The CancelChain Blog

“Okay, okay. I get it. Another reverse metaphor,” thought Arlo as he closed his copy of Still Life With Woodpecker. “Compare something simple and common to something of almost indescribable beauty and complexity in a way that requires a dictionary to unpack. Got it. Don’t you have another trick pony?” [Editor’s Note: The lack of…

The young man Arlo was speaking with across the kitchen island was only an acquaintance. He could have been upgraded to friend by now, but Arlo found their increasingly rare party conversations inscrutable. No matter the subject matter, Arlo could never seem to pin down his companion’s true feelings on any topic. The young man…

The electric mixer whirred away, integrating the flour, yeast, sugar, salt, milk, water, and butter that Arlo had carefully measured. When it was a single doughy, sticky ball, he stopped the mixer and put a cloth over the glass bowl. The dough had to rise. As he waited, literally watching dough rise, his mind wandered…

High-school exposure to Camus, Sartre, and Dostoyevsky had provided Arlo with some degree of comfort with, and protection from, thoughts of existential dread. This night, his mind was providing neither comfort, nor protection from mortal thoughts of wasted time, injustice, and despair, leading to hopelessness. Understanding the allegories at play in The Fall was of…

The sky was shockingly blue as Arlo walked along the river. It was finally warm. He looked up from the water to the cloudless sky where he saw a banner being pulled by a small prop plane. From his vantage point he could not yet hear the plane or read the message which was printed…

When the waitress asked if there was anything else he wanted, Arlo looked up from his copy of Thus Spoke Zarathustra and took a deep breath. “To be the first to use a website is to be the first to explore a new world. It is to be the first to see the potential of…

Arlo opened the front door of his house and peered outside. It had been a long time. “Hello world,” he proclaimed, blinking in the sunlight. “It’s me again.” As his eyes adjusted, he could see that he was talking to no one. Yet, he continued. “The sites are live and ready for your input.“ Having…