Opinion: The Slowing Down of The New York MTA – By Allan Raible

<!--[if !supportEmptyParas]--> Do you know that feeling when you are already running late for work and you find yourself sitting on a platform waiting forever to just see those train lights coming toward you?  Do you know that frustration when you were once making good time in the morning until something unexpected happened and threw you off schedule?  Do you know what it is like to sit in a train for twenty minutes with no announcements explaining why you haven’t moved?  Do you ever wonder if there really is “train traffic ahead,” or if it is just a catch-phrase that is thrown about to make people not question being held hostage by public transportation?

Growing up in the eighties, it always seemed to me that the trains went rather quickly.  I remember hopping on an A train and rocketing to my destination.  Of course, back then, people were still smoking on the platforms and the trains were tagged to oblivion.  But at least the service was faster. 

As a commuter who relies on the subway as a means to get from here to there, I find it shocking how slowly the trains are running these days.  The MTA touts how they are working harder to serve us better, and I believe there are improvements being made, but I also feel like they use said construction as an excuse to slow down service.  It is so frustrating.  I don’t always believe those announcements.

Photo-illustration by Allan Raible

When I was little I dreamed of the future in New York being filled with hustle.  I dreamed of bullet-trains shooting us through tunnels in a faster way than ever before.  I didn’t dream about routinely worrying whether I was going to be stopped in between stations because of a “signal malfunction.”

What really makes things worse is the fact that the fare keeps seemingly exponentially getting higher.  In the seventies, the subway cost thirty-five cents. In the eighties, it was a dollar.  It is now $2.25.  If you can’t count on being anywhere on time (or without over-estimating your travel time) it still offers a dollar ride in value.  I swear something crooked is happening. 

Maybe it is that the tracks are old.  Maybe they are really working on everything.  But as a rider it gets extremely frustrating.  Maybe it is due to increased rider-ship.  Maybe due to a larger population there have to be more trains than before, thus clogging up the system.  These are all valid possibilities. 

Someday, I would like to get anywhere around the five boroughs in under an hour, door-to-door.  I don’t know if it will ever happen, but a rider can dream.  I know more express trains are reportedly on their way.  I’ll believe it when I see it!

It would also be nice to be able to travel on the weekends without being re-routed a dozen times, thus creating more delays and frustration. 

Of course, as angry as it makes me, New York probably has the best public transportation system in the country.  I still wish it was better.  

“The Escalator” – Short Fiction by Allan Raible

George Schneider was a hard-working man.  He had a corporate job with an ad agency.  It was nothing fancy.  He was mainly a copy-writer.  In his thirty-eight years, he hadn’t amounted to much.  In fact, the actual copy was being written by the newly-hired twenty-somethings.  George was merely a glorified proof-reader, cleaning up syntax and phrasing to make sure that little Johnny Suburban really believed that that cologne might make him score.  Yes… George was going nowhere.   The promises of tomorrow had never come to fruition. 

He was loved, though.  He had a wife, Stephanie and two daughters, Willa and Taft.  They had a nice house in the suburbs of New Jersey.  Stephanie was from money and so in spite of George’s lack of career propulsion, they could afford a good life. 

On one particular Wednesday afternoon, George was heading out of his office building.  As he boarded the escalator, a chill hit him.  Something strange was about to happen.  And so he held onto the railing as tightly as he could.  Just then, the railing stopped moving, but the escalator itself continued its trajectory downward.  George could feel the veins in his eyes beginning to burst as he tried to regain his composure.  He was fifteen steps up.  The fall would be messy and there was a clean, hard layer of greenish grey marble awaiting his soon clattering body.  He summoned all his might to keep himself upright, but as he moved his feet back and forth, he caught an edge of his left shoelace with his right foot.  It would soon be over.

Screams echoed through the hollow halls.  It was a horror like no one had ever seen.  Wasn’t a man in a Brooks Brothers suit being catapulted across a lobby a routine sight?  George was completely aware of his fate.  As he flew, he took a few milliseconds to remember his childhood, remember his first date with Stephanie and remember the short, but treasured time he had raising Willa and Taft.  As he was beginning to feel the air envelop his body, everything went dark and the last sound he heard was his wounded skeleton being served to the marble. 

As it hit George that he was in fact dead, he suddenly got alert again.  He opened his eyes to find he had actually dozed off in a business meeting.  Considering this a new lease on life, George vowed he was going to change his reality.  He walked into his boss’ office and asked for more responsibility and a raise.  He was not going to have the escalator be a metaphor for his aimless career. 

Upon said requests, George was told to pack up his things and leave.   And so, that’s how George discovered that in a round-about way he could in fact predict the future.  

He now works children’s parties as an (assistant) clown.  It’s quite sad, really.  But his family still loves him.  So, that’s good!    

Wasted Time, Repeated Tasks: Fighting Against A Repetitive World - By Allan Raible

The other night, while walking through the subway station on my way home from work, about to board another train, it occurred to me.  How much time do I waste commuting?  Every day, I walk through the same stations.  I take the same boring walks to and from the train.  I look at same faceless mass of folks in a slightly different configuration and most of the time I spend this time half-asleep, with my earphones blasting music in an attempt to half-heartedly convince myself that this is possibly a different experience than I had the day before.

On an average day, it takes me roughly an hour and ten minutes to an hour and twenty to get to work.  If I get in the habit of listening to the same music several days in a row, I can hit the same spots right when my ipod hits the same songs as it did the day before.  It’s calculated synchronicity. 

There was a time a few years back when I lived in a different apartment, when I was walking back home and thought, “I feel like I spend too much of my life making this walk.”  When you can do this with your eyes shut, it is hardly stimulating. 

Photo by Allan Raible. 

Telecommuting doesn’t solve the issue.  It makes it worse.  You end up stuck in the same four walls that hold you while you sleep.  You never see the world.  Of course, you don’t see the world in a cubicle either.  But at least you are in a DIFFERENT place.

The problem doesn’t really lie with commuting.  The problem lies with all the mundane, repeated tasks we do on a daily basis.  How much time do we spend preparing food?  How much time do we spend watching television shows we only partly like?  How much time to we spend not really being true to our dreams and ourselves?  It’s the human existential crisis in action.  For as short as life is, we sure do waste a lot of it. 

If only we could spend our time running through the fields.  If only we had more time to fall in love and to spend with our cherished loved ones.  If only we had more time to create and make our unique marks on the world. 

Modern society is wasting our time and squandering our potential.  But we need to work.  We need to eat.  We need to make money.  Even if repetition stifles the creative spirit.

The key is balancing the equation so you can create and live up to your societal obligations, while living up to your own creative potential.  This means hard work all around.  If you can make something unique in your spare time, maybe you’ll eventually break through the noise and be able to make it a full-time experience. 

We must win the war against wasted time. So live life to the fullest.  Smile more.  Give more hugs.  Tell the people you love that you love them as much as possible.  Never lose sight of your self, your own wellbeing or the wellbeing of those that matter most to you.  Multi-task like crazy.  Keep yourself active and stimulated.  Don’t be afraid to occasionally take a different route.  Change is good.  Think as much and as deeply as possible and figure out a way to make this life better for the others around you. 

It is too easy to fall into patterns.  There are times when you must resist doing so for your own good.  If you succeed, maybe your actions will make someone else’s life slightly less repetitive.

New Poetry/Prose By Lia Parisyan

Cold and jittery, wearing a damp winter coat, well past

December on a snow drift afternoon north of New York City,

watching Q-tip cotton flakes fall, melting the instant they meet

pavement miles

apart though wide-paneled windows

as a woman laments in minor, her voice rises

and soothes the quiet worries of wrinkled brows,

frowning over clock faces as I listen to the drink

orders of a hundred strangers, well into my third

refill (that's 60 ounces of steaming bold-roasted coffee).

My heart is racing, and I'm still, twirling, it seems

the world is pirouetting out of control, like a father waiting

in a room with candy and roses because first born

cigars are reserved for the black and white spaces

of 50's sitcoms, "I Love Lucy's" lung cancer, twiddling my thumbs

my head's spinning from the rush of caffeine as my phone

blinks, and makes its final sounds,

as if I needed to be alerted to digital death-- it's no surprise,

I can't afford a meal, let alone, a replacement charger

Two week withdrawal has killed my immunity to

the synthetic surge.

I walked through the park, my hair was white as a

widow's and my lashes were wet, coated with a thin layer

of delicate powder. I wandered miles today because I have no place

to call home, an atomic shadow of a nuclear family, no job, no income,

a hundred dreams, a long-distance, perpetually absent father, who

left me, pinching my cheek as if, I was some rapscallion, some coach's

star athlete, injured and replete with nothing to offer, the last words

he ever spoke, "I'm done," and he wasn't kidding

I have yet to see a dime from the child support he owes me,

a decade overdue, and it's a good thing, I haven't approached Life

like a tunnel, waiting for the glorious light at the end-- I didn't hold my breath

by now, I would have been dead and purple. Instead of Love,

I'm strangled by expectations, choked by hopes as thick as jungle vines,

wrapping around my neck and my tired limbs, waiting for my veins to swell

and pop, surrounded by predators, ready to swallow me whole like

boa constrictors.

Ten Years Ago…. By Allan Raible

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I did not want to get out of bed.  It was primary day in New York City and with my father, I had agreed to campaign for my first grade teacher’s son who was running for office.  But when my eyes opened that day, my heart just wasn’t in it.  I wanted to go back to sleep. 

I was living with my parents.  I had graduated from college two years prior but was sleeping on a living room couch in a small apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn.  Personally, it was a dark time for me.  I was unemployed and very unhappy.  I should’ve greeted any chance to leave that apartment with great eagerness, but on that morning I was slapping myself for volunteering my services.  In all truth, I think my resistance stemmed from the fact that I am not a morning person.  If I had complete control over my life, I’d probably be nocturnal.

I turned on the television.  It was a beautiful day.  It seemed very normal.  I was watching one of the network morning shows.  During one of the local-newscasts break-ins it was announced that a plane had hit the World Trade Center.  Like most people, I assumed that it was probably a small plane that had lost its way.

Then the television reception went out.  Most channels were gone.

Growing up in Brooklyn, I never had cable.  We were one of the last places in the country to have cable even available to us and our proximity to the antennae meant that we had nearly perfect reception on all the broadcast channels.  Being without television, even for a few moments, was a strange feeling.  But my father and I figured we’d head out as we had promised and continue our Primary Day duties. 

I grabbed my discman on the way out the door.  It had a radio and as we were walking down 7^th Avenue, I listened to a news radio station that was still on the air.  A few blocks into our journey it was announced that the second tower had been hit. Shortly afterwards, the first tower fell. 

A few blocks away from our destination, I ran into a friend of mine I hadn’t seen since high school.  He was in a panic.  He told me he was babysitting some kids and he knew their father worked in the World Trade Center and that he was frantically trying to find out if he was all right. The street was buzzing.  What was happening?  We were all upset and nervous, unsure of what was going on and why.  It was truly scary.  I wished my friend good luck and we each went our uneasy ways.

*                                    *                                    *

 A few months later I ran into that same friend on the subway.  He told me the father of the children he had been baby-sitting had been killed.  My heart sank. 

*                                    *                                    *

My father and I arrived at our destination.  Very few people were coming through to vote.  All the volunteers stood there, very uncertain.  With my headphones on, I served as a newsman, delivering little bits of news to the crowd that filtered in.   I heard about the crash at the Pentagon.  I heard about the crash in Pennsylvania.  My jaw would have dropped at what I was hearing if I hadn’t been so numb.  As the second tower fell, I could see smoke and ashy dust over the horizon.  It was about that time when we got word that the primary had been postponed. 

My father walked home.  We parted ways because it was Tuesday and I wanted to stop by “SoundTrack,” a record store on the way, to get the new They Might Be Giants album, “Mink Car.”  Considering that I love TMBG, I had been looking forward to this day since I’d seen them perform their single, “Man, It’s So Loud In Here,” the Friday before on “Late Night With Conan O’Brien.” 

I walked into the store as someone else exited.  It was just me and the guy behind the counter.  I was a well-known music-junkie and a regular fixture in the store, so we knew each other.  I quickly grabbed the disc and as I checked out, we had a very short conversation about the mayhem outside.  Both of us were bewildered and in utter disbelief.  We wished each other the best and I left with my black plastic bag in hand.  I didn’t buy another CD for the next five months.

A million thoughts ran through my mind as I walked home.  How safe were we?  How many people had died and were dying?  Why had this happened?  I felt clueless, helpless and sad all at once.  There was a harsh, burning metallic smell in the air.  I felt very uncertain. 

When I walked back in, my father had found a channel that was still on the air.  We watched it for updates.  Slowly the News broke, how this had been a terror plot.  All I could think of was why.  Over and over again I saw the footage of those planes hitting the towers.  Over and over again I saw those orange balls of fire.  It looked like something out of “Die Hard.”  But it was real.  People were in those buildings.  The news was filled with stories of people successfully escaping or dying trying to escape.  People were jumping out of windows.  That sounded the most horrific to me.  I can’t imagine having to make that decision to jump.  Being so desperate.

My mom, being a teacher, had heard that a plane had hit the World trade Center and assumed like we all did, the small-plane scenario.  As information passed through the school, they eventually sent the kids home early and closed.  A lot of her class parents worked in the World Trade Center, but because it was primary day and because her class had had an early-morning parents’ breakfast in the classroom, they were later to work than usual.  Those two factors probably saved some lives. 

She arrived home and we all sat there, glued to the television.  It was bewildering and uncomfortable.  The air still reeked of burning metal.  I put on my headphones, longing for some sense of comfort; I turned on “Mink Car,” intermittently stopping to get an update.  We were under attack…..

Some stories were harrowing.  Most were tragic.  So many good people lost their lives.  These were innocent people who just were going to work that day.  People were missing. How many were gone?  I thought about sitting in Prospect Park a few weeks earlier, hearing Incubus’ latest single on the radio, “Wish You Were Here.”  I knew that the song would now possibly become an anthem and a tribute to those who weren’t. 

The whole event was so numbing.  Here I was, feeling helpless already due to my lack of employment but it was all put into perspective by this event.  I still had my family.  My parents and sister were all safe.  Even if the future was uncertain, I knew we had each other. 

So many people lost loved ones.  So many lives were shattered.  So many people had to pick up the pieces and try to make sense of something that was unexplainable within the realms of reason and human decency. 

As the day went on, absent television channels returned to the air by borrowing signals of less-crucial UHF stations.  The pictures were fuzzier, but if you searched around you could find what you needed to get information.  I just remember a sinking sadness. 

The following days were alarmingly stark.  News would trickle in.  Many heroes in the NYPD and the New York Fire Department saved many lives, but thousands of people were dead and/or missing. 

Walking the streets of the neighborhood was like entering into a deadened world.  As much as we were fighting back and as much as we were each trying to reclaim our lives, something had changed.  Our innocence had been stolen.  

I remember later in the week, I went to the supermarket with my mother.  As we walked down our street, a silent group walked across the way, each carrying a candle.  Our firehouse lost a lot of people.  This was a silent, roaming vigil.  Like melancholy, mute apparitions, these mourners moved down the street.  Pain was in the air and it left that damn lingering burnt metallic smell. 

Grocery shopping at this time was really strange.  People were walking around as if guided by autopilot.  But at the same time the best was brought out by the soul-stealing tragedy.  People were giving each other glances and faint acknowledgement on the street, as if to say, “If we stick together we will be OK.”

I remember being shocked at how the national media seemed surprised that New Yorkers were so resilient and were coming together in the face of terror.  People from across the country, from small towns were being quoted on the news saying how amazed they were that we were working together and helping each other out.  After all, some of these people viewed New York as a rude, godless place.  We weren’t “real Americans.”  And this was still in the undertone of their sound bites.  As a lifelong New Yorker, I took offence to the rest of the country’s surprise.  New York may have a harsh, fast-paced image, but when the chips are down, it can be like a giant small town.  We stick together.  People from all around the world flock here and they live in peace no matter what their nationality or faith.  New York, contrary to its outdated image, is actually one of the most harmonious and diverse cities on the planet.  Of course we felt each other’s pain.  Of course we came together.  That’s what people should do in times of unrest.  We were all in this together.  There was no escaping it. 

On the other hand, all across the country there were some misguided acts of Anti-Muslim backlash.  The people who committed 9/11's acts of terror were extremists.  They had bent and mangled their faith in order to justify their means.  They had virtually nothing in common with your average Muslim American.  The Anti-Muslim acts of violence were unfortunate and should have been treated like any other hate-crime.  We will never get anywhere if we don’t take a moment to try to understand and appreciate our differences.  Nothing is black and white and when ignorant people act in violent ways it is usually because they are thinking in absolutes.  That’s the kind of closed-minded generalization that caused 9/11 in the first place.  That path can only lead to anger and sadness.

Ten years later, we should remember how we felt on that day and how we fought against adversity.  We should hug and kiss the ones we love and teach each other as much as we can about the world.  We must treat each other with respect and never forget that sense of pain and loss.  Something like this should never happen again.  We are a global society and we should be able to handle everything that entails.

Close your eyes for a minute today.  Think about all the things you have and all the people you love.  Remember all those who lost their lives a decade ago.  Remember all the people missing from dinner tables.  Only when we learn to walk in other people’s shoes will the violence and hatred be fully put to rest. 

Love and appreciate the world.  It’s all we have.  We are all in this together! 

PEACE!  - Allan Raible - September 11, 2011

Fiction: “The Vacuum Demo” – By Allan Raible

“Speak calmly,” she said in a quiet voice, “The world will wait for your input.”  I sat there with a stupid grin on my face waiting to be silenced by a potentially angry crowd just beyond the curtains.  It was time for me, Eddie Boggins, to deliver the speech that I’d been dreading for the past five months.  Five months of planning, grinding my teeth and losing sleep over something I could not stop.  I worked for the Bloomerville Vacuum Company and I had done so for the past fifteen years as their spokesperson and “Presenter of Innovative New Products.”

Today, I was gearing up to present the new Carborneon 5000.  This was a vacuum that not only sucked with ten times more force than our previous model, the Carboneon 4000, but it was also rechargeable and had a cool, adjustable strobe light as well.  The idea was to make vacuuming more exciting. 

The calming voice was my assistant, Lillian Keldron.  She had always been by my side, at least for the fifteen years I had been working for Bloomerville.  We were just friends.  We tried a fling once, but both decided it mucked our business relationship up too much.  As Lillian and I sat backstage, we looked intensely at the plugged in, charging vacuum about to be demoed for a filled auditorium. We both knew the pressure was on.

“Just be yourself,” she said.  “This is an amazing model.  People will love it.  It will sell itself.”

“I know, “ I said, “But I got no sleep last night. I kept having dreams about being sucked into a black hole of nothingness.  I kept feeling insecure.”

“You’ll be fine,” she said with a glowing smile.

The Carboneon 5000 needed a full 12-hour charge before it worked properly.  I’d had my colleague, Larry Schmirdtlandt deliver the vacuum to that back stage room some seventeen hours before.  I wanted to be more safe than sorry.  My career was hinging on this. 

Five minutes until curtain and my palms were sweating.  My tie was feeling tight and my mind was racing. 

“I can’t do it!”  I yelled.

Lillian looked me square in the eyes and said, “Yes you can!”  With that she gave me a devilish and warm smile and the kind of deep kiss I will never forget.  It felt like it lasted hours, but it was probably only a couple of minutes. 

As our mouths separated, she said, “Do you feel better, now?”  I nodded having been rendered speechless.  What did this kiss mean?  Did she love me?  I thought we had defined our relationship as strictly professional!  Did it mean nothing?  Was it merely a morale booster?

Indeed, somewhat flummoxed and a little woozy, I rose to my feet in preparation for the inevitable.  I unplugged the vacuum from its console and took it to the stage with me. 

As I was set to enter, I took a brief peek beyond the curtain.  These people didn’t look so bad.  Mostly eager men and women in business suits.  They weren’t going to hurt me.

I entered to our commercial jingle playing over the loud speakers. “Bloomerville Vacuums for cleaning every day! / Bloomerville Vacuums, gonna suck that dirt away!” I was proud to work there and I was happy with my work but this irksome ditty ran through my nightmares like hauntingly eerie carnival-ride music.  It was the kind of tripe that Middle America sucked in like candy and modern life had made me too apathetic and jaded to still find enjoyment in the midst of its calculated folksiness.  Let’s be frank.  The crap turned my stomach.  Although, at that moment, that may have been my nerves due to the presentation I was about to deliver.

I opened my mouth and I realized the microphone was really sensitive.  When I began to speak, I heard my voice reverberate and echo.  This might have made me feel like a deity calling down from the mountaintops had my nerves not rendered my voice an uncharacteristically squeaky mess.  “Hello,” I said, my voice cracking in new ways I’d never heard before, “I am Edward Boggins and I would like to welcome you to this year’s Bloomerville showcase.”  With that, I cracked a few jokes.  Most of my material would have flopped in other settings – like, for instance, places that actually knew the definition of humor, but here, with this stiff, starched crowd, I came off like an unworthy superstar.  Most of my jokes involved sucking references, since after all, that’s what vacuums do.  (Nothing filthy.  I didn’t want to work blue.  Get your mind out of the gutter.  That would have been a little too on the nose.)

A few minutes of this mindless, corporate banter and I was feeling like a king for a moment.  Even if this was nothing more than public schmoozing on a grand scale consisting of inside jokes about business memos and the ins and outs of the industry.  I was spewing verbal diarrhea and it was working.  By the time I was ready to unveil the Carboneon 5000, I was really full of myself.  It was a small and somewhat portable unit.  I had wheeled it out with me as I’d entered the stage. 

I gave my pitch.  I talked about how advanced it was in comparison to the 4000 model.  I even went as far as saying, “This will revolutionize house-cleaning for the next generation!  Welcome to the future of clean!!”  I admit that might have been over-selling it, but I just got so caught in the moment. 

Beside me was a bucket of sawdust.  Hillary Swenson, the intern had dyed the sawdust a bilious shade of green for effect.  I reached down for the bucket and spilled its contents all over the stage.  This was going to be my moment.  This was going to cement my legacy!  I grabbed the Carboneon 5000, switched it to the on position and………nothing happened…..

My brain froze.  My fingers tightened.  I could feel copious amounts of blood rushing to my face.  My wrists hurt.  My neck ached and my stomach sank down to my feet.  Had I not been sweating with anxiety for the last few hours in anticipation of this event, I might have wet myself right there and then.  But, thankfully, my reserves seemed to be empty.  I was stunned and I was numb.  A walking corpse set for a business-casual funeral.

What had happened?  Why wasn’t this damn thing working?  Why me?   Was this some sort of payback for the unexpected joy of being able to briefly make out with Lillian back stage?  No.  I actually felt no guilt about what happened between Lillian and I.  In fact, if given the chance, if I got out of here alive, I knew I was going to take her back to my hotel room and show her a good time, if she’d let me.  But I digress. 

I couldn’t help but think I might be cursed.  To this audience, it must have looked like I had unraveled within a five-second window.  I loosened my tie, gave out an awkward, strangely high-pitched giggle and glanced out to see if I could find any caring eyes in the audience. 

No such luck. They were all waiting for something that wasn’t going to come.  The poor bastards.

I managed to locate Larry three rows back.  He just gave me a stupid look and a shrug.  Thanks for having my back, brother!  Indeed, it was all Larry’s fault.  When he had set it up backstage, he’d plugged the charger into an unplugged power-strip.  This was his fault!

The pressure was too much.  I felt my chest tighten and my arm go numb.  The spotlight was too harsh and blinding for my eyes to handle.  I closed my eyes, fell over and passed out.  The last sound I heard was the thud my body made as I hit the floor. 

And with that, it got hazy….

I had lived a very uneventful 37 years.  I had had the same job since just after college.  Never partied.  I’d never really lived.  My few flirtations with Lillian had constituted the most substantial relationship of my life.  And I saw every moment fly by as if my mind were in rewind-and-reset mode. 

One memory lingered. 

When I was sixteen, I remember going to visit my cousin Wilbur upstate for the summer.  Wilbur was my age and admittedly much more adventurous than I was.  I remember we slept in a tent outside his house every night just on the off chance we’d get to catch a glimpse of his impossibly beautiful neighbor, Gwen Thornhill getting ready for bed through her window.  Night after night, we would hope to see her naked body through the window, which we both imagined was quite glorious.  While we kept our eyes peeled in our tent placed between Wilbur’s and Gwen's houses, we told each other ghost stories, corny jokes and stories about girls we liked but were too afraid to talk to. 

One night I fell asleep rather early.  In the morning, Wilbur told me he saw her.  He wouldn’t stop talking about her perfect figure and how gloriously toned and tan she was.  He said it was as if she’d been lifted out of a painting.  No…he then backtracked and said her body was even more magnificent than he thought existed.  He was crying with joy as he recalled this fleeting sight.  I wanted to kill him.  More importantly, I hated myself for needing sleep.  Part of me wondered though, had he really seen her or was he just making it up?

Here I was, about to die after a mere 37 bland years and this was what was crossing my mind?  Adolescent fantasy?  Missed adolescent fantasy in fact.  It was pathetic.  But strangely, it was the moment I felt the most alive.  In the years since, I had taken myself too seriously.  School was my main focus, followed immediately by work.  And I’d sacrificed my own happiness. 

The more my dying brain thought about it, the more I realized that I should have dated and married Lillian.  She was my rock.  She always knew what I was thinking before I did.  She always had my best interest in mind.  And I felt exactly the same way about her.  I wanted to make her smile and laugh every day. As I came back from lunch, I would always tell her some jokes on the way into my office.  They were always mind-blowingly lame, but she always laughed nonetheless.  I should have worried less and snatched her up.  But I didn’t.  I was sensible. I didn’t listen to what I really truly wanted.

37 years and here I was, a dead vacuum company mouthpiece who had never lived.  My time was cut short but I’d been dead for years.  I wish I’d lived.  I wish I had sang more.  I wish I knew what it was like to make love on a beach at dusk.  I had plans I never put into action that now they were fading into the ether. 

I was a victim of my fear, my nerves and Larry’s stupidity.  That unplugged power-strip proved to be indirectly lethal.   Didn’t any of us think to look to see if the red light was on to see if it was indeed charging?  No.  We were too lost in our own worlds.

The event drew to a grinding halt the second my cold body hit the floor.  I was pronounced dead somewhat immediately.  It took ten Bloomerville “experts” to figure out why the vacuum hadn’t worked.  Once they determined the cause, they set it up to charge correctly backstage and the next night had Larry attempt the presentation again.  Lillian was too upset to attend. 

Larry lacked style.  He wasn’t smooth in the least.  He was the kind of guy who had questionable hygiene and who you’d occasionally catch munching on his own shirt-sleeves if he thought you weren’t looking.  He collected various kinds of stuffed birds and golf balls signed by golfers who weren’t famous.  He was an odd fellow, but for him the demonstration worked.  His speech and his jokes didn’t hit as well as mine did, but perhaps the crowd members were still in shock after seeing me die before their eyes the previous evening.

The tone got a little brighter once they heard the whooshing of the Carboneon 5000 as it revved up and removed the green sawdust from the stage.  It was just as effective as promised and became one of Bloomerville’s most successful products to date.  I’m not sure its success can completely be attributed to its stellar performance.  Many of the industry bigwigs in attendance urged others to buy Carboneon 5000s out of a nagging, somewhat haunted guilt about what happened to me. 

In the end, Bloomerville made a fortune.  In fact they made enough money to build a bigger and better office and nearly double their staff.  So, that my friends is how my sudden death revolutionized the vacuum industry. 

Please remember me when you clean up a mess. 

Arts for PEACE: Peace Education through the Arts, Culture, and Exposure - By Lia Parisyan

• 

  Taxidermy: the art of preserving the dead. This is what I’m reminded of as I sip on Gin and Seltzer with squeeze of lime. I’m being stared down by two pheasants behind a pane of glass, frozen eternally, looking out into two separate directions in space. Framed by what I imagine is mahogany or stained pine, in a portion of a forest with dried out wheat and yellow-grass, this is the closest I’ll ever get to staying constant forever.
  
  I took a pause from walking through the streets of New York City, on a humid August day. The heels I wore to my interview had been pinching my feet for the better portion of my walk from 28th West to the Lower East Side. Like floating driftwood, I ended up on shore as I made my through the doors of Kenny’s Castaways. I don’t know Kenny, but is seems he’s got a habit of collecting things that have no place to go or nowhere to be. I would have not necessarily chosen this as my first watering hole, but the portholes and the false imitation of a pirate’s vessel were enough to draw my attention and keep my interest.
  
  I would have walked by, but something caught the corner of my eye; the slate marked off with times and bands, and has chance had it, the bizarre circumstances of this Universe wanted to give me a much needed lift. I took a breath of relief, and smiled as the doors opened, and I walked into the dim lit shaft of “The Interstellar Elevators”. I had first seen this band perform in Hartford, Connecticut, and was seriously impressed. It was the night after Crystal Manor and Cabin Fever, which carried on well into the morning. I spent the better portion of the next morning and afternoon in Central Park with a few friends. I suggested we go there, where oddly enough there was a Kidney Health marathon going on with very bad Long Island 40-50 year-old demographic, Bruce Springstein and Rod Stewart crooners and croakers, singing on stage. But, before I go off on another tangent, I decided to write some poetry and sit in and wait for the show. There were a few not so hot opening acts, so after of hearing a few post-pubescent men whine, I went out for a smoke. There weren’t too many people outside, and being the type of girl I am (in the likeness and image of my mother), I naturally started striking up conversations with complete strangers.
  
  This is how I met Matthew Grosjean and Jordan Lorrius, a guitarist singer/songwriter duo. Arts for Peace 2011 Emerging Artists of the year, The Phantoms were formed in the wake of the earthquake in Haiti.
  
  A recent collaboration with Serbian band Darkwood Dub and Croatian singer Ida Prestor has led to a music video organized by Thomas G. Ehr of MTV in the countries of former Yugoslavia of “Listen”, a song in response to the events in Haiti which is now bringing a message of hope to a new generation of Serbians and Croatians. The Phantoms have performed at venues as varied as: UNHQ, Yale, The Provenance Center, a former Gestapo prison in Frankfurt, and a concert sponsored by MTV Adria in Belgrade. At our inaugural Salon, Thomas G. Ehr, General Manager, MTV Adria and Chairperson, MTV EXIT Foundation introduced the Phantoms and spoke about their remarkable work in Serbia and in response to the tragedies in Haiti.
  
  The Phantoms along with several other talented artists will be performing at Le Poisson Rouge on August 19, 2011. Arts for Peace will be hosting Jackie Kazazian of the Art Institute of Chicago, who will be presenting Contemporary Art and Women in Syria followed by music performances.
  
  
  For more information and event details, please visit:http://www.lepoissonrouge.com/events/view/2457
• 
  

  Le Poisson Rouge: August 19, 2011

  http://www.lepoissonrouge.com/