Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Entry #48

“In a Yellow Wood”
by Chris C.


The electrical post was the last thing Charlie Danvers saw in his lifetime, which is not to say that he died immediately after seeing it. In fact, he led a fruitful existence well after that post on Route 80 faded from sight, and it wasn't long before the electrical post, the color of the sky and the number of sparrows perched on the cables faded from memory.

The question posed was this: sight or sound?

Despite the grievous situation leading to it, the question itself was, in essence, a philosophical one, so Charlie showed it the respect of approaching it philosophically.

He stopped after several hours, when his head started to hurt.

"You can read words but not hear pictures," said Marietta, which sounded sensible, but Charlie remembered her gushing over the Da Vinci Code, and could place no faith in her judgment after that.

"Dude, think of the porn you'd be giving up," said Ethan, and that seemed to clinch the matter, but, well, dude. Charlie had an ongoing war with the mangling of the English language with unnecessary verbal punctuations.

In the end, he flipped a coin.

But when people asked him afterwards how he had managed that awful choice, he told them that sight defined the concrete while sound expressed the spiritual, sight was the plebian choice and sound the profound, and he believed it himself, because Charlie was a sensible guy, who showed his answer the respect of respecting it.

And he lived happily ever after.

7 comments:

writingblind said...

I love, love, love this story.

Jade L Blackwater said...

I read this one a few times... I really enjoyed the discussions of sight versus sound.

I do think, however, that you might be able to let go of "happily ever after," since you introduce Charlie as having lived a fruitful existence.

Bhaswati said...

The storytelling has an old-world charm to it. Nicely done.

Joni said...

Perfect title. I really liked it.

cesarcarlos said...

A hard choice indeed. Nicely told.

Lisa Jordan said...

Not a choice I'd want to have to make, that's for sure. Interesting character. Neat story.

Anonymous said...

Chris, the philosophical angle of this is great! The nature of sight and sound...loved it. High marks in pacing.