John J. Vinacci

I didn’t know much about The One by John Marrs beyond its initial premise. I knew it was a modern sci-fi book and so it landed on my list of reads. At any rate, another reviewer delivered the synopsis this way: “A company announces that they have found the gene that pairs each of us with our soulmate. In a desperate search for true love, millions of people around the world take the DNA test…but when several individuals receive notification that they’ve found their match, everything begins to fall apart.” That’s an apt description of the premise and is best left at that, though readers should be aware that the DNA-matching plot device is nothing more than that and is the sole element of sci-fi in the novel. While I wasn’t a fan of the vignette-style of delivery (in which the various tales are loosely connected at best) and The One is not a particularly well-written book, I found myself enjoying the various twists and turns even if they weren’t foreshadowed while predictable half the ...

The face, in this picture Looks sort, of familiar The eyes I have seen But the name rather distant When was the time, the immeasurable date My thoughts are blurry and mutated           I’ve forgotten it, don’t remember bliss           Too long ago and too far away (it all slipped away)           If we ever kissed, memory’s a ship           That sailed long ago and so far away (it all slipped away) A lover stranger than fiction Dragged by the winds ‘til barely a whisper The years a mausoleum Ancient and inconsistent When was goodbye? It escapes all my guesses The eternal sunshine of repression         I’ve forgotten it, don’t remember bliss         Too long ago and too far away (it all slipped away)         If we ever kissed, memory’s a sh...

[Some context: There is some information in my unpublished autobiography that precedes the events recounted here, so I apologize for any lack of clarity in the beginning of this tale.] A true story... In the spring of 2001, if my age-addled brain recalls correctly, I started working for a gym in northern Tucson. I hadn’t been in a gym for a while and this was a big local chain so I was a little nervous at first. The income and hours were good, though, and I really enjoyed the personalities coming into the gym. My time was divided between working the front desk, floor training, making some sales, and providing massage therapy. These varied work experiences would have taken my mind off my desire for companionship at the time except for, you know, all the attractive women. Yet I felt like I owed something to my French ex-girlfriend and made an effort for us to get back together.   'Frenchy' believed me when I told her I never did anything more than kiss another woman while we...

He’d climbed this hill a hundred times. It’d been 60 years, though, but the hill was still the same steep sonofabitch in the foothills few people bothered to summit. Jarod climbed, step-by-step, his cane steadying his once proud legs over the path’s occasional scree. Now, just like then, the journey bothered his left knee, only now a needling pain ricocheted from the outside of his knee to his ankle and back. It made Jarod gasp each time and he would chuckle; the pain, the hill, the memories – they were not long for this world. His silver mane tussled by the wind, Jarod scooped his head up towards the sky despite the sharp pinch in his neck and shoulder; it’s not here yet. His sexagenarian pocket watch – a gift from an unforgotten paramour – confirmed it. There was still time.   Time for what he wasn’t sure. To tell his human life to go fuck itself in the face of an Earth-shattering asteroid? To sigh in resignation that, well, at least it’s finally over? (And not just for him, ...