Chad Flaska > Recent Status Updates

“His mind was like the sea itself: troubled, and too deep for the bravest man’s descent, throwing up now and again, for the naked eye to wonder at, treasure and debris long forgotten at the bottom—bones and jewels, fantastic shells, jelly that had once been flesh, pearls that had once been eyes. And with the mercy of this sea, hanging there with darkness all around him.”

“But it had been from the first her great mistake—to meet him, to marry him, to love him as she so bitterly had. Looking at his face, it sometimes came to her that all women had been cursed from the cradle; all, in one fashion or another, being given the same cruel destiny, born to suffer the weight of men.”

“It was when John was five years old and in the first grade that he was first noticed; and since he was noticed by an eye altogether alien and impersonal, he began to perceive, in wild uneasiness, his individual existence.”

“If people knew the story of their lives how many would then elect to live them? People speak about what is in store. But there is nothing in store. The day is made of what has come before. The world itself must be surprised at the shape of that which appears. Perhaps even God.”

“He said that while one would like to say that God will punish those who do such things, it was his experience that God could not be spoken for and that men with wicked histories often enjoyed lives of comfort and that they died in peace and were buried with honor. He said that it was a mistake to expect too much of justice in this world.”

“He’d no boots for they’d long been stolen and those first days he walked barefoot and his heart was filled with despair. More than filled. Despair was in him like a lodger. Like a parasite that had turned out his very being from its abode and taken up the shape of that space within him where it once had been.”

She don’t know no English, does she?

Hell no. How would she speak english?

Don’t be cussin in front of her.

What?

I said don’t be cussin in front of her.

You just now got done sayin she don’t speak no English.

That don’t make it not cussin.

“You do not know what things you set in motion. No man can know. No prophet foresee. The consequences of an act are often quite different from what one would guess. You must be sure the intention in your heart is large enough to contain all wrong turnings, all disappointments. Do you see? Not everything has such value.”

“Things separate from their stories have no meaning. They are only shapes. Of a certain size and color. A certain weight. When their meaning has become lost to us they no longer even have a name. The story on the other hand can never be lost from its place in the world for it is that place. And like all tales it ultimately told one story only, for there is only one to tell.”

“They smoked the way poor people eat which is a form of prayer.”

“He looked into the eyes of the boy. The boy into his. Eyes so dark they seemed all pupil. Eyes in which the sun was setting. In which the child stood beside the sun. He had not known that you could see yourself in others’ eyes nor see therein such things as suns.”

“He thinks writing is also a kind of war, one you fight with yourself. The story is what you carry and every time you add to it, it gets heavier.

All over the world there are half-finished books—memoirs, poetry, novels—in desk drawers, because the work got too heavy for the people trying to carry it and they put it down.

Some other time, they think. Maybe when the kids are a little older. Or when I retire.