Jack Scranton
Bio
Writer, image retoucher, musician/composer, 3D artist. Despite modest success in all those fields, Photoshop paid the bills.
Stories (26/0)
Take Two
When Karen, browsing through the magazine racks, realized the guy crowding her from the side was Graham, her first impulse was to kick him in the balls and run. That delicious fantasy lasted maybe five seconds. Then she considered just running. Again. Instead, she leaned in close: "Did you finally learn to read, or do you still just look at the pictures?"
By Jack Scranton2 months ago in Filthy
Why We Are Doomed
Note: these events are true. This was written in 2006, when it all took place, in Brooklyn, NYC. It was a time much further distant than numbers would suggest. Speakeasy, a wi-fi provider, is no more. The DSL connections they sold have likewise gone the way of 8-track tapes and SCSI connections. Sears is down for the count. Agencies and companies were still working out how to migrate their services to the internet. Customer service, such as it was, still entailed labrynthine sets of phone menus, and, occasionally, encounters with surly humans who resented your intrusion. But the underlying themes remain relevant, more so, if that's possible. Enjoy my tale of woe.
By Jack Scranton2 months ago in Psyche
Mother Nature Knows Best
"I want to try something new," she'd said. His idea: "Let's make you uncomfortable in public." Now she fumed, hesitated, felt a tingle wash over her cheeks. But then she picked up the shopping basket and began wandering the aisles. Timid housewives stole furtive glances her way. Horny stock boys stared slackjawed.
By Jack Scranton4 months ago in Filthy
Who's Laughing Now?
It was 2 AM when Jack finally dragged his weary ass home from work. Everything at the site that could've gone wrong had gone wrong, and now he felt beat up worse than his bowling team in last month's finals. He hurt—damn, even his eyes hurt! How the hell do eyes hurt? Well, his did. He couldn't wait to climb into bed and close them.
By Jack Scranton4 months ago in Filthy
Recognition
For months, Jonas suspected that he was being followed. They had tracked his career for years, of course; he was a well known pebble in their shoe, and, ultimately, they wanted him silenced. He was the worst of subversives, you see. Once one of them, one of their Ivy League minions, he’d walked away. Now he dared speak of truths others sensed but feared to probe. He saw it all; the true flow of energy through the world’s bastions of money and power; the forces that move nations like markers on a gameboard. The Unseen Hand; Illuminati; not only had he mentioned them by name, he had uncovered their footprints traipsing through the history texts, hidden in plain sight. He alone had discerned the patterns; he had connected the dots; he had uncovered the links. History might not lie, but neither does it reveal its truths without a fight. It must be coaxed, prodded, coerced. Even seduced.
By Jack Scrantonabout a year ago in Fiction
High Water Mark
Janet sipped her coffee and stared at the ocean from the screened in porch, losing herself in the rhythmic sound of the waves and the metronomic movement of water as it ebbed and flowed. She envisioned the white foam edge, each time defining a new set of random curves, leaving their shape in the sand, over and over, until at last the waves had advanced as far as they could and the shapes began to recede, as if a sequence of snapshots in a cycle that never ended.
By Jack Scrantonabout a year ago in Fiction
Officers and Men
Even when casually walking, both managed to look like they were marching in formation. At first glance they might have been dressed the same—starched khakis with creases straight as a gun barrel, caps tilted at a jaunty angle but still well within regulations. Close up, however, the differences were obvious. His cap had a gold band with an eagle in the front; my father’s cap got by with a black band and an anchor in the center. His shoulders sported boards with two gold stripes; my father could only claim small gold anchors on his collar. He was an officer and wore the wings of a navy pilot; my father was a hard-boiled navy chief. Between them stretched the impassable gulf that has always divided officers from enlisted men in every military organization that ever existed.
By Jack Scrantonabout a year ago in Fiction
Black Ice
Jack Conway glared at the snow covered steps leading from his stoop down to the snow covered sidewalk, then across the street to his car, already locked in the snow pushed around the tires and up to the door by the early-morning plows. His daughter, Amy, poked her head around him and gave a gasp of delight.
By Jack Scrantonabout a year ago in Fiction
