Recently had a digital magazine publish one of my sci-fi flashes (I'd call it speculative fiction but the abbreviation spec-fic sounds kind of racist). Theme of Absence publishes horror, fantasy, or spec-fic (weird, right?) on Fridays, sometimes with an author interview. "The Spheres" is my comedic take on extraterrestrial nihilism.

http://www.themeofabsence.com/2017/09/spheres-by-desmond-white/

Sometimes I'll see a student staring out the window at the end of the hall. But what does she see out there that holds her attention? I know from experience there's only a gray lot of teacher's cars, the track field, a tennis court hidden by a blue wall—all of it yellow and hazy from the sun slapping against the dust on the glass. But I don't think she's looking at anything in particular. Maybe it's a mood she senses on the other side of the pane. Behind her, white walls slide into a maze of lockers and locked doors guarded by a panopticon of ceiling cameras and teacher lounges. But out there are streets and side-streets and green, green grass and the bayous that interlace Houston like little green veins, and beyond the red roofs of the suburbs are patches of green trees binding shadow-flooded marshes and the homes of alligators.

Sometimes I think I know what she sees.

My classroom is a block like one of those you stack to do math when you're in kindergarten. Desks turn forward like lines of British soldiers, and students shout and throw rulers and text each other in a war for attention. My desk is the general's tent—present, to the side of the commons and barracks, capable at a moment's notice to survey the ranks (all I have to do is lift my eyesight an inch from my monitor to review a regiment using cell phones to redo eyelashes or sneaking markers to color in a map of Asia or clunkily dropping fidget spinners). From this distance it's difficult to tell if a student in the back is passing notes digitally on the phone in her lap or using a calculator to complete physics problems. So, with a war-weary sigh, although sans mustache, cigar, and epaulets, I get up from my chair and remind the Front that their assignment is due in two minutes.

I smile because I choose to express and reflect the joy I look for in the world around me.

My smile doesn't mean I don’t have pain, sorrow, or disappointment in my life. On the contrary, it is because of the amount of negativity I find in this world, that I choose not to let it have dominion over my mind, my soul or my life.

Too often people seem to get hung up on the bad things in their lives. We have all seen, felt and heard terrible things, and no one enjoys them when they do. Those who seem to relish in sharing the negative events in their lives, or pointing out the terrible things in the lives of others, are in my opinion, missing the whole point of this journey we all share from womb to tomb. We aren’t here to indulge ourselves in experiencing or inflicting pain, but to transcend the bullshit that is all around us, and not only rise above it, but help others rise above it as well.

So if you want someone to share your negative energy with, I’m sorry—you won’t find me available.

I will hold your hand as you travel from painful grief to bittersweet nostalgia, from devastating loss to reluctant acceptance, and from the misery of heartache to the realization of self-love; if however, you choose to become bitter, instead of striving to be better, our paths will quickly diverge.

My smile doesn’t mean I am always happy, it simply means I hope you are happier after we have interacted than you were beforehand. If I can help you to find something to smile about too, I need no further reason.

In the end, I smile because I choose to.

[Wrote this my senior year in high school. I was kind of an emotional mess.]

As he showered from another day,

the ink on his arms was washed away.

It'd been left by friends with ecstatic pens

who in excitement had been carried away.

One wouldn’t rub off no matter how much he scrubbed,

drawn by a girl whom he had once loved.

Lilly sighed heavily and threw the flowers to the ground.

Her plans hadn’t gone exactly the way she intended. The wolf had been the easy part. The spell she had gotten from the old woman in the village had worked exactly as promised. She had stood around in the woods with a basket of raw meat for a few hours before the smell had attracted the large beast. Within minutes he had been hers to control.

They had gone over the plan for three days before they began. She had set off to her Granny’s house with a basket of cookies, and met the wolf on the trail, just like they rehearsed. A single word sent him off to Granny’s cottage. He was supposed to eat her, and Lilly would have been able to take possession of the cottage—the insurance money would have made her comfortable for the rest of her life.

What she hadn’t counted on was Granny. How was she supposed to know that the horny old woman was a cradle-robber and had seduced the woodcutter? No one had told her that he was shacking up with her grandmother!

The wolf had barely escaped alive, and Lilly, who hadn’t even had time to take off her red cloak, had been forced to leave the cookies behind for the two who were now sharing the bed that should, by all rights, have been hers.

The very thought made Lilly shudder.

She sighed and turned to the wolf. “So, tell me more about the three pigs who are building those cute little houses with the great view…”

(c) 2017 - dustygrein