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Jumotki
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55 Posts • 643 Followers • 671 Following
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Challenge
A haiku about heartbreak
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Jumotki

The Significant Void

Please find me again

When the void discards me and

Allows me to love

#haiku #heartbreak

Challenge
Water
Cover image for post The Flood, by Jumotki
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Jumotki

The Flood

The morning starts as a holiday. Our jobs call and cancel until further notice. Yawning, we drink coffee in the dark of the living-room, immersed in the sound of rain drumming all around us. The night was sleepless and turbulent because of thunderclaps that shook our apartment and triggered car alarms.

It rains in buckets, in rivulets, in streams. 

I have never seen so much water in my life.

The streets are unfamiliar—everything vanishing under a churning river—and we watch, with bated breath, an ambitious car venture out of the apartment gates and drift to the middle of the road. We predict he’ll be swept downstream, into the backwaters of backroads.

The car struggles around the intersection and retreats back to the apartment.

We laugh. There is no danger yet.

Flashing lights in the gray swirling clouds. 

And still it rains. 

We watch the news on my phone—cars completely submerged, kayakers paddling down freeway rapids, the downtown area transformed into a swirling sea from which skyscrapers poke out the top of their heads.

We watch as a woman in a white vehicle steers around a security barrier and into a submerged underpass ocean. A construction worker runs after her car, his mouth open in a silent shout. The light of her cell phone waves frantically as the car sinks slowly into the dark waters.

The car disappears and so does the light.

Eight people drowned that day.

Challenge
Please don't remember this.
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Jumotki

howl

in the wake of our discussion,

we hurl insults like grenades,

like bomb vessels bursting, a

face-off at opposite corners

of the room, and rage rends

the air, lends the atmosphere

a note of storms clawing at

our beached bodies, a volley

of venomous spray, when you

tell me that everything i do is

mediocre and i retaliate with

the observation that nobody

likes you, you are friendless

and alone, always, then you

scream, you stupid cunt! and

the windows shudder with the

volume of our passing—please,

love, don't remember this, i

walk

towards you now,

closer and closer

with my mouth hanging open,

my mouth is a black hole

growing,

a maelstrom that

shatters my face apart, 

a hole from

which

my howl

emerges

coming up to

find you,

grind you, it rises

from the crouched ladder of

my skeleton,

a furious noise

obliterating everything,

it swallows up

     your voice

                     and erases

                                     your words 

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Jumotki in Haiku

Episodes

Will I lose it all

These moments of clarity

When my demons come?

Challenge
Write anything that has the phrase "You deserve better" somewhere in it.
Any style or genre is acceptable, poetry or prose.
Cover image for post Harrison Birch, by Jumotki
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Jumotki in Fiction

Harrison Birch

If you say “good morning,” he will look up

from his weeding, or whatever he is doing in

the fenced area of his front yard, look at you

as if he just caught you mid-squat in the dirt,

and turn his wrinkled nose away. If you knock

on his door to talk about his rusted Accord

blocking your driveway, you see his scowling

face in the window—his greeting, a middle finger.

He’s been known to throw things. The family next

door know not to say anything as they pass by

on the sidewalk; he will snarl at them, and nod

to Mr. Torkington, their pet Doberman.

His house smells like musty papers and

dog food. Scout troops are warned from

approaching his door, a girl fractured her

leg when he had chased her away from

his stoop with a rolled up newspaper.

Animal control makes annual inspections

of his house. One time a concerned neighbor,

startled by all the rabbits, called for a wellness

check. They came and took hundreds of

floppy-eared, snuffling rabbits away in crates,

while he hovered by the front door and sobbed.

Spring finds him kneeling in the fresh dirt of his yard

tilling the soil with a trowel, he spies a baby robin

gray and ugly, crying in loud braying cheeps

—sounds too loud for such a tiny body—he

uses the trowel to expose pink fleshy worms

in the muck and the baby bird hops closer,

dodging nimbly between each shower of dirt. 

“You deserve better,” he says, clucking his tongue,

and scans the sky for more friends. 

Challenge
A sight for sore eyes, or maybe it just makes your eyes sore. I want you to dredge up something old of yours. A story you haven't looked at in 5 years or more. Feel free to edit and update, or leave it be. The choice is yours. Also, I am trying this again, I screwed up the last challenge and closed it after two entries, my tiny brain was confused and like an idiot I messed it up. Here we go again.
Simple, pick something old. A story you have not laid eyes upon in five or more years. In the tile, within (brackets) place the years the have past. Feel free to update, or offer it up as is. You may enter two stories if you wish. I will join the fray. Have at it.
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Jumotki

The Clinic

Dr. Heller never mentioned his problem, but everyone at the clinic knew about it. We were shocked by how normal he acted afterwards. He didn’t even take a sick leave or anything. A couple of days after his incident, Judy decides to bring in a vase of flowers for his office, some ugly artificial thing with a heavy cluster of lilies and roses and ferns. Dr. Heller thanks her and sticks his face in them and we all laugh because we think he's fucking with us. Turns out, he thought they were real.

Judy later discovers him in his office and we can hear her screams throughout the building.

The clinic is in a state of excitement, the staff milling around. Everyone keeps saying that he was fine all morning. We keep saying, how could this have happened. We keep talking about what we could have looked for, the warning signs. We repeat how much we miss him. A get-well card circulates around the clinic and everyone signs it from their hierarchical order of importance—the surgeons, anesthesiologists, RNs, the receptionists, even the fat, ugly custodian who only creeps in after everyone leaves for the day.

We draw lots to elect a person to go visit him. Our clinic’s been a family for more than ten years and is heavily involved in each other’s lives. We take care of our own. (Only the receptionists get recycled out every so often for newer, younger candidates. We take pride in appearances here.) Also, everyone is dying for more news about the late and great doctor.

No one volunteers to go, so we draw lots. I get chosen. They all clap my back and say, sucks to suck.

He is a beautiful man. His forehead is taut, his eyes etch upwards at the corners. The sides of his nose are perfectly symmetrical lines. With a ruler, you can measure the alignment of his eyes to his ears. Even now, hunched forward with his shoulders drawn up so he looks like a turtle receding into a shell, his flesh is smooth and hard like plastic. He adjusts his position over the edge of the bench as if uncomfortable, and his hands are spread claws digging into the wood.

Smile Dr. Heller, I say and lean closer to him. I take a picture of us on my phone, me with a huge smile and Dr. Heller looking lost.

The sun is out, but it’s cold. The sunshine deceives us. We sit on a bench on the lawn. His personal caregiver is in a chair a few yards away from us and glances at us over the cover of her book.

He is wealthy enough to have escaped the indignity of sanitariums, where they throw together the psychotic and the mentally ill indiscriminately. He has that small mercy for him. His wife is filing for divorce now, I hear, and will soon have sole custody of the kids and house, a substantial fortune built upon the splicing and reconstruction of flesh. Maybe this is his punishment for tampering with natures works, sullied as they are. Maybe this is punishment for playing God.

I take his face with my hands and kiss him. I feel his perfectly sculpted lips with my tongue.

It’s ok, Dr. Heller.

You’ll get over this.

Everyone at the clinic misses you.

Remember Mrs. Lebowitz? She threw a fit when we told her you went on vacation. She says no other doctor in the city does skin as good as you.

It’s dark when I leave. The neighborhood is unsettling in its quiet, undisturbed by traffic or people. I miss the dirty mess and the noise of the city. The stars are like dim, sad echoes of the city lights.

But, if I crane my head, I can see the city lights glow like a distant fire.

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Jumotki

Staff Development Day

("Think Outside the Lines!")

By the time we get to the venue

our department table is filled

so we sit at an empty one

on the edge of the auditorium.

As our coworkers laugh

like the cool kids at school,

we fill up on stale bagels

and coffee that tastes like

charcoal and heartburn

and study the day’s agenda

(holy fuck, the ice breaker

is an hour long!)

and try not to look too desperate,

as seats fill around us. 

Introductions are made, 

the speaker thanks us for the

honor of being there and

…organizations work together to

demonstrate the creativity

and innovation happening in…

two members of the admin team,

late to the party, join us at

the rejects table. We stiffen,

straighten up unconsciously,

hide our game of hangman

and doodles, take copious notes

…only YOU get to define the

parameters of this game…

as the cool table laugh and talk

loudly among themselves

the admin women stir

and mutter to each other,

a storm is brewing

right in front of us,

and I nudge my coworker

…this is about how you present

yourselves to the community…

I could warn my friends, but

I don’t. One of the ladies,

the one with the severe gray bob,

cat-eye glasses, mouth twisted down,

marches over to them

and "whispers" loudly, so that

the entire auditorium can hear:

Y’all are being too loud

and distracting—show

some respect.

The table silences at once

and the speaker continues

as if nothing has happened

…we want to be active versus

passive—we want people 

to come to us…

Cover image for post Deadheading, by Jumotki
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Jumotki

Deadheading

removing faded

flowers to encourage 

further blooming 

Challenge
They say dead men tell no tales. So write a chilling ghost story told from the perspective of a ghost.
Write a ghost story told from a ghost's perspective.
Cover image for post Halfway Places, by Jumotki
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Jumotki in Paranormal

Halfway Places

The real estate agent tells her to reconsider. She says she has some truly amazing houses to show before she makes a decision. But I’m watching Evelyn not listen to her, and I see how she looks at the place with that little half smile of hers, that twitch of the finest lines around her mouth, wrinkling and smoothing over in an instant, and I know that nothing is going to dissuade her from purchasing this shitty, dilapidated house.

Friends and family make their appeals. She tells them I know I’ve heard the rumors, that’s all they are, rumors raised from nothing, created for the sake of gossip and for scaring naive outsiders, do people talk of nothing else in this shitty little hick town.

I only want what Evelyn wants, it’s been so long since she's wanted anything. I think she'll finally be able to start over here, maybe this will make her forget and live. But people keep telling her things she doesn't want to hear and they all sounded like variations of a theme, so finally she stops answering calls altogether.

I’m worried about the amount of work needed to make this thing halfway livable and Evelyn looks so wan and lost all the time. Here she is alone with this monster derelict house and each day is spring cleaning and after that there is still more work to be done.

Evelyn works sunup until she collapses in bed at night.

I'm sick of these halfway places, she says to no one. 

Evelyn, pretty Evelyn, I’ll never forget the day I ran after you in the rain, barefoot in the park, with Caleb just beginning to jut out of your stomach, and I was running after you yelling for you to stop, scared but laughing because you were laughing and you were beautiful in the rain with your hair dripping down your face, you were so goddamned beautiful, it hurt to look at you.  

Now you walk around tired and quiet, with those sunken hungry eyes.

When was the last time you laughed?

Slowly the house becomes whole again. She polishes until every surface gleams, she puts in new windows, paints, organizes, reassembles. Her room upstairs overlooks the garden and pond in the back of the house. 

There are things here, hidden in the silence, that I don’t like to think about. And the force that drives Evelyn to fix this place—that scares me even more. 

Caleb was two years old. He was the perfect baby, quiet and uncomplaining. We worried that he was sleeping too much, too often and too deeply, and not eating enough. We were good at fretting—everything seemed like a potential disaster. 

You brought us here with you, didn’t you, I wanted to scream at her. I wanted to shake her, grip her by the shoulder so hard that she could feel my nails digging in her skin. You disturbed our baby's rest, how could you do it, Caleb just two years old and a barely visible lump underneath the blankets. You dug us up, God knows how you did it, you had to work with my decomposing weight and Caleb like a limp doll tucked under your arm. (They told you to cremate and you said no). Caleb he loved the color blue, he loved entwining his tiny perfect hands in his mother’s hair and pulling, he loved to sleep. A deep sleep, almost impossible to wake up. 

Sometimes at night after another exhausting day, I’ll keep watch over my wife’s sleeping form. She curls up in a fetal position with her hands protecting her stomach.

Evelyn, I heard a laugh I swear I heard it, last night it came from downstairs. I couldn’t tell where it could have come from, or if it were male or female or even human, but I know I’ve never heard it before, and you were asleep. And sometimes in that area she calls the living room, there’s voices and footfalls, the swish of clothing, things clattering to the floor.

Sometimes I hear her singing around the house. Once, I heard her laugh and that sound broke around the house, and all throughout it, and the silence was quieter afterwards.

She doesn't eat. Her sunken little face and the bruised sockets, the limp wrists, and sharp edges of her hip and ribs—I can't take it.

She is fading into the house. I'm helpless. She no longer has eyes I can recognize, those aren’t the hands I loved and held and promised to protect throughout life, death, world without end. She teeters up and down the halls, in and out of rooms. I hear her talk to things I can't see. She leaves me; she goes where I can’t follow. She’s so thin and translucent, sunlight streaming from the windows looks strong enough to hurt her, to melt her away. She floats on drafts throughout the house, and mirrors hide her passing.

The voices are so beautiful she says and I didn’t believe her but I see now. The whole house swells with their presence, with colors bursting and small ripples of light extending, and they are calling where are you and I say here I am here I am here—and they welcome me with voices raised and over the singing and the echoes of ringing colors I hear the voices of so many loved ones, I see Evelyn and she is holding in her arms our son and they are coming for me 

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Jumotki

Late to Work

My

index

finger

pokes

the bridge

of my nose

pushing back

the glasses

that I

left

at

home

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