"Pavlov's Man," a flash fiction story

June 15, 2013


Pavlov’s man is my friend. We worked together for several years in an office in Seattle, Washington. In fact, we started there on the same day. He got the big corner office, and I got the office next door. His office came equipped with a large saltwater fish tank and four fish. I only recall four of them: A fairly large fish with a beaked mouth named Pavlov, a blowfish named Yoda, and a smaller red-and-black striped fish that kept well out of Pavlov’s way. My friend told me Yoda and the striped fish were new, as Pavlov had eaten his former tank mates. Yoda didn’t have to worry about Pavlov; all he had to do to put him off was blow himself up into a large, spiky ball, and Pavlov left him alone. But not the small red-and-black fish. In spite of the fact that Pavlov saw him as his next meal, he was faster and more streamlined and would dart out of Pavlov’s way in time to avoid one of his sneak attacks. His usual procedure was to follow Pavlov around the tank, positioned just behind his tail and out of his line of vision. The fourth fish, which didn’t have a name, was a small, gray nondescript-looking fish that lasted about a week before ending up in Pavlov’s stomach.


When my friend inherited this quartet, his job was to feed them each morning to keep them happy and to keep Pavlov and his appetite away from his tank mates. Not that Yoda had to worry, but since Pavlov was twice his size and had a sharp-looking, parrotlike beak, it was best not to take any chances. So when my friend walked into his office each morning, he took off his coat, put his briefcase down, and went down the hall to the kitchen for the packet of dried brine shrimp kept in the refrigerator. By the time he walked back into his office, the fish were waiting for him, and the minute he opened the feeding slot on top of the tank and began pouring in the shrimp, they attacked, Pavlov and Yoda getting the lion’s share. Of course, as they were getting their share, the little red-and-black fish darted about, eating what they missed, which was quite a lot.

Before I go much farther, let me explain how my friend came to be known as “Pavlov’s Man.” It happened this way. One morning the telephone rang as he walked into his office, so instead of going to the kitchen for the brine shrimp, he answered the call and spent the next fifteen minutes or so talking. Shortly after beginning his conversation, he heard a metallic “tic-tic-tic” that persisted as he talked. Annoyed, he cast his eyes around the room and discovered the source of the tic-tic-ticking sound. Pavlov, hungry, was at the top of the tank hitting its metal cover with his beak: “tic, tic, tic, tic!”  My friend excused himself, took the caller’s number, hung up the receiver, ran down to the kitchen to get the brine shrimp, and fed Pavlov and his friends.

From then on this same scene repeated itself each morning: the minute my friend entered his office, Pavlov began his “tic-tic-tic” reminder, sending my friend down the hall  for the brine shrimp. It didn’t take long before everyone in the office knew about Pavlov and my friend. And that is how my friend became known as “Pavlov’s Man.” “There goes Pavlov’s Man,” people would say as he walked past. One day when we were sitting at lunch with two of our coworkers, he suddenly got up and began walking toward the kitchen.

“Where are you going?” I asked, stopping him in his tracks.

He sat back down as suddenly as he had gotten up.

“You must have heard that woman over there clicking her knife on her plate,” I said.

He looked appalled. “Jim, I think I’ve been trained by a fish to respond to whenever I hear that sound. I’ve become like one of Pavlov’s dogs. I’m Pavlov’s man.”

And he was. Even five years later he gets to his feet whenever he hears a tic-tic-ticking sound. Pavlov? He’s been dead for years.


 

The cloak of victimhood

June 12, 2013
Going through some old papers yesterday I ran across a poem that I wrote on September 11, 2001, then filed away and forgot about it. I think it is as applicable today -- and perhaps more so -- as it was on the awful day when I wrote it.

"The Cloak of Victimhood"

Every time I
put
it on

people 
throw things
at me.

Attention comes
at a high
price.

Too high.
Give it up

walk on
without it

free.

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Capturing the moment

June 4, 2013
Our days become so crammed with activities and preoccupations that it is easy to miss the little things, which seem so insignificant . . . but are they? As a writer, it's important that I stay in the moment as much as possible in order to catch the magic that is there.

One day while sitting reading in a shopping mall, I noticed something moving near the floor to my left. Glancing that way I saw a tiny boy, his face beaming, waving at me. I smiled back and waved at him as he passed me by, stil...

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Small press book fairs and other such events

May 30, 2013

Small press book fairs and other such events


Small press book fairs are interesting and sometimes boring experiences, depending on where they are held. I participated in several of them between 1975 and 1979 while a member of Board of the Minneapolis Metropolitan Arts Alliance. For some reason that I was never able to understand, small press publishers were adamant about holding the book fairs on college campuses, where the only people coming round were students and professors. Why they insi...


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Creating stories and poems by filling in the blanks

May 24, 2013
The other day a writer friend showed me a simple formula for writing a story, or a novel by filling in the blank spaces in a sentence: "When a [     ] [     ] is dragged into [    ] s/he is forced to [    ] in order to [    ]." Character, situation, conflict and story are all set down in those simple steps.

Looking at it, I was reminded of a writing assignment my youngest son had when he was eight years old. He and his classmates were required to fill in the blanks in the following sentence: "...

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The enchantment that writing is

May 18, 2013
One of the things that enchants me about writing, whether it's fiction or nonfiction, is the way surprises pop up. Recently, on the fifth edit and rewrite of my novel "The City Has Many Faces", a novel about Mexico City, I headed into a chapter and almost immediately got bored. That is a huge signal to me that I'm not paying attention to the main character and allowing him or her to guide me. The trouble here was that I included an element in the story that fit another context, but not in thi...
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A story and a song

May 12, 2013

The ancient bird


We were in the midst of one of those late winter storms that Minnesota has when I saw him. It was one of those storms that dumps heavy, wet snow and blows it around in blasts of icy needles that sting your face and takes your breath away. As I stepped out through the door of the hospital where I work, the wind lunged at me, and I set off running for the bus shelter with one hand on my hat and the other gripping my briefcase. My face burned from the cold. Behind me the big fl...


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New Directions

May 6, 2013
Beginning with this post, I'll be posting much more frequently, sharing poems, comments on writing, reviews of books I've been reading, and writing about the art and process of writing as I experience and practice it. The two  poems posted today are my own. The first on was inspired by the song “Don’t worry about a thing”, from the DVD/music album from Playing for Change, “PFC 2 – Songs Around The World”.
 

Celebration

 

If I have life to live

over again,

I will learn music.

I will ...


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Saburo Toyoda, artist

February 25, 2013
This post began as a longer article, published in SWI (Speak Without Interruption), on August 21, 2009. It is a testimony to the persistence of some of us, who simply do not quit.

Saburo Toyoda was born in Japan in 1908. He has been a painter since childhood. Graduating from high school, he went from his small village to the big city to follow an art career, but no one liked his paintings, so  he became a junior high school teacher and continued his painting on the side, marrying and raising f...

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Learning to Listen

January 29, 2013
This was first published in the August, 2009 edition of The View From Here Literary Magazine. 

Listening to stories is something we learn as children. To a writer, listening is vital, because stories are everywhere, free for the taking when we take the time to listen for and to them. 


It's amazing to me what I've learned over the year by listening, asking clarifying questions when appropriate, and allowing the person to ell his or her story as i sit and listen. Some years ago I wrote and publis...

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About Me


George Polley I'm an author, fiction writer and poet. My recent publications are "The Old Man and The Monkey," "Grandfather and the Raven", and "Bear", a story about an unusual dog and his human friend Andy, published by Taylor Street Publishing, San Francisco. A collection of short stories, "Fernandez' Tale and Other Stories", and a poetry collection "Seeing: Collected Poems, 1973-1999", were published by Tortoise & Hare. I love telling stories, so drop by from time to time for updates. My publisher is Taylor Street Publishing in San Francisco, California.