The Annual Dare
Created with a found photograph from the 1940s, my imagination and my typewriter.
Tag Archives: vintage
The Annual Dare
Posted in flash fiction, photos of strangers, Typography
Tagged 1940s, art, beauty, cabin, childhood, dare, deck, family, fiction, flash fiction, found art, found photograph, friends, humor, kitsch, lake, life, media, people, photo, photography, relationships, retro, summer, typewriter, typography, vacation, vintage
since i met you
This work can be purchased HERE.
Created with my Brother Charger 11, my imagination and an old post card set I found from 1949.
Posted in flash fiction, Typography
Tagged 1949, fiction, flash fiction, kitsch, life, love, Maine, old, Portland, postcard, romance, typewriter, typography, vintage
The Lonely Man
The elderly man sat in his easy chair waiting with diligence for his only regular visitor…
…his mailman.
Made with my Brother Charger 11 and a vintage envelope mailed in 1927.
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged art, depressing, elderly, emo, envelope, fiction, flash fiction, life, lonely, mail, mailman, old age, poem, poetry, sad, typography, vintage
A Faded Memory
This and many other prints I’ve worked with are now for sale at my ETSY! Come on by and check them out!
As his memory faded, our grandfather only seemed able to remember the good old days of his childhood.
(maybe it is better that way)
Posted in flash fiction, photos of strangers
Tagged age, aged, alzheimer's, art, creative, faded memory, family, fiction, flash fiction, found art, found photography, grandfather, life, love, memory, old age, photography, photos, poem, poetry, vintage, worn
Empty
Created with my Brother Charger 11 and my mind.
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged afghan, art, charger 11, envelopes, kitsch, letters, life, poetry, retro, typewriter, typing, vintage
The Soup (A Flash Fiction Story)
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged art, childhood, cleaning, cooking, death, estate sale, family, fiction, flash fiction, food, grandmother, life, love, poem, poetry, reminiscing, retro, soup, typewriter, vintage
Once Upon a Noontime, Humid…
It was a hot, sticky day – ninety degrees and quite humid. They had to walk about two miles from the hotel to get there, and neither of them really dressed for the heat. Her tights were sticking to her legs under the orange sixties sundress she’d chosen that morning, and his jeans were just as bad but at least he’d removed his button-down plaid shirt and thrown it into his messenger bag.
And finally, from about twenty feet away, they saw the graveyard.
The headstones were old, crumbling, the names worn off by weather and time; they could sense the history, the age of the place, even before they reached the entrance.
The small stones lead to larger ones, until they finally came upon the opening in the black wrought-iron fence that surrounded the site to a giant stone pillar with a bronze image of him.
Edgar Allen Poe.
They both loved his writing, but then who didn’t? They stopped in front of the monument to the great writer and he put his arm around her orange-covered waist, and she wiggled until it fell off.
“It’s so hot. I feel gross.”
“I know. But still, it’s a moment.”
She turned to look at him and stood on her toes to kiss him on the cheek. He smiled and patted her blonde hair.
“That better?”
“Yes,” she said, barely audible. He realized they were both whispering all along, and it made sense, considering the aged and morose atmosphere. He reached into his messenger bag and pulled out a withered copy of a book, the title worn off the cover not unlike the eroded gravestones. He proceeded to sit on a little step across from the monument and opened to a page marked with an old, leather bookmark.
She walked next to him, flattened the back of her dress and sat down, crossing her ankles. She rested her head on his shoulder, which he nudged so that she would sit up.
“Too hot,” he said with a sarcastic tone and a smile. She smiled and put her head right back on his shoulder.
He started reading out loud. “Once upon a midnight dreary…”
Under the Juniper Tree
<play> for a better reading experience
“Meet me under the juniper tree,” was all that the note said, and so as she reached the summit of the hill on her vintage green bicycle, she saw a picnic blanket, basket, and an opened bottle of wine. And, of course, her boyfriend.
“Cute,” she said as she approached him, leaving the bike propped against the tree. The blanket, an old plaid one from the sixties they’d bought at a yard sale, was held down on each corner by different objects: his journal, the wine, a stack of 45s, and the old battery-operated 45 player they scored at a thrift shop. He moved the needle over the 45 already on the player, and Woman by John Lennon started playing as he stood up and reached his hand out.
“Care to dance?”
She took his hand and they danced under the juniper tree, the wind blowing through the prickly leaves, berries dropping here and there, one landing in her hair. He reached out and pulled it out, fixed her hair where it was messy from his fingers, and then returned his hand to its original position on the hip of her plaid t-shirt dress.
“You’re something else, aren’t you?” she asked. He smiled. “Don’t get a big head over this. It’s impressive, yes, but still, don’t get cocky.” Her smile told him he was doing a good job. “So what’s the occasion?”
He thought about it as they slowly rotated, moving from sun to shade and back again. He finally shrugged. “No occasion. Just felt like it.”
Her arms squeezed a little tighter, making him exhale a little, move his hand up to the back of her head and into her hair, and he brought his lips to hers. She made a tiny sound, letting him know the feeling of excitement in his chest was shared.
The 45 finished playing, and he stopped kissing and released her, returning to the blanket and opening the basket as she just stood there, a bit dazed.
“I got us hummus, pita, and of course, for you, green olives. Blech!” he said as he opened the jar and some of the liquid spilled on his hand. He placed everything on the blanket as she walked over, took her flip flops off and sat, knees together and feet under her.
“How thoughtful! Try one.”
“No.”
“Have you ever had one?”
“As a kid, yes, Gross.” He squinched his face so she understood he didn’t like them.
“Just try one. For me.” He looked at her, she pushed out her lower lip, letting him know he didn’t really have a choice. He opened his mouth, and she threw one at him, missing completely as it rolled down his vintage brown shirt, leaving a small trail of wet brine.
“Nice,” he said, smiling at her as he dabbed at the trail with a napkin. He picked up the olive and threw it into his mouth.
She watched.
“Well?”
“What?”
She laughed. “You like it, don’t you.”
“No!” he said with a sound of defensiveness in his voice. She smiled.
“You don’t have to admit it. But I know you do.”
He put out the food as she poured the wine into plastic cups. They ate in silence for a while, taking turns removing the berries from the hummus as they fell from the tree.
“This is nice,” she said to him after a sip of wine. He smiled at her and refilled her cup, and then his. She spread more hummus onto her pita and then passed it over to him. He took a bite and was surprised.
“There was an olive hidden in there!”
“You’re welcome,” she said with a curt smile. He laughed.
“You’re trouble, you know that?” She nodded.
He spread some hummus on a piece of pita and took a bite.
He thought about it for a few seconds, and after much deliberation said, “Can you pass me the olives?”
After a know-it-all smile at him, she passed him the olives, and a berry bounced right off the bridge of her nose, making both of them laugh.
Posted in flash fiction, Zoey and Xander
Tagged 45, dancing, dating, fiction, flash fiction, hipster, hummus, John Lennon, juniper tree, kissing, kitsch, life, love, lovers, music, olives, picnic, record player, records, romance, vintage
Charger 11
Be sure to watch the accompanying short film capturing some of this moment at the end. Thanks for reading!
Anabelle sat on her stoop, the afternoon sun splashing her face, diffused through the thick leaves of the oak tree in front of her house. She placed the black suitcase-shaped machine on her lap, pushed the two black buttons on the front and gently lifted the cover off her Brother Charger 11 typewriter.
She picked up the bubble-wrap package the mailman left in her doorway and tore the top off with her teeth, dumping the contents onto the ground, including a spool of typewriter ribbon and a receipt, which she automatically threw into her bright blue recycling bin that sat at the bottom of her stoop.
She peeled back the tape that held bubble wrap around the spools and carefully removed them, looking the mysterious objects over, trying to figure them out. She took the cover off her typewriter and looked at all of the little arms that would be creating her work as soon as she figured out how to spool it. She gently pushed the B button, seeing how the mechanism moved, and discovered where the ribbon had to be placed.
After some struggle, she got it under and over all of the right little pegs and was ready to go. Reaching behind her, she grabbed a small stack of old paper, green and faded from age with browned edges, and she pushed it under the big black rubber bar she knew to be the platen (after Googling the parts of a typewriter) and started spinning the dial on the side, hearing the click and watching the paper slowly appear from underneath, nestling safely under the metal beam that held the paper in place.
She started typing and simple words came out, words that people have probably typed millions of times when testing out any sort of writing instrument.
“Anabelle rules.”
“This is fun.”
“Kinks rule.” Okay, that one was just because the record was playing in her house and she could hear the song “A Well Respected Man.”
“Annabelle loves her typewriter.”
All of which were true. She practiced a bit more, sometimes typing specific words, other times just closing her eyes and listening to the sound, a new one to her, of the clicking typewriter parts, the arm slamming onto the paper, and the gentle click of the whole carriage slowly gliding one spot over each time she typed. She tried out all of the buttons, including the ¼ and the * and the @, #, and even the %. She was thrilled and even squealed a little with glee. She even figured out (after a few tries) that for an exclamation point, she had to go back and add a period underneath the single line that the typewriter created.
She grabbed the top of the paper and pulled, hearing the metallic ripping sound the platen made, put in a fresh, clean sheet of vintage paper, readjusted the paper holder, and with a serious look on her face started typing a story.
Posted in flash fiction
Tagged Brother, creativity, fiction, flash fiction, hipster, inspiration, Kinks, kitsch, life, records, recycling, stoop, sun, sunlight, typewriter, typing, vintage, vinyl, writing
A Flash of Inspiration 