daily prompt | The Gad About Town

Breaking Things … Bad

Posted on March 28, 2015 by Mark Aldrich

One of my superpowers is breaking things. (I have others; they just have not yet been revealed to me.) I am not a physically strong individual. I just use what strength I possess ineptly.

Now, I know that anyone can break anything with enough gumption and/or strength. Give a man a big enough lever, and he can move the world, said Archimedes. Teach a man to swim and he can fish for a bicycle, said no one.

At best, my superpower is an inadvertent superpower; at worst, it is doom for the planet.
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Two Awards, Plus a Film Plug

Posted on March 24, 2015 by Mark Aldrich

About two years ago, before this blog was launched, an online publication presented without any introduction a short film that I could not stop watching. It was an insomniac night and I no longer remember the name of the publication that made the insomnia worthwhile. (Buzzfeed, perhaps?) I think the only thing the publication said about it was that it was “narrated by Siri,” the iPhone voice, and that it was weird.
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The Story so Far …

Posted on March 23, 2015 by Mark Aldrich

I never looked for his book online or in a bookstore. He showed it to me, or he showed me a galley proof of it. And now I do not remember his name or much about the book.

We were on a plane, and 98% of my personal air travel history dates from the years 2000 to 2004, when I moved from upstate New York to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, and twice a year I returned home for holiday visits. The typical route was Eastern Iowa Airport to Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to Stewart International Airport or Logan in Boston, because there are no direct flights between Iowa and anyplace else I have ever lived.

Sometimes I am a tense passenger, one of those who grips the armrest so tightly that I may as well pocket it and carry it home, and sometimes I am relaxed and almost human. Air travel offers an intensification of experience; one deals with emotions not often felt on the ground, from the fear of permanent change to the excitement of temporary reunions.
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