Secret Stories

by Dwight Peters

Secret Stories

  By

  Dwight Peters

  Secret Stories

  by Dwight Peters

  Copyright 2014 Dwight Peters

   

  Contents

  The Man Who Turned Into A Garden

  A Shadow Play

  Famous Orphan Girl

  The Value Of Simplicity As Told To A Deaf Turtle In The Voice Of A Tomato

  Wildman

  Hero

  This Story Stinks

  Music Of Body’s Footsteps

  Perceiving Doors

  An Oak And A Shepherd

  Everyone Deserves A Little Celebration

  Naked Reading

  Don’t Be Suckered Into Worrying

  The Third Nipple Is Never Blind

  Gypsy Girl And Woman

  Portrait

  Be Movie

  Parentage

  Chip Dip

  The Excitement Of Silences

  Days Over When They Begin, The First Quiet Breaths Of Morning New

  Normal Dangers

  A Self Sacrifice

  Ocean’s Tide

  The Philosopher And The Stranger

  The Killing Of A Bad Man

  Over As Well As Under Development

  The Eye Of Acquaintance

  The Wait

  Alone Again

  Nature Walk

  An Interview With A Social Worker

  The Gift Of Strength

  A New Fullness

  Documentary

  Introduction

  Reality Show

  Amuseum

  Don’t Ever Settle For Simply Settling When Settling Down

  The Reason For Rhythm

  I Was Wrong

  It Is Essential To Know This

  Prescription

  Touch, To Know What Giving Is

  A To-Do Today

  Touchdown

  Potty Training For Potty Mouths

  You Are Beautiful Inside Your Insides

  Prehistoric Urges

  It’s Okay To Have Vision

  The Man With A Mirror For A Face

  The Woman Who Was The Earth

  Children Can Be Cruel And Everyone’s A Child

  Travel Time

  Wild, Western, Cowless, Cower Less Man

  Untitled

  Audience

  Crane

  Sightseeing

  Internet Cafe

  Water Music

  Fire Music

  The Salty Madness Of Mixed-up Nuts

  Ash As Fire

  Wave Goodbye, Wave Hello

  Meditation On The Smiling Beautiful

  The Man Who Held His Breath And Became A Cloud

  Workforce

  Street Smarts

  I Would Drink An Entire Volcano While Walking In The Middle Of An Ocean To Create An Island Paradise For You. But Wait, Don’t You Know You Are My Island Paradise?

  Letter Written At A Café In Bright Sunshine

  The Philosopher Says Hello

  Impossible To Bear

  The Smite Of The Melted, Smitten Smiths

  Seems, Stitches

  Art Tune

  Intimidate. Intimate.

  All The New/Old Rage

  Modern Medicine

  What Was Theirs Is Now Sometimes In Some Ways Mine

  Many Bodies To Consider

  Log Ick

  Doing It

  Redicktionism

  A Cliché Story With Or Without People

  How Much Humiliation Does It Take To Become Humble?

  Lesson Plans

  Marriage

  City Life

  The Smiling Scent Of Lavender Above The Clouds Becoming Fragrant Moonlight

  The Philosopher And The Crazy Person

  Bedtime Story

  At The Height Of Being Grounded

  What A Lovely Day

  She Is A Painter

  Peak-a-boohoo

  In An Open Bedroom

  Bees At Bear’s Knees, Bear At Bees’ Knees

  The Light Of Love Through Space And Time

  An Honest Discovery Presents Itself

  The Secret Of The Sad Dog

  Nothing Normal Is Normal, Normally

  Pet Friendly

  Flowers

  Sea. Transparent. See.

  The Man Who Turned Into A Garden

  A man became weak from the stresses of his life, so soon his body was unable to fight off the invasive organisms that healthy bodies fight off. But something very different happened to him. His body began to change a lot in a very unusual way.

  The first change that he noticed was a patch of grass on his back. Then, soon after, he found a small flower behind his knee. After this, there was so much all at once: some thyme grew on his arm; under his chin was an eggplant the size of two of his chins; there was a large bunch of grapes on his head; and there was a green bell pepper on one shoulder and yellow one on his other; also, he was confused by the rutabaga that he had to trim from each his ankles one morning to get his shoes on because he remembered rutabagas were root vegetables. And over the next few weeks and months there was a lot more: parsley, figs, green beans, dill, lemons, zucchini, basil, spinach, plums, rosemary, tangerines, kale, asparagus, cilantro, cherries, and a few hot chilies that stung a little. All this and even a lot more grew until nearly all of his body was full and lush, and he had more vegetables and herbs and fruits than he could ever imagine figuring out what to do with.

  Somehow most of his stresses didn’t bother him anymore. His neighbors would come over often now, and they would talk and laugh and drink a tea made from some chamomile that had grown on his stomach. On the small round dining table that he placed next to the front window of his home, he kept a pair of gardening shears; and, when his guests were over, he would give them some of the vegetables, herbs and fruits that had grown from him. One day, as he went out to a farm to give what he could to a family whose farm wasn’t able to produce much, he let their cow chew some grass from his back.

  Since all of this began, he noticed that he had been going to bed earlier and waking up just before sunrise. He would sit at his table looking out the window at the dark, feeling happy and fortunate, waiting for the sunlight.

  A Shadow Play

  He kept seeing only half of his body whenever he glimpsed a shadow of himself. And it wasn’t sliced by length or width—he would look and see a collection of scattered parts.

  After he lost her, he said and said that it felt like he had lost a part of himself. This feeling of loss undermined his ability to function in the basic daily things he always did. It was more than he was ever prepared to consider and be able to figure out a way through. The experiences that had made up his world were no longer possible. His world was severed.

  He asked himself what he could possibly do to put himself back together again. After a few months of trying to answer this—when he barely fed himself, rarely washed and stumbled to the few places he actually did go—he found what he thought was a solution. He decided to live entirely in the dark.

  Immediately, he moved to a house in a rural area and covered all the windows so no light could get in. He took out all the light bulbs. He bought sunglasses that covered his eyes and the areas around them completely, applying duct tape over the complete surface of them; wearing them always, except when he washed his face—but, as he did that, he kept his eyes shut hard. He learned to do everything without seeing and never left his house, having his groceries delivered. He tried to see himself only in the way where he still was what used to be, telling himself that his shadow needed to be removed.

  Famous Orphan Girl

  A father died and left his teenage daughter orphaned and in debt. All but a few
of his things were seized by creditors at the time of his death. Her father was famous and anything of his was worth a lot of money.

  As she got older, the woman had to sell her father’s personal items and gifts to her that she was able to keep.

  By her mid-twenties, the woman was incapacitated by having lived her life around people who didn’t see her as anything beyond her being part of her father. She loved her father deeply; but was not sure what to do to take care of herself because she was unable to discover how to go out into the world and live: her memories had taken on a physical presence and battered and bondaged her.

  After she turned thirty, she barely left her home, living off of what savings she still had from selling her father’s things, all of which were now gone, having sold one thing and then another until there was no longer any of her father’s things left. She went out rarely. She ate little. And she couldn’t meet anyone without them talking only of her father; none of these people ever noticed anything wrong because they never listened to or saw her.

  Most of the rest of the woman’s life was spent living off of money from selling small bags with pinches of her father’s ashes in them. This was the only way that she could figure out to survive. It only took a couple of sales a year to give how much it took to get by. One person even put the ashes in water and drank them, wanting to be more like her father.

  When the ashes too were gone, something changed in her, though by now quite old, within a few months she got married, adopted a child, and started working on something that was meaningful and wasn’t based on what people saw her as.

  The Value Of Simplicity As Told To A Deaf Turtle In The Voice Of A Tomato

  After years of accidents that have formed my personality—where I have been forced to accept that I am making sense of the world, but doing it one disaster at a time—I have finally found my way to be capable of telling you this story.

  One day, as I hung growing happily attached to my vine, I fell to the dirt and suddenly became a mouse—scaring myself. Instantly, I found myself running through a monstrous field full of what seemed to be similar to what I had just been. As I got to the edge of all the vines, I paused from the shock of all this. And, when I did, I was cut into many awful pieces by a large machine.

  Instantly, again, I changed and became dust and was blown into an old