Read War Is Language : 101 Short Works (9781937316044) Online

Authors: Nath Jones

Tags: #short story, #flash fiction, #deconstruction, #language choice, #diplomacy, #postmodern fiction, #war and peace, #inflammatory language

War Is Language : 101 Short Works (9781937316044)

BOOK: War Is Language : 101 Short Works (9781937316044)
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THE WAR IS LANGUAGE: 101
SHORT WORKS

~

NATH JONES

 

Copyright © 2012 by Nath Jones. All
Rights Reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-937316-04-4

Cover Design by Ryan W. Bradley:
www.aestheticallydeclined.net

The
Wichita Vortex Sutra
epigraph is used
with expressed permission from HarperCollins and the Allen Ginsberg
Project.

SmashWords Edition, License
Notes

This ebook is licensed for your
personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given
away to other people. If you would like to share this book with
another person, please purchase an additional copy for each
recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or
it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to
SmashWords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting
the hard work of this author.

http://nathjones.com/

Chicago, IL, USA

[email protected]

PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF
AMERICA

The war is language,

                    
language abused

                                            
for Advertisement,

language used

like magic for power on the planet.

                                                        

Allen Ginsberg

From “Wichita Vortex Sutra”

For Melody Layne

 

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction

89 — Dead Reckoning
with Azimuth

1 — Fragmentation
Grenade

97 — Rebel

53 —
Worth/Worthless

41 —
Artist/Entrepreneur

4 — Ideas, People,
Things

2 — An Admissions
Essay

3 — Labor
Movement

73 — Bad Person

85 — Content with the
Status Quo

5 —
Imported Silk Wedding Veil in the Kitchen
Trash

57—Doc

6 — Saucony After
Adidas

77 — Escapist
Pleaser

9 — Be Where

40 —
Action/Reaction

10 — Just Your Usual
Woman

91 — Wasting Your
Time

13 — Trop Gaté

8 — Debriefing

14 — Blue
Butterfly Falling-Out Barrette

16 — Mothers of
War

18 — In Medias
Res

100 — Hysteria in the
Street

19 — Whimsy

20 — Ablation

21 —
Mortifications

67 — Sperm
Donor

22 — AT-4

23 — Cold Open

25 — So They
Say

26 — The
Hypericum

47 — Man/Woman

28 —The End of
Grief

29 — Cold Sunny
Morning

30 — Inquiry

31 — Diary with
Burning Ellipsis

27 — Ladies
who Lunch on Disposable Plates

32 —
Laissez-Faire

43 —
Conservative/Liberal

33 — boy,

65 — Ego Confronting
Mortality

34 — Lunch
Alone

36 — Get Rich &
Save the U.S. Economy in the Process!

70 —
Virgin/Whore

12 — Ma Deuce

38 — Grotto

42 —
Centripetal/Tangential

44 —
Creative/Destructive

45 — Identity/Id
Entity

60 — Pussy/Deterrent
Threat

49 —
Security/Insecurity

17 —
Carefully-placed Patterned Pavers

50 — Smart/Dumb

51 —
Subjective/Objective

7 — Commuted
Fantasy

52 —
Tangible/Intangible

94 — Stalker

56 — Glory-Seeking
Adulator

58 —
Hatemonger

15 — The Dumbass
Solidarity Project: A Facebook Forum

90 — Cycle of
Victimization

59 — Detritus

61 — Infantile

35 — Breast
Meat

62 — Patriotic
Anomaly

63 — Wannabe

54 — Hammered

64 — Meaningless
Existence

66—Son

11 — Rubberband
Ankles

68 — Doting
Daddy

69 — Boys Club
Relic

71 — Calm &
Collected

74 —
Repressive

75 —
Embarrassing Evidence of Societal Entropy

37 — Celebrating a
25th Anniversary

76 —
Overwhelmed

79 — Stating the
Obvious

80 — Mommy
Dearest

81 — Slacker

48 —
Mother/Child

82 —
Judgmental

24 — The Status
Report

83 — Poor Benighted
Self-Centered Bitter Soul of Vengeance

78 — Owner of
Dynasty

84 —
Familial Run-in with Religious Hypocrisy

86 — Should Have
Gotten Knocked-Up at Fourteen

87 — Book Worm

39 — July Visit

88—Want

46 — Love/Pity

92 — Me

93 — Fuck-up

95 — Self-Help
Nightmare

96 — Heretic

98 — Sit-Down
Dinner

99 — Altruist

55 — Pothead

101 — Lonely Broken
Heart

About the On
Impulse eBook Series

About the Author

INTRODUCTION

While I was working on this book a friend
said
Quit it.
I
said
No.

89 — Dead Reckoning with
Azimuth

I don’t suppose
you would ever believe that this entire book happens in just two
minutes, with a clenching chest, sweats, and hives. But it does. It
happens right there. Where? Right there in the two minutes that you
absolutely must sit down in the shaded sands of North Avenue beach
in Chicago. Don’t collapse. That’s ridiculous. And. No. Don’t go
over on the bench. Definitely not that bench. Why do you think no
one’s on it? There’s something sticky there. Stop! What are you
thinking? Where are you going? No. My God. Not by the water. That’s
almost fifty yards from here. It’s much too far to cross the beach
when this disoriented. Just sit down. Yes, yes, yes. Come on. At
least try to be aware of where you are physically. And. So. Fine.
There you go. South of Fullerton. North of the quaint brick
bathrooms. You know. Quit worrying. And. I already said this whole
thing happens in just two minutes. So. For a book that short, what
more do you need for a setting? Time and place. That’s it. That’s
the requirement. You’re golden. You know. That’s what you want.
That’s what you need. To know. Right? So. Good. You know. You’re
not on the pavement of the lakeshore path. You’re not down by the
water or in anybody’s way. You’re not on the bench with that
two-day-old sticky Popsicle residue. It’s not summer but it’s an
abnormally hot day in spring or fall. Maybe even one of those
completely freakish December days when it hits eighty degrees in
the Midwest. There’s a bit of shade, perhaps an opportunity to
collect yourself, maybe a friend to call, maybe a few breaths to
take, maybe something pleasant to look at: if it’s not December
then a volleyball game, a lifeguard walking back and forth with one
of those rocket-shaped flotation devices with the harpoon cording,
or, you know, whatever: the sky, the gulls preening on the
breakwater, the pebbles in the sand, the bikers on the bike path,
the joggers, the Mexican families grilling on the lawn, the black
guy people-watching from the bench further down, the white guy
trudging along getting back in shape after a second heart attack,
the Asian woman training for another triathlon, and the parents
with strollers. It’s all there. Whatever you want to look at to
help just calm the fuck down and stop your mind from
racing.

1 — Fragmentation
Grenade

It makes no sense.
Nothing’s to be done. How can anyone expect a contract to become a
riotous nation, or, my God, a happy family?

It’s absurd.

In our marriage there was no way to
love anyone. We’d point at each other, or the mirror, or the floor,
and, oh yes, we’d make our demands. It is no one’s fault. Our
me-materials could not possibly shelter anyone. Who can live
huddled together under un-dovetailed illusion and unarticulated
expectation? So. Fuck it. I sold the gold for scrap and decided to
reassemble an M67 fragmentation grenade.

It will be an elaborate puzzle. I’ll
find all the pieces, unbend the mangled distortions, and put
disruption back into that handheld metal orb.

Who knows how far the pieces will have
gone? The M67 fragmentation grenade has a five-meter kill
zone—mainly for people but animals, too—a fifteen-meter casualty
radius, and a forty-five-meter blast perimeter. Pieces can be
propelled up to 250 meters. But that’s not the only distance those
small round-torn-twist pieces can travel. I bet I’ll have to go
collecting all over the world. After explosions, after wars, men go
home, you know. The pieces move away from detonation in pockets, in
caskets, in flesh.

I suppose I could go right to
war—where most fragmentation grenades explode. Or maybe the war
will come to me. That’d probably be easiest. Either way, I’ll
definitely need to be there. Time is always a factor of accuracy.
Think about paleontology. It’s a miracle when they can assemble an
entire skeleton because so much time has gone by, so many things
could have happened to make assembly impossible. So. No. I don’t
want any geologic eras passing. Definitely not. I want to be there
when it happens so I can just catch all the pieces of a particular
fragmentation grenade.

Time is one thing, but distance is
quite another problem. War draws men from the farthest reaches of
the globe. It never matters how far they have to go. If there is a
war, they will be there. They will make a plane, make a boat, take
a tank, and go. So to reassemble this particular grenade, if I
don’t catch every single piece right away, if other people end up
with some—like what happens with candy at a parade, disseminated,
you know—then I might have to go really far, understand the motion
of front lines, and maybe learn some languages. Or
something.

BOOK: War Is Language : 101 Short Works (9781937316044)
13.03Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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