Fragments by S.M. Fries

Memories of the past were an erratic collection of flashes like a stobe light inside my head. Pieces of memories appeared on an internal screen then in a second, they were gone. The negaive memories were hidden somewhere in a deep crevis of a cracked photo waiting to surface at what usually was the worse possible moment. They were scattered and in no particular sequence of events. Just random images and feelings. I'm not sure which events really happened or which I remembered hearing from stories my mother told time and again. Maybe it was from the old photos dragged out of cookie tins we looked at scrunched together on the living room couch, the old Polaroids of brownish-yellow board, cracked and faded. Those are the kind you shape in your mind, try to remember them being real at one time. Inside the framework of those cracks there was a childhood to be found. Mine, the one I could not remember.

I couldn't have been more than five or six years old when I became aware of the power of words. Words, when placed in the right order could open up a world of magical fantasy that had no end. Groups of words became sentences, sentences became paragraphs and a handful of paragraphs, a story. I loved it!

Then there were the words that came at you like a heat-seeking missle. They were usually not so much in sentences, as cliches. They were random one-liners that could slice you in half without drawing any blood. They got wedged inside of the room in your head where you keep your luggage. Baggage to be carried around at another time, possibly spilling out to a friend or at the worst possible time, in a conversation over dinner with a first date. Just when they thought you were perfect. Not.

You can trip over your words, use them as a tool, use them to comfort, use them to captivate, use them to create rhythm without music. Or, use them as a weapon, creating low self-esteem, hidden anger and frustration. Word...be nice.

copyright 2008 s.m.fries