one week-end ago, i took a trip to a wedding. the guy's who wedding it was, he's a lawyer who defends people who have been sentenced to die. recently, he saved a man from death row, and then retried his case and the man was found innocent. the jury at both cases came out of the jury booth to hug the man.

that is truly great work. thinking about what he does makes me want to cry.

anyhow, at this wedding, i met his niece. she's 11 years old. smart, beautiful, bright. and she is a writer. i mean she has writer in her bone marrow. for years i've heard about her stories, and now i hear from her and her parents that she writes daily. she says that if she doesn't write at least a half an hour a day she's quite anxious. she writers mostly stories, sometimes letters or a journal. she's won prizes for pre-teen authors. this chick is goin' places.

i'm excited to someday read her material, and moreover, it reminds me of a message i've heard before from howard - writers write. if i'm a writer, i should be applying myself to the craft daily. of course she's inspiring because she breathes words.

i am a writer i guess, i'm a least anxious enough that soon after hearing of her devotion, i took time to write something like i haven't written in years - third person non-specific short story. it didn't go much beyond three paragraphs, but here it is: absolute fiction.

would you be loved

his ear hurt and that was bad news for getting on a plane. if there was anything worse than an earache on a plane, he didn't know what it was. still, he was excited to go see his girl, waiting at the other end of the jetway - it was like going in a tunnel and coming out the other end in the arms of love.

she wasn't always excited to see him, at least on the phone. but by the time he was inbound, she'd usually manage to work up some modicum of verve in her voice, something to further encourage his own enthusiasm. neither knew much about the content of the days of the other - it was a relationship that existed above and beyond the every day - each time one emerged from that jet tunnel into the life of the other, everything was suspended animation and they were able to lay together in the bed that only exists for three days between lovers.

There's a song about Three Days, and the singer/protagonist enjoys the bed company of two young beauties - friends. He wondered about that - he could never handle that kind of love triangle, especially as he got older. Sure everyone cavorted in polymorphous sexuality in seventh grade but by the time age and serial monogamy set in, who was able to manage jealousy? Perhaps the singer, the libertines - they could be so detached to share their love and sex energy equally. Or perhaps they were inhabited by a kind of fire he did not share - a hunger that could fuel their sexual dalliances beyond his own routine. Well, he remembered, routine sex with his girl was like the fourth of july, but only more often. the fireworks never ceased to amaze him.