The German Financier's Daughter
and other Short Stories
this collection of thirteen short stories starts off looking a lot like fiction. but slowly you realize the stories might actually be about fiction. the kind we all use to invent an identity for ourselves, building from the raw materials of memories, dreams, and wishes for a life that’s better than the one we have. anything that comes to hand is fair game – a polaroid snapshot from a happier time, something you overheard in the waiting room, a line from song that speaks to something we all need.
it’s a message of hope. speaking a faith that it really is possible to weave memories and imaginary worlds into something more enduring.
like a whirlwind of sex and sand.
or maybe even love.
1. He Dreamed of Cars
evolution is everywhere. but did you know the modern automobile is a descendent of the hoss?
Zebedee takes a drive with his new sponsor and starts to wonder what the hell he’s gotten himself into.
this one’s a hummer!
2. Crunch
there’s a lot of places you don’t wanna get your bones stuck. like between a rock and a hard place. or between the cold metal surfaces of a giant rotating machine that doesn’t give a hoot about your soft little fingers. Or the pages of a dream that keep flipping past you, faster than you can keep up with, towards somewhere darker than you ever thought you’d have to go to. Again.
3. I AM Dennis Wilson
not just like him. we’re talking actually him.
what to do when your messianic complexes actually come true? ask yourself, what would you do if you woke up one morning and found yourself transformed into a god-like creature, partway between The Jeezer and the Buddha? All the while humming ‘Good Vibrations’ in the shower??
4. The German Financier's Daughter
“Ma’agan, oh Ma’agan / to escape this tempest’s spell / and return to the outer world’s real hell”
Kissing on the beach of the Sea of Galilee is more than just a dream come true. one minute Zebedee thinks he’s about to lose his virginity with a jewish princess. next minute she’s walking on the water, handing out bread and fishes to anyone who’ll listen to her story…
‘I adore you’ he whispers in her ear some time later, between soft kisses around the arches of her eyebrows. his rhythm is slow and gentle. he likes to pretend poetry comes to him while they’re making love, but she has his number on this one. It’s just a piece of graffiti, she saw it scribbled on the wall in the toilet next to the tractor shed. she decides to say nothing. We do have choices, even if sometimes they appear of small consequence.
5. Christmas At Hotel Amnesia
if you should go skating on the thin of modern life. dragging behind you the silent reproach of a million tear-stained eyes. don’t be surprised when a crack in the ice appears under your feet. you slip out of your depth and out of your mind with you fear flowing out behind you as you claw the thin ice.
p.s. does not apply to dogs
6. Song for Someone I Passed Upon the Stair
little baggies stuffed full of stuff. sad grey men, spinning around like faded images on some rickety zoetrope. The steel door opens behind me and a grey young man emerges. He’s wearing a cloak of loneliness, clutching a ziplock containing the grain of an empty promise. I wonder if we maybe passed upon the stair as I was leaving.
7. Creative Licence
a broken mirror, a symbol for a shattered psyche. but also an indicator we’re in the world of fiction, where almost everything means more than it does in everyday IRL.
maybe this ain’t really fiction. maybe this is about fiction.
8. Tomorrow's World
a man in a white space suit jumps clean out of a David Bowie song and runs across the chapter holding a red balloon. a prayer for something better?
What if Ziggy Stardust was right all along?
What if glam rock messiahs really can save your soul?
And what if the kids hadn’t killed the man?
9. Waiting for Suzie
Cerberus looks on asthe scene gets wilder and wilder.
all the while, Suzie is nowhere to be seen. her absence is more powerful, more real, than her absence.
10. Well Now Bhikkus
a story about watching wild horses run off downriver with our dreams in tow…
don’t ever listen to what your parents tell you. unless of course it’s backed up by several thousand years of history and practice – and could save your mortal soul.
11. She Brings Me Strawberries
I say ‘yacht rock’. you say ‘carpenters’. we gotta fight about something while we nibble on fresh fruit and cream.
12. Crosstown Traffic
the gatefold cover of Jimi Hendrix’s ‘are you experienced?’ asks a provocative question. Well, ur… i guess I am, but could any one person really experience that much in one lifetime?
13. Love on Lithium
the little boy runs for the ball and kicks it into the goal. The little girl runs for the ball and kicks it into the goal.
but matters of love are rarely so simple. especially in the midst of the greatest lockdown we’ve ever known…
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