Jonathan Carroll's Blog, page 16

Beloved Captors

Her bad qualities kidnapped the good ones and held them hostage so long that by the time they were freed, the good ones suffered from Stockholm Syndrome and sympathized with their captors.

Beloved Captors was originally published in Jonathan Carroll on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Speed Read Her

“Eventually she realized she’d been wrong: He was not a great long engrossing novel by a mature artist at the peak of their power she had been searching for. The kind of book that hooks you in the first chapter and keeps you riveted till the end. A story that leaves you genuinely saddened having reached the words THE END five hundred pages later. No, he was more like a first short story collection by a talented newcomer. A few of the stories were brilliant, but most were nothing special with...

The Gods Recycle

I really like it in life when objects unexpectedly become animated and almost human. On a beautiful Saturday afternoon in the park, a yoga class is being held in the middle of the lawn. There must be fifty or sixty people downward dog’ing it together, all multiple posing and closed eye’d serious. The instructor walks among them correcting this pose and that, saying what I assume from my distance are encouraging words to the students. They are spread wide over the lawn so she must keep walking...

Cheap Wonders

I’ve always wanted to write a piece about the small cheap things in our daily lives that are nevertheless perfect for us — the inexpensive brand of coffee or tea or honey, mustard or ink or…. that after much trial and error, you’ve found is the exact right type for you. Anything else just won’t do, or comes in a very distant second. The cheap pen (my favorite roller ball pen costs 2 euro which I buy ten at a time whenever I find them), that forty year old cast iron frying pan found under a pi...

Flashlight

Looking back honestly over her past with the flashlight of experience, she realized that the way he had loved her then was exactly how she longed to be loved now.

Flashlight was originally published in Jonathan Carroll on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Our Private Monsters

A very close friend said something interesting the other day that’s stuck in my mind. She’s a very gentle, refined soul with extremely sophisticated taste, so it shocked me when she said she really likes horror films. Taken aback, I asked why. She said because in a horror film you always know who/what the monster is, whereas in life we don’t. Too often we’re being surprised in shitty ways by things and people we thought were okay, but unexpectedly turned out to be ‘monsters.’ It made me think...

Metal Man

As always he was at his usual spot this morning when I passed him on my walk. Months ago when he first took up residence on this particular bench I started thinking of him as “Metal Man.” A street person, he wears worn out camouflage pants and shirt. They look like they haven’t been washed in a long time. If it were just his outfit you wouldn’t think twice about him — just another street person with a battered paper cup at their feet asking for change. But what makes him stand out is the meta...

A Day in the Life of Their Lie

photo by Lukas Piatek

I see them almost every afternoon when I walk the dog in the park. One usually arrives earlier than the other. Interestingly, whoever gets there second walks in from the opposite direction of the first — always. Around noon one or the other comes and sits on a specific bench and if it is occupied, the next closest. A few minutes later the second arrives. Whoever got there first jumps up and the two embrace as if they haven’t seen each other in months or even years. A real...

The Hostess

Every night when I walk the dog I pass the café. Since warm weather arrived, they’ve set up tables outside on the sidewalk which are usually full. Almost every time, I see the hostess working there and that makes me smile. It almost feels like the day is not complete unless I do see her because I know her story and it is beautiful.

The café used to be a large used furniture store. When it closed, they spent many weeks re-doing it. Now it’s a nice looking, typical Viennese café with bentwood ch...

Bravery vs. Desperation

“She considers herself brave for having left him, but it wasn’t bravery so much as desperation. When you’re dangling off the side of a building high in the air, you do anything to survive. Fighting to survive is instinctive, bravery has at least some thought involved- should I or shouldn’t I do this.”

from work in progress

Bravery vs. Desperation was originally published in Jonathan Carroll on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.