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    Once Upon This Time
    Once Upon This Time
    Once Upon This Time
    Ebook163 pages1 hour

    Once Upon This Time

    By Scott Vanya

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    About this ebook

    I have always been fascinated by the short story form. The way in so few words authors are able to communicate so much. And in only a brief, few minutes read, we are able to see, know, and feel the characters. It reminds me of haiku: a brief moment of clarify and insight.

    An avid reader of Steinbeck, Borges, and Calvino, when I write stories, I do not necessarily "write" them so much as take dictation. I hear a story being repeated over and over in my head (often times, requesting of That Voice, that it be repeated again so that when I transcribe it "get it right") until finally it is ready to be written down. Then I just write it, as it was given/told to me. (note: This is also how I write my children stories).

    Came to me later, that Borges (not only lived and taught in Austin, TX, which is my home) but used a similar method of Inner Recitation until he was ready to tell the story to his stenographer.

    I only hope these stories honor the characters I wrote about and the tradition, so much so, that perhaps you, too, will transcribe those stories you "have always told yourself" and know in one sense (after all is said and done, perhaps, the most important one) those people we think about are Real people.

    A reoccurring one for me, is a milk maid in a barn door, churning butter, humming a song to herself. I see and hear her, but she does not even know I exist.

    Peace. In-joy.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherScott Vanya
    Release dateApr 30, 2014
    ISBN9781310188749
    Once Upon This Time
    Author

    Scott Vanya

    I've been writing for a very long time, what seems like my whole life, taking it seriously from the time I was about 11. Now, at 46, I think I may be starting to get the hang of it: Say what you feel, as passionately as you can, but always with an ear turned to those who are listening.Most of my more serious work is done at live performances, which i do totally extemporaneously, channeling the mood of the room as my fingers play on the guitar. You can see some of that if you go to "my" website. (Open Mics Austin is a platform I created to showcase the Spoken Word scene here in Austin, TX. Only a small role in which i play.)As far as I can tell what makes good writing is LOVE. Love ,plainly simply, and with no strings attached.I put these words/books before you, not so much because I want something back from it, because I think and feel like I feel my bones and my soul, if you were to see the world, experience it like it do, for even a brief moment, you would walk away from that happier, more alive, compassionate and in tune with all those around you.Peace, good will, and harmony. Let those be your guiding light.Agape forever,Scott VanyaPublication Credits:Stepping Stones Magazine, The Main Street Rag, www.carcinogenicpoetry.com, Texas Art Initiative, Phoenix New Life Poetry, Walt’s Corner, Manna, Perigee, Chicago Literary Review, Mobius, Cosmic Trend, Pitchfork, Romantics Quarterly, Artisan, Pegasus, The Neovictorian, Red Owl, The Story Teller, The Blind Man's Rainbow, Atlantic Pacific Press

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      Book preview

      Once Upon This Time - Scott Vanya

      Once Upon This Time - A Short Story Collection

       

      Scott Vanya

       

      Copyright Scott Vanya 2016

       

      Published at Smashwords

      TABLE OF CONTENTS

      a day in the sun, pt IHelp!Collision, or maybe AutonomousbiographyReading epitaphs as if they were roadsignsIt's over, SamAlgunas dias el espera para nochefrom the journal of Miguel Fillipe EsquevedaBuriedPrometheus UnboundQue Juan Miguel QuiereWho knows whyI cry with the Wolf this NightLove and Say Goodbyea day in the sun continued, pt IIThe Story of Pablo and JuanitaAnd on the Seventh Day He RestedThe Fool and the MaidenThis is Where It EndsThe PugilistGamelanSomehow I knewThe Parable of The Prince Who Didn't Wanna be a King

      a day in the sun, pt. I

       

       

      we took romolardes that night, it's a drug a friend of mine and a friend of his discovered in a drug book, their both biochemists, i saw the book several weeks later and figured out what they had done. it's a catalog of drugs and they looked throughout the book under overdose and discovered romolardes underneath which it said Euphoria.

       

      so they did and it did and they did and we did well, so that night several friends and myself all took the drug. though it's a minimal point when compared with the fact of the experience i find difficult to deny it as a descriptive fact affecting the events of the evening.

       

      as i lay on the floor, the back of my skull opened up into a chamber art gallery and continued to expand and increase in size, tiny pinheads sparkle in darkness expanding and spreading out from the backward view with respect to my feet and joy and spine. as the room opens a chair appears facing into the room. as the walls expand and artwork continues to grow in image, creatures, living, moving hot, firey, the floor disappears and there is nothing upon which to rest my skull and it slowly begins to fall over dissolving in through the edge of this abyss of nothingness art gallery.

       

      sitting, i feel naseous, and stumble toward the bathroom, hunched over unbalanced on the lack of feet or torso, puppeted to the toilet beyond the back room, they're rolling on the ground enjoying the contact of matress and cushions and generally oooing.

       

      approaching comes my other face, he rolls from the doorway as i roll to him and we spin into and out of unity over and through one.

       

      arising i pass another friend staring up into the back room where our drawings had been attached to the walls with funtak. reaching the toilet i bend over so prepared to empty my innards into the drain and allow them to wash down and out forever . . . freeing the congestion of the world, i stop and realize not this time will i continue the creation in such a manner.

       

      laughing hysterically, bending over and up, over and up, over and up, mary and paul, enter the room to vomit, sitting on the side of the bathtub i watch and laugh with paul as the water drips from the paint peeling ceiling onto our heads, speaking uh-huh's and agreements of speech we hug, and i exit from the bathroom.

       

      stumbling past the others in the back room i enter the kitchen and begin to dance the shadow on the wall. with light behind, the knees shake and rattle, up and down, up and down, depth in color from the light, spinning as one passes, turn and return to gallery floor.

       

      laying on back in ooo i ahhhh

       

      and watch as trees and foliage brush by my face at accelerating speed, faster and faster, softer and softer, smaller and smaller specks of contact, smooth blurring sphere spins from left to right and entering the stream, there is a tree lined road dirt and pine faster speeding along opens into garden building and three buddhas omming in meditation, from the ground rises a chain into the heavens from the opened mouth of my belly as i bend over and open my eyes to lay down again

       

      all coagulates, totality of knowledge, this imaging is not of eyes nor ears nor sound nor touch nor sight nor description nor self nor sense nor thought nor knowledge nor being the totality of being and awareness of all connectedness this being here expressing the infinity of this question and answer is limitless one is all there is to be god is to be alone there can be no more thaneverything there is nothing to add to, there is nothing to experience, there is nothing to know , there is nothing to be and there is no death nor nothing to go to there is only this limitless one of unexpression, forever complete and open as ability of space.

       

      now there is giving something to other our self

       

      awakening from one, paul and i play with sheets of plastic i bending and bowing them, it is to be the new form of speech on the utopian island. speech of tongue is to be replaced by beeoops-bwoops. soon mary arrives and all cuddled beneath the blankets in the back room and we laugh about the events of the evening.

       

      curling up beneath the blankets mary between paul and i we laugh more about the evening. i begin to consider creation and the origin of existence enjoying the female between the bark of man as our legs entertwine and join in cuddling the flesh together the feet untied the toes dissolving and i roll to and from their arms, and stare into the faces of my parents and all the men and women i had ever seen and realized the joke that had been perpetrated upon me for all of eternity, why was here! where did i come from ! ! ! ! HA! HA!

      and then it is over . . .that is a moment.

       

      from which the music stood, to walk out from the home and resound the rhythm and the note the waves of the artist's sea, together.

      Previous:Next

      Help!

       

       

      It fell from his nose.

       

      In order to prevent another from falling onto this patient's face, he took the damp rag he held in his hand, squeezed it out over the basin and wiped it across his forehead.

       

      Having waited for his attention through all of this, the wife sat; the patient continued to blink, snapping his eyes closed, and was startled at the drop of sweat colder than his own, waking him up.

       

      Delia, you'll need to keep him cool. Not cold. Don't let him drink any water.

       

      He wrings the rag out in the basin and wipes off the patient's face; opens one of his eyes, which twitches and flinches shut.

       

      Doc, if can we do something to stop his pain and moaning?

       

      The ceiling looms over his head as he stretches bending his back; his spine snapping as he lingers over the patient.

       

      Delia, I can tell you what not to do: don't turn him over on his stomach, side to side's fine, wash your hands thoroughly after you've tended to him

       

      The rag he's been using to wipe the husband's face holds his attention, damp and soiled cradled in his palms.

       

      Delia puts the back of her hand to her husband's head; wincing, his eyelids flicker.

       

       

      II.

       

      Here. I'll need a clean one.

       

      He holds out the rag he's used to clean his hands, soiled after the walk in the heat.

       

      When she coughs like this, turn her over on her side so the fluid doesn't collect in her mouth.

       

      When the husband returns with a fresh cloth and basin and pitcher, the Doctor takes a glass, smudged and calcified, from his bag, pours in a bit of the water.

       

      It's coming to the point if she doesn't turn around by the morning , he gulps

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