Vincent Eaton Storyteller

Story – Another Dimension

Vincent Eaton — Thu, 24 May 2012 13:30:16 +0000

Today I decided to move it forward some and stuck my arm up to my shoulder into another dimension hovering just off to the right of my easy chair. I felt around, and came upon a crumbling bone of my mother. I let go and pulled my arm out. Maybe I’ll try this again tomorrow and hope for better results.

The next day.
I put my arm back into another dimension and found the grinning, sarcastic skull of my father, who had had numerous strokes and died some time ago so I took my arm back out and decided to give this another week.

A week later.
I went in and felt something that can only be described as the end of civilization as we know it. Took my arm out. This is not going as I had hoped it would.

A month later.
I stuck my hand into the next dimension again, with much less hope than on previous occasions. Someone over there shook my hand in a firm but gentle grasp. It went on for a while, and it felt good. When I removed my hand from the other dimension, my hand was gone and I yelled for my wife to take me to the hospital.

Three years later.
Got in another argument with my wife over some space-time continuum theories. She actually pushed me. I actually for the first time in years pushed her back. Too forcefully, probably compensating for my missing hand. She knocked backward into my favorite easy chair then tipped right over into the other dimension we’d been avoiding for some time. She disappeared and I reached in and felt around but she was was gone.

The next day
I reached in with my one good arm holding a note, asking someone in the other dimension for the return of my wife. I held it out for a while but nothing happened. When I brought the note back out I saw someone had spat on it.

Three months later
Moving out of the house tomorrow. The Johnsons are moving in. I’ve warned them about the extra dimension in the house but they just smiled and patted me on the back and continued thinking they were getting a great deal. They have four small children, a pregnant cat and a dog, so good luck with that. I’m taking the money, my good arm and heading off someplace uni-dimensional where there’s plenty of warm sunshine.

Story – Fifteen reasons why we should stay together

Vincent Eaton — Fri, 11 May 2012 09:35:56 +0000

He said to her, “I can name fifteen reasons why we should stay together.”
She waited over on the other side of the room, her arms crossed, waiting to hear his reasons.
He said, “One, I love you.”
She waited some more. She got tired of waiting, so said, “And?”
“The other fourteen don’t matter, just the first one.”
She continued waiting over there on her side of the room, arms still crossed, wondering how to tell him that that just wasn’t enough reason any more.

Reading from Brussegem, a snug hell – Chapter 1 excerpts

Vincent Eaton — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 21:17:51 +0000

I enjoy reading my books aloud.

Here’s some excerpts from the first chapter of “Brussegem, a snug hell”.

This sentence is the link.

Thanks for coming by. Vincent+

Note: For more about this book, click here: Brussegem, a snug hell.

Story – FAT CAT

Vincent Eaton — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 10:06:48 +0000

My cat is fat. The cat used to be a he but is now an it. He has been deballed, neutralized, neutered, fixed, castrated, altered, changed, sanitized, synthesized, de-catified. No wonder he got fat. Under such circumstances, anyone would tend to get depressed and over-compensate with between meal snacks of mice-meat and sparrow heads.

Imagine being pushed into a carrier bag, zipped up in it, transported and manhandled, and upon being unzipped, exposed in a foreign shiny environment, where some stranger promptly sticks a sharp object in the hind quarters — and before a cat can shriek injured dignity and utter shock — the world turns all dreamy and it’s time for a long, unsought catnap.

Upon awakening, the world remains incredibly woozy and wobbly with something missing. Imagine the first time you as a cat bend round to clean your privates, licking tenderly to clean with care. The cat suddenly is certain something essential is missing. He looks up to stare off into some cat half-distance, mystified eyes calculating, recalling. He bends to lick again to make sure that what used to be there is no longer snug and tight and two, right there as usual. He needed those two tiny round objects to give a certain heft to his yowls, leave his smell, mark his territory, make frequent hot cat-love.

Now that will no longer be possible. Never, never, never, never, never, as Shakespeare wrote for King Lear to say. And like a more mild King Lear, my cat is in the grip of an astonishing disillusionment and barely contained depression.

When I let the cat out into the back garden, I watch it disappear into the gathering gloom. He does not run, he still slightly wobbles. He’s edgy and uncertain. There’s less of him, and he knows it. He’ll never be all there nor as big and brave as he once was. From here on out, he truly deserves all the night-time mice-meat and scraps of excitement he can hustle.

Photo: Rights lambertwm

STORY – Public Speaking

Vincent Eaton — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 18:28:34 +0000

When called upon to express himself in a timely manner, the rather embarrassed full-length midget of uncertain parentage came forward to the microphone in front of a quiet audience of lots and lots of people.

He stood and glanced up at the microphone. He licked his lips and they licked him back. No faces were seen through the bright hiding glare of the lights right in front of him and at the sides of him and then more lights further out, out there. But lots of people were somewhere there, beyond the lights. He heard coughs and shifting bottoms in comfortable seats.

Unaccustomed as he was to speaking in public, or, indeed, speaking at all, he launched manfully into his much rehearsed outburst, which consisted, spasmodically, of three syllables in the wrong order.

Silence greeted his immense effort.

He should have known better, in fact he did know better, but was talked out of this knowledge by someone backstage who was in it for the money.

Emptied of effort, he turned to walk off, or was it waddle off, it was hard to be exact about a full-length midget’s gait, while detecting, or so he imagined, almost wished, some distant though heart-felt boos coming from the Great Out There. If no one liked him, then he would never have to think about doing this again, which would give his limited expectations but immense imagination much time and opportunity to think of nothing but nothing at all, for as long as he wished, or as long as his heartbeats held out, as long as he lasted. He would not ever have to do anything ever again.

His immense imagination was already imagining he heard a wall of nasty boos washing up from the unseen audience, overwhelming, over-stating their distaste for his brief effort at speaking what was on his mind, in public, on stage, when, he knew, he had little to say, declaim or state.

This was now officially becoming a rough day for him. He would take a pill to sleep this evening. After he dealt with his three wives, especially the one who had been particularly demanding in sexual matters, and those two second cousins who’d shown up out of nowhere, and then, of course, feed the cats. Always, endlessly, the need to feed the cats.

Someone or two, out there, damn them, applauded, briefly, three times, like syllables said, in, of course, the wrong order.

He halted, hips turning forward, stepping toward the edge of the stage, moving his face beyond the bright, blinding light, beyond the few dying boos, beyond this point in his life, to see into this impossible sea of darkened, demanding souls, seeking that face, perhaps brighter than the rest, the one with the hands still in a phase of three-syllabled clapping, waiting eagerly to be seen by him, so he could say, without hesitation, beyond three syllables, into the dark, with a darker hope, to the person with applause in his or her hands, “Is there someone out there who wants me to go on?”

A third person applauded. A fourth. More? Was there more yet? Perhaps the sound would soon be deafening. And he would need to imagine more syllables, more than the three he had memorized and already used up. His face went through the curtain of light and into the dark, where he squinted, trying, as always, as forever, to see beyond what he had got used to seeing.

“Barely Airborne” – a humorous non-fiction story of mine published online

Vincent Eaton — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 16:39:59 +0000

An autobiographical piece of mine was recently published online by a non-fiction story site called “Airplane Reading”. Called “Barely Airborne” (and will be part of non-fiction collection called “Intimate Details & Bodily Functions”), you can read the piece by CLICKING HERE TO READ BARELY AIRBORNE.

But here is how it begins:

“Over there is your airplane, sir.”

The Munich airport employee had checked my one-way ticket to Rome, then gestured to the bright tarmac of that reflected a bright winter day. There, over a ways all alone and looking suspect, squatted a small airplane with twirly propeller things on its wings. It seemed more suitable for a low-grade millionaire on a budget; I expected a jet.

“That?”

“Yes. As there are only two passengers scheduled for this flight, it has been shifted to this plane.”

“But I have paid business class.” My company had paid business class. This was the week where I was following a very portable electronics conference around Europe and “managing” it; we had visited Paris, London, Stockholm, Munich, and now finally Rome. My job was to arrive in a hotel with a very large room, ask technicians and other sub-manager types if everything was okay as they set things up, and then hang around watching everything go well.

My ticket-taker walked away, leaving me to venture unaided across the tarmac and board. Carrying my bag, I stepped outside, and instinctively glanced left and right in case I had to dodge any zooming incoming or outgoing planes. But nothing stirred anywhere. Things went roar on the other side of the building, but here? No other airplanes but mine, no people, no hustle, no bustle. The air was still. I walked across the tarmac, arriving at the five stairs leading up to the entry. I stopped, looking around for someone to lead me in, be interested—anything at all. Nothing. I stepped up, peeked inside the entryway, eight seats, tightly packed, no one. No one sitting or standing, no one in the cockpit. I turned and looked out and over my new desolate world. Someone appeared from the same entry hole I had. I went back down the stairs, and waited for the man, also attired to do some business, who nodded at me as he came up.

“Strange,” he said, looking back over his shoulder.
…

You can read the rest of it by CLICKING HERE TO READ BARELY AIRBORNE

Thanks for coming round.

“I am a Super Fan”

Vincent Eaton — Thu, 16 Feb 2012 11:19:41 +0000

The original cover of my novel, "Self-Portrait of Someone Else" published by Viking-Penguin, N.Y.

Once in a while, from the wiggling foggy ether waves of the internet, something pleasing arrives without the least fanfare. A couple of days before last Christmas, an email from a complete stranger concerning my first novel, “Self-Portrait of Someone Else”, with the subject stating, “I am a Super Fan”, had this to say, in part:

“I read A Self Portrait of Someone Else years ago. It truly changed my life at that age (late teens). I am not sure why but I have often referenced memories from the book when dealing with my own issues. I guess Tim was kind of an anti role model for me. (…) As a teenager, I carried a briefcase around with a pile of poems I wrote (kind of some stuff Tim would have written if he were a poet), pictures of an ex that overdosed and a copy of your book. Pretty much, that was all of my worldly possessions at that time in life.”

Sometimes the purpose of what I perform in relative obscurity suddenly receives such raison d’etre.

Vincent

Cover of the re-issed version

Matches – “Charlie’s Grill”

Vincent Eaton — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 09:31:51 +0000

In my continuing series of videos on matches I have kept over the years, and then pick out of this bag some years later, and then remember, recreate, imagine, what I can from the matchbook.

This one I imagine is rather romantic, and now I am adding storytelling touches that were not there in previous matches stories.

See this video by clicking on this link, this sentence.

Thanks for coming by.

Vincent

TagWhat & Vincent Eaton’s videos

Vincent Eaton — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:37:43 +0000

Towards the end of 2011, a fairly new online company called TagWhat that describe themselves as “The mobile encyclopedia of where you are” contacted me. An attentive Multimedia Content Producer there liked my videos I call “Matches” and they wanted to collaborate. The company develops and runs a located-based App for mobile devices, the idea being that when you are somewhere in the world and want to know a little about a very specific place, you can call up a story of that location using their app to look and listen to. They’ve been covered by the Wall Street Journal, AP, Mashable, and is a People’s Choice Award Winner.

After some back and forth, my “Matches” series of memory videos became part of TagWhat’s mobile encyclopedia.

This seems to be an example of what is called, “Slowly getting one’s words and stories out there one small discovery by small exposure at a time….”

And if you want to have an actual look-listen at my Matches series of videos to see what they see, you can have get to them by clicking here.

So, hey, stuff happens,

V+

My blogs & stories—the great tick-tock of passing time changes things

Vincent Eaton — Mon, 06 Feb 2012 11:51:09 +0000

For a while now this story stuff I’m doing and letting you know about has become somewhat irregular. Once upon a time I was posting audio clips of stories on Mondays, written stories on Wednesday, then my videos on Fridays.

For me it became a bit of a mishmash of misplaced market-oriented gobbly-gook resulting in omnidirectional creative firecrackers.

Such busy routines may be useful for those entities declaring themselves ‘market-oriented novelists’, but these timely, business-like efforts caused my focus to go all asymmetrical.

It took a lot of time to do and not enough time left over to be. (To let the mind empty then wander then create then — new story!)

Much of my time during the last three years has been spent in interminable administrative tasks. Like an on-going To Do List That Would Not Die. My own private A4 sized zombie. No matter how much I did and was actually Really Productive, finishing one task usually added on another two or three more tasks for follow-up and/or investigating and/or digging deeply into more research. That’s how it goes with a publishing company: one thing always, always leads to another.

This included setting up a number of books, eBooks, connecting with audio and fabric distribution channels, triple checking formats and functioning, working with various designers on various projects, giving things A Try, making errors, making corrections, contacts hither and thither and roll-outs and videos and finding assorted virtual homes to expose my stories, their cozy homes away from home. A one-man interminable putting-things-in-place long drawn-out phase. But times ticks, things do get done, put firmly in place, and this month my To Do list has more white on it then black lines of do-me and I’m-waiting-to-be-done — a lot less of the relentless bang of attention-demanding bullet points.

So currently I’m like a side of beef taken from the flames: I’m now relaxing in my juices. Between now and the summer I’ll come out with an early novel, “The Nice Guy” and a story collection called “Intimate Dialogues”. After the copy-editing was completed, designs of their separate covers and interior layouts is moving forward. Recording and editing the audio versions, getting the eBooks in line and professionally formatted. After this, maybe a couple of more novels in 2012, or maybe a non-fiction collection, but definitely some more t-shirts and “mer-chan-dise”, and then there’s those videos….

Basta and great! I can scratch this Blog Post off my to do list. More shiny white on the sheet.

- Vincent