Tag Archives: non-fiction

National Author’s Day

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Today is National Author’s Day. I think this calls for a celebration here at A Story Every Day, since this IS a site that celebrates us all as authors and writers. Let’s share our favorite authors and give them some attention and recognition!

Who is your favorite author/writer and why?

Personally, I love Joan Didion because she writes in a straightforward manner yet there’s so much packed in that you may not even realize at first read. The “straightforwardness” is there, and true, but can also be deceptive.

I also adore John Irving – I just started reading his works, and so far I’ve read “A Widow for One Year” and now I’m reading “The World According to Garp.” His characters (and writing) appeal to me because they are humorous in a completely non-comical way. There is something so honest, so bare about them (I think this is really because of the way in which he writes) that makes me fall in love with them.

“I’m not telling you to make the world better, because I don’t think that progress is necessarily part of the package. I’m just telling you to live in it. Not just to endure it, not just to suffer it, not just to pass through it, but to live in it. To look at it. To try to get the picture. To live recklessly. To take chances. To make your own work and take pride in it. To seize the moment. And if you ask me why you should bother to do that, I could tell you that the grave’s a fine and private place, but none I think do there embrace. Nor do they sing there, or write, or argue, or see the tidal bore on the Amazon, or touch their children. And that’s what there is to do and get it while you can and good luck at it.”
― Joan Didion

Divine Justice

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There is a great philosophical debate about death and its motivators. Some say it is only related to the malfunctioning of human organs due to internal or external factors, and some suggest it to be related with the exclusion of personality from a built-environment. The human mind is still not able to understand this very basic phenomenon in its core, and yet everyone has to face it without any formal preparation in mind. However, what is out of our perception about death is not even imaginable, like the fourth dimension of this universe, but what we should think about is the lasting impacts of death on societies and cultures. This is where we stand, gaze, and explore.

 

I once visited a man named Shahab Ali Khan at his death bed. I got into his room and asked about how he is feeling. He replied smiling, “By the grace of God, I am alright”. Watching my curiosity and sadness, he voiced, “They say that my liver has stopped functioning due to a tumor in it. Doctors have told me that I am not going to last for more than three or four days. I feel some pain at the center of my body, but my senses are working fine. I am breathing, thinking, and feeling things around me as I felt before, so you can say I am doing well.” I was shocked. The life Shahab built around him, his family, his property, relationships, interests, activities, all of them were going to vanish and die for him within some hours and he was still smiling, reflecting his being as doing well. His family members and some friends were standing by his bed side, emotionally watching him leave this world. At once, he asked his crying granddaughter to bring his new turban and coat for him. She ran and came back with it. “Help me to wear it, if you can” asked Shahab. I, along with his son did so and he kept smiling and praying for us. “Alright my dears, good bye… pray for me in this journey”, said Shahab and closed his eyes. At that time, a question came to my mind: Is he going somewhere? If not, then why he is doing all this? Most importantly, why he kept smiling on his death bed? Why he wore a new dress before dying? Although, Shahab was a religious man and I always knew him as a gentle, honest, and pious man. But why he did what he did? How did he knew he was about to die at that exact time?

 

His family was sobbing and crying on his funeral. I met with her old wife and told him that Shahab was an honest human being and I will always remember him as one of the best people I have met in my life. I sympathized on her loss, and asked her to have patience and courage. Crying, she uttered, “I accept what is being done. I accept this from my open heart, and see it as Divine justice we all deserve.” That women lost her husband, her children almost became orphans, and she was accepting it all happily with a justification of Divine justice? I wasn’t able to understand that philosophy of self-denial and sacrifice not even at this point of time, when I have become excessively rational in almost every aspect of my life. However, now I see it as an essential part of life for every human being on this planet. I believe there are some facets which we can never understand in our limited life, but even questioning them opens a whole new horror for us.

 

I am still not able to understand this event, and thought it’s good to share it all with you people. I leave you all to decide and summarize this whole thing at your end.

We’ll do it for Spite

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We'll Do It For Spite
A Story by Jeremy Glass

I had been living with my recently estranged girlfriend for the past two months. We had broken
up because of “irreconcilable differences.” Really, I was moving a few hours away for work and she
couldn't stand the thought of not seeing me everyday. So we cut it off. Our status had gone from lovers
to roommates. We were obsessed, completely infatuated with each other; not a day went by without a
passionate, detrimental fuck that would leave our bed in ruins. We have tremendous fights, awful things
would be said, and by the end our hearts (and any physical object unfortunate enough to be in our path)
would be in shambles. With her I felt love, and along with that, blood boiling jealousy.
Our relationship ended in tears. She left our apartment and spent days hiding away anywhere
she could be. I took the low path and stayed in our home, refusing to accept she was gone. I grew a
beard, smoked cigarettes, drowned myself in liquor, and wrote angry poetry. We would see each other
every few days; sometimes we would ignore each other and slam the door on the way back out,
sometimes our ugly, stupid sides would take hold and we'd kiss. It was obvious, with both parties, that
we were seeing other people. Neither one of us truly wanted to be without each other, but the thought
of being alone without a body to hold was worse. Combined, we probably slept with the entire city of
Boston; standards were lowered and bad decisions were made.
One day I'm perusing the Internet and I end up on the website designed to infuriate the
disenchanted lover: Facebook. Under her status, “in a relationship” I calmly stood up from my chair,
walked outside, smoked a few cigarettes, shattered the glass door of my lobby, and went back inside.
Days passed without either one of us talking; I went to parties, talked to my friends about how awful
she was, soaked my bones in beer, and grew my beard out further. One night I came home to find her
on our bed, fiddling around on her computer. It was the first time we were alone together in a week, so
I sat next to her. I was dozing when she put away her computer and turned the light off. This was the
first time in a month we had slept next to each other. Every ounce of pain we felt was shared through
our silence, she held my hand and I held it back. I felt the anger course through my body, but it getting
beaten mercilessly by love. I turned to her and grabbed her. There was no hesitation, no “we can't”,
nothing. We kissed. Deep slow kisses and quick angry kisses. Our hands touched every inch of each
other's bodies, every part that had been off-limits for all this time. She grabbed me and pushed me on
my back and got on top of me. We were rough, on the edge of physical assault, and we were cautious,
holding each other as if it was the last time we ever could.
When kissing wasn't enough, I took her face in my hands and said,
“Right now, you and I are going to fuck. You in?”Her hesitation was short, and nothing more than a pleasantry. She pulled my shirt off and began
grinding against me. This was to be the angriest fuck in the history of human relationships. We spent
the entire night with each other. Literally ripping off each other's clothes, finding every possible sexual
position, and covering our bodies in bite marks. Between every moment of true love and care, were true
spite fucks. The kind of fuck where I'd push her little body down into my bed and treat her like she was
a sex doll – an absolutely useless receptacle for my cum.
I'll always remember the moans from the session, she told me I was doing things she had never
had done to her before. I smiled, and asked her if I was the best she ever had. No hesitation, she said I
was. I was a champion – the best lover she'd ever have, surpassing her rebound boyfriend whom she
was currently cheating on. I was Casanova and Darth Vader, the world's greatest lover and a criminal
mastermind, capable of destroying an entire planet filled with millions of innocent people – and every
single one of those people were her boyfriend.
At one point, we passed out, our bodies completely tapped. The next morning was how was it
was: silent, sweet, and sad. She went into the bathroom and prettied herself out, no doubt getting ready
to see her boyfriend. After a bit, she came out and walked towards our door.
“I'll see you later, alright?” She said, avoiding my eyes.
“Ok.” She unlocked the door.
“Hey Daisy.”
“Yeah?” She looked up at me with those big blue eyes.
“Tell Tom I say Hi.” I gave the biggest smirk my lips would allow.
She smirked back, shook her head, and left.
Sure, it was an awful thing of us to do, but don't give me any hell about it, send all further inquiries to
my satisfied penis.

“If you can just leave those that’s be great” -Tiffany during the “extraction” process

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When one thinks of a five-hour spa treatment I would think the term “relaxing” comes to mind…WRONG!  Tiffany and I were the least relaxed people in the candle lit, waterfall aroma filled spa. Our spa package at Eden’s Day Spa in Chinatown started out with a Beach scrub, where I have never been so uncomfortable in my life.  I walked into a room with one candle as the only light source and a huge bathtub in the middle of the room. The lady instructed me to get in and I just looked at her with the expression, “I’m sorry, what?” on my face.  Over an hour later and with raw, nearly bleeding skin I met up with Tiffany. Tightening my robe I took my seat and Tiffany knew immediately what I was thinking because she went through the same thing. The only thing I could say about the experience was that I was pretty sure the woman used a slice of lemon to scrub my feet.  Tiffany and I then had lunch and then taken to our separate rooms. I was scheduled to have a deep-tissue massage- I wanted to die once the masseuse got started. I wish I could have been unconscious, because I am pretty sure she was breaking bones.  Every time the woman told me to relax I tensed.  I would have rather been punched in the face than have this women massage my back.  I fought back tears the whole 90 minutes.  Tiffany had her facial while I was getting my back pounded and when we quickly met up in the hallway, she told me she cried her facial was so painful! UM I was not looking forward to my facial.  As the woman was leading me into another room, she kept eyeing my face and made the comment, “You have nice skin.”  However, she retracted that statement once she put the huge and unnecessary magnifying glass over my face and said, “…oh.”  Yeah, tell me about it.  I must have been clenching my jaw, because the woman asked why I wasn’t relaxing and all I could say is, “It’s going to hurt.”  I could tell she was smiling under her mask as she said, “Not yet”…oh good. As the steam began filling the room and the scorching towels draped over my face, I felt like I was going to suffocate.  When I told her it was hard to breathe, she simply shrugged her shoulders and said, “Five more minutes.”  This is turning out to be a 400-dollar nightmare.  After cleansing my face with oils and/or creams-no idea what she was doing, she told me it was time for extractions and this was going to be a bit unpleasant.  Understatement of the year!  I can’t even begin to describe the amount of pain this woman brought upon my face; I can only say it was the second time I was in tears. When she finally finished squeezing EVERY pore on my face, she handed me a mirror and said my skin looked so much better.  Looking at my face in the mirror, my only thought was, “Are you high?” My face felt like I had hundreds of tiny bee stings. I looked like a 13-year old boy; I looked better with my blackheads covered up with layers of concealer.  When I met with Tiffany to have our manicures and pedicures, once again we couldn’t even say anything; we just looked at each other. A total of six hours later we were getting dressed in normal lighting.  I walked over to the mirror to see the damage and I looked absolutely hideous. My hair must have gotten wet from the beach scrub and dried in a greasy ‘I have lived on the streets’ kind of look and I can’t even talk about my face!  Quickly stepping out into the humid polluted air that was re-clogging our pores, we kept our heads down and hailed a cab.  The only “relaxing” part of the day was when I ate my chicken salad sandwich.

by Stacey Willis

The Couch Chronicles: http://staceandtiff.blogspot.com

The Story Of The Man Who Wouldn’t Die

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I found out at a very young age what real pain felt like when my brother hammered me in the head in an attempt to kill me.  I get past that event and I go on living, only to realize my brother’s attempt was just a preamble to what would lie ahead.
Traveling down a street as I am older now, I get hit by a drunk driver and thrown right out of my car.  My car spins and turns and eventually runs over the top of me, breaking my back in two places and causing massive head trauma.  I survive, though my doctors never give me a chance.
My recovery is relatively swift and I find my self  during my flying years flying a friend and his family to a little town in Michigan.  As I release the landing gear and we’re about to touch down, my friend decides he wants to help and mistakenly pulls the landing gear back up.  The plane skids out of control and eventually I manage to bring it to a complete halt without anyone on board suffering any serious injury.
It takes me an entire year to fix my plane, a year in which I start riding my Harley again.  Unfortunately, as I am doing 50 mph down a highway, a truck suddenly stops dead in front of me.  With not enough time to stop before hitting the truck, I jump off the bike – which ends up totaled under the truck – and I fly some 15 feet into the air, before landing and sliding to a complete halt.  To everyone’s amazement, I immediately stand up and I walk to the crash site with nothing more then then a sore hand to show for my near death experience.
Next, deciding to visit my parents, I embark  in my plane and fly to Michigan, only to be caught in a raising cloud deck.  The controller lets me know about the cold weather and advises me to return, but as the message ends, my plane starts to malfunction due to icing conditions.
As the clouds rise, I see myself approaching the mountain at a deadly speed – this is it!  However, I manage to barely tilt the plane and miss the mountain, followed by a less then comfortable landing in Gallup, New Mexico.  One more stare down the barrel of a gun.
Three years of almost constant heart attacks follow, as I undergo 13 heart surgeries and have 9 stints installed, and my heart is totally taken out of my chest for a quadruple bypass.
Barley recovered from my heart attack period, I decide to get away and  do some swimming in the Colorado River, and swim from an island only to make it to the other side exhausted and with terrible chest pain.  Still alive, but no less misfortunate, my back goes out crippling me for 8 months.  My doctors propose surgery, but stubborn and also paranoid – I refuse.  I fight the pain while tied to my bed, as my ex-wife decides to hire a lawyer and sues me for more money.
My back recovers and I can finally walk again, and also work to pay my ex-wife, but the real estate market crashes, leaving me broke.  As if that isn’t bad enough, in another silly accident, my back goes out again, this time almost paralyzing me for good.
Thoughts of suicide run through my mind as I pick up my gun, but then realize how foolish that would be and put it back down.   Eventually I heal – again – and am able to go on living my life.
However, soon enough I find myself in the most terrible accident I have ever been in; doing 70 mph down the highway, a van (driven by a mom and full of kids) stops dead in front of me.  I manage to turn left and stare death in the face in the form of the oncoming cars, but miraculously I make it; driving off the shoulder and then off the road.  The car spins and turns but eventually comes to a complete halt.  I suffer little damage apart from an almost instant heart attack.
Today, although I am a little roughed up I carry on with my life, my ex-wife still suing me, my ex-girlfriend still stalking me.  I have trouble sleeping and I am always looking over my shoulder, but I know, after so many experiences, that whatever life might throw at me, there’s nothing I can’t take.  Nothing.
by John C Hoenicke

A Story Every Day

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I was listening to NPR the other night in my car as I drove home from some place I’ve already forgotten, and I overheard an interview with author Donald Ray Pollock. He was saying that he used to write a story a day. By this he meant that he copied over someone’s story, one a day, as a method of learning how to write. I liked this idea. I also started to like the idea of writing a quick (or long) story a day. To practice. To learn. To tell. To share.

And then I decided that perhaps when I didn’t have my own stories, I could help tell other people’s stories. And here, “A Story Every Day” was born.

It is my hope that this can be outlet for everyone’s stories. Stories true or false. Stories sad or happy. Fiction or non fiction. Past or present.

Donald Ray Pollock’s story, as told by NPR, can be found here.

I’m confident that everyone has a story to tell, whether or not they believe they do. This confidence has inspired me to make this space, and to aim to post a story a day, whether it’s mine or yours.

You can submit stories to astoryproject@gmail.com.