AManicPandaBear

Too much coffee and not enough sleep at the all night diner sometime past 3AM. Sitting, drinking really bad diner coffee followed by ice tea and reading a newspaper. The ones printed on newsprint with ink. The waitress, Bethany, according to the name tag, is her usually shiny happy self, busy hustling the few diners at this hour. Other people like me, lost too early in the morning during the middle of the week. This is just another typical early morning night for me. This night I see the penguin first, runaway from his zoo to explore the meaning of humanity again. He reads a newspaper too, but it’s off of his smart phone. A cup of coff

A story of a China that never was and a cheap, cardboard cigar with a sweet, pungent aroma. Coffee, black from this diner and a book of matches from a different one. The water condenses, the diner is humid as I read a book and smoke this cigar. A man, as he leaves, asks if I really enjoy cigars. I say yes. "I don't know you but take mine, it's a good Mexican cigar." Half smoked, he hands it to me. His friend nods in approval as they leave. I end my cheap one in the ashtray and clean out the new one, slightly used, with my car key. I wipe the ash on my new trousers. It takes two matches to light. The aroma is faint but the smoke is smooth. I

Wait. I believe that I have been in the room for a long while.  I will be waiting for some time longer I suppose, but I don’t quite remember why or how long I have been here.  Aside from the receptionist, who’s attention is is elsewhere, no one has been in this room.  I have been sitting, waiting, alone. Occasionally the receptionist does step outside for a cigarette as I just sit and wait and continue to wait even more.  Time goes by slowly.  Nothing more seems to happen.  I look up and see a large aquarium swirling, empty of all life.  Once in a while the receptionist calls a break over the intercom system and I can hear people

"Two Roads," is a longer version of a short short story I posted earlier on this blog. If nothing else it serves as a synopsis of a short story or even a novella I've been wanting to work on for years that I called, "It's always 11:59 in the Purgatory Cafe." A man stands at a crossroads, alone with his thoughts. His shoes kick at the dust when he hears the rumbling bus. Its headlights illuminate the roads and him standing, waiting. The bus stops, the door opens, and the bus driver looks onward at the lonely way ahead. The man steps inside to the witness of empty seats. He takes a look as the bus sits, stopped at these roads. He then walks to

These are my initial writings regarding me and my roommate, Chuck. He's a rather large cockroach. We've come to an agreement that I won't launch my shoes, chairs, kitchen knives, chopsticks, bars of soap, and apples at him. In return he won't send his millions of cousins to kill me. This is a good agreement. From time to time I'll be collecting my thoughts on living with this roommate of mine. --- Well, it looks like I have a new roommate. He says his name is Charlie and is as far as I can tell, a near three inch long cockroach. This will be a good night, I’m sure. No it won’t. Charlie and I have declared war. Neither Chuck no

To be patient means to bear pains or trials calmly or without complaint. Where am I? I'm in my car, waiting with the still traffic with no particular place to go it seems.  The radio playing some obscure pop song and just when I begin to remember that band, I lose interest and begin to think to myself.  Thinking can take on a life of its own, as I begin to have quiet, then a more vocal conversation with myself. Talking aloud, and alone about this idea on patience. With the traffic at a standstill, other people being impatient as the warm and humid air from the afternoon showers creates an uneasiness and agitation from all around me.  The ca

Smith leans against a wall, waiting just within a shadow in an alley. The letter told him to wait here. He is waiting and looks back at the opposite wall where a chalk written symbol he put there does nothing. He pulls out his watch from inside his pocket. "I'm probably early. Maybe it needs readjusting, again." Those thoughts bring with it changes from the symbol. For a moment it shimmers and then swirls into a different symbol. Smith pushes away from the wall he was leaning against and smiles with a snort, "Time to take it back to its maker, again." The symbol changes again, into the form of a man who steps away from the wall towards Smi

I have forgotten to listen to the poem, as thoughts of a story fill my mind. I am stuck on the idea of not moving forward but of moving away, of leaving loved ones behind. The poem is lost to me as I think of my parents, newly wed, and living in Saigon. Soon my father goes away to fight the war in humid jungles and broken cities. Disappearing with no contact with his new wife and now adopted son. Already widowed because of the war, my mother is left to worry about her husband, taking care of her son, keeping a brave face with other military wives. The longer the months move away, the more she worries of being a widow again. Then the war has

 Towards the end of her shift, this waitress, let's call her Jules, finishes by cleaning the restrooms. She takes het time with the women's and after it's clear goes to the men's, locks the door and cleans it completely. She discovered while trying to fix the handle of a stubborn toilet, that if you jiggle it the right way it goes to another world, a place of knights and wizards, dragons and princesses. It is a world where she is a hero, not a waitress working for $2.13 an hour and tips, in a joint that is empty most of the night. She can spend weeks, months, even years in this fantasy world and when she returns, she may be gone ten, tw

I sit in a cafe, eat ice cream, getting the occasional strange look from patrons. I'm not part of this world, I'm not supposed to even know it exists. If I hadn't seen Zoe walk into my shop several weeks past, I wouldn't be here worriedly eating ice cream. She walked into my bookstore, a place of oddities, antiquities, and as I would discover, more unusual things to read. Zoe walked into my store and soon after, she left with a part of me. For most of the next few days she would return, pouring through books, most dealing with the occult. My bookstore becoming a library for her as she would stay longer and longer with each visit. She was p