listing toward repetitive action

after all of these incarnations
all of this wandering
seemingly
seamlessly
between dimensions
should I
thank Möbius
or admonish him
for
mapping
this endless trek

(c) 2014 Fred Whitehead

knife work

at company picnics
I would watch
my father stick

one slippery clam
after the other
shucking between sips

of his Genny pounder
he’d take one from ice,
pocket knife

slipped between shells
then a twist,
never once dropping one

or injuring
a finger or thumb
in doing this –
truth is

I can barely handle
something as unassuming
as a dry bagel

without nearly performing
Yibitsume right there
at the morning

kitchen island,
always expecting to wrap
a stub protruding
from my hand

with a napkin
and masking tape
as would my old man,

if ever
the blade
makes its way
to a place
it ain’t meant to

(c) 2014 Fred Whitehead

32614

there is a caldera preparing to split the thin membrane that has contained fury for a millennia

on delivery
a collective
“why me?”
will resonate above
the maelstrom –

that
is what the punch line
will sound like

a brief hush will settle
over the crowd
before they get it

then,
laughter

(c) 2014 Fred Whitehead

chant

sometime in ancient or two seconds ago someone said the second time is aglow go ’round midnight or so a second try artifact attracts trial by sect the sacrificial OM the transient OM the midwifery oh my gladness how the time does go round tracks of trilobiticle creatures create paths for the neurological OM the semitropical OM the oom-pah-pah popsuckle dome of the mad hatress harkens me back to the snarkafuckation of the transcendentalists Om the industrialists OM the moonshot shithouse harlequin quintuplets let her open letters for languid lovers on lower rungs ringing bell hops hovering and hoping for airdropped distortion a rational ex-spring nation to tantalize with autobiographical OM pseudo mechanical OM psychoanalytical OM hyperhygienically manifested Om to place around the little pink ears of the living

(c) 2014 Fred Whitehead

posit

Regard
less
of the form it
takes, the unenlightened will always fear
the enlightened.
There
is no trust in
some
one who has dared to
pick the lock. Those who don’t soon
enough
will
be left with a box
layered in dust,
inlaid clues to its
con
tents
obscured.
No one will have
a clue
of the
pos s ibili ties that have
died within.

(c) 2014 Fred Whitehead

terminal

I pull the rip cord,
look up, and
I do not see
a chute

there is always the
chance
that I will be that
rare unmoored vessel
that is
caught just before
impact and
the accompanying
transmutation into
a thousand
shards of myself

each newborn
facet
reflecting the light
of the world in a
completely
different way

a scenario that
has it’s
advantages,
would be something
a philosopher
might say

maybe so

but, as he perfects
the pensive look
and makes up
answers for
a select group of fans,

I’m busy contemplating
the tensile strength
of nylon,
moving at
250 feet per second
toward the
inevitable

(c) 2014 Fred Whitehead

Sent from my iPhone

31814

engaged
in battle with
the current occupier
of my
mind
well, not so much
a battle
really,
more like two
kids
vying for attention
at the
table –
sharp elbows
shifty eyes
spilling gravy
bellowing
to be handed
the salt
of the
earth

(c) 2014 Fred Whitehead

Splintered – a flash fiction piece

Splintered – ©2014 Frederick E. Whitehead

Three days after the ruling I found myself in the Main Transport Center riding a lift with my council.
My eyes closed, I counted the pings for each level as we rose. Eleven. That’s when we stopped.

The doors hissed open, the downward shift in temperature was welcoming.

“A propulsion stability engineer position is opening up on Herakles Platform” she said as she put a hand
on my shoulder and gently directed me to the corridor on the left.

“When?” I asked, undoing the top two clasps on my tunic.

“The next bypass” she answered and took a Vispad from her pocket. She accessed a file, slowing her
pace as she did. She studied it momentarily then I felt a vibration from my torso pack, signaling that I
had received it.

“That’s 36 months away” I said

“I know, but it’s a guaranteed 20 year contract, completely furnished apartment included, not to
mention full clearance for use of the regeneration bay. Your only real expense, outside of personal
needs, would be for travel and you won’t have much time for that.”

We walked in silence to the viewing deck. When we reached the windows I asked

“When do you need to know my decision?”

“Ideal trajectory for your wife’s pod will be this Tuesday, your son’s, a week from Saturday,” she said as
she adjusted the tint control, the loading area below came into view.

Tuesday, I thought, only a week since the state filed charges against us. The committee moves quick when reputations are on the line.

“Thank you for not referring to them as was done in the official record” I said

“Regardless of my personal feelings, I am your assigned advocate and as such any slight on my part
would have had a negative effect on how we presented our defense” she said “besides, the three of you seemed happy and stable, that should count for something. I don’t think there is anything you could have done. Regardless of how unblemished an offspring’s genome appears, the laws concerning half-clone/full-clear union or reproduction are complicated in their science but concise in their application, itis not to be done, period.” she said, directing my attention to the activity below with a tap on the glass.
“Your argument never had a chance against their rules for continuity of species. Familial stability does
not matter to The Collective and the Committee will always do the Collective’s bidding.”

I looked down as the pods were rolled out. The Deck Steward  walked around the first one. The red flash
of his scanner triggering the info plate. He looked up at us, his fingers never stopped robotically entering
information into his pad. He moved to the next one and repeated the procedure. This time he did not look up.

“Review the contract. The committee was lenient William, you know they were, considering precedent.”

“Yea” I said.

“Please consider it William, I think you will find it quite generous” I watched as the steward moved to the last pod.

“Here” she said, handing me a metallic bi-fold. My number engraved into its surface.

I opened it. Two circuit cards were inside, each with the coordinates of a different sector stamped above
a number. One was my wife’s, the other my son’s.

I looked through the glass as the coordinator stepped away from the pods and motioned for the small
crew to start the loading.

“You do have a decision to make. If you want, there is a pod for you, it’s ready for deployment. Once
inside you insert a card and you will be able to join one of them.”

“Where are they sending him?” I asked.

“Olympiad Colony. He will do well there, his spectrum has tested out at barely a half percent
degradation from norm. That’s unheard of, no doubt he is a special case. He will be schooled for a
leadership position.”

He is only three years old, I thought, plenty early enough to start Collective Indoctrination.

“What of my wife?”

“A holding station for a year of rehabilitation then on to Io” she looked at her Vispad, “for relay work
mostly, coordination of outbound supply ships, routing Outer Sector Transports, that kind of thing. From
what you have told me, she will no doubt find the position infuriatingly boring, but I don’t need to
remind you, she was spared total expulsion.”

“Death, you mean.”

There was a pause, then she said “if your heritage was not one of Fixed State Privileged, then yes, of course.”

I ran my thumb over her number and those of her destination.

So there it was I thought. I would take the position, carry the guilt of privilege with me to Herakles do my 20 years of penance and try to put my love for them behind me. The system, the Collective will grind on. My son will never remember any of this and I was sure a procedure will insure he will never have an heir. My wife, of course will never be able to forget, nor will she ever know of my decision. My only hope is that her despair will diminish over time.

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downview
dissipates:
a fist for Sisyphus
dreading to
ignore
sugared un-
armed junction
skin
chafing in-
to
skin

(c) 2014 Fred Whitehead

wish

1 for
a net
to capture
bits of sanity in
a field of delusion

2 to
find
a piece of a
broken friend
among the rubble of life

3 to
swim in waters
too big
for
the one I was told I was

(c) 2014 Fred Whitehead