Presents. Tribute thread. Scene from a movie or maybe it's just loud music from the record player. The Bible.

I got some great presents today. I'm sure you did, too. Chances are, if you're a parent, you bought your child/ren some fantastic toys that made them really happy. I remember when I was seven, I got this indoor bowling set. I set up all the blue pins in the front, the green in the middle, red in the back. I rolled the plastic ball against the hallway walls and clapped when it hit the headpin, causing them to explode all over the kitchen. Vases were knocked over a few times.

This year, I got some Volkswagen things. I got some non-Volkswagen things. I didn't want to mention Christmas because that's just redundant, but I did just mention it.

**

People like cars. It doesn't matter if you hate your car because it takes fifteen minutes to start in cold weather just because you're too lazy to track down the small vacuum leak behind the intake manifold. Maybe you're just indifferent. It gets me to work, downtown, to the bars you say. Sure, everyone's car does that.

But this guy's car is different. You don't need to know a God damn thing about cars to understand. Just click on the link. It's flash fiction with pictures. I want this link to help get the thought through your head that fiction and narrative exist outside of your fucking cannonized literature, your anthologies of poems and sonnets, your how-to-publish your fantasy novel guides. Fiction exists outside of pages and books.

**

My dad is downstairs in the basement listening to Cream and other music from before I was born. It's almost too loud. I can't imagine him down there nodding his head, plucking the strings of a bass that's not plugged into anything. It makes me imagine a scene from a movie where a family comes home from dinner at some sports pub, and they hear music. The middle-aged son walks downstairs and sees the back of his dad's head. He's sitting on the couch. He walks through a cloud of smoke. The TV is on mute, a woman's mouth moves. She's not showing her teeth.

He gets in front of his dead and half of his face is missing. His arms are cradled at his midsection. A snub-nosed .357 lies with the barrel facing up between two couch cushions. Cream starts getting louder. Eric Clapton plays a solo, and the son's mouth opens to scream but nothing comes out. Credits start rolling. 

My dad's probably not dead though, maybe just sad. It's his first Chirstmas without having his parents. That kind of sucks. Same with my mom. They were both alone today in a crowded house.

**

I got my first copy of the Bible today.