4. Michael Martone was born in Fort Wayne, Indiana, on August 22, 1955, and he often wonders what date will be the date of his death. Is this the day? Or this one? Or this? Martone wonders if there is a zodiac for the dying, a dead astrology, like the one that casts its influence over the newly minted. Martone likes the idea that one's course of life is plotted by the arrangement of the heavenly bodies at the time of birth. Or is it the time of conception? The notion that a particular concoction of electromagnetic forces monkeys with one's subatomic genetic grouting in order to predestine the randomness of one's life intrigues Martone. The physics of the universe act in concert or in conflict to narrate an interesting, eventful, illustrative, entertaining life that most often masquerades as a series of random accidents, happenstance, bad breaks, and stupid moves. Death, being for some a mere transition in the ongoing incremental perturbation of life post-life, rearranges the dénouement into another, a mirroring rising action on the other side. There — is some kind of dark matter at work, a negative mechanical deus ex machina, nudging this new plot of plot points there in the grave plot? He wonders. So, to be safe, Martone celebrates each day as his last, the end of his story, his death-day, on which he lights the candles on the cake and never blows them out, swallowing his breath, telling everyone the wish he didn't make.
1From Internet Movie Database, www.imdb.com.
Acknowledgments
I thank the editors of the following magazines for including a take or two or four in their albums:
Third Bed, Post Road, Other Voices, Puerto del Sol, Chicago Review, Fugue, Brooklyn Rail, Hotmetal Bridge, failbetter, Northwest Review, Cutthroat, Short Fiction, Indiana Review, Seems, The Antioch Review, Talking River Review, The Bellingham Review, Parakeet, Bomb, Western Humanities Review, Croonbergh's Fly, Tusculum Review, McSweeney's, Stone Canoe, New Orleans Review, American Voice, Southeast Review, mud luscious, Second Run, Nebraska Review, Rio Grande Review, Chicago Review, Keyhole, Salt Hill, The Johns Hopkins Review, Mississippi Valley Review, Nerve, Smut, Cavalier, Mid-American Review, Pendulum, symploke, Hunger Mountain, American Letters and Commentary, Sentence, Windless Orchard, Southern Indiana Review, The Prose Poem, Key Satch (el), 100 Words, American Short Fiction.
“A Perimenopausal Jacqueline Kennedy, Two Years After the Assassination, Aboard the M/Y Christina, off Eubeoa, Bound for the Island of Alonnisos, Devastated by a Recent Earthquake, Drinks Her Fourth Bloody Mary with Mrs. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Jr.“ first appeared in Field Guide to Writing Flash Fiction, edited by Tara L. Masih and published by Rose Metal Press.
Thanks too to the College of Arts & Sciences at the University of Alabama for providing the funds to make the completion of this book possible.
Smile! Team FC2: Lance Olson, R.M. Berry, Brenda Mills, Dan Waterman. Jeffery DiLeo, Carmen Edington, Tom Williams, Charles Alcorn. Lou Robinson, Lou Robinson, Lou Robinson, Lou Robinson designed the cover and interior pages. Mindy Wilson proofed, edited, queried, corrected. Cheese! Team Team: Susan Neville, Mike Wilkerson, Michael Rosen, Jay Brandon. Look up, Team Alabama! Sandy Huss, Robin Behn, Joel Brouwer, Wendy Rawlings! Peter Streckfus, Kellie Wells, Dave Madden, John Crowley! Hold still! Lex Williford, Joyelle McSweeney, Kate Bernheimer, Bruce Smith! Paul Maliszewski, Melanie Rae Thon, Nancy Esposito, Chris Leland & Osvaldo Sabino, you all didn't blink. This started with the photo booth in the Woolworth's of Central Square, Cambridge, Massachusetts, and my former students who submitted their finals finally! Thank you! Carl Peterson, Kate Lorenz, Brian Oliu voguing! Yes! Team Y: David, Robert, Arty, Sam! Fierce! Marian Young! Hold it, Jim Harpole! Jo, unretouched! Don't blink! Sam & Nick, Mom & Dad! Now, just one more, Theresa! Everyone, everyone watch the birdie!