Three rings and a ball of fire, spinning madly about the sorcerer’s hand like a weird circus of illusion. He winked at the crowd. “There’s more where that came from.”

Folded in an insane origami on the passenger seat lay a map of a place he’d never been and had no idea how to get to. It was one thing to get in the car and drive; it was quite another to actually reach the place he wanted to go.

The side of the highway held the most amazing spectacle: it started as a random breakdown, nothing crazy, but the rain and mud and fog and sharp curve created something much more devastating.

(site migration in progress, stand by)

Laundry was neatly placed in the armoire, the work of a domestic craftsman. It was a toddler’s dream; a place to exercise complete destructive abandon. Within seconds clothes were unfolded and lying everywhere.

“Help! I’m stuck out here in the middle of nowhere and I don’t have a phone.”

“What’s the problem?”

“That doesn’t sound like an emergency to you? How am I supposed to get that call from my sister?”

“How can you be so direct and so unassuming at the same time?” he wondered aloud. “No one I’ve ever met makes raw honesty so alluring and so refreshing.”

“I wish I knew.”

She winked at the garage attendant. “Take extra-special care of my baby, would you? There’s something in it for you.”

He wondered, as she drove off, what that something was and whether it would’ve been worth skipping the joyride.

There was an easy definition for the word, one you could pick off the tip of your brain, but that was only scraping the surface of the matter. What was required was deeper, more intensive study, and that was something your brain just wasn’t up to.

The thought sped across my mental vision, too quick to capture. If it had lingered, just a moment, I felt I’d be able to finish what I’d started. Too late.

Oneword is finally back from The Land of Endless Pane. It’s my own personal wakeup cattle prod. Time to get started writing again. I’m definitely rusty. Don’t worry, though — they can only get better.

A morose mood was on him today. A feeling of belonging to nowhere in particular. Time was crawling past and there was nothing for it but to sit and watch. He had his act together, was ready to go.