Isabelle woke up light-headed. The ceiling wavered as she tried to determine what the splotch on it was. All Isabelle knew was that the splotch resembled a gray eye peering down at her in her white cotton nightgown. The art student rolled over and gently tapped her radio
alarm clock until it ceased playing. Isabelle never laughed when characters axed their alarm clocks in classic cartoons. She liked the sound of Claude Debussy in the morning.

The girl pulled her gown off and wandered to the sink. She gazed at the lavender bags above her cheeks, wishing they formed thanks to a long night of studying art history textbooks. She sighed, seized the strand of dental floss hanging from the edge of the sink, and dropped the string into the trashcan. Her boyfriend never remembered to clean up after himself. After letting the faucet run for a couple of seconds, Isabelle splashed some water into her mouth. She swished it around and then spat it out, ignoring the blood that swirled down the drain.

A moment later, Isabelle stood before her closet. She fingered an old, lace blouse and wondered when its threads would finally break. It should have become a moth's tender feast by now. Once she slipped on the blouse, Isabelle grabbed a pair of faded jeans and danced into her sandals. Then she slid her sketchbook into the purse hanging on the front doorknob and left. She did not lock the door behind her.

The elevator usually took several minutes to reach the thirteenth floor where Isabelle lived. She smiled when she thought of how some places did not label their thirteenth floors, instead calling them 'the fourteenth.'

"How primitive," Isabelle whispered to herself and let out a small breath of air she wasn't aware she had been holding.

The elevator chimed and Isabelle stepped inside. Out of habit, she immediately pressed the button, even though no one approached the doors. Isabelle scrunched up her nose and wiped her fingers on her pants. Someone had smeared a sticky substance across the button.

Read the rest of the story here:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1641673/happy_easter_isabelle.html?cat=44

[A short story.]

The electric doors squeaked open as slowly as the disoriented drivers moved their cars in the parking lot. A draft whistled through the lobby, but, when the doors parted, winter winds overwhelmed the weak indoor breeze. It was cold outside, with bites of sleet sailing through the air. Not a single green plant prevailed. Tan and faded chocolate dappled the dreary landscape. Even the more modern townhouses and offices in the neighborhood seemed to sag. Nothing escaped the wintry bleakness. Yet Bertha had another reason for seeking shelter in the library.

As the large woman rolled her suitcase into the building, more than one person pretended not to stare at her. Bertha said nothing and only ran a fleshy hand through her off-white hair as she looked around the lobby. No matter what, Bertha’s chipped nails were all different lengths. They often snagged the coarse mane that coiled into woolly bunches and framed the strangely small face. Piggishly upturned, the nose almost touched the perpetually pursed lips. The dark eyes nearly bumped into each other. Everything appeared too close, crowded. Only the cheeks were ample. They hung loosely in flabs that formed the doughy body. The complexion was as hazy as the fog hovering outside.

Those details, however, only revealed themselves to keen spectators. To everyone else, Bertha mostly seemed big. Her clothes were too bulky for casual observers to make out the Rubenesque curves of her figure. Her trademark rose-colored ski jacket puffed out to disguise her true weight; her navy blue sweatpants billowed with her every step. The woman’s clunky shoes, those scuffed-up messes of cheap leather from Salvation Army, made even her naturally tiny feet seem gargantuan.

The woman sat down on the nearest couch and began chewing something just barely hanging out of her lips very loudly. That something was invisible to everyone else, but she gnawed at it with a rodent’s fervency. Bertha reached for a book, noisily flipped the pages, and snorted as she read, with the rhythm of a repulsive machine. Flip. Snort. Snort. Sniff. Flip. Sniff. The mechanical rat stank so pungently of alcohol and marijuana that parents pushed their small children behind them as they passed the massive woman in her massive jacket. But the stiffness of the parents’ legs could not protect their little boys and girls from Bertha. Odor transcends all.

“Mommy, Mommy—”

“What?”

“That lady smells.”

“Shh!”

“Could we go check out a puzzle book, Mommy?”

“Yes!”

“That lady still smells.”

“The puzzle books are on the second floor, remember? Let’s go find the moose one.”

Eventually, Bertha had perused the short stories of William Faulkner and witnessed the repines of Soccer Moms long enough. She grew restless in the lobby. The woman set down the book, stood up, breathed in deeply, and stretched out her short arms. Her jacket made crinkling sounds as she moved. The possibility that someone might be studying near her never occurred to Bertha. Survival demanded that she placed herself first always. She left her suitcase leaning against the sofa, convinced no one would want the battered luggage. It smelled just like her.

Bertha lumbered over to the restroom. It was a typical migration of hers. The floor trembled beneath Bertha’s clapping shoes before she finally pushed the door open, undeterred by the fact that wet toilet paper covered the tiles. She trudged through the slush and locked herself up in one of her favorite hiding places.

Normally, Bertha took twice as long to use the restroom as anyone else. Oftentimes she carried in a magazine to keep her company. When didn’t, she perused the graffiti on the walls like a connoisseur of vandalism. Bertha particularly liked a series of unsigned dinosaur drawings. They all seemed so happy as they roamed around penciled-in ferns or dunked their heads into swirly, graphite ponds. Bertha tried not to think about their extinction but her mind always inevitably wandered back to the sad reality. She loved the memory of something that no longer existed. More than anything, this nostalgia chained her to the bathroom for far too long. Sometimes it was too loud to think in the rest of the library, what with people chattering on their cell phones or groaning at their laptops—doing anything to avoid the books.

On one particularly rare occasion, Bertha did not emerge from the restroom for almost an hour. She locked herself in the largest pistachio green stall and stared at a stream of raptors. They chased something that resembled a prehistoric teddy bear. Then Bertha lit up. The raptors began to run around. A few even hopped over to the next stall and splashed around the toilet water. The prehistoric teddy bear scurried behind a fern. Bertha let out a raspy laugh.

“You little guys are trying to find the books, huh? Eat some of their pages out? Make a meal out of words?”

Bertha took another hit, still fixated upon the raptors. They were her cinema.

Just outside of the restroom door, a librarian quibbled with a volunteer about the Dewey Decimal system.

“I hope you know those belong in the 800s,” the librarian scoffed. The volunteer, a scrawny, freckled thing, balanced far too many books in her arms.

“They don’t have labels, Ma’am.”

“Of course not. They’re new.”

“Ma’am, are you sure these don’t belong in the 750s?”

“Don’t be a fool.”

The librarian left the volunteer standing there and walked into the restroom. She inspected the tightness of her hair bun in the mirror. Never, ever did she allow a single strand to wiggle out from the clutches of her golden bobby pins. Satisfied with her reflection, the librarian paused when the scent of marijuana hit her. She tensed up when she suddenly recognized it. Then she spotted a huge mound of marijuana butts on the floor of Bertha’s stall and ran over to the front desk, her pencil skirt nearly ripping in the process.

“There’s a pile of…Cannabis sativa…in the ladies’ room,” the librarian whispered to the butch security guard. “Right on the floor. I heard a woman giggle so she must still be in there.”
“How high was the mound?” the security guard asked, dramatically raising her brow to demonstrate her incredulity. She removed her outstretched legs from the cluttered desk before her as the librarian anxiously twisted her necklace.

“Easily a foot high.”

“What? How’s that possible? Is this some kind of magic realism crap?”

The librarian looked slightly startled by the guard’s literary reference. “Well,” she said rather slowly, “no, I don’t think so. I mean, I saw it. Really, I’m not the one who’s high here.”

The guard cupped her face in her hands. “You know, they told me working here would be easy.” The words came out in one exasperated breath.

“I’m sorry. Could you just—”

“Of course.” The security guard threw down her magazine, slid her thumbs through her belt loops, and hiked up her baggy pants. “It’s my job.”

The guard marched straight to the restroom and sighed before swinging open the door. The room reeked of pot. The first thing the guard spotted was a little girl standing on her tiptoes, washing her dimpled hands at the white sink.

“Hi,” the girl mouthed with a child’s shy innocence.

“Hi,” the guard gruffly replied. She took a few steps forward and bent down to examine the floor of each stall.

But all of the stalls were empty. Bertha had gone and left only gritty bits of her pastime behind. Somehow, she always managed to disappear at the most convenient moments even when she wasn’t aware that trouble lurked nearby. In that respect, at least, Bertha was lucky.

Read the rest of the story at:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1548847/berthas_books.html?cat=44

I wish I could unite everyone I love, from every time and place in my life, all at once. From those very earliest childhood friends to family I have not seen for years to those I always think I had forgotten until a memory of them swims into my mind---I want to gather them all at some grand party. I will set out a feast of all their collective favorite foods and play the happiest, most beautiful music. The kind that gaily fades into the next song so there are never any abrupt stops. And for days, we will do nothing but make merry. We will all wear the most absurd costumes we can possibly throw together and then dance, even the shyest, most self-conscious of us. We will thrash around and sing what in any other house or yard would offend the neighbors.

Then, what will seem like only an instant later, we will all fall down simultaneously, but we won't hit the floor. The strength of all of us holding hands and the invisible waves bouncing between our hearts will hold us up. So, we will hover. We will float like fairy babies above the wood boards and just gaze at each other stupidly. But it won't be the kind of stupidity we will later regret. It will be the kind of stupidity we will dream about later, the kind we only regret not being able to re-create.

In those few seconds that we float, I will whisper, "Thank you." I will not have to explain. Even in their momentary stupidity, they will understand. They will know that I am thanking them all for making me who I am. But lest I keep them from all their other beloved ones too long, they will disappear very shortly after. And, once again, they will reside in the depths of my wistfulness.

You prance in the gray depths of my mind, behind Latin names I cannot pronounce,

like the prettiest pony on the carousel, with its fading paint and hollow circus notes.

The fairies of my past stitched shreds of my nostalgia to create your shining saddle,

which explains why I am so afraid to jump up and mount your sharply arched back:

fourteen thousand times have I bore testament to the strength of false memories.

A book is an assemblage of thought---original or otherwise---either in the form of words and/or images that occurs in some logicial, sequential (but not necessarily chronological) order that a single person can read or view by him/herself. These thoughts can be fictional or non-fictional but should contain a subject or overarching theme that unifies its contents. The ability to 'turn a page,' whether literally or figuratively, should also exist.

Many mysteries plague life. If you are a particularly introspective person, you probably sit down for at least thirty seconds everyday pondering these mysteries. Why is it that someone other than you always eats the last slice of cake at the dinner table, no matter how badly you want it? Where is it that the person in front of you always brings eleven items to the Express 10 check-out line in the supermarket? One question that may also baffle you is how Christine Stoddard makes her collages.

Let me back up about half a step. Okay, good, I didn't step into a pothole. Anyway, my collages---from the ridiculously over-used "Las Vegas" to the annoyingly bright "Little Miss Sunshine's Day Dream"---are relatively well-known in the 'zine and online communities. (If you don't know what a 'zine is, go look it up; if you don't know what online means, I'm not sure how you function in America.) Now, let me give you an offensively brief history of collage, not my collages but collages in general:

Collage, traditionally, was an art form where someone took a bunch of paper bits (and possibly other objects, like photographs or feathers or buttons or tinfoil), arranged them into something remotely representational, and glued them to another piece of paper. But trust me, it looked much cooler than the tax forms you tore up in frustration and glued to a flattened muffin pan, unless you took the time to make shapes out of all of those letters and numbers. People first started making collages in Ancient China, with the invention paper but since we don't even give them credit for inventing the printing press most of the time, I'm moving on.

During the nineteenth century, collage became a rather popular art form; thanks to the invention of photography, photomontage (gluing stuff to photos to make a new image/cutting out sections of photos and incorporating them into another 2-D piece of art) took off. The artist that really inspired me, however, was Romare Bearden; his collages boomed in the 1960s during the Civil Rights Movement (I also admire how he was a writer and interdisciplinary artist like me! See? It is possible!)

Read the rest at:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1446811/the_mystery_of_my_collages.html?cat=2

I wish that all food I dislike tasted like lasagna instead.

I wish the economy would realize how much it's depressing everybody and enter a monstrous, fifteen year-old boy type growth spurt again.

I wish that dragon necklaces weren't so expensive.

I wish no mass lasted more than twenty minutes.

I wish that celebrity athletes' salaries would shrink by a few million dollars.

I wish that the beach were even closer to where I live but not so close that it'd be like attending the University of Hawaii, or rather, only technically attending because their students apparently never go to class.

I wish that snow weren't cold. I wish every library in the world were twice its size.

I wish that all shopping malls were half their size. I wish no bus ride lasted more than five seconds.

I wish any guy who wears really saggy pants would learn what a belt was. I wish every comic were actually funny.

I wish people would stop comparing Brad Pitt to Adonis.

I wish all cookies were warm and slightly moist. I wish I could visit the sun without burning up and dying like a moth that hits a porch light.

I wish that all of my paperwork were reduced to half...no, make that nothing.

I wish more people read something besides celebrity magazines and Facebook messages.

I wish that I would stop complaining and that this damn list would just end.

Perhaps one day before graduating from college or shortly after, I will tour around in a book mobile for a week or two. Not long enough for it to become a bibliophile caravanning lifestyle but long enough to catch a glimpse into the experience and possibly help a few people along the way.

I would enjoy bumping around that bus, surrounded by the sight and smell of books, magazines, journals, and newspapers. I could read for hours and hours; every now and then I'll stare out the window to admire the outside world. Everyday, I would observe something new, which couldn't delight such a curious girl more.

Maybe I would volunteer for the bus mobile circulating around Richmond or perhaps I'll search for one elsewhere and live a grander adventure. It would give me an excuse to visit a new city, like Austin, or one I haven't seen in years, like Portland or San Francisco. As much as I have traveled—cross-country twice and four foreign countries--I never feel as if I've traveled enough. There are so many places still strange to my eyes, places I know only through books.

The vicarious journeys I have lived through books make me want to share the same opportunity with others. I want other people to grow just as grateful and respectful for the written word and beautiful illustrations as I have become. From inner-city slums and poor rural areas where so many are too poor to afford books to elite suburbs where so many are too busy and important to read the books they own, anyone who does not know the joy of reading must acquaint themselves with its pleasures.

Deep down, I have this desire to be the Tooth Fairy of books. I've always wanted to be a fairy. And what magic is greater than the ability to bestow knowledge and higher thought?

Morning time means awakening, but I rarely experience a rebirth with each new day. The sunlight slipping through my blinds may stir me momentarily but the instant is just that: a second in time that I will likely never suspend in my mind for further examination. More likely, I resort to the standards of turning on the news, shoveling down a carbohydrate rich breakfast, brushing my teeth, taking a shower if yesterday evening's failed to cleanse me of all demons and bacteria, possibly brushing my hair, getting dressed, smearing on make-up, checking my email, and pulling out a book or magazine. My body knows routine, as much as my heart despises it.

Like a turtle, I prefer slow paces. I roll out of bed; I do not jump. I hate to hurry because I did not carve out enough seconds or minutes or hours for this or that. I try not to rush, perhaps as a way to combat my anxious nature and the tension of an upper-middle class girl trying to lead a passionate existence. For at least the length of several blinks after my alarm rings, I stare at the ceiling because it is vast and vague. I like to make myself believe that by staring at the ceiling, I'm becoming more in tune with myself, with my thoughts. Vanity demands this.

Sometimes I do discover something through this flash of introspection but, more likely than not, I'm complaining. I curse the alarm clock, the obligations I'm too cowardly to escape, the obligations I build around myself, the weird mustiness overwhelming my room, the fact that my body aches from walking too much the previous day. Instead of breathing deeply and rummaging through my brain, I whine about what I promise to change but never do. For someone who says she can't stand routine, I'm rather hypocritical:

"Condemn the bourgeoisie for their "hare" mentality! They race from numbing schools to soulless work to popping out their mundane nuclear families because they do not see any alternatives. Lecture them for holding their nine-to-five jobs and marrying people they do not love for the sake of convention. Lecture them for all they do only for the sake of conforming! Such mindless routine!"

Read the rest at:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1456327/adventures_of_a_turtle.html?cat=43

No combination is more sacred than that succulent blend of chocolate and peanut butter. It does not matter whether it is fudge or ice cream or candy or cookies. Bow before it, pray to it. Rich, creamy chocolate peanut butter

anything is the god of all comestibles. Forget ultra-cheesy lasagna or Mom's homemade chicken soup for they are merely delicious. Only chocolate peanut butter has the power to heal and redeem in the most righteous of ways.

One nibble and you're not IN heaven; rather, heaven becomes a part of you. You ARE heaven because something so perfectly morally erect has entered your body. Forget serving wine and wafers at Communion. Take only chocolate peanut butter. You'll confess your sins almost as fast as you gobble that Reese's cup. In other words, at lightning speed.

If you don't believe me, take a bite and feel yourself transcend all temptations. Lust? Greed? Sloth? Wrath? Envy? Pride? You shall not even succumb to gluttony for chocolate peanut butter is so undeniably satisfying.

Chocolate peanut butter rewards the faithful for it is good and pure.