Rocket Chair is a story studio making reading new with art and technology.

The Dances of Men

Skye knocked at the entrance in search of fun, but no one heard her over the music. The room on the other side was lit for evening and all of the men attending were small and bald. A few of them lingered at the bar, finishing their next beverages, but the rest were all dancing ecstatically—clumsy and gratified. A keyboard player, who was neither small nor bald, stood in the farthest corner playing deep, vibrating sounds across his electric fingerboard. He wore a blazer sewn from fine quality zebra-hide and his music was the kind that made a man's ear hairs tickle.

Vote

The lights were on and the room had open windows on every wall. It was daytime, but everyone who was invited inside thought it was dark. And that was, in fact, the answer: dark. Teddy giggled when he was finished submitting it. (Giggling was a habit of Teddy's when he felt right about things. He was aware of this, though, and did his best to hold back his volume.) The rest of the room followed his decision, carefully squinting to make sure they all selected the answer correctly. Dark. It was correct.

Lipstick

"Mawmmy, woyy awwe dosze men weawwing wipstick?" Chad was four years old, scrawny, blonde, and inarticulate for his age. He wore the same variety of mesh, sleeveless shirt as the men he was asking about from behind the fence of the emptiest playground they could find—today. Chad's question was loud enough for the men to hear and it stopped them in their tracks.

Accordions

Her large, crisp full-brimmed hat and her flannel shirt, buttoned right up to the edge of her neck, were both stylish and practical—keeping her most sensitive parts protected from the sun. Her skin was sagging, but she was strong. She played the accordion hard. She stamped her left foot, keeping the beat with enough authority to make the bridge tremble. She lived for music and this music lived for wonders beneath dry valleys.

The Unnoticed Exit of a Fat Man Named Norman

Norman was sitting in the corner of a room that was suspended high in the air by a very long string. The room was filled with his brothers and sisters and cousins, all of them wearing linen clothes with identical red and white horizontal stripes from head to toe. Some of his sisters had blond hair, some of his brothers had black hair, some cousins had brown—a couple even had orange—but everyone wore stripes. Norman wore stripes too of course, but they didn't fit him because he was fat.

"The project is not merely a re-capturing of a lost world, but the creation of a new one."

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