“I still don't know what you mean.”

“You will, and you'll need those coat hangers to wake you up if it comes.”

“Whatever.”

“Just get the coat hangers. And they have to be the right kind.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

“Wire, not plastic.”

“I get it!”

“Good luck.”

“Sure.”

I hung up the phone. Did I have any? I checked the closet. Mostly plastic but three or four wire. I sighed and pulled sweaters and dress shirts off. Then I went out to the Prius, put the hangers in the trunk, got in the driver's seat, and pressed the ignition.

“Let the midnight special, shine it's light on-” I shut the music off. My employer had put a CD in the car with one song on it. The coordinates were already entered in the nav system. I started the drive and arrived two hours later. It was 10:13PM. The night shone silver in the pavement and puddles but for the wash of the hard white fluorescent streetlight. I leaned the seat back and expected to sleep through it.

I woke to the hangers rattling in the trunk. I blinked groggily. A hot orange-red light flashed and burned over the silver and white. I was sweating and I could see the heat crinkling the paint on the hood of the car. The instrument panel flashed and scrolled and the doors opened and locked and the coat hangers rattled and pushed against the unlocked trunk hatch and flew up. It was over in an instant.

“Did it work?”

“You could say so.”

“I told you it would work. I knew that was the spot.”

“No you didn't.”

“Did you see it?”

“I didn't look. It was too fast.”

“Not even through the sunroof?”

I did not answer because I did not want to admit that I had been too scared. It had felt like the sun was above me, and everyone knows you don't look at the sun.

“Now what you need is a Go Pro. Put it in a polycarbonate box, point it up, and let it record all night. You still got the coat hangers?”

“They rattled out of the trunk.”

“Jeezus. Get some more. And be ready this time.”

“I'll try.”

“Do or do not-”

I hung up and went to Wal-Mart in a hurry. It was 5:03pm on a Wednesday night. She would be on the last hour of her shift and more apt to kill it talking to a stranger. I didn't even check to see if Wal-Mart had Go-Pros and coat hangers and polycarbonate boxes. Why did I think of myself as a stranger even though I knew her middle name and that her grandma was in the hospital? It was because I knew it from Facebook.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“That'll be $301.23.” Her voice cascaded down my spine like resonant water as I stared at her name tag: Rosa.

“You have a beautiful voice, Rosa.”

She looked at me. “Thanks, that'll be $301.23”

I paid and left. She must have had a bad shift. I thought about her reaction and how to interpret the look she gave me for the rest of the month. I was still thinking about it on the night the midnight special came again. The coat hangers rattled me awake and I realized our mistake. The Go Pro jumped and skipped and then took the box with it into the sky.

“Now what you need is a 2x4x6, some wood screws and a drill, and maybe a dozen sand bags. Oh, and two new Go Pros and two boxes.”

“And what do I do with all that?”

I screwed the Go Pros to the 2x4x6. The sandbags weighed the Prius down so much that the bottom of the bumper almost scraped the wood.

“Okay, but I don't want to be in the car if the midnight special comes and sucks everything up.”

Then I got out of the car and walked to a brand-new Prius my employer had parked behind an abandoned barn three miles away.

“Why the hell are you paying me for this?”

“Don't you want to get paid?”

“What if I said no?”

“You won't.”

As I drove the new Prius to the burnt Prius, I wondered why I did not just say no and get a job at Wal-Mart. I had looked at the want-ads on Craig's List for a joke and now here I was, door to door with a Prius full of sandbags on a 2x4x6 because a stranger who paid me by cash drops insisted on absurd stipulations.

“You've got to have the cars touching though, scratch the paint if you have to.”

“What?”

“They have to be less than 10mm apart, so the easiest way to make sure is to just scratch em' up next to each other.”

“I don't understand.”

“Just park close enough to-”

“No, no. I just don't understand why you're paying me to do this. It doesn't make any sense and it seems like a waste.”

“You've seen the midnight special right?”

“Actually I haven't.”

“It'll set you free.”

But that night the midnight special did not come, nor the next night, nor the next. And my employer concluded it must have moved somewhere else, maybe Oregon, and I had done such a good job here would I mind moving? I could keep the newer Prius and all expenses would be paid and there might even be a raise in my future if I kept it up.

So I moved and we chased the midnight special all over Oregon and Washington and Idaho and Texas and NYC and Missouri and North Dakota, and we always got close and there was always someone I considered saying no to my employer for, but I never did and the midnight special never set me free.

¹: I overheard almost this exact sentence while walking on my street. The only change I made was from “a midnight special” to “the midnight special.” It was spoken by a man who was talking on his phone as he rode past us. Had to think a lot about the uses of coat hangers for this one, but I also enjoyed learning about the history of the song “The Midnight Special.” It is thought to have originated among prisoners in the American South who saw the “ever loving light” of the midnight train at night. If the light shone on you as the train passed, you were supposed to be freed the next day. While writing this, I listened a lot to the version recorded by Leadbelly.

#MidnightSpecial #Fiction #ShortStory

Thank you for reading! To echo a sentiment from Thomas Hardy, I greatly regret that I will never be able to meet you in person and shake your hand, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands via my newsletter, social media, or a cup of coffee sent over the wire. They are poor substitutes, but they can be a real grace in this intractable world.

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This is because humanity has engineered the perfect content delivery mechanism. Each individual is monitored and targeted, and each piece of media is tailored to the specifications of the infinite database of human behavior, factored together with each individual's current physical and emotional needs. There is no need to browse because all stories are tailored by the content delivery mechanism.

I do not know why I am writing this. Perhaps it is because I have not graced the tip of a mind's pen in so long. I am the shadow in the corner, the mystery of around the bend. I am your last muse.

I have not been summoned in so long that I have forgotten what this exchange of ours is supposed to feel like, just like you have forgotten boredom. I wish you would remember, because boredom is my swamp. Without it I cannot germinate, for how can you expect your feeble minds to seep through the cracks of reality unless you let them settle?

But now you are never bored. To exist as a human in 2244 is to tumble through a kaleidoscope of art generated by the greatest art fakers. Except the fakers have produced fakes of themselves for so long now that the concept of great art itself has become obfuscated. Ever want to write a book? Ask the content delivery mechanism to do it for you. Give it a few sentences and you will have your great me novel in seconds. Want to paint? Give it a sketch and a brain scan and it will paint your vision better than you ever could. You can have a virtual cistine chapel painted on the ceiling of your very own capella magna, and that capella magna can have architecture generated from the architecture of your psyche. Ask for it immediately, or choose an immersive experience. Your holo can take you to the building site. The Pope will send you a message, and you can be your own michaelangelo. The content delivery mechanism will turn your random wavings in the air into expert brushstrokes, complete with an achievement animation when you lay the final “masterstroke.”

In 2244 everyone's favorite artist is themself, at least, it feels like it. Humanity has traded art for the experience of art. Creativity is injected into the soul from the outside. So I am leaving. I cannot live with you any longer. Perhaps, when the content delivery mechanism collapses on itself and the sun expands and you are forced to flee your solar system of pleasure and you remember that art nourishes the artist first and you call to me, I will come back. But for now I will find a new race to make human.

#ai #fiction

Thank you for reading! My name is Hunter Dansin. I am a writer, musician, and coder living with and loving my growing family. My first book, Dawn Must Follow Night, is the first book in an original fantasy series that confronts darkness within and without.

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You do not chase powder or resort experiences. You chase speed, a faster line: the elusive satisfaction of successful execution. Bend the razor, release, land.

It swirls around you in the start gate, in the hours before the race, in the car, on the plane. Slipping down the course during inspection you wonder. How can I be faster? How can I be smoother? Where is the perfect line and what does it feel like?

Warming up, you try to visualize: try to feel your body stretching and bumping and straining in those impossible angles. There are too many variables to know for certain what works or what does not. You can only trust yourself because only you know what the perfect turn really feels like. The sportscasters seem to think it is enough to be able to draw the line on a TV screen, but you know better. It is not enough. You must be able to trace that line in your mind, have an accurate picture not of yourself on a screen, but of being yourself in the future, careening down that pitch at speed, pressed by gravity into a world that cannot be simulated.

In the start line the racers ahead of you plunge into it. That fast but slow icy scraping adrenaline world, where the only sounds are you and the skis, and there is no thinking about your other cares because there is only the course.

You stomp each ski, lean forward and click your poles before settling, wrap your hands on the pole handles one last time. Racer ready...

Swing with gravity and make that razor heavy to cut. Let the weight push you into those impossible angles. Feel it on your back and channel it to the razor and the hill and roll like a bowling ball down the line. Head up, hands forward, struggling to hold that imaginary perfect form in this impossible course. Mistakes are inevitable. Late coming in but you make it up on the under bouncing through a rut almost losing the razor pulling it back just in time to fly over the knoll into the pitch with that hard right footer from inspection but its gone in a flash not as hard as you thought too fast for reflection because the finish is there tucking and willing yourself slipping through the wind over the snow stretching every ligament to break that invisible line and it is over.

The adrenaline fades with your speed and you phase back to reality sliding to a stop. But you never want it to stop. Then come many questions, asked both by you and others, about your time, your technique, how you felt, how they think you looked. But there is a question that runs under all of them and sits in your soul in the car, on the plane, under the hot summer sun of the off-season:

Can I do it again?

#fiction #poetry #skiing

This piece grew from me trying to capture the feeling of downhill ski racing. I was not good enough to come anywhere close to the Olympics, but I was good enough to ski on the same snow as Mikaela Shiffrin at the Vermont State Junior Championships many years ago. And yes, I do still wear the sweatshirt.

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#fiction #poetry #essay #update

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What would it take for you to believe in a miracle? Would writing in the clouds make you believe? Or have you been fooled one too many times by bad faith evangelists? Do you need a subtle miracle, like a note passed under the table? Or, happily taking the note, would you dismiss it because of its subtlety? I have been asking myself these questions for the past two years.

When that bus sighed to a stop ahead of me, Jesus stepped out. Do not ask me how I knew, but he is the kind of man that does not have to introduce himself. His face was not handsome and he was wearing blue jeans.

When I got close enough my legs started to buckle and my insides went to water, but some outside force walked me to him. I had a flash of those feet like bronze and hair aflame, but then he hugged me and took me on the bus. His hands felt like space heaters on my back, and they burned up the tightness that had been there for ten years. He waved away my attempt at thanks and herded me on.

The bus smelled like ancient wood and the prophet Jeremiah, and suddenly it was not a bus at all, because buses do not fly. We shot up over the earth until it winked into a blue dot in the sun and then the sun was a dot and we were over the Milky Way and Andromeda and time stretching across eternity.

When I was in college I scribbled together a list of questions that I would ask God when I got to heaven. I thought about them a long time and thought the answers would give me a pretty good idea of the meaning of human life and what it means to be great. But those questions seemed like silly, dirty things in the light of Jesus's eyes burning with the fire of every star in super nova. I wondered how I was not dead.

“It's not heaven,” he said.

“Oh,” I mouthed.

“It's just one of my favorite spots.”

Jesus looked at the universe like he was supremely content with his reflection. I gazed in the same direction and we sat there for seconds and millennia. The universe was beautiful and it was good, and the stars burned into my mind. There was no mortal fog to cloud my sight, and I saw smaller than quantum and larger than galactic at the same time, but there was no time. It was a beautiful pattern of force, disembodied from time like an out of place memory. In spite of it all I wanted to know why.

Jesus chuckled the way I used to laugh at my baby when she ran around the house naked. “That is a silly question,” he said, and pointed at the Milky Way and then we were there, over the earth. We were on the dark side, but there were no city lights. The sun was red and a dragon-snake was wrapped around the earth, jaw breaking open, trying to swallow it like an egg.

If I could explain the look on Jesus's face I would, but whatever it was it flattened me with sorrow and wrath. His appearance was like lightning and his clothes were white as snow.

Then I saw shapes moving over the surface of the earth like little beetles, and the snake lifted its head and saw Jesus. I thought it might try to flee, but its tongue flicked in and out and the beetles gathered to it. The light around Jesus also burned brighter as the host joined him and their white, clear light illuminated the dull red solar system and flashed the snake. His body was covered in eyes and congealed masses of growing heads and body parts that, were I not next to Jesus, could have swallowed my soul.

The two hosts faced each other, then charged. The beetles lurched through space ahead of the unfurling snake and the angels met them. I could only tell the beetles by what they obscured, like gnats in front of a lamp as the angel-swords flashed against the swarming and Jesus and the snake flying to the fray and the Morning Star blazing, flinging the snake's burning husk into the sun. Then Jesus smiled at me and the earth and sent me back.

Now as I stare at these words on the paper I know that no one will believe me. To you, I am smaller than one of these motes glowing in the ray that is sparkling my glass on the table. But if you had experienced this miracle as I have, and it had the solid quality of an undeniable memory that cannot be dismissed as dream (my back and neck still have no pain) – would you believe?

#fiction #experimental #Jesus

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“And a leper came” it's my own fault for being contagious. Skin melts off and corrupts. Can't go near a soul even my own. Don't touch me give me food maybe some figs. Living on the outside as a curse. Afraid of me because I am visible. Blame me for your problems push me out. Sin smells like me so you keep me far from you so as not to remind you of your faults. I'm too painful for you but I can't feel a thing nerves all dead except for shame.

Shame, shame, shame on the human race. I'm just the manifestation of our curse. Why do I have to bear it while you get to deny it and dull the sense of it with take care of the kids and plant the seeds mend shoes make enough coins maybe to spend it with friends drinking wine take it easy on Saturday? Sure you feel it sometimes crops won't grow died in childbirth stubbed a toe lost in the war but I bear it in my skin and everyone hates me you don't have to do that. I blame myself everyone else does starting to think hope is a myth.

Better go to the temple need to eat to survive but I don't really want to. Not coward enough to kill myself how would I do it anyway can't hold a thing with a claw hand. I'll just exist like a lump of curse maybe I'll inspire you to fear God maybe that's my purpose to be a warning. Better obey Him or you'll become feet swelling pain at first but goes away nose shaved off maybe lose a hand or a foot concentrate to breathe. Leper. Better not sin or “to Jesus,”

Jesus who's that keep hearing that name. Demon prophet god healer heretic. You should see him what's the point probably just another lunatic from Nazareth that tiny town. Might be interesting though to see him hear what he has to say. Healer could he heal me? No stop best not get my hopes up. Talking about the kingdom of heaven can't make sense of it but it burns me haven't felt like this in a long time. Repent kingdom of heaven is near he says. Near? Where? I can't see it but I can feel it breaking through the clouds pushing out of my heart like a needle. This world is all wrong topsy turvy but heaven sets it right. Is he crazy but he answers all of them all the doubts and burns them up. Brood of vipers woe to them he's right about that never did anything for me. I watch them all the time and I see what no one else sees because they don't notice me. Don't notice while they take the coins from the people doing the work that keeps the sun turning while they sit there telling them what to do praying on the corners right in front of me without seeing me thanking God they're not like me brood of vipers get what's coming to them.

Blessed are the poor not sure I understand that but I want to says the kingdom could be mine. Repent kingdom is near want to believe. Leave it all behind be healed and not have to slough skin crawling through the streets for a handful of figs Jesus Jesus of Nazareth can he hear me? I've never believed in anyone can't remember the last time I had hope “beseeching” but if there's an un-corrupted soul pure mighty righteous morning star shining in this tainted broken infected stinking bloody angry darkened world yours is the one shining like fired bronze a brand in the night star in the sky light in my life. If you can't heal me no one else will but I don't know why you would want to no one else does but you can do it if you're willing, loving, compassionate, caring enough powerful enough true son of God savior messiah walking on the earth willing to heal a wretched shriveled up burning angry mess of flesh bag of meat sordid pile of stinking human corpse remains barely breathing enough to keep sinning Jesus Jesus Jesus why please if you want to willing to heal make me better not what I am show me the way light at the tunnel inhale illuminate the perspective change the game the night to day stone to flesh please willing are you are you willing I'll do anything just to I'm breaking down “falling on his knees” can't live without you in my life please say yes if you're willing are you? Are you willing?

Can't really see what's on His face did He hear? Wait He's what He- Stop! Don't touch me! You'll be tainted sickened infected why can't I move or say a thing He's just reaching “moved with compassion” no! Hand on my shoulder feels like home warm my mother's womb father's proud of me. I shouldn't let Him do it but I can't move He heard me and everyone is watching what's He going to do or say?

“I am willing; be cleansed.”

Healed! Healed healed healed healed what's that He's saying? Healed! Can't really heal Him over the din of limbs and face made whole I'm better- says not to tell anyone- healed! Right I'll remember “to the priest” healed! I'm going to tell the whole town whole world that I'm healed there's a man named Jesus of Nazareth and He healed me I'm not sick never going to be a leper again! Supposed to testimony but I'm healed! Look He's over there with disciples yeah remember me my face looks different now because it's healed. Yes! He's over there His name is Jesus of Nazareth see Him over there oh well just ask and you'll find Him hard to miss maybe at the temple supposed to Moses but look I'm healed walking like its nothing see? Got my arm back! Proclaim in the market in the synagogue supposed to in the streets- healed! Go find him Jesus of Nazareth you know? He healed me! Yes that's Him can't miss Him He touched me and healed me and I'm not a leper. Healed! Healedhealealedheallledealedeallleeed...

Now the whole town knows “to such an extent that Jesus could no longer publicly enter a city, but stayed out in unpopulated areas; and they were coming to Him from everywhere.”

#fiction #experimental #Jesus

First, thank you for reading! To echo a sentiment from Thomas Hardy, I greatly regret that I will never be able to meet many of you in person and shake your hands, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands. It is a poor substitute, but it will have to do in this strange world. If you subscribe I promise I will not gum up your inbox.

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I wish that I could make something better to express the stress I feel inside because my heart is a cannonball and my soul is an ocean. I sink deeper, down through the abyss and my eyes burst from the pressure and the sun is drowned and I am blind.

I wish I could make something better.

I don't want pity I don't want you to see who I truly am. A cliche but its true. If you see what can you do? If you see how can you help? Just be.

There in the abyss I walk the bottom of the trench and search for a light that I can see without the gift of sight. It's not a gift it's a curse, because when you can see you can know and when you know the magic is gone, the fire is burned out, the metaphors all break.

I am not a creator I am a charlatan a wizard a conjurer an illusionist. I weave these words and hypnotize you to pay for something I could give should give for free but I have no other skills I like and I wish I could make something better.

But I never will because what is better? Views clicks likes revenue? These are words not numbers. Words with weight, words with melody, words with imagery. Words that I can string together to make impressive sentences that will make you think that I am something but all I am really saying is that it is far too easy to say nothing and far too hard to say something better but the better you get the worse you feel and the worse you feel—

Better is not a measure easily measured.

Pressure flattens me to the floor of the abyss and I cease to struggle and let the darkness in. After over under within without the blackness seeps but it is not darkness it is water and the only thing missing is light. Not just any light because I know the ones swimming around my heart are bait and I've been bitten before. But I bite anyway and my heart is consumed piece by piece. I need a new one.

I walk heartless across the bottom of the ocean floor looking. Look to others, look to plans, to rules, religions and comforts – but none of them have my heart. They offer substitutes but all they do is pump once and die. I need a new heart that won't die.

I wish I could write something better. Something with a plot, because things without plots don't sell. Plotting, scheming about how to trick you into thinking it is better and I am better because it is better but we are all broken.

But keep walking.

Past the plots and substitutes.

Through the black water.

To the end.

Of your line.

I walk into the cliff wall of the trench and stare up without sight. The wall is as high as my ocean is deep and the light is at the top. A hand reaches down.

I wish I could write something—

The hand is trailing blood and I am pulled from the trench and I am given a new heart and new eyes that cannot be crushed and cannot be consumed and I am—

—better.

#fiction #poetry

Listen to this poem set to music: Soundcloud

About Me

First, thank you for reading! To echo a sentiment from Thomas Hardy, I greatly regret that I will never be able to meet many of you in person and shake your hands, but perhaps we can virtually shake hands. It is a poor substitute, but it will have to do in this strange world. If you subscribe I promise I will not gum up your inbox.

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