Special Gifts

 Ethan Goffman

 

 

 

Ethan Goffman is the bemused, confused, conflicted person described in his completely fictional autobiography, Dreamscapes, a collection of flash fiction. The very same person (or almost the same) is responsible for two volumes of poetry, I Garden Weeds and Words for Things Left Unsaid. His volume of short stories, Realities and Alternatives, further illuminates Ethan’s young life—at least in the unlikely event that the reader can differentiate those parts that are autobiographical with those that are utterly fictional. His new book, The Church of the Oversoul and Other Stories, due out from UnCollected Press in early 2025, is a sweet and sour concoction of longer stories and a few shorter ones.
Ethan Goffman shares his witty, wise and wacky hybrid stories.
 

Alfred and Eloise’s Big Vacation

Alfred realized that he had better get up, since he couldn’t stay in bed forever. Then a thought came to him. Why not stay in bed forever?

“Aren’t you going to get up?” his wife, Eloise, asked a half hour or so later. “It’s getting awfully late.”

“I’ve decided to stay in bed forever.”

“All right,” said Eloise with remarkable calm. “Or at least until they evict us for not paying our mortgage.”

“I’ll cling to the bed as they remove it. I’ll remain buried under the blankets as they take it to the dump.”

This happened over a hundred years ago. Alfred’s wife decided to join him under the blankets. Somehow, the mortgage company had lost the records to the tiny hut in a grassy meadow in a clearing in the woods where Alfred and Eloise lived. The hut has long since decayed as has the bed. Where Alfred and Eloise lay there now stand two oak trees, slender and tall and youthful, sheltering birds and squirrels, ladybugs and beetles, a teeming array of life.
 

 

I Am Me as You Are Me

 Sitting at an outdoor table drinking coffee in Rockville Town Square at that time of day when shadow meets sun, I noticed that everyone who passed by was me. That old woman with a cane was me. That blonde toddler dashing by on puny legs was me. That Asian teen in a mini-skirt and halter top? Me. That Black dude in a hoodie on a sweltering day? Me. Even that squirrel scampering by, that sparrow hopping about scooping up breadcrumbs, that bee annoying the guest at the table next door. Me, me, me.

Only one person wasn’t me, and that was the former me, myself, who had briefly escaped the solipsism of the individual.

 

 

 

Everything Is Everything

 If they have an Everything Bagel, can a Theory of Everything be far behind?

But wait, isn’t a Theory of Everything necessary before one can create an Everything Bagel?

What’s in the hole of a bagel? Nothing? What’s the opposite of nothing? Everything! So doesn’t the surrounding bagel have to be everything?

Perhaps something is the opposite of nothing. But then everything is not the opposite of something which means that everything does not exist. On the other hand, nothing is something that doesn’t exist so if everything does not exist that makes it the equivalent of nothing. So, something and everything would be opposites. But something is the subset of everything.

Originally published in Garden Weeds. 

One Day in an Orchard

 At my feet were piles of apples, green streaked with red, a mild red, a ruby red, a blood red struggling to shine through. I glanced up and realized I was in an orchard, trees shimmering with apples.

I sensed that one of the apples was THE one, the apple of sin and knowledge. Eating it would complete the circle begun by Eve which had signaled the start of human history. Eating it would bring about the apocalypse. I must not eat it. Yet I must, I felt compelled, it was time.

Could it possibly be that I, who felt myself among the least significant people on the planet, as insignificant as the untouchables in India, the slaves that inhabit the hidden places around the globe, the child labor in the poorest of countries, the girls sold as sex slaves, the prisoners who stuff the jails with yearning in the United States even today, would be the catalyst for the end of time?

I picked up the first apple, took an enormous bite. It was slightly bitter but mostly bland, not at all juicy. It choked me, but I gagged it down. Apples had never been my favorite fruit, and these were among the dullest of apples. If I only forced myself to smaller bites, eating them would not be unpleasant, just boring, and there was a whole orchardful. I could spend the rest of my life here, eat apple after apple, and still never find the apple of the knowledge of good and evil.

 I took a second bite.

Originally published in Dreamscapes.

 

New Aphorisms (timeless wisdom of the moment)

In the long run, it’s all futile. In the short run, it’s not that meaningful either.

 Reach for the stars and you’ll most likely go plummeting to the ground and land on your ass.

Reach for that small nearby hill and you’ll most likely succeed.

 The gods held an orgy that sparked the birth of the universe. This is the true meaning of the term “the big bang”.

 Don’t give up. Remember that you can clear any bar as long as you set it low enough.

Travelling is for the birds—that’s why God gave them wings. God gave us neither wings nor wheels. We should stay put.

 I know a man who faked his own death. I know an AI that faked its own life.

It’s a hard life. I’m surprised anyone makes it out alive. Come to think of it, nobody does