It was an admirable dive, technically haphazard but stylish like good slam verse, and confident despite daunting conditions, including absence-of-pool. The diver launched from his start point at the concrete median was not in diver’s trim. In shapeless black jacket, pants and boots he crafted a smooth arc of surprising fluency (and at the top of this architectural wonder he was with his body describing—what is it, the apogee?—he caught my eye with a look so direct it lashed me to the rock of my inadequacy like judgment day) but failed against another force: the motive, tangential, irrelevant but irresistible momentum of my not theoretical car. He had dived, not stumbled, and my car had hit him and I had, what?—observed? Because, really, what truth is served by saying I hit him? We took paths predetermined to collide us, is all. The inevitable occurred. Frankly, he hit my car. It’s not-funny funny. You spend your life gaming the language and one day it dawns—all right, it hits you—your game is not the essential game. Those celebratory toasts get classified as intoxicants. Juvenile follies cluster to form a constellation cops call Priors. The smallest sketch is enough to show the intersection of our fates, but the district attorney is using bigger paper. Her diagram extends in all directions to incorporate the neighborhoods of my youth, then pokes into the future to warn of consequences should I go undetained. She’s called my family as witnesses, leaving me no-one. I asked about character witnesses, but my lawyer says no, nobody’s witnessed any. Of course I don’t blame the diver; I had the accelerator, I had the brakes. I failed to undo the future. But I ask you, didn’t destiny make two victims when it suicided us both?
Copyright © January 4, 2007 David Hodges
8 comments
Comments feed for this article
January 4, 2007 at 11:48 am
caveblogem
I have a new favorite, david. Just pencil in my change at your Reader’s Choice page, would you?
“But the District Attorney uses bigger paper . . .”
Some great lines, great imagery, great.
Thanks, caveblogem. Change noted. And thanks for referring others to Reader’s Choice.
–David
January 4, 2007 at 5:19 pm
Anonymous
Vaguely depressing, but well-written.
Only vaguely?
–David
January 5, 2007 at 9:58 pm
eastcoastlife
Hi David!
Thanks for visiting my blog and commenting.
Wow! You write beautifully, I’m so embarrassed to even mention that I can write. Now I know what a good writer is. I love reading your short novels.
Excellent blog.
Thank you eastcoastlife, but there’s no need to disparage yourself here. Praising me is more than enough.
–David
January 7, 2007 at 2:35 am
Jo
Trippy wordsmithing in so many ways!
I wonder what your english teacher would say? XD
Thank you, Jo. I invite comments from English teachers everywhere.
–David
January 7, 2007 at 12:34 pm
litlove
I think you have a very tender spot for the plotting of chance, David. I think I often see in your stories a mediation on what the surrealists would call ‘le hasard objectif’, which managed to combine for them the improbable, the unconsciously desired and the inevitable. Do put me straight if I’m wrong, but it seems that objective chance provides the focal moment of your stories, and then they elaborate the web of coincidence and causality that created it.
Thank you, litlove. You help me understand myself.
–David
January 8, 2007 at 3:35 pm
G
Your use of language is in itself intoxicating. g
Thank you, G. I enjoy your poems as well.
–David
January 9, 2007 at 2:54 pm
mandarine
Probably my scariest thought when I drive a car. That’s why I generally don’t.
Anyone behind the wheel of a car is right to be terrified.
–David
January 12, 2007 at 10:19 am
Josh Motlong
I must agree with previous statements. Trippy wordsmithing, and intoxicating! Well written indeed.
Thanks, Josh, and welcome to Very Short Novels. Pull up a chair.
–David