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alien_bar_by_kangjason-d9cdr6q

[Han Solo sits alone at another nameless Outer Rim bar. He casually watches everyone and everything, but sees little, lost in his thoughts and the weight of his own history…]

Leia. The Princess he never dreamed could be his…his everything.

And now here he was, struggling to find his footing. His only hope of a grounding coming from the life and the work he once knew. When things were simpler.

No Jedi.

No Force.

Just money and parsecs and the zing of pulling off a run. Details resolved with a few credits or by the smoke coming out of a spent blaster.

And now. What? Honest man? General Solo? Who am I?

Ben. Why? How did we not see it?

How did Luke not see it, with all his Jedi Master powers? How could he let it happen?

What good was the Force if it let innocent children become something horrible? Where was the Balance in that?

Our son. Fallen. To the darkness. Like Vader.

And then I lost Leia. Insult to the worst of injuries.

Did it to myself. Let the pride and the hurt drive her away when we needed each other most.

So here I am. Lost. Old. Glories receding into whispers, into legends that people like me laugh at over drinks.

Who am I?

Ship. Have to find the Falcon. I’m not me until I have her back. If I can get her back, I’ll be able to make this right.

Me and Chewie.

And Leia. I can make this right with Leia.

Maybe find Luke. Find out what happened. What to do next. How to save Ben.

But first, got to get my space legs. Run some goods. Shake off the rust. Be the old Han. Lots of good jobs to show everyone this old space bantha has some new tricks up his sleeve. Or at least the same tricks. Those ‘were’ pretty good.

One step at a time. Get a ship. Me and Chewie. Run some jobs behind the First Order…even the Republic. What harm is there in that?

And then. Go find the Falcon. Then Luke. Then Leia.

And then we’ll go get Ben. And we’ll be a family again.

My son.

Someone coming up to me.

‘What did you say, pal?’

Oh.

“Yeah. I smuggle. A bit.”

This site has been a long time coming, not because of any inherent complexity or buried genius – I simply never knew what kind of writing could keep my focus and live in what is always a busy (enjoyable) life.

Write a novel? I’m not that patient or far-sighted. Poetry? I’m not that abstractly deep. Business topics? I do that elsewhere.

This year, a chance encounter gave me the vehicle I was looking for. My wife and I were in New York City for a long weekend of fun, which included a concert by a local rock legend. Prior to heading to the Garden for the show, we were walking in mid-town to an Italian restaurant for dinner, enduring the Polar Vortex II.

As we turned down the final block, two twenty-somethings in suits passed by us on the sidewalk, and we heard one say to the other: “..it’s absolutely a missed opportunity..” And off they went into the evening.

Strolling into the warm Italian place, my wife and I were both thinking the same thing: lines like that would be a great basis for a story…at least a short story. It wouldn’t be just any line heard in passing. We figured we’d know it when we heard it.

With absolutely no pomp or circumstance involved, we dubbed it a phrasejump, and the act of writing one ‘phrasejumping’. I suppose that makes us phrasejumpers, but I’m not sure we’re ready to put that on a t-shirt…yet. Maybe a coffee mug.

Now that I’ve written a few, I figured it’s time to start letting them see the light of day.

Enjoy.

Kris

Phrasejumps

In the beginning, there was the phrase

“So you smuggle?” “A bit.”

Phrasejumping – not quite a sport, but fun anyway

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