the thing about time

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Sheung Wan after the rain. (Medium format, Kodak Portra.)

My neighbourhood. More or less. City full o’ colour.

With the holidays coming up, I just thought I’d point out that a nice framed photo print makes a great gift. And it just so happens that I have one or two images for sale… I know, right? What are the chances?

My page at Imagekind has a large number of mounting and framing options. They also do cards. http://owenschaefer.imagekind.com/

500px, on the other hand, is a better looking site but not everything there is for sale. They have only one printing option: canvas prints at 24X36 size, but they also sell (very cheap) downloads if you’re up for a wallpaper image. http://500px.com/owenschaefer

Bear in mind that my studio fashion images are not for sale. But if you are interested in any of my other images that are not marked for sale (including those that were a part of The Thing About Time project), contact me and I can probably arrange it. Same goes for signed and numbered prints on archival paper (although a little harder to guarantee those will be ready for Christmas!)

Thanks Tumblrs. Yer awesome.

Source: owenschaefer.imagekind.com

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The Cat's Meow 50-Word Story Competition eBook

Old news, but three of my 50-word stories were published in the e-book linked to above, along with many more from others. I’m just moving this link from the Etceterata site to remove everything that isn’t a Twitter tale.

Source: etceterata

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Caleb unwraps the conch from its cloth, and passes it to Karin. Her eyes widen, surprised at its pinkness. He explains to her how before the oceans went black, people would put shells like this up to their ear and listen to the sea.

But like most children now, Karin has never been to the beach. Can’t even imagine it. Even Caleb can scarcely remember it. It’s not a place you visit. He watches her hold the shell close to one ear, afraid of letting it touch. Her brow furrows. “It sounds empty,” she says.

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Novels go disco.

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Competition Results

My story, Myopia, was shortlisted in the Writers Union of Canada Postcard Story Competition.

I’m really rather happy about this.

Since I am hoping to publish it somewhere, I will not be posting it here. Sorry kids. You’ll just have to wait. Perhaps I’ll put up something else.

Also, congratulations to the winner, Sharron Bertchilde, for her piece “Indra’s Net.”

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Snow Blind

It was an almost gentle accident. Twenty-two cars on the black ice clacking together before pirouetting off the highway into the fields on either side. Now they sit like sleeping huskies, drifts slowly rising over them. It’s thirty below. The injured and those that checked on them have retreated into the warmth of still-running cars to wait. Exhaust billows up here and there marking their places. Only Paul is still outside, ducked down behind his open trunk. Wool hat, no coat. He empties package after package of cocaine into the wind, watching it snake away across the blank page of the plain. He crunches the plastic wrappings deep under the snow with his foot as the lights and sirens crawl nearer. It is the last of his money, the last of his investment, vanishing into nothing. He wonders if he is pale enough to walk into the storm himself and disappear the same way.

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away from the beaten path

After we fill in the grave, I brush dirt from your sleeve and you smile at me. The forest, complicit, drops leaves to cover our passing, and we make the main trail before dark. The hikers see only a couple in love. We kiss, and your mouth tastes like blood.

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Rat

Neil is inside the press, laughing and wiping blood from the die. Yuri looks at the pulped body of the rat now lying in the trash. He feels the last moments of its panic. Can’t even imagine the machine swiftness of its death. And for a moment, he pictures himself there, crushed and left to dry on lunch wrappers and oily work gloves — the machine still stamping out parts. Neil shouts something about the rat learning its lesson, and Yuri makes up his mind to quit.

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etceterata:

The eclipse had not portended anything, of course. But it marked the day she started to think less of him for believing it might have.

Okay, since there are a bunch of new followers here, you win… I will keep this as my main writing blog. Etceterata still isn’t close to being as popular as The Thing, here. But I will continue to put up the Twitter fiction posts over there, so if that’s what you want to see, please do follow.

Annular eclipse today. Stepped outside to shoot this one before work. Amazing thing to watch.

Source: etceterata