Love & Darts Read online

LOVE & DARTS

  ~

  NATH JONES

  ISBN-13: 978-1-9-37316-06-8

  Copyright 2012 Nath Jones

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission in writing from the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  SmashWords Edition, License Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to SmashWords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Previously Published:

  Jones, Nath. "Limbic Resonance: Responses to a Match.com Questionnaire." The Battered Suitcase 3.4 (2011): 40-41. Issuu. Vagabondage Press, 1 Mar. 2011. Web. 29 Dec. 2011. .

  Jones, Nath. "Should: How Mommy Ate Her Soul." PANK Magazine March (2010). PANK Magazine. PANK, 3 May 2010. Web. 29 Dec. 2011. .

  Jones, Nath. "Tandem." From the Edge of the Prairie 8 (2011): 6-13. Print.

  PUBLISHED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  Cover design by: Ryan W. Bradley: www.aestheticallydeclined.net

  Interior design by: Gin Y. Havard

  For Amy & Bill,

  most merciful friends

  SPECIAL TRIBUTE

  Karen’s Krew

  Karen's Krew at F.O.E. #2548 -- L to R: Jim ROOSTER Wisely, JOELBACON Haskell, Karen SPECIAL K McAleer, BIG JOE Gembala, & Kayla KATE Reyes.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Lucille Fridley * Gin Havard * Jane Friedman * Leah Jones * Anita Jordan * Vanessa Shivla * John Philip Mcgraw * Andrew Zimmerman Jones * Nate Dean *Dariusz Janecki * Chris Howard * Becky Holzman * Erin Gunderson * Tammy Servies * Pepper Burkholder * Xavier Rodriguez * Melanie Callahan Willhite (aka Mrs. Awesomeness) * Mike Moreth * Chris McGovern * Beth Prusiecki * Tom Arnold * Tom Martin * Michele Bultman Tracy * Larisa Parrish * Andres Jimenez * Alan Larson * Jennifer Wohlberg * Maria Kubiak * Erin Boudreaux * Elizabeth Munroz * Josh Sipes * Reginald Gibbons * Sandi Wisenberg * Patrick Somerville * the creative writing faculty at Northwestern University * the Batasses * the Bowlemics * my Facebook family * Pat Bruce * Robert Sowder * Darren Mast * Rick Hall (as well as Sally, Crystal, & Sherrie) * Roger and Judy Beehler * Lila and Jakie Houts * Andrew Groh * Dorothy Jones

  The quality of mercy is not strained,

  It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven

  Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:

  It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.

  —William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Introduction

  Until They Shine

  Drive

  Character Sketch, 1997

  Smiles

  Bleach & White Towels

  July & the Buff Orpintons

  Conversations in Silence

  Variance

  Portrait of a Wheel Spoke Blur

  Eve

  Angels on Horseback

  Decussation

  Crepe Myrtle & Summer Cicadas

  Jeanie

  Sparrows

  Flag Box

  The Sandwich

  Should: How Mommy Ate Her Soul

  Mi Fantasma Querida

  Holsters in the Guestroom

  Small Town

  Pieta

  Tandem

  Limbic Resonance: Responses to a Match.com Questionnaire

  INTRODUCTION

  There is a full literary spectrum that helps to capture our most human conditions.

  The On Impulse e-Book Series is about exploring the different ways we tell our stories. So I worked with the media of catharsis and technique of deconstruction in The War is Language: 101 Short Works. By contrast, in Love & Darts I'm more interested in the primary narrative elements of craft and in depictions of our assumptive social constructs.

  Catharsis isn't about what’s at stake in a conflict. A reactionary response is often less than engaging. By the time a person is freaking out events have already transpired. The expression is not tempered with reason, with contemplation, with artistry. Reactive outbursts seem evidence of instability and lack of control.

  Fiction’s narrative elements do the work of mitigating mood. Plot helps modulate the rise and fall. Setting orients the reader by creating an experience similar to a guided meditation. Such provision is much different from what amounts to a writer’s screaming at a reader. Characterization helps the self-pity drop away. Why me dissipates while empathy remains.

  Emotive vacillations aren’t received as symphonic contrast. A writer’s attempt to keep the mood consistent helps the reader be less jarred, less shocked, less confused, less defensive. The point of view for catharsis is basically infantile. There can be very little authority. When a writer chooses this perspective he or she must beg the reader’s respect.

  Of course, if you miss the moment, miss the expression of emotion, then that tangibility of living a real life alive in all its changeability is lost.

  Fiction conveys meaning better than does catharsis. Regardless of the intimate access and the visceral presence that catharsis as text provides, people don't want to parse it, they don't have time to become possessed by the writer, and the emotional roller coaster has a deadening effect.

  Our interactions in the digital domain invite expressions of the now. Social media platforms and our twenty-four-hour news cycle create foment and a seeming imperative to keep up. There is a tendency toward catharsis and it should not be denied.

  But by using narrative elements fiction keeps the sense and loses the nonsense.

  We are a diverse culture fragmented by convicted factions. It's interesting to select structural assumptions from different cultural niches and present them together in one collection of stories. In some ways I've done that here. Perhaps the work invites a reader not only to examine the other as an individual but the other as a collective. By representing the rules of the world of polyamory in one story and those of religious monogamy in another the structuralist givens of both communities are set in contrast to the reader’s own.

  Crafting stories based upon cultural givens yields a relatable understanding of what's real, whether or not a reader’s critical thinking can dissect the structural underpinning/overlay. The use of such consensual structures added to plot, setting, characterization, tone, conflict, and point of view combine to create a vivid reading experience.

  Studying the storytelling impulse reveals how many constructs exist within literature itself. Catharsis does not seem worthwhile. So beyond using catharsis as a medium I attempted deconstruction (and even destruction of narrative) in The War is Language. The writing style in 2000 Deciduous Trees perhaps aligns with careless crafts of escape: paper snowflakes made from newspaper. Love & Darts explores the rudiments of structuralism that a writer may choose to apply to an inhabited scene. And my hope is that in How to Cherish the Grief-Stricken I may be able to find that sweet spot between politicized philosophies—a place where the writer’s work allows for a reader’s catharsis, which is likely the best proof we have that any book is a good one.

  2/24/2012