, It's All Right

Traffic

 
The chilled wind blowing up from the canyon showed more life than his purpled lips, perpetually smashed together. He looked back at his car – still parked in the worst traffic he'd ever seen – and shook his head with expectant regret. Bad things happened when he had this much time on his hands.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Bon Iver, Blindsided

Rain

 
Droplets spattered on the roof of his car in psychedelic rhythm, like someone was snapping their fingers in time during a bad trip. But they would never fall hard enough to wipe his memory clean of those savage recollections, those mind-killing sounds, those visions of a young summer at war.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Johnson&Jonson, Up All Night

Ladder

 
This wasn't going to be your run-of-the-mill staff meeting, but he was the only one who knew it. They gathered their coffee, their donuts, their uninterested stares, and sat quietly. He stood, walked to the front. "Ladies and gentlemen, I've murdered our boss. And named myself CEO."
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Dull Life

Abandoned building

One glance at the warped fence and hollowed old windows told her all she needed to know: it had been too long. She couldn't see his face in the doorway anymore, waiting for her to come home. With a slow sigh she got back in her car. No closure here.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Arcade Fire, Old Flame

Hell

 
I clawed desperately at the mud, freeing rocks and small tree roots from their amorphous enclosure. My only chance was to bury myself and hope they weren't interested in an otherwise empty foxhole. Then: the clack of a rifle behind me. I froze. "We don't tolerate cowards," a voice said.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
OK Go, This Too Shall Pass

Murder

 
The first of the 50-worders:

His hands were a deeper pale color than I expected. His face, too - a lazy coral. I knew it would elicit a reaction, but not like this. I grabbed the nearest bit of cloth to shield him from the truth. One should never have to witness one's own death.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Radiohead, How To Disappear Completely

You might say it was a, "sharp sense"

 
This marks my triumphant (HA...good one) return to the world of writing. I'll be back in the weeks to come, and I hope it's with more consistency.
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Again he heard the knife slide into the pillow, and again he woke with a start to find it wasn’t actually there. But she was, fast asleep and probably dreaming, judging by the slight grin that creased her features. Maybe marrying an acquitted killer wasn’t the best idea he’d ever had.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:.
Xavier Rudd, Messages

Not quite good enough

 
Blurred in those eyes, mired in that pearlescent green-orange tint, was an admission of guilt, something he would probably never say, but something I heard nonetheless. I checked the chambers, noted their fullness, thumbed the cylinder closed. "Apology accepted," I said softly, then pointed the revolver and pulled the trigger.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Incubus, Sick Sad Little World

Push

 
We're a hollow sound - all cleverness and cruelty and courage - but mostly contempt. Not for one another, mind you, but for our own situation, whether it’s poverty, physical weakness or ignorance. And in the push for self-improvement, we almost always lose sight of something else. So is it worth it?
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Pharoahe Monch, Evolve

In need of repair

 
It had always been a fight, and the end was no different. But when the dust settled, it wasn't his bruised sense of pride that he was worried about. The half-dizzy haze that had devoured his thoughts was ruptured by a single question:

"How can I fix this?"
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Local Natives, Who Knows Who Cares

Trust me, it's plenty "life affirming"

 
It's not consequences that scare me - finality never has - but the act itself, the idea of ranking one option above another, even for a moment. So here I sit, immobilized by inner conflict...

I just can't decide whether or not to eat this entire sleeve of Girl Scout cookies.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
The Dodos, Fools

Stand still

 
If life was louder, maybe we'd be able to hear it when it tried to tell us things. Maybe it would send a message, cold and clear. Not that we'd listen, of course, because it's so much easier to mark the passage of time when we build our own landmarks.
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Playing on my iTunes at this very moment:
Theory Hazit, I Just Wanna Go Home