Some Fine Legacy

I know I can be cynical and I can be negative, but the truth is, I love this city. I love Houston and I loved the last version of it, too. I even loved the version that we had before that.

You see, every few years here in Houston, we rip down the whole town. In its place, we build a new town entirely from scratch. Nothing remains except the potholes. What stood before is gone. Forgotten.

For us, this is an exciting process. It keeps us all on our toes.

Around here, a restaurant will boast “SERVING HOUSTON SINCE 2011!!!” on its marquee in bold letters with three exclamation points. An historical preservation district will consist of two old houses up on blocks in the middle of a sea of new construction townhomes.

Why, even as I write these words, right at this very moment, Houston is engaged in what might be our most ambitious project yet: We’re bulldozing everything within fifteen miles of downtown and replacing it with $1 million, three-and-a-half story townhomes and something called “luxury apartments.”

Kim's Watermelon Gun

I am on the light rail. I am traveling to my downtown office from the Medical Center.

The trip will take eighteen minutes.

The rail cars are grey and sad and although they are not yet old, they look old. A long, dull seat runs along each side of the train, so that when there are other riders on board (which is rarely), I am able to stare at the person across from me with impunity. In my head, I write a story about each person I see.

Most of the stories involve what the person sitting across from me will do when the train crashes.

Blink

For the first twenty-nine years of my life outside the womb, the dark scared me.

It horrified me, actually. The dark was a physical terror inside my chest. A constrictive, panicked silent scream. The dark was a predator I struggled to escape from at any cost.

I slept with the lights on. With the television blaring. Sitting up with my back to the wall. Even then, I had to knock myself out with Benadryl and with wine to get any sleep.

Every night. For twenty-nine years.

Oil is a Stranger

This past Saturday, I sat down to write a story to post on my blog.  But my story was a failure. It went nowhere. I got bored. I aborted it.

Failure!

Then today – on a whim, I guess – I ran the introduction to my aborted story through Google’s Translate function. First I translated it from English into Japanese. Then I translated it from Japanese into Latin, from Latin into Bulgarian, from Bulgarian into French, and finally from French back into English again.

Now the story tickles my brain. Now the story contains secret messages. My story is much improved!

I might start doing all of my writing this way.

So I present for your consideration, “Oil is a Stranger” by Katy Anders and Google Translate…