Crayon Trouble

by Peter Cherches

I remember the great Crayola scandal. The trouble had to do with a crayon called "flesh." This crayon just happened to be the color of white people's flesh. And during the sixties, while some big battles were being fought, someone was attentive to the little details. Crayola was sufficiently embarrassed, and "flesh" was renamed to something a little more neutral. "Peach," I think.

6S

Peter Cherches blogs about food and travel here.

Nonviolence

by Peter Cherches

There was a fly on his nose, sitting on the tip of his nose. There’s a fly on your nose, she told him. “Yes, when I cross my eyes and look down I can see it.” Doesn’t it bother you? “Not in the least,” he said. And the fly flew away.

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Peter Cherches's most recent book is Tracks: Memoirs from a Life with Music (Bamboo Dart Press). His writing has appeared in scores of magazines, anthologies and websites, including Harper’s, Bomb, Semiotext(e), and Fiction International. He has published three volumes of short prose fiction with Pelekinesis since 2013: Lift Your Right Arm, Autobiography Without Words, and Whistler’s Mother’s Son. (Publishers Weekly called him “one of the innovators of the short short story;” it's an honor to have him back.)

The Kleptomaniac

by Peter Cherches

She was a kleptomaniac. Without knowing it, she stole pieces of him when he wasn't looking and hid them on her person. He knew he was diminishing, but had no idea how or why. And then, poof, all of a sudden, he was gone. But she wasn't a criminal at heart. When she realized what she had done she ended the embrace and returned him to himself.

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Peter Cherches blogs about food and travel here.

The Man Who Couldn't Tie His Shoes

by Peter Cherches

There once was a man who never learned to tie his shoes. He was otherwise extremely smart and capable, a top student all through grade school, high school and college, always the class valedictorian. This man was so brilliant that he got a full scholarship to the most prestigious technical university in the country, where he completed a Ph.D. in Nuclear Physics in record time. When he was only twenty-two he invented a bomb more powerful than any that had previously existed, a bomb that could kill billions of people cleanly and efficiently without even the slightest damage to property. But still, despite all this, he couldn't tie his shoes. Thank heaven for loafers.

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Peter Cherches blogs about food and travel here.

Wally Listens

by Peter Cherches

It's January 27 in Norman, Oklahoma, and Wallace Stanton, eighty-seven years old, Wally to his friends, thrice married, thrice widowed, now alone, sits in a tattered old armchair, holding a seashell to his ear, the left one, the good one, from daybreak till nightfall, just sits, shell to ear, waiting. It's January 27, and Wally listens to the shell, just as he has every January 27 for the past sixty-two years. January 27, Wally's anniversary, as are April 14 and June 11, but January 27 was the first one — Wally's first wife, Wally’s first love, Amanda. January 27, the day they married and the day she died, one year later, their anniversary, a vacation in the South Pacific. January 27, the day she drowned. January 27, the day on which, every year ever since, without fail, without explanation, though wives two and three, Christina and Jane, certainly must have asked, Wally listens.

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Peter Cherches blogs about food and travel here.

He Wouldn't Take No for an Answer

by Peter Cherches

There once was a man who wouldn’t take no for an answer. Whenever anybody responded “no” to a request, an inquiry, a plea, he’d respond, “I’m sorry, but I refuse to take no for an answer.” This man, who lived in New York, decided one day to move to Philadelphia, so he boarded a train with all his things and asked the conductor if he was on the right train for Philadelphia. “No,” the conductor told him. The man replied, “I’m sorry, but I refuse to take no for an answer,” and he took a seat. He now lives in Boise, Idaho.

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Peter Cherches blogs about food and travel here.

On Style

by Peter Cherches

Samuel Beckett claimed he wrote in French, his second language, in order to write “without style.” If that was really his intention he failed miserably, but then, in a sense, a theme of much of Beckett’s work is the paradoxical success of failing miserably. Beckett is perhaps the writer I admire most, but concerning the question of style I disagree vehemently. Style is the only thing I’m interested in. It’s substance I try to avoid. Of course, I usually fail miserably, but sometimes, I like to think, I come pretty close.

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Peter Cherches blogs about food and travel here.

The Colors of Night

by Peter Cherches

The green night, the rigid green night, where lies are the closest thing to murmurs of affection. The blue night, the tiny blue night, where nothing succeeds like a hole in the head. The red night, the oily red night, where lepers and eunuchs sing doo-wop on the streetcorners of your eyes. The violet night, the whining violet night, where you kill me without regret. The black night, the simple black night, where you kill me with remorse. That's my favorite night of all.

6S

Peter Cherches, whose full catalog is here, blogs about food and travel here.

Crayon Trouble

by Peter Cherches

I remember the great Crayola scandal. The trouble had to do with a crayon called "flesh." This crayon just happened to be the color of white people's flesh. And during the sixties, while some big battles were being fought, someone was attentive to the little details. Crayola was sufficiently embarrassed, and "flesh" was renamed to something a little more neutral. "Peach," I think.

6S

Peter Cherches blogs about food and travel here.