I've decided to stop having the title of these Fiction Friday exercises be the name of the exercise. Because the names of the exercises are kind of boring. I had actually been thinking this for the last couple of ones I posted, and then this week's exercise was called "God." And that settled it. Because I didn't want to call any post "God." That just seemed weird. So here's the gist of this week's number:


I have a confession to make with this one ... I chose it from the book mainly because this week was a busy week of getting caught up and I needed something short. Two-hundred words is pretty short. But then I got even lazier than that. I didn't actually write anything. Instead, I pulled a section of text from the novella I wrote in college called "Riding the Line," which had this quirky, all-seeing, all-knowing, omniscient narrator, because—back then—I wanted to be the next Tom Robbins. And okay, maybe I still do. So, this is the first couple of paragraphs of the first chapter of the second section of that novella. Originally, it was simply titled "Robby." There are several characters in the story, and many of them are alluded to in this passage, though not by name. Just something to keep in mind as you read. Have a good weekend.


Some people see life through rose-colored glasses, others through a shade of blue. Some people's glasses are mirrored, reflecting life back at itself, while others' are endlessly dark, absorbing everything into their murky center. Most people's glasses are clear, but translucency is a strange thing and clarity can be painful. That's why some people prefer to wear 3-D; the distortion keeps them sane.

Drinkers see life through the bottom of their beer glass, smokers over the end of their cigarette; dippers keep it safely tucked away between their gum and lip. Performers on the big stage try to see life, but life can be hard to make out when you're staring in those bright lights all the time. Movie directors look at life through the eyepiece of a camera, creating the scene, telling actors where to stand and what to do. Actors look back at blank lenses. Visionary. Visionless. Vision-fed.

Mathematicians see life as an endless arrangement of numbers, writers, as an endless arrangement of words.

Some little red-heads see life in the reflection of a full-length mirror and some big-bellied raw-looking men see it through banana peels, grass clippings, and cat claws.

Robby Plum saw life through the tailpipe of a 1973 Buick.

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