Nika Harper's Blog, page 5

"In fact, the opposite is the case. You can’t read a short story properly online. Every word counts...."

“In fact, the opposite is the case. You can’t read a short story properly online. Every word counts. You can’t drift. You have to surrender to “a beginning, a middle and end” that takes you “across the universe and back”, as Gaiman puts it. For all his joy in the tumble of Twitter and Google, these stories also express his ability to do the obverse – to switch off and concentrate. They demand all of your attention, something that our one-click world cries out to you never to give. So, to read a short story is a countercultural act, a little rebellion. The genre is at its best when it deals with discomfort, with feelings and people you don’t want to think about: the gaze in the street that you try to avoid, the noise in the night you pretend not to hear. That’s why it’s important – more so now than ever.”

- Frank Cottrell Boyce on the stop-what-you’re-doing-and-read power of neil-gaiman's new collection of short stories, Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances. (via newstatesman)

Hiding Little Love

Have you ever found a little secret that makes you feel wonderful?
I know they exist, someone put them there. A tiny way of saying “Nobody else looks here but us, and that’s special, and we’re connected.”
I think it’s a way of hiding little love.

I see it most commonly in graffiti, or written messages somewhere they shouldn’t be. Sometimes it’s quite obvious (not exactly hiding unless you don’t go into that bathroom and see “YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL” scrawled on the mirror) and other times it can be quieter, sweeter, a clandestine way to reach out. It makes you feel better for noticing. It becomes memorable.

I was a little kid in the 1980’s, and a popular brand of the time was Spumoni who made sweatshirts and printed clothing, somewhat garish in design and popular with kids. Cute little animals frolicking on pastel backgrounds, they sold like mad. You were jealous when your friends had them, you were delighted to see adorable kittens prancing on your own clothes. I remember one tiny dress covered in astronaut kittens who were collecting stars in huge milk bottles… I loved everything about it. The reason it stands out is, once, my mom showed me the tag on the sweatshirt.
Along with the care instructions and fiber content, at the end of the papery tag printed with words too big for me to understand, it said “P.S. I LOVE YOU.”
The shirt loved me! And my mom loved me too, because it felt like that’s what she was saying when she dressed me in it. That little tag, to me, represented all moms everywhere, and I would hug it and touch the little stars and kittens and feel loved.
I suppose that’s a pretty easy thing for a little kid. But I still remember it. It still feels special. Sometimes I look at clothing tags and just HOPE they say something… like there’s a little hidden message that someone out there wants me to laugh, or smile, or feel good.

Radiohead’s album OK Computer is massively popular. Millions of people know those songs. That compact disc passed through the hands of innumerable people through the years, and Radiohead always did a good job of making the CD booklet interesting. I miss the days of looking up lyrics, photos, and strange bits of art that sometimes accompanied those archaic plastic objects. I spent a lot of time with CDs, and that was easy to do because they could be such a production. Many people might not care about the booklets, which is part of what made that even cooler.
Liner notes are kind of a slog, however. Get past all the art, the lyrics, whatever else they decide to put in there and you essentially have the credits of a movie. Produced where, by whom, second cello performed like this… Special thank yous, all rights reserved, copyright whatever…
If you read all the way to the bottom of the notes for OK Computer, you see this:
“we hope you are ok. thankyou for listening.”

This album traveled with me through spans of my life where I clutched it like a security blanket, replacing the AA batteries in my portable disc player so I could hear Subterranean Homesick Alien in my ears as I walked around the airport, looking at people I didn’t understand. I spent nights with that music within me, and days where it guided my feet. And one time, when I was feeling a little blue and deeply interested in seeing every bit of how this album made its way into existence, I see a message hidden from them, to me.
It was to ME.
The little teenager sitting at her desk who snuck into the technical notes that weren’t meant for her. But this message was.
Radiohead hopes I am ok.
And I wasn’t, and I knew it, but it was enough to know that they wished it to me. In an album that speaks around you, in interviews that talk about you, here was something that spoke TO you. Directly. Tiny, secret, ours. Mine.

I still repeat these to myself sometimes.
“We hope you are ok.”
“P.S. I love you.”

These mediums for hiding little love might be outdated. CDs are harder to come by, for one thing, but the point isn’t to rely on just those methods of dispersion. The challenge is finding new ways to hide a tiny message before a big audience, the kind of things that find them at the right time and stay with them because of it. It isn’t about clothing tags or bathroom graffiti.
It’s about taking the time to say “Shhhh…. I care.”
Just our little secret, our shared moment.
Hoping it makes you, whoever you are, happier.
Hiding Little Love.

This is only funny if you watch "Mostly Walking."

I’m going to get to the bottom of this mystery, or my name isn’t Nancy Drew!
It’s a tough one too. I’ve been thinking really hard and making a lot of calls. Nothing is making sense! I should ask Rentaro, he’s been so helpful since I first arrived at the Ryokan. I’d like to give him a gift for being so kind to me, and also because he seems to hate his life.
Oh, it looks like he isn’t around. How am I supposed to unravel this mystery now?!

I know, I’ll read this comic book and relieve some stress. It’s adorable, about a guy and his angry fox friend who look for ghosts. Luckily it’s written in English! Japan seems to talk about ghosts a lot. I wonder why.
I bet Yumi would think this comic is really cute. Maybe I’ll leave it in her apartment which I somehow have the key to. That’s what best buddies do, right? Sub in for work shifts and rummage around in each other’s personal belongings. Too bad I didn’t find anything mysterious in her house. So cool that she’s into making shadow puppets though!

Hm, isn’t Bess on a date tonight? I wonder how it’s going! I should call and see if she has anything to talk about.
“Hi Bess.”
“Hey Nancy!”
“Talk to you later.”
“…You could just fucking text next time.”
Maybe not going so well then.

I guess I can’t rely on anyone else to help me crack the case. Nancy Drew, amateur sleuth extraordinaire, you are on your own!
Now let’s really get thinking.

So, the nine goes… here, and the one goes…

(This is a flash fic for the show Mostly Walking, where Sean, Bill and Sean are playing the game Nancy Drew: The Shadow at Water’s Edge. Everything about it is hilarious.)

...

When we look to the history of the United States, we find that art was the central unifying presence.

The Book of Jazz

I remember being barely out of high school and clutching a book to my chest. This happened many times and I remember each time when it happened, and what it meant and why.
But this time made me happy.

My sister lived in a well-to-do part of Orange County, she moved out with help from my mother and lived a nicer life now. It was strange that she had food to eat when I had so little. My sister had amenities and used them, her house was nice and clean and different from where I was at home. In the years since my mother and I had the house to ourselves, both the home and my mother had fallen into disrepair. Mom didn’t provide me much food, I begged to keep my phone line on because I learned I could hustle free months of internet from AOL if I called in to cancel. They’d just give it to you. I survived off so little, sometimes we didn’t have heat and I didn’t have access to my only way out: my computer, the internet. My friends, far away.

I would barter myself away for concert tickets, find a way to pay for flights to somewhere, anywhere, in exchange for backstage passes and tickets to bands I knew. I didn’t know how much I was asking at the time. I had essentially asked each person to adopt me for a while. Unable to pay for myself, having no money to my name, I relied on a lot of goodwill when I was just eighteen years old. I traveled everywhere and nowhere, places that people lived that were not glamorous; Suburbs adjacent to something else. Stayed in parents homes who thought kindly of me, slept on couches and made friends with family pets. This nice little orphan their kid seemed to care so much about.

I learned a lot.

At the time, it didn’t feel like asking. I was a teenager, freshly an adult and rather excited about my own self-worth. I didn’t expect the world given to me, but I was surprised when I didn’t have it delivered. At home, I was lucky to have ingredients to make a dinner. There weren’t really cell phones, and less yet, there was no reception for them anyway. I had my lone, sad 56k internet to connect me to a way out. It was all I had. No friends from where I was, no escapes but for the occasional PC game, and often the companionship of people late into the night, any night, who helped me define who I was.
When I went missing from the internet for even a day, people asked about me. They wondered, they inquired. I was a staple in an online world, and it made up for everything I was lacking in the world I had.
I lived weeks off generic store-brand lucky charms in a bag as big as my pillow, and bottled lemonade. You can do that when you’re 17. When you don’t understand that bodies don’t work that way.

I remember clutching this book to my chest and being so happy I found it, this incredible, huge piece of knowledge I so much wanted to absorb that I pressed it to myself and hoped for osmosis. I remember where I was, a large chain bookstore in Costa Mesa, and with my sister. I don’t remember how much the book was… presumably less than $20, it was on the clearance table right up front and I saw it like a beacon as soon as I walked in. I think I bought more things, maybe I had a gift card, maybe I asked for money, maybe I had some tucked away. I don’t know. I didn’t have a credit card back then, no debit card or bank account at all. I lived off cash and hopes. Christmas and my birthday got me through the years. Enough money to maybe pay for a meal or a game. The rest I found ways to borrow or pirate from the internet.

I’d known a lot about jazz, been excited so much about it. I always said I had an interest, always said I was a “fan” but really it was that I liked the sounds it made when it came from my grandfather’s speakers (he loved big band and Benny Goodman) or from the channels I found on my family’s satellite TV stations (some were better than others) and I’d wait for interesting songs to grab my attention and then?
To the internet!
To the days of searching what I could find and grabbing it for free, satiating my craving for this art form that I needed so badly. I fell in live with Dave Brubeck in this way, Lester Young. I asked for recommendations for Thelonius Monk and Charles Mingus. A few songs of each, whatever was available on the many sites I used (which back then was things like Napster and Limewire and my favorite AudioGalaxy, which by far had the best system even though it apparently installed spyware.)

And people had it. People out there in the world hosted Lester Young. Dave Brubeck. All sorts of things… I can go back in my mind, and the five songs I had found make up a special EP in my memory where I can think about where I was, whether it was warm, what the air smelled like, what I was doing.
Long days wasting time on free websites with little games or talking on online forums. It’s what I did, it’s how I existed. I was digital.

I don’t feel bad for pirating. I had no way to give back. But the things I took and “stole” and shared, they became a part of me, a thing that I couldn’t satiate because there was no Wikipedia and no way of learning about the things I loved without paying a premium for finding them. I couldn’t, and I didn’t, and I ate my dry cereal in my room (sometimes toasting marshmallows on a candle by my desk) and drank my water or lemonade or anything, and wanted to learn about EVERYTHING. I never had a way to do so.

I remember clutching that Jazz book to my chest and thinking, this is what I’ve wanted. I wanted history. And here it was. On sale. For me.
Might as well have said my name right on it.

I remember reading it alone, late at night, when my aunt and uncle had semi-adopted me for a summer. I read books on classical art they had lying around, clearly the result of my cousins’ college careers, and then there was this book I had bought where I learned about music, and found more songs I wanted to know.

This Jazz book, this hulking mass of photographs and discussion, has weathered in house floods (as it was nearby on the floor when the pipes burst in my next home) and came with me everywhere I went. I haven’t re-read it since that time, its warped pages still have remnants of dusty mold when it soaked and its pages became jazz themselves; wavered and lilting under my fingers.
But I remember where I got it, what I had, what I loved.

I remember when I found something, discounted from seventy dollars to fifteen, and it fit an emptiness in my life. I cared. I tried harder to discover and rediscover this music. It meant so much to me.

I saved and scrounged and fought and stole for the knowledge I have, and this book is in my lap right now. It’s just as good as I remember it being.

Inkling Tattoo

I made a Twine game. Hope you enjoy!

Hearth and Heart

How are you sad?
You’re with me.
Nowhere else but in this room.
Nothing else can touch us here.
It’s all just words and silliness and such.
Just us. A quiet room in the world.
And I’m listening.
I want to hear a smile, sometime.
And I am VERY driven to get it.


There are ample opportunities to hide
Under my feet or behind my legs
Or in the crevices under my bed that I reserve for monsters of the night
If that is what you want to be
I can find a place for you.
Just tell me what is happening.
I do not wait too patiently
My door is open to the cold for only so long
Soon you can knock to find your way in
But right now I’m calling out there for you
How are you
Are you okay
And nothing is blinking back at me.

You’re not far out
I can see your silhouette
And you’re fighting and crumpled.
Well I’ve been there
But I can’t go out to get you
Unless you put out your hand
And I’ll warm you with smiles and laughter
Or swallows of medicinal gin.
Whatever helps your limbs relax
And your mind quiet down
I’m offering it.
But not forever.

You can make your decision to fight without shelter
You can tell me and I will respect it
But I’m staring out into the cold
Watching you fight the shadows
When my hearth and heart are warm.

So come inside.

Or, soon, you can knock.

Brubeck Ranch

Brubeck Ranch:

nikaharper:

“Dave.”
“Yes, Dad?”
I was supposed to be attentive, but I was whittling at a piece of wood and I felt in the mood for it. When he called, I should have responded immediately, but the art in my hands had called to me.
“David come here.”
“Well…”
“David.”
“Yes, dad.”

We walked a long way across the…

I heard a shortened version of this in a documentary. A musician I really love… he cried as he told it, and I cried too.

I had to tell the story as I saw it. His thirty-second clip wouldn’t convey what we shared.

Upon Next We Meet

If I could do it all over
I wouldn’t.
If I could start it all again
I wouldn’t let you.
One of us needs to learn a lesson of permanence
I’ve had that curriculum memorized
I don’t think you’ve scraped the surface.

Loss that is living is the deepest
Because it goes on without you
And you get to watch.
Even if it goes nowhere
You’re not invited.
Don’t tell me I matter now.
I’ve had nearly a year to convince myself otherwise
By now I trust my own judgment
And have to thoroughly doubt yours.
I’m not here to hurt you
But you’re trespassing
Over a thick dark line I’ve drawn around my life.
The further you move
The more you’ll lose.
That line is not flexible anymore.
Now YOU’RE the one who isn’t invited.
I can’t wait to see your laughing eyes
And get close to your neck where you smell the strongest
And breathe you in again
As you sketch songs along the surface of my thoughts.
It will be great to walk backwards and smile
Right before my stomach flips with the hunger for you
That has made me growl for months.
You’re not a treat but a torture
A thing I’ve slavered over
And whetted my lips with the memory of yours
That said goodbye.
I licked away those bitter words
And licked my bitter wounds.
Now you presume to get close enough to see the scabs.

Well they’re everywhere.
Your marks don’t heal easily
And my lips curl quicker
So mind the line I’ve drawn
The one you never knew existed
Because you were allowed in before
And now you’ll bleed if you try.
Don’t get too close this time.
I’ll use my teeth this time.

I’ve grown used to you smiling all the way across the room
Admiring your charm from a distance
As it played on others
And my skin is sensitive to the least breath
Or blink
From you.
It hurts.

Even your smile is a sunburn.

So keep three steps between us
Don’t look at me like you used to
Because I’ve grown feral and calloused without you
And though you’ve never seen me fight
All along, I could.

The Flight Before Christmas

The tarmac looks like Christmas lights
If I squint hard enough
Or have been there long enough to notice.
Which I have.
They haven’t asked me about my check for two hours
And I won’t need it for another two at least
Because nobody in this airport has any information
And the heralds of airline news are dwindling,
Waving goodbye and happy holidays to one another.
I ask again every hour like clockwork.
No new information at this time.
The writers of the information have gone into the Silent Night.
I don’t see any planes any longer.

I could go back to the empty house,
Breaking in with the absence of keys,
But I don’t have a bed or sheets to sleep with
And my possessions are all on their way to my temporary home,
An extended vacation with the remnants of family
On their fold-out bed until I can exist elsewhere.
But with cancelled flights and constant rebooking
It’s Christmas eve and the only hope I have
Is that Santa will cruise by the airport and deliver me
To the only place that might be warm and inviting right now.

I wave my hand for another coffee and whiskey double
My fifth throughout the day.
Because it has been all day.
The coffee was warm and hopeful at first
Now it tastes like the pot and grounds haven’t changed
Since I ordered it a matter of hours ago.
And the whiskey somehow tastes fresher
Which everyone knows is foul.

Almost time to ask again.
The chairs are wiped down and put on top of the tables
The shitty Christmas music stops,
The workers talk like I’m not there.
Maybe to them I’m not.
As the lights go off
I slip under the gate as they bring it down over the storefront.
They didn’t even ask me to pay my check.
Merry Christmas to you too, except they didn’t acknowledge it.

Information counter has one lone worker, picking at her nails.
She doesn’t seem lonely.
It seems like she’s meant to be there
Like alabaster paint on apartment walls.
If it wasn’t there, it would be surprising.
She was made for this chair, this desk, this night.
This boredom.

“Here is my boarding pass,” I give her.
She sighs.
“Name?”
“It’s on the pass,” I hold it up again.
“No record of that flight,” she frowns at it.
“Can you check again?”
“No record of that passenger.”
No record.
“But it’s all right here,” I point again, “I checked in almost fifteen hours ago.”
No record.
No ticket, no flight. The ghosts of airports past.
My phone battery is dying but I had no texts there either.
Not even asking if I was okay, or an ETA.
Or a merry Christmas from anyone.
The holiday that time forgot.

There must be a flight tomorrow,
And there’s worse things than arriving a day late for a holiday.
There will be a bed.
My only possessions.
A few people who care enough to pick me up.
Just enough to get by. But nothing here.
It all disappeared in a rush of pickup trucks and cheap bills folded in my wallet.
Not enough for a hotel.
So the plastic airport seating will be my bed tonight.

I use the last of my battery to call the line,
Which is busy for longer than I have power left.
The phone cuts out to the sound of “Your call is very im—”
Found a booking computer, reservation does not exist.
Asking about my luggage tags, there’s no record of those either.
No record.
They stop responding to me, looking right through my face.

A broken record of “no record.”
I dropped off my keys into a slot in the door today.
I checked two bags to nowhere.
It wouldn’t have surprised me if they had “no record” of the airport at all.
I hold a ticket that doesn’t exist.
Because I don’t exist.
Full of coffee and whiskey and no skin left.
A ghost of breath hearing the same Christmas songs over and over,
Do you hear what I hear?
No record.

No record of me.