Third

What is the opposite of a kiss?

citysong

have you ever heard the wolf cry to the blue corn moon? i haven't. nor have i ever been awakened by a crowing cock at the crack of dawn or listened quietly to the wind whispering through the willows.

i have, on the other hand, been subjected to four letter words flung angrily from passing cars, woken to the crack of gunshots at 2 a.m. and listened impatiently to the clamoring of the L train rolling through my neighborhood.

the unceasing sounds of the city serve as ever present reminders of the inexhaustible force of life coursing through every street, skyscraper and subway tunnel. these same sounds, over time, have become meaningless white noise that i tune out, thereby ceasing to acknowledge the humanity that surrounds me. i plug my ears with headphones to block out the din and have in turn come to ignore the quiet cries for help all around me.

the homeless man on the corner is just a soundless simulacrum on the sidewalk, the bag lady in the park the star of a silent film. the raffish middle schoolers smoking cigarettes behind the school no longer elicit even a shake of my head, but instead have become an accepted part of the moving scenery.

i long to escape this cacophonous conurbation, not with permanence, but simply for a time, to find proper perspective and ultimately to regain an amplified awareness of each note in the city's ceaseless song.

a sound and a silence

There was a time when I used to hear it. It was promising, hopeful, bright and sunshiny, and I heard it all the time. But not anymore. Something happened. I moved. Opportunities came and went. Relationships and interests faded out. Now there's just a profound silence, a deep stillness and I can't tell if it's peace or deadness, if everything's right or if everything's wrong and I just can't distinguish the two any longer.

Sometimes I think I hear it, every now and then, in the morning or for a day or two. But I'm not really sure. I make things up sometimes. It could just be that I want to hear it, and so I start thinking that I do. You can do that, you know; if you want something bad enough, you can trick yourself into thinking that you actually have it. But you don't. I'm not sure if that's an ingenious coping mechanism, or just sad.

Anyway, like I said, sometimes I think I hear it again, and it still has the same sweetness, the rapturous melody of a sparkling future. I get lost in it. But it's not a passive lostness, rather, it drives me to action. I'm on steroids when I hear it. It oils the gears in my head and my confidence swells, not in arrogance, but simply because hearing it makes confidence inevitable. You know, if you've heard it.

I haven't heard it much lately, but that's ok. Either you hear it or you don't. I suspect some people never hear it at all. And the silence isn't that bad, really. You get used to it. You can get used to anything. The silence isn't very exciting, but it does seem safe.

I wonder sometimes, though, where it went. I don't even remember when it left. It was just gone, like it got up in the middle of the night and snuck out in stocking feet. I've searched for it. I've tried different settings and listening postures. I've done the dance. It's pretty elusive, though, when it wants to be.

So I don't really look anymore. I've come to terms with my subpar aural detective skills. I have better things to do. At least, that's what I tell myself. And I'm not worried. It'll come back, I'm sure. I can't remember why I know that, maybe it told me as I slept, before it tiptoed away; and it'll probably come back sometime I don't expect, like on a windy day with lots of dead leaves, taking me off guard, but I won't be surprised. Hope does that, it makes surprise unsurprising, but it doesn't ruin the surprise. So I look forward to it...

Second Prompt

Write about a noise -
or a silence -
that won't go away.

Shawty Wanna Thug

Tommy pops the collar of his pale pink Abercrombie polo, then carefully resituates two of the foremost locks in his meticulously groomed mane. He steps back to admire his work in one of two full length mirrors on his bedroom wall. As he is stunning the room with his best Blue Steel, his iPhone raucously blares the first four lines of 'Straight Outta Compton'. He picks it up and finds the text message "wer u @ yo?" in the center of the screen. Tommy pockets the phone and does a final mirror check before turning to his dresser for a healthy, three dollar splash of Acqua di Gio. He then grabs his bag, bolts down the stairs, almost sprinting for the front door and completely ignoring the voice calling his name from the kitchen. Once outside, he immediately slows his pace to a casual saunter, making his way toward the slate gray Porche parked at the curb. As he nears the vehicle, the passenger side window slides down to reveal his best friend Paul sporting a sideways Yankees cap and bobbing his head to the high decibel sounds of 'Party in the USA', over which Paul can barely be heard yelling, "What up, T-bone?" while throwing a sideways peace sign. Tommy opens the back passenger side door, throws his bag on the seat and climbs into the vehicle. On the way to their destination, they stop at a Starbucks to grab a couple of over sweetened coffee drinks with which to kick off the day. Their travel conversation consists primarily of incomprehensible slang, seemingly quoted at random from 'Malibu's Most Wanted'. When they arrive at their destination, they notice almost everyone has already gone inside, so they down their coffee, grab their bags and run toward the building, hoping that they aren't late. Just as they reach the large double doors, though, they hear the bell ring twice, signaling that they are in fact tardy for their very first day in the fifth grade at Harding Elementary School.

The Invisible Man

Growing up, I was always the pale, lanky kid who carried an inhaler and had terrible acne. I was a stereotypical anti-social “brain” living in Bellafonte, Pennsylvania, a town of roughly 7,000 people just north of State College. Both of my parents were research scientists at Penn State. It’s that traditional story of the parents who were more invested in their work than their son, thus forcing the child to overcompensate in an effort to get their attention by getting straight A’s and winning every academic competition possible. Needless to say, I wasn’t the type of kid people would look at and think, “Wow, he’s going to be a superhero someday.” But, here I am with this mask, in these tights, dodging bullets from some idiot who thought it’d be a good idea to threaten to blow up New York City.
This was not my first choice for a profession. In fact, I’m fairly certain it wasn’t my choice at all. This isn't me. So, who is this person and where did he come from? The media was fed some crazy back story about me being in a lab in Penn State when an explosion occurred, thus giving me incredible strength. Others talk about how I studied for five years in Tibet learning ancient arts and centering myself or how I’m really from another planet and came down to Earth a superior being. The truth is far less glamorous than all of that. I bought a leotard, made myself a mask and started working out. Most of what you hear about me is exaggeration or flat out lies. Sure, I’ve beaten up a few bad guys, but no more than your typical cop. I’m just flashier. The glitz blinds people from the reality. The more Thunderman is the in spotlight, the easier Joseph can fade into the background and hide. The more people believe in Thunderman, the less Joseph needs to exist.
Yea, the world thinks I’m super. And, maybe I am. But, honestly, I’m still just that pale lanky kid from small town Pennsylvania. I’m Joseph Maloney, not Thunderman. It’s crazy what a mask can do to us. What it can make us become. How easily it can hide us. Once I gave up on my parents loving me, my dream was to fade into obscurity.
So, no, I didn't choose this profession. It's just a means to an end.
As the saying goes, "Have no fear, Thunderman is here!" And Joseph is far from sight.

Developmental Theory of Pretending

Psychology (and common sense, but who uses that anymore) tells us that different stages in life lend themselves to different stages of mind. That is to say, we come to think differently as we age. This is true for pretending, and here I propose the beginnings of a basic developmental model.

(I have not thoroughly researched this topic, and rest my conclusions heavily on personal experience and the less-than-random sampling of people whom I observe or am acquainted with (you can get away with that in the soft sciences, right?)).

Pretending, for our purposes, can be defined as thinking or acting in accordance with an intentionally imagined reality. Not all pretending is the same, however, as is evident when observing both children and adults.

As infants... well, actually, I don't know much about infants, and I can't remember that far back, so let's just skip to slightly older children. Kids, then, tend to engage in a lot of active pretending, for example when I used to tromp through the woods as an explorer, or have a certain shirt that turned me into a superhero. Or the people I knew whose child was always pretending to be a cat. Here the pretender typically engages in the imagined role for its own sake.

Later in life, this type of pretending becomes less common, as people tend to move from active, imagination-based pretending to more passive, others-focused pretending. This is evident in dress, mannerisms, hairstyles, and so on, as people pretend to be rich, pretend to be poor, try to stand out, or try to fit in. The pretender still participates in the pretense, but largely for the sake of influencing others.

Of course, there is overlap between the two types of pretending, and well-adjusted, genuine individuals might not ever heavily depend on the second type. That's just the general trend I see. And me, I'm trying not to let my imagination become strictly defensive.