F. Jason Whitaker Writer

Steadily the rain pours in a rhythm that has me awake at this late hour. The small light beside my bed allows the canvas of stars outside my window to be seen while I read. I do not read now, my eyes skimming the page, absently I glance over the pages, and random words catch my attention while I recall the events that have brought me here.   What moments of sorrow are these that keep me from dream and what times are these that make it difficult to look beyond these days?   I look at his photo and wonder if our time spent together was no more than a facade. Those days shared now seem more like a dream enclosed within ironic truth. It began on one Friday morning and ended the same, a week later. The clouds drift in small patches across an otherwise blue sky. I sit in this lovely park on such a beautiful day. Some children play nearby, birds singing in the trees around me, and the daily press before me waiting to be read. The rest of the day open to many possibiliti...

The first time that I touched another boy’s dick I was nine. I was at my friend’s house; we were playing soldiers, when his older brother asked me if I wanted to see his dick. I looked at him for a moment not certain what to say. After some silence I nodded and he pulled his pants and underwear down. I scrutinized it for a minute before reaching out and placing my fingers around it. I moved my fingers away for an instant when it grew in size. I looked up at him and his smile reassured me. I was about to place my fingers back on it when another thought comes to me. I leaned forward and placed my mouth around it. He pushed himself further inside my mouth but I didn’t hesitate to take him in further: shortly after a warm fluid was sent down my throat from inside of him. That was several years ago, and I haven’t seen him since that day. They moved away that summer. Since that day in my friend’s room I have thought of other boys in ways that I am certain would not please my parents...

Long rays of light beam down from holes in the roof. Dust floats like fog. A hand reaches out: her hand on the fly of my pants. Her breath is heavy as she unzips:   her breath warm against flesh. The sound of her soon makes me almost forget how we came to be here. What began as a shortcut to her house became a long stretch of asphalt. I keep asking her if she’s certain that this is the road, but now she doesn’t remember. She looks out the window watching the trees: mile after mile of woods and dirt roads leading nowhere. The trees surround us and the stars dot the sky above us. The radio, silent, turned off since we lost reception. “Stop!” Brakes squeak as I bring the car to a stop and a boy, from the darkness appears on the side of the road. Ashley rolls down the window. The boy looks at us: his blank, pale, face stares at me. Ashley motions for him to hop in the back. The road continues as questions enter my mind: questions about that boy. The car is silent as t...

The sky is blue with white ships sailing across the vast oceans between the two houses. On my back, looking up, everything seems different. I lay here and I dream. My parents think that I will one day meet some girl, marry, and have children but my dreams are not theirs: I dream of meeting a boy to spend my life with. I have never told anyone this dream. This dream began last year, when I experienced the closeness of another boy, and it was last year that I found myself in love with another boy. Summer day’s drift, endless hours of leisure, and nowhere to go: I sit on my porch wondering if I will be alone all summer. School ended 3 days ago, but I feel the dread of solitude setting upon me. I have no friends and I don’t know why. Before we moved I had friends but now I am, like some leopard condemned, spending the rest of my youth alone. A girl jumps rope, a man walks a dog, and a cat paces back and forth on the railing of the porch across the street from me as dreams t...

The sound of a fly buzzing in my ear wakes me and, for a moment, I wonder if it was merely a dream. Those moments distorted are more like dreams. My eyes open to the boy standing over me: his eyes wide as if he is waiting for me to wake. The fan rotates just enough to make noise, the faucet in the bathroom drips in alternating patterns, and the rain outside blends with these to create a symphony of torture. I look around the room, standing slowly as to avoid a headache; I wonder what waits for me in death. The boy, a mere pawn in this story, walks toward the door without speaking a word. I assume that he has no need to speak, or that he cannot speak. He, Andrew as I have decided to call him, walks through the door into the wet cold. I follow Andrew: what else do I have to do? We walk down the steps toward a bus, a long grey bus, as a man in a cowboy hat steps down. He has a grin that makes me shudder and a walk that makes me wonder about what he’s been through. The tall man w...

  The moisture in the air surrounds me like a hot blanket. We roll down the windows in hopes of cooling off. We’ve been on the road for so long and our journey has just begun. This car stolen after the last heist, our getaway not being as we thought, and now we’re on the run It was only fortunate that the owner of this blue compact left the keys in the ignition only blocks from the bank. The white interior soon spotted with blood. Who would have known that one of us would end up shot? The car speeds through town after town: one small town after the next: mostly one light town with not much more than a Piggly Wiggly. The moans of pain fill the car as he comes closer to death. After miles of classic rock blaring on the radio in an attempt to calm all of us I turn it down and then off. I look at Thomas and he looks at me. We know we have to stop but where? As the car comes to the top of a hill I can see what we need. Ahead of us, at the bottom of the hill, is a motel. We pul...

I stare out into the cold watching flakes of snowdrift toward the field beside our house. The field is green with grass during the summer but now it’s brown and grey with winter. I pull a blanket up to my chin dreaming of warmer days. The house has an eerie silence to it that frightens me. It’s not really silence but the sound when there are not other people around. A void of movement and conversation associated with civilization. For a brief second I feel as though I am in a wilderness trying to survive the bitter wasteland of nature. I think about it once more and come to the conclusion that nature is cold and brutal. My mom and brother are not home. They will not be home anytime soon. I shiver in the cold of my room wishing for different circumstances. My waking dreams take me away from here but merely for seconds at a time. I often dream of a cute boy coming into my room and keeping me warm: I do not know why my dreams have me confined in my own room. I could dream my...

Where do you begin to tell a story about nothing? Is there a nice way to say that the story you are about to tell goes nowhere? I sit at a small desk, at a small window, ready for the moment an idea will develop in my head. I have been sitting here for almost an entire day trying to think of a way to tell the story of my dad’s passing. A story, which by alone is not much more than a paragraph. My dad was never there when he was alive. He was a man who wanted freedom and having children and freedom do not mix well. He was not in the best of health when he died, but it was still a surprise. He lived in an apartment complex near our house. I visited him the day before he was found, on the couch dead, by my mom. It was a hot day when I rode my bike, a small BMX bike, to my dad’s apartment. A swarm of flies gather around the remains of a cat or a rat or some other dead creature: the body almost eaten away by maggots and such flesh devouring creatures. I place my bike against...

A soft wind blows s the mourners gather beneath a bright green tent: the casket in the center. Some of the people cry as the last words is said by a grieving wife. That is my mom, the drama queen, ready to spill her guts whenever called upon. Today we gather to remember my dad, but no one is here for him. He was just a minor character in a Dickens novel. The world would not take notice of the passing of such a man if it were not for those he left behind. A funeral is no more than a moment for the living to cry out loud, gathered in groups around a dead body, and not feel the need to hide the tears. The tears not shed for the deceased, in most cases, but rather it’s some personal grievance that has these mourners in tears. Maybe it is the reminder of the passing of someone that they truly loved. A slight hint of rain is in the air. My mother forces a thick red coat around my shoulders between sniffles. She never looks at me and her gaze seems vacant. She is not looking at any...

In the darkness of my room I search with a small flashlight. The small beam reminds me of the spotlights in the big city that pierce the night sky. I imagine, for a second, that my flashlight is a spotlight searching through the darkness of my room for some hidden truth. Toys come to life as the light flashes upon them, briefly, before I move the light to another space in my room. Outside a thunderstorm lights up the night sky with the occasional burst of lightning, the small beam from my flashlight vanishes whenever the sky lights up. I can hear my mom in the other room as she laughs at “Night Court”. The light coming from the rest of the house flickers and then all but my flashlight goes black. I can hear my mom begin to yell for me as though I would be lost in the dark. She comes into my room with a flashlight that is larger than the one I am using to look around my room. “Are you ok?” I look at her for a moment: the light pointing at me, blinding me for a moment, b...

Heat rises from the long stretch of asphalt, in waves it rises. The lake water now evaporated from my skin. The lake is my only escape from the boredom, which is my life: days at the lake with my dog, Red. The lake behind us some distance, Red runs along the edge of the woods as though he’s looking for something. A car appears on the horizon, a tiny dot so far ahead of me. Not many cars converse this road since the interstate was completed. Nobody lives in walking distance of us, which means I have a large back yard. Green grass sways in a gentle breeze and a bird chirps at the edge of the woods. The path to my house is in sight: it runs from the edge of the pavement toward the line of dancing trees. Red vanishes, ahead of me, down this trail. A trail created by years of feet treading where once the grass grew deep. The solitary yellow mailbox is the only visible evidence of the humanity that resides only a short distance within the embrace of trees. Red’s barking echoe...

The sound of a fly buzzing in my ear wakes me and, for a moment, I wonder if it was merely a dream. Those moments distorted are more like dreams. My eyes open to the boy standing over me: his eyes wide as if he is waiting for me to wake. The fan rotates just enough to make noise, the faucet in the bathroom drips in alternating patterns, and the rain outside blends with these to create a symphony of torture. I look around the room, standing slowly as to avoid a headache; I wonder what waits for me in death. The boy, a mere pawn in this story, walks toward the door without speaking a word. I assume that he has no need to speak, or that he cannot speak. He, Andrew as I have decided to call him, walks through the door into the wet cold. I follow Andrew: what else do I have to do? We walk down the steps toward a bus, a long grey bus, as a man in a cowboy hat steps down. He has a grin that makes me shudder and a walk that makes me wonder about what he’s been through. The tall man ...