nonamedufus

It was hard. Timmy's Dad always told him "Don't sweat the small stuff". And he didn't. Because none of it was small stuff to Timmy. It all started at swimming lessons when he was eight. His trunks slipped off in the pool. He was mortified when everyone laughed at him. But it wasn't just bad enough being a victim of ridicule when the incident occurred. It would chase him down the rest of his life because in that one quick moment he had earned the nickname PeeWee. About a year later, swimming lessons behind him for good, the baseball coach inquired why everyone called him PeeWee. PeeWee, er, Timmy was mortified as his team mates sniggered and cruelly whispered in a singalong voice "PeeWee, PeeWee, how can you pee with something so wee?". And so it went as he grew older. Girls he dated would always ask "So, why does everyone call you PeeWee?" Needless to say Timmy's relationships never lasted very long, though longer than, well, y...

Harold lived alone. He rarely went out, having everything from his groceries to his prescriptions delivered to him. He liked to think of himself as mysterious but his high-rise neighbours were more apt to think of him as a recluse. Since his wife died a couple of years back, Harold gradually discovered the days grew longer without her, not to mention the nights. Coupled with taking his retirement several years ago, he was beginning to feel old. Hell, even his name bespoke another age. Harold? Really? The sole thing he took great pleasure in was slowly perusing the daily newspaper. None of those tablet thingies, where you need an engineering degree to operate, for him. And, of course, it too was delivered. He particularly enjoyed the crossword puzzles. The feelings of advanced age seemed to take hold first thing in the morning when he painfully swept his legs out of bed, placed his feet unsteadily onto the floor and achingly bent to rummage in his bedside table drawer for his v...

She slipped her key into the lock and quietly stepped inside. Near darkness. But she liked the dark; found it comforting. She turned on the ceiling light over her writing desk, dropped her keys into the tiny ceramic bowl and powered up her computer. She'd managed to pass another day of her life as she liked, in the shadows. Sharon was a shy woman, 26, single and a bit of a recluse. She never spoke to her office colleagues unless spoken to and only then used such an economy of words that she would curtly reply to any inquiry and be gone like a puff of smoke down the corridor evading any form of socialization. She never heard the insults behind her back. The ones about being shy as a mouse and likely never amounting to much. But at her computer she could talk. She wrote reams and reams of words. Sentences, paragraphs and pages rolled on and on across her screen. No one was aware of her activity, but then she had no friends that she might share it with. Kind of sad really. Th...

Joe  Diago sat back in his cushy office chair, pushed his hat back on his head - the same as his P.I. cousin down the hall as they shopped at the same hat store - and stared at the ceiling fan while listening to it making it's whoop, whoop sound as it pushed down the cool air, what little cool air there was. The constant swish of the blades made him dreary and he fought to keep his eyes open. Things were slow in the Private Eye business lately and if something didn't come along soon that fan wouldn't be spinning around anymore because he'd not have been able to pay his electricity bill. What was that ringing in his ears? He'd drifted off and hadn't realized the telephone was chirping. It was an unusual sound as he hadn't heard it in weeks and almost forgot that destinctive trill of the telephone. Diago looked at the dial. "Diago Detective Agency" he spoke into the receiver, though very few knew the "agency" consisted of Detective ...

Didn't get through many books this month. Just 3. I know, I know. One might think I was slipping but one of the books was close to 2400 pages - Lawrence In Arabia . This Lawrence isn't quite as romantically portrayed as in that David Lean film from the 60s. Author Scott Anderson portrays this Lawrence as a calculating individual who never listen to his superiors. The book provides a fascinating overview of how the modern-day Middle East came into existence due to the World War I efforts of Britain, France, Germany and the United States. It was a long read but a fascinating one. Another book I read this week - All The Light We Cannot See - was a wonderful World War II tale by Anthony Doerr - involving a young French blind girl's story on the one hand and a young German soldier on the other. What brings them together near the end of the story is woven neatly into the tale. I really enjoyed this. The third book - Inherent Vice by Thomas Pynchon - was a complex, yet hu...