Day after day, I sit waiting for voters to enter the Polling Place with problems. Day after day, I turn to my reading material for inspiration to fill the ten hour days when no one, not one person, has a problem but me. My problem is confinement. Simple, solitary confinement to my corner in an honorable but dull profession.

Last month, my eldest daughter very kindly left a book in a new genre for me to explore, titled New Sudden Fiction by Robert Shapard and James Thomas. This book contains 60 of what the authors claim to be "the best sudden fictions of the twenty-first century from America". Considering the 21st century ends on December 31, 2100, I find this a bit of a stretch, but I will go with it for now, as I have nothing competitive with which to dispute their position.

These sudden fictions are short short stories of around four pages- perfect for the situation I now find myself in at the polls. Its short attention span of Voter Spurts lends itself to sudden fiction, which is the point of the genre after all. I began to read the book a week ago today and finished the entire 344 pages while on the taxpayer's dollar today. This included quite a lot of reading and thinking and reading some more and thinking some more. Moments in which I was caught staring into the rising scaffold of our Polling Place with a dazed expression, by disgruntled fellow Election Judges. However, they preferred these forays into the imagination better than the pieces this book inspired me to compose.

A third of the way into the book, I read the following:

Seven Pieces of Severance by Robert Olen Butler

After careful study and due deliberation it is my opinion the head remains conscious for one minute and a half after decapitation. -- Dr. Dassy d'Estaing, 1883

In a heightened state of emotion, we speak at the rate of 160 words per minute. --Dr. Emily Reasoner, A Sourcebook of Speech, 1975

Naturally, what followed were seven 240-word essays by Butler inwhich he laid down the last thoughts of severance victims like Paul (Saul of Tarsus), Angry Eyes, an Apache warrior, and himself, imaginatively decapitated on the job.

I found this concept fascinating. The more I considered it, the more it caputured my imagination. So I decided to write a few of my own.

always knew underneath that charitable grin lay a cold Democrat's heart no soul just muscle and uneven thud thud thud and now she's done it, what I fully expected white mist, white foam of the sea physics on a cellular level transformed to blinding light how did it happen it is not scientific but it must be scientific and is that my head dangling from my severed neck where blood all this blood the Republican flow of life exposed when shall I see God in all this whiteness what was it she said could it be she was right she could not have been right she is no where near as intelligent and I as mother superior know all I think I am on the road to being dead and I will never see my grandchildren. But what is this? her eyes wide with horror as she frantically dials the phone? An accident! An accident she hollers. Does she truly care? Perhaps. white mist white foam of the sea physics on a macro level I never imagined it would be like this where is the tunnel gasp the water so cold so frigid am I is this the Way a lighted pathway illuminates the sea the foam a golden glow on a Minnesota evening at the lake the call of a loon her frantic voice like the buzz of mosquitos its not her fault white mist white foam of me

telescope malfunction unearthly lightness into star strategies for oil exploration on Mars or was it Venus no the moon's lake doth provide a pathway for red tailed hawks, headless hawk, pounced from high Joey the orange cat lying in wait at the end of a very long walk through the open space with only the black runt left behind when Herschel Herschel dog of all dogs friend of all friends how could you desert me hold a space a cosmic space between Aldeberon and the Pleiades dear friend What shall she do, dependent woman of little means mistake of my life who failed me yet gave life to my sperm my potential fulfilled in ways I could never deliver all by myself my capable though imperfect self yes I admit it now what I could not admit in life I will admit in death would even articulate if my mouth could form the words and utter the sound of them. Alone. Outside. Alone. Poetic justice, she might say. But what is this light pollution in my earlier star-riddled sky? A light surrounds me like a cloud at altitude and I am airbourne as once I piloted a Blanik lighter than oxygen rising higher than the surly bonds of earth merging with rainbow bands like particles like highways like Herschel kisses licking a band of blue across my tepid cheek but where is my cheek my sense of touch my sight

didn't see it coming but there you have it. I am dead or nearly. Where is the white light? What will happen now? Where is my pen and pad of paper? This would be such a great moment to record! How many get this opportunity? How many others have blown it? An ache in my head above my ears like a headache only worse. Go into the pain. Ask what it wants to say. "I am severed at the neck," the pain explains. "Don't be stupid," it complains. "I have a right to my agony. I am no longer physically functional. I will go the way of ashes and dust while you rise on air bubbles and ascend to greater heights." Oh, that's right, I will, won't I? My father waits at the pearly gates- a poem Marion would not approve. The rhyme scheme is abrupt and silly within this context. If these are to be my last sensory moments, I will record them: the feeling of lightheadedness, the bloody scent of fulfillment, the after taste of half swallowed peanut butter, ears pierced by someone shrieking. But what do I see? Will I see color again? Are there colors... where? Rainbow purple, indigo, blue, green, yellow, orange, red? Red covering my spastic hands, my bleach white sweater, pooling around my blue Keen sandals. Are there hiking paths to traverse alone, where I go? Where razor sharp barbed wire is prohibited?

lovely as always, makes me grin from the inside out; how pretty she is as she spins beneath my arm and away and back again, held snug against my heart. But her face has that clouded look of horror now, reminiscent of one other day, when she left our infant Barb on the makeup counter at Daytons. It was because of me that day, because of my other Barb, my high school love, my first fiance. That was the day it all came together for Lorraine- the name, the past, the connection to St. Olaf. Why that look now, as we spin around the dance floor? Though there is no spinning no arms no secrets only horror and tears he lips move she calls my name the love of my life calls my name and I cannot hear the word my lips have ceased to function i cannot tell her, reassure her she is my life but i cannot speak of it eyes, flushed faced hover over me what has happened i was with her with the music and now i am the center of some malicious game why can't i wrap my arms around her quaking shoulders turn those sad blue eyes turquoise once again i love you i say my eyes cling to her beloved blues but her expression does not change i see her cowlick her hair teased to cover it up i am floating above where