An Online Literary Journal for Poetry and Flash

Tag: adulthood

A Transformer Kind of Moment

Nonfiction by Clint Martin

1986

I’m a nine year old Clint. I’m on fold-down seat’s edge. Not just because scooching back risks being gobbled up by sticky, red theater chair. But also because Transformers: The Movie glows upon the silver screen. And that despicable Decepticon Galvatron has seized the matrix. He’s used it to summon the planet-devouring Unicron. This is indeed the Autobots’s darkest hour. With dozing dad at my side, I am understandably tense.

All Autobot hope now rests on the red metal shoulders of Hot Rod. And Galvatron knows it. As Hot Rod charges, Galvatron blasts. Both bots go down. I pop up. Sticky chair snaps shut. My adrenaline-crazed heart rhythmically pleads for the good guy to rally as unadorned musical notes harken from an 80s synthesizer. Hot Rod spies the battle-flung matrix. The music, the tension pulls me up onto toes. Rocker Stan Bush croons, “You’ve got the touch.” My heart spills into a sprint. Hot Rod reaches the matrix. Lifts it. “You’ve got the power.” Hero’s hands fit the matrix’s handles perfectly. He pulls. Blue lightning streaks from the opening orb. Power chords pulse, and in that cinematic instant, Hot Rod grows. Grows. Does more than transforms. He evolves. I bounce and beam in the theatre, overjoyed for the silver screen’s new hero: Rodimus Prime.

2016

I’m a beaten Clint. I’m horizontal. Crammed into couch’s crevice. It’s the middle of the day. I should be at work. But I don’t have the energy. Or the desire. Depression blasts me. Has been for years now. So much so that yesterday my wife signaled surrender: she’s filed for divorce. I have until the end of the month. So I’ve transformed myself by getting stoned. Again. Avoiding reality. Again. Stoned and horizontal and ignoring my troubles by scrolling back to the beginning of Facebook. The phone screen waterfalls before me. Like the last reel of a slot machine. As it slows, before my thumb can flick it back into full-on reeling, an unfamiliar face catches my eye. I stop my roll. The woman in the post is sitting. Cross-legged. Her eyes are closed, but it’s her forehead I’m drawn to. Her forehead. It’s soft, unwrinkled, unstained by the strain of brain. It is the opposite of the pounding slab of creases above my brow. It’s not a post I’m looking at. It’s an ad. I tap the screen.

“You’ve got the touch.”

Wi-Fi whisks me to a site on transcendental meditation. I spend a few seconds reading about the power of silence. Oblivious that the final reel has landed on Jackpot. I sign up for an intro class. It’s tomorrow night. There’s no Stan Bush soundtracking this scene, yet years later I’ll see this clearly as the transformer type of moment that it was. I will see that this was the first step in saving my marriage. This was the moment I saved my own Autobot family. This was the moment that began the from-the-ashes evolution of Clintonimus Prime.


Clint Martin lives in Lexington, Kentucky, with his wife, two sons, and their yellow dog Waggie. When not writing, Clint enjoys transcendental meditation and identifying the birds visiting the backyard.

And It Must Follow

Poetry by Dianne Thomas

The night belongs
to bats and rats
and alley cats

to coons and possums
and moonflower blossoms

to kids in cars
who frequent the bars

to cruise and drink
and do the things they only think

about in daytime
when they must tow the line

to earn their keep
and only dream of sleep

to do as we did
when we were kids

our candles burning at both ends
shunning family to be with friends

dancing, laughing, singing
our ears ringing

as we moved into the street
with the world at our feet

or so we thought
until happiness could not be bought

with charm or looks
we couldn’t even get our hooks

on real affection
discovering life’s true complexion

and slowly we turned
to what could be earned

in sunlit hours
in concrete towers

to a daily grind
always keeping top of mind

the whistle blow
the freedom to go

but now to the nest
to be at rest

with comforts we’ve gained
because we’ve strained

for one more day
with dreams put away

till nightfall ends the pain
and bats and rats and alley cats
rule again


Dianne Thomas is a Detroit-based writer whose work has appeared in Octavo, Flashquake, The Threepenny Review, and other online and print publications.

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