Owner: Diary of a Heretic URL:www.diaryofaheretic.blogs.com Join Date: Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:42:16 -0500 Rating:0 Site Description: Original, online fiction posted daily, except when non-fiction intrudes.
Motto: Reckless fun and wanton disregard Site statistics:Click here
Mirror, Mirror 2008-03-09 20:46:42 This evening, after the éclair and before dinner, I slipped up to the apartment to do the souped-up stair machine I bought last week. With all the metaphysical energy I’ve got resonating, I’ve decided to work on my cardio-vascular system before and after all performances. I’m starting to look pretty good. The big change came the minute Carlos stopped force-feeding me. Right away, I dropped five, maybe even ten, pounds. So, when Maggie knocks on the apartment door, flouncing in, to perch on the coffee table, I get flustered and blush. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a...
This Benediction Thing 2008-03-08 20:15:32 It’s taken me a while to notice, so thrilled have I been, so wrapped up in my newfound skills—but: Carlos, Stephanie, Maggie and her “occasional boyfriend,” Lyle (whose existence makes me sick with jealousy)—all treat me with a hesitant politeness and weird respect. Of course the regulars and newcomers are deferential. Last week, old Mr. Downey and old Mr. Hedlund actually declared they would retroactively pay full price! But I said, no, no, eighty percent from now on was plenty. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or... Read more:Thing
Better Than Sex 2008-03-07 21:03:34 It’s all that matters. It’s better than sex. It’s who I am. Why I’m alive. It’s music; it’s dance; it’s dross transmuting not just to gold, but more: through time and beyond, constantly sculpting it. No kidding. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Wednesdays now, and Saturdays, I stand on a stage at the Y or another community center, and on Tuesdays and Sundays, I hold court at the shop. For the moment, I have this incredible gift. It’s not...
Suddenly I'm Off 2008-03-05 20:32:02 My sister has invited me to visit and sent me a plane ticket. So suddenly I’m off to see her, after two years in which I didn’t see her; or my niece, who’s five years old. This next week I’ll post revised episodes from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Read more:Suddenly
Through Life and Death 2008-03-03 21:36:21 Emma and Scott knew each other’s minds and hearts after that. The stationary but deceptive sun and sky and the ocean’s depths and shallows shifting beneath the waves affected them equally. When they first stumbled from the ocean onto the shore, their existence changed. Holding each other, they had silently acknowledged that from now on time occurred as before and after. They had witnessed Charlie, a man they both loved, disappear suddenly, swallowed by the ocean or—going solely by what they had seen—just as possibly extinguished between rays of sunlight or subsumed by a passing cloud. [Click here to read...
Begging For Faith 2008-03-02 20:30:07 Everything I said at last night’s meeting was true. I said: “You can’t give up. No matter how often you pray for the experience—no matter how often you think you’re there, it’s finally, finally happening—only to discover that it was just a presage to transcendence and not the thing itself, you have to go on. You have to keep wanting it.” [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] “Because,” I said, “there is no alternative. Other than to spend your life... Read more:Faith
Too Much Fun In Public 2008-03-01 23:27:59 Last night marked the ninth meeting of Religion Without Rules. Except for the first two meetings, with Connie Llewellyn, Victor Smith, Maggie, and then Carlos—I still do all the talking. Last night the crowd overflowed the shop. People milled about the sidewalk, while Louie Duvall set up a plasma screen outside. We reap more money all the time, which I find so disturbing, I just let Carlos handle it. But when I mount the dais and face the crowd, I don’t know, I just go into this mode that feels so fantastic, I’m amazed no one’s tried to lock me... Read more:Public
Against the Tide 2008-02-28 22:43:40 Scott dove and swam and dove and swam, bellowing, “Charlie! Charlie!” in the glaring air and bubbling out “Charlie! Charlie!” underwater, where the name took shape as a watery roundness, more visible than audible. The ocean roared in his Scott’s head and drowned out his shouting. His lungs seized up momentarily. He held his head above the surface while he scanned the rippling crests. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] A bird flew overhead and its shadow moved as a fast, fluid semi-darkness between Scott and the horizon. Not fully aware that...
Projections 2008-03-13 21:00:09 “Faking it,” I tell Carlos, “only has to happen once. Then it’s part of the entire texture. The whole thing would be over.” “What are you talking about?” “What scares me. You know, act euphoric and you feel euphoric.” “Malcolm, I’ve waited all my life for this! Don’t get squeamish. Take a pill.” [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] “If I wasn’t a little scared, I don’t think I could do it, Carlos.” “Where’s Maggie?” he asks. “Talk to her.... Read more:Projections
Stigmatic 2008-03-15 15:19:28 1. The shop’s closed this week. 2. Since it’s being gutted. 3. So we can expand and renovate. At the moment Mad—“What the fuck do I have to fucking do to get through to you fucking morons?”—Mike and his chain-smoking demolition crew are knocking down walls, ripping up floors. The sound of their saws alone—three circular metal-eaters—sends an oscillating circuit of pain through my teeth. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] In less than a week Carlos has changed the...
Four But No More 2008-03-18 20:59:59 Before her youngest child Callie entered high school, Amanda occasionally imagined divorcing the girl’s father once she had gone off to college. Since her daughter was smart, practical, and conventionally ambitious, Amanda expected college for her, and a great deal more. But with the world being what it was, she kept her mind open. Meaning, with luck, Callie would go to college. With luck, they would wake up tomorrow morning and with luck, go to sleep tomorrow night. Two years later, when Callie was racking up academic honors, working at the grocery store, and running varsity track, Amanda strenuously denied...
Tip of the Iceberg 2008-03-16 21:17:57 From this vantage point (over the din of Mad Mike’s demolition) I can hear what I almost heard when we were signing all those papers: Carlos admonishing me: Don’t blow this. We’re talking a chain of bakeries. Carlos practically jiggled his fist in an abbreviated thumb’s up, ye-es-sss. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] In any case, once it was clear I was more afraid of offending Shari Murtaugh than of losing everything I had, Carlos and company knew the... Read more:Iceberg
Surprise, Surprise 2008-03-21 19:23:38 Mike invited his and Amanda’s friends to their favorite beer garden and announced that they were getting married when the semester ended. Everyone expressed proper surprise. Everyone congratulated them with raucous laughter. For real or a joke, they kept asking. “For real,” Mike said. “Very, very real.” [This is the second post in a serialized story. Click here to read the first one.] “You should do it like a reality show,” Jason, his best drinking buddy said. “Start with the wedding and then video yourselves three nights a week.” After people suggested various scenarios for this, one guy asked when... Read more:Surprise
Never Remember Them 2008-03-24 20:31:50 That next weekend, hinting that they needed “to talk to her,” Mike and Amanda drove to her mother’s in the Wisconsin Dells. Cheryl Hanson’s face lit up as Mike approached and kissed his prospective mother-in-law’s cheek. He even lightly draped an arm over her shoulder as they entered the condo. On the drive here, Amanda had warned him not to go too far. “If she thinks you’re mocking her, she’ll hate you forever. She has a bad temper.” “Never fear, sweetheart. Besides, I like your mother. You gotta admit she’s hot.” [Click here to read the first episode, or here... Read more:Remember
Soul Sickness 2008-03-26 21:12:31 For years, Amanda stayed alert and treaded lightly without complaint. She hadn’t believed Mike about his interlude with Melanie Park. But she was wrong. Mike was right. She’d spied on their fond farewell and nothing more. And oh, what a fuss she had put up! Eighteen years old and marrying her first boyfriend, she at least knew when to object. Give her that much. Too bad she was out-numbered. Mike had wanted to marry her a lot, to prove something, maybe. And his parents, especially his mother, would apparently exert whatever it took. A bad sign right there, she had... Read more:Sickness
Not in the Mood 2008-03-25 20:20:40 During the hour long drive back to campus, Mike blasted Jay Z, pounded the steering wheel, and happily yelled foul descriptions of the drivers around him, everyone speeding well past seventy mph. Amanda preferred no conversation, anyway. What was there to say? She absolutely didn’t want to talk about her mother. And whatever Mike felt like doing tonight—if it involved her—wasn’t going to happen until tomorrow. Amanda assumed since they hadn’t made love at Cheryl’s, Mike would want that first thing. Or sooner, when the traffic eased up, he’d want her mouth working on him until he was done. Usually...
Scary-Young 2008-03-29 16:41:04 Mad Mike and his bleary, bad-tempered crew are on their eighty-eighth coffee break. They’re all bloated and grizzled, except one, Tyler, who’s young and beautiful. Hauntingly beautiful. Scary
-young. [This post is an excerpt from Diary of a Heretic, the novel. Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Huddled in the corner, the crew smokes hollowed out cigars filled with home-grown. The beautiful Tyler doffs his beret, releasing a cascade of dark curls. He slinks and turns, feigning a movie star’s scowl as his hammer-heavy belt slips down his hips. The other guys spit...
Animal Instincts 2008-03-27 21:48:41 For a while, life sped past, meeting Amanda’s most optimistic expectations. She never relaxed entirely, and yet, for eight years Mike Morrison apparently loved her. He behaved so much like a content, devoted husband that she believed him. In Chicago, they lived on her income from selling real estate, lavishly supplemented by Mike’s parents, while he got an MBA and moved into a hot-shot job at Northern Trust. During a vacation in Hawaii, Amanda became pregnant with her first daughter, Evie. Three years later to the day, she named her second daughter Deirdre, destined to be called DeeDee. Her daughters... Read more:Animal
Recommend Site To A Friend
