““I think you still love me, but we can’t escape the fact that I’m not enough for you. I knew this was going to happen. So I’m not blaming you for falling in love with another woman. I’m not angry, either. I should be, but I’m not. I just feel pain. A lot of pain. I thought I could imagine how much this would hurt, but I was wrong.”
― Haruki Murakami, South of the Border, West of the Sun
From my old journal, The Daily Epiphany, August 4, 2002:
I Hate Raymond
In Miami I had to wait forever to get through immigration. In situations where a mass of people run up against the bureaucracy I have this ability to choose the slowest line. The sign said, “US Citizens Only” so I thought it would be quick flash of the passport – but all the people in front of me kept producing documents printed on tanned weasel skin, with a charcoal sketch instead of a photograph – which would cause the immigration agent to frown, walk around his little cube, and one-finger type stuff into his computer keyboard.
Crammed into this giant, crowded room were maybe fifty different lines and some crept while others (the ones that you aren’t in) seemed to leap. Everybody kept cutting through the lines. One group of teenaged missionaries from our plane cut through – moving in a giant, red-tee-shirted group from one line to another.
Somebody shouted out, “Hey, go to the back of the line.”
Their leader replied, “Excuse us, we’ve been helping the poor people in Nicaragua.”
“Good for you – now go to the back of the fucking line,” was the reply.
Finally, I reached the frowning immigration agent. He glanced at my passport and waved me through in less than two seconds.
And today’s flash fiction:
Six Ways to Start Something, and Five to End it by Rachel O’Cleary
from Ellipsis Zine
Bill Chance 