The Daily Doodles

“The Blank Tape”

Simón Martínez presses his nose against the TV’s monitor, his hot breath fogging the glass, as he tries to position his face as close to the television screen as humanly possible.  

He remembers doing this during his bored moments as a child, thinking he may find something secret being broadcast that he’d miss if he was watching from the couch like a regular person.  

The static fills the screen with its never-ending frenetic dance, never stopping to stay still even for a moment.  Simón focuses on just one black or white dot, trying to track its trail as it hops wildly across the screen, but each time he loses the poor thing as the rest of the static overwhelms it.

Having found this blank VHS tape in an ancient box that he forgot he ever had, Simón hoped there was some sort of lost treasure from his childhood recorded on the cassette… but nope.  Just static.  He guesses he was saving it to record something special, something special that never came.

But still, for whatever reason, he actually likes it this way.  The static is somehow soothing, filling his field of vision with the endless movement while the white noise quietly hisses on and on.

The magnetic tape inside the cassette *snaps*, and Simón hears the gears of the VCR grind to a halt as it struggles to eject the broken VHS.  The picture goes black.

Simón unwinds the magnetic tape from around the VCR’s reels, the strip crinkling in his hands, and throws the useless blank tape away.

Posted 5/10/2013

(Thank you to the extremely talented Samantha of other-side-of-the-universe.com for helping me gif this!)

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“The Old Mix Tape”, the Haiku version.

Finding old mix tapes
Makes you nostalgic for how
Lame you used to be.

(To read the original prose version from 3/14/12, click here)

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(Source: thedailydoodles, via thedailydoodles)

“The Door That Won’t Stay Closed”

Young Jake wakes up, as he hears his closet door creak
It’s opened once more, and what’s inside is taking a peek.
He rushes to shut it, but he knows it won’t hold for good,
It will always try to come out, as it has since childhood.

He’s boarded it up tight, but it wiggles a way through
He’s hidden it out of sight, but still eternally it grew.

It won’t starve to death, no matter how much it’s ignored
It patiently sits back, waiting for a chance to be adored.
And when that day comes, it’ll enjoy the long-awaited limelight
Relishing that its existence will make them all sick at its sight.
Everyone who thought that they knew him, will realize they don’t.
He’ll hope things will stay the same, but he knows that it won’t.

It will rot slowly in the daylight, ripening as it stews in the open air
Its stench permanently soaked in the nostrils, of anyone who might care.

But for now all he can do, is repeatedly keep the door closed.
Knowing that it’s just a matter of time, till it’s all exposed.
He locks the door again, muffling its cringe inducing sound
And tries not to think of what’ll happen, when it is eventually found.

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“The First Memory”

While the colour of the kite will change, and so will how he recalls the weather (he wants to remember it as sunny and warm but other times it seems like it had to be windy and cold), the feelings of the moment are clear and not subject to the fuzzy mistiness of time.

He can still vividly recall the moment where the string on his kite breaks and the wind carries it away out of reach… he remembers running after it halfheartedly, knowing he couldn’t catch up, and watching it sail out of sight on the rocky Oregon coast, everything from the small perspective of himself as a two year old.

The little details always vary (and each time he remembers the event, he knows he is likely remembering it incorrectly and projecting new memories into it to fill in the gaps), but that confusing sensation of sadness is still crystal clear, wondering what he did to cause the string to break.

The next thing he recalls is hugging his mom’s knee as she tells him it’s okay, and then his first memory fades away.

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“The Old Polaroid”

While cleaning out his junk drawer because he was busily procrastinating from the work he really should be doing, Rodrigo Torres happens upon a yellowed old Polaroid picture stuck between a pad of Post-Its… he hadn’t seen this picture for years, or even THOUGHT of it for at least a decade, but as soon as he sees it the memories come flooding back…

This was that one Christmas where that Monster totally smashed through the wall and ate Uncle Jaime, and the government let the Monster go free because it was working as a double agent and providing the authorities with valuable information about the Monster Militia’s funding and supplies, and the presents that year were awful because Rodrigo’s dad had lost his job and his mom was in jail for murdering that grocery clerk… things felt so awful then.

But then Rodrigo smiles wistfully as he thinks about how awful the world feels today, what with terrorism and war and the economy and the environment and his mom getting out of jail and murdering again and unemployment… and he realizes that it wasn’t really better back in the “good ol’ days”. 

It comforts him, in a way… something bad will always be happening, and this is just how things are.  The epiphany sends a tingling calming sensation through his body, as he tells himself that everything was always awful.

And it always will be.  :’-)

Rodrigo sticks the photo on his fridge underneath a NEVER FORGET 9/11 magnet as a helpful reminder that nothing ever changes.

Originally Posted 9/8/2012

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“Late Night TV”

Creeping down the hallway,
He turns on the television quietly.
After everyone has gone to bed,
He looks at what they don’t want him to see.

The real education starts after hours,
So at boring stupid school he does awfully…
But he’ll learn everything he ever needs to know,
Thanks to watching Late Night TV.

Orginally Posted 4/26/2012

(Thanks to the amazing Kyle Harter for .giffing this for me!)

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“The Little Voice”

Mercy has that Little Voice, the one that lives inside your head
It sneaks out of your brain, and whispers the last thing you want said
All of your fears and doubts, truths that slash you to your core
It never runs out of ammo, since you always feed it more.

It knows you better than most, but it doesn’t know the real you
Even if it’s whispering factual venom, it doesn’t mean it’s true.
You’re never as good or bad as ya are at your best and worst
And That Little Voice is skilled at making you feel eternally cursed.

You give it the power it holds, when you believe it’s vile hissin’
The Voice will say what it says, but you don’t gotta listen.

(Starring the lovely SplintersandMilkshakes.tumblr.com!)

Posted 11/6/2012

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“VHS Memories”

A generation of memories, recorded on magnetic tape
Good moments to savour, and bad ones to escape.
Static-y audio and dull palettes that bled,
All fading away on a format that’s dead.

Your life painstakingly recorded so you can remember it always,
On cheap tape that rots on a shelf, and no longer plays.
Temporary technology meant the recordings don’t last
So all of our VHS memories have been left in the past.

As more times passes, your youth becomes harder to recall
And now there’s no proof you had a childhood at all.

Originally Posted 12/27/2011

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“The Nuclear Holocaust of the Mind”

As Nathaniel Kirby drifts off to a quiet, peaceful sleep
A tremor within his brain grumble rumbles somewhere deep
Triggering nuclear memories, hidden within the world of his mind
Setting off a chain reaction, detonating where they were confined.

The mushroom clouds erupt, vaporizing the rest of his thought
The radiation spreads, leaving in its wake atomic rot.
Luckily Nathaniel is sleeping, not aware of his mental holocaust
And when he finally awakens, he won’t even remember the memories lost.

Now his brain can start over, develop all new hopes and fears
But the meltdown has poisoned his mind, for at least several more years.

Posted 10/4/2012

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“The Old Mix Tape”, the Haiku version.

Finding old mix tapes
Makes you nostalgic for how
Lame you used to be.

Posted 10/1/2012
(To read the original prose version from 3/14/12, click here)

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(Source: thedailydoodles)