[Image: “DCI Mooreland,” by John E. Simpson. (Shared here under a Creative Commons License; for more information, see this page at RAMH.) To see the microfiction behind its title, refer to the original in my SmugMug “#jesstorypix” gallery; just click on the title at the bottom of the photo, and the story will appear at the left or bottom (depending on your screen’s orientation).]

From whiskey river:

“Shoot, I can’t remember her name. What is her name? Darn, here she comes. What is it… Sally… Sue? She just told me yesterday. What’s the matter with me? This is going to be embarrassing.”

In case you haven’t noticed, you have a mental dialogue going on inside your head that never stops. It just keeps going and going. Have you ever wondered why it talks in there? How does it decide what to say and when to say it? How much of what it says turns out to be true? How much of what it says is even important? And if right now you are hearing, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have any voice inside my head!”—that’s the voice we’re talking about.

(Michael A. Singer [source])

…and:

Once upon a time, there was a boy. He lived in a village that no longer exists, in a house that no longer exists, on the edge of a field that no longer exists, where everything was discovered, and everything was possible. A stick could be a sword. A pebble could be a diamond. A tree a castle.

Once upon a time, there was a boy who lived in a house across the field, from a girl who no longer exists. They made up a thousand games. She was Queen and he was King. In the autumn light her hair shone like a crown. They collected the world in small handfuls. When the sky grew dark, they parted with leaves in their hair.

(Nicole Krauss [source])

…and:

Or maybe a person is just made up of a lot of people… Maybe we’re accumulating these new selves all the time. Hauling them in as we make choices, good and bad, as we screw up, step up, lose our minds, find our minds, fall apart, fall in love, as we grieve, grow, retreat from the world, dive into the world, as we make things, as we break things.

(Jandy Nelson [source])

[Read more…]