“Oh, I’m babbling,” said the older man at the bar swirling his white wine. “You should feel free to tell me if I should be quiet.”
“Well, I’ve been meaning to practice my skills in that area,” said the buxom bartender.
“I’m not the kind of guy that minds if a woman talks back to him,” the man said. “I long ago realized that most of us behave very badly.”
“I’m on a thin wire right now. My ears are steaming,” said the bartender to the owner. “Just so you know.”
“OK,” the owner replied. It wasn’t, after all, anything she hadn’t already heard before.
“That oil’s going to fuck up the world,” said the woman on the Heinold’s patio. “It already made the sky purple.” She shook her head. “I’m going to do a shot.”
“The problem,” said her friend, “is that nobody knows about it.”
“Everyone knows about it,” the woman said. “Who on your Facebook doesn’t know about the oil spill?”
“I went to see Sherlock Holmes. I don’t recommend it,” said the wild-haired man in line at the mini-mart. “It’s a whole lot of fighting, and they didn’t do that much fighting back then. Not as a doctor of forensics.”
This reading is longer than 100 words, but I hope you’ll enjoy it, nonetheless.
Thanks to Evan Karp for capturing the reading on February 18.
“How do you feel about slavery?” the defendant asked the potential juror.
The potential juror clutched her purse tighter. “Historically?” she asked. “Or modern?”
“It’s a broad question,” responded the defendant, who was representing himself. “However you want to respond.”
“Historically, it’s wrong,” the potential juror said, her eyes darting to the courtroom door. “Today, it’s wrong.”
*Thanks to Evan Karp and Rajshree Chuahan for hosting the first night of the Quiet Lightning reading series, and for including me in the party.
100 Proof 