HEY HEY HEY! Long time no post! I'm here to let y'alls know that I've got a new story excerpt posted on the new blog! I'm really stoked about it, so please leave comments because they make me feel loved - or at least, not ignored. Then pull a Taking Back Sunday and Tell All Your Friends. kthxbye!

1:43 AM
short fiction I drafted senior year of high school, finally complete.

I woke up from a dream about you last night. I could feel a smile on the lips where you had just been, and was dismayed to realize that it hadn’t been you at all, and merely my imagination – taking advantage of my gullible mind, once again. Everything was as it would have been in life (except that the couch we were sitting on was located in the middle of a frozen pond…). Is it sad that I know you so well that even my dreams of you seem true to life?

It was just… your hand felt so solid, so concrete, so existent in mine. Your breath was gentle and warm on my cheek. Our conversation mirrored exchanges we’ve shared before. You know the kind. When I say, “Isn’t this fun?” and you shrug and say, “I miss video games,” but I can tell you’re really enjoying yourself in spite of whatever you say.

I was saddened, and really rather offended, that you chose to dissolve at precisely the moment I trusted you most. You would never do such a thing in life, now, would you? But I suppose you couldn’t help it, being a figment of my imagination and all. I suppose I couldn’t blame you, having created you in my mind, right?

I was awake for a long time after that.

I got a drink of water. Then I ate something that tasted surprisingly good for 1:43 in the morning. I checked on the cats. Even they slumbered on, mindless of my restless state. It was as though the earth, and time, and everything within had come to a halt beneath the isolating, muffling, time-stopping blanket of snow I could feel weighing on the skylight. The only evidence otherwise was the engines purring inside the cats.

It was like being the only one alive in all the world. Eerie. Lonesome. I wanted to fall back asleep, to come find you again, but toss and turn as I might, 1:43 AM did not take pity on me.

I wondered, would it be so catastrophic if I told you everything? Would that destroy the friendship I already cherish? Would I have to be content with this mirage of you… indefinitely?

Infinitely?

Dreams don’t really come true.

“There you are! I was waiting for you.”

“Waiting? For me? I’m flattered. Sorry for holding you up.”

“Don’t be sorry.”

“All right.” Pause. “Hey, let’s go adventuring! Look, we can cross the tundra! Let’s pretend we’re pirates, and global warming reversed, so the whole world froze over, and we have to fix it!”

You’re looking at me like I’m crazy. You have no idea. “Sure, okay.”

Commence trekking. You’re not saying much. That’s all right. My ears might be too cold to hear, anyway. Those icy gusts slice right through my snow gear more effectively than our plastic swords ever could.

“Hey. Is that a sofa?” I guess I can still hear all right. Good to know.

“What? In the middle of the tundra?”

“Looks like it.”

“In the middle of the tundra?”

“Let’s go see.”

“Looks like it belongs at the dump.” Obviously that doesn’t bother me much since I sink into it anyway. “Being a pirate is tiring. Let’s take a break.”

You collapse beside me. “Okay.”

“Isn’t this fun?”

You shrug. “I could be playing video games.”

Glare.

You laugh and admit to it. Your smile, your eyes reassure me that you aren’t just telling me what I want to hear.

We’ve lost our mittens. Suddenly our hands find each other. The warmth of your fingers enveloping mine sends chills up my spine. You’re looking at me, truly seeing me, and I realize: this is it. You’re going to kiss me. It took you long enough.

I feel a spark on my lip (and to think we haven’t actually kissed yet). My heart skips a beat or several.

All at once I realize I’m clutching your hand at all, but rather that hideous plushie you won me at the fair last summer. I taste blood: I’ve just split my lip smiling.

I sigh and stumble out of bed. I’m sure you don’t think of me this often. I check the little clock in the corner of my laptop screen. It’s 1:43 AM. Something about that seems eerie to me, but I can’t put my finger on it.

Instant Messenger. Yes. A brilliant invention. Conversation is the best form of distraction.

You’re the only one online.

“Trouble sleeping?” you ask.

“You could say that.”

“Weird dreams?” you ask.

“You could say that.”

“I mean, really – pirates?”

I stare at the blinking cursor, wondering if I’ve lost it. The snow drifts press in on the little bubble of the house, insulating my little corner of heaven on earth. It’s 1:44 AM.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New poetry - Fall 2008
“Bridges”

I’ve been jumping off bridges without you,
and it’s just not the same.
I had a dream that you weren’t there. I went
out to find you in the rain.

The trail you left wound up, up and
nowhere. There I saw you, framed
like the pixels and particles you
arrange so lovingly; framed
in the lilies and the leaves and the toadstools,
framed

in a pool of water deep as the sky
and green with tree trunks mid-cartwheel.
There is something better on the underbelly of this
reflection, and I am going to find it.

Raindrops leave their perfectcircle deathnotes,
scars spinning across the perfectmirrorpool.
It can’t be summer all year round.
Soft, sunshine, don’t you make a sound.
I put my face to the dappled mirror, wanting
to see the inverted city’s wooden skyline
But I drown trying to get there.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New Poetry - Fall 2008
Diptych in syllabics - two stanzas, each 8 lines or more, with the number of syllables in each line repeated in the second stanza. Pt. I had to be a tangible object (I chose a letter). Pt. II had to be a response to the object.

"Postcard"

Hello. I am here
to let you know that someone is thinking of you.
He hopes you’re well.
Phase one of boot camp has been hell
but he says he’ll make it through.
Hello. I am here
Because someone carved out time to write just a few
words on a page
in the midst of a loaded day
because he’s thinking of you.

Thank God you got here.
I’ve been waiting all summer long to read his scrawl,
this month the third
Since I last heard from him. His words
I draw about me, a shawl.
Last time he was here,
we sprinted on the sky. When we got tired, we sprawled
in the tall grass.
Unstop my pen. I can’t write past,
“Wish you were here. Yours always.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
New Poetry - Fall 2008
Poetry assignment I did with the sixth grade boy I babysit. I got mad because the restrictions of the framework they gave him made it hard not to end each line at the end of a sentence, but amazingly this isn't crap.

"I Am Bored."

I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.
I wonder what’s for dessert….
I hear Cobra Starship playing inside my head and
I want to have a dance party.
I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.

I pretend that I can fly. Sometimes,
I feel the clouds between my toes and
I touch the moon with my face.
I worry that I won’t be able to come back down, and then
I cry for all the people I left behind down there; but
I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.

I understand the parameters. I just don’t like them.
I say a poet should be free to touch the moon with her face!
I dream of creation beyond the walls of this box.
I try to break free, try to put an end to this over-end-stopping.
I hope the frozen yogurt is vanilla tonight.
I am bored and thinking inside the box right now.

YES! I know it's hard to believe, but I am in fact POSTING a STORY that I wrote! I started it ages ago. Must've been junior or senior year of high school. I hadn't touched it since then, when all of a sudden I figured out why I had to write it, and where it was going, and that it was way more important than preparing for my Media Writing class tomorrow by reading the elusive Zinsser text, which finally came in at the book store today. So here it is! Drumroll, please:

HELLO, MY NAME IS NOBODY.

. At first we were amused by Seth’s total goofball attitude, his lack of social graces, and his few inhibitions regarding classroom conduct. At first, his lack of direction and motivation in life seemed normal attitudes for a teenage boy. At first we laughingly blamed his alternating hyperactivity and exhaustion on obsessive video gaming habits and a fictional addiction to Mountain Dew. At first, we poked fun at him for the way his shoulder blades stuck out like little wings that never got the chance to grow.
. All that changed when I “adopted” Seth.
. Seth was in my journalism independent study first semester of senior year. He was, in fact, the only other person in my journalism independent study. Consequently, I learned a lot about Seth just from working overtime on layout. I couldn’t believe how little I actually knew about him. We ate lunch together with a few other guys and girls, drove around town listening to ska and reggae music with that same small crowd, played some video games in our spare time – but what did I know about his life? Nothing.
. In Journalism, I learned that Seth’s parents were separated. He lived in town with his mother, while his father lived upstate – far enough to be forgotten for the most part, but close enough to stop by and stir things up whenever Seth and his mother least expected it.
. I had never met either of Seth’s parents, but from what I could tell, well, let’s just say that the irresponsibility and quirkiness we all knew and loved in Seth were not unprecedented by any stretch of the imagination. More like “inevitable.”
. His father spent his free time (which he had in abundance, as he was unemployed) on eclectic projects. He was big on “routine” home maintenance – that is, hollowing out the walls so he would have somewhere to hide his valuables, which consisted mostly of comic books but may have included several thousands of dollars in cash. He was also fond of elaborate culinary endeavors whose products he rarely consumed, but rather concocted in bulk as though for a huge, imaginary crowd. In Seth’s own words, “the man is definitely not all there. Christ, he gave me a power drill for my fifth Christmas.”
. Meanwhile, his mother scraped up enough money working at a nearby factory and performing various odd jobs in the community to pay rent on a townhouse each month. Because of her erratic and time-consuming schedule, she was rarely home.
. Second semester rolled around. Once again, Seth and I were the only students in fifth block Journalism independent study. The more time I spent with him, the more I tasted the off-color, bitter, lonely flavor of his life. He didn’t let on much – I mean, when he told me about his family, he stated things as cold facts with a practiced indifference and discussed their abnormalities as though they were some kind of joke to be laughed at.
. And I played along. I laughed. I didn’t know what else to do. He seemed okay with the way things were. I got the feeling he didn’t know any other way of life existed. The best thing I could do for him was to continue being his friend in a school that, with the exception of the five others who ate lunch with us, left him to fend for himself on the outskirts of high school society. The most I could give him was a companion when he was comfortable being the odd one out because no one ever let him in.
. And that was all.

. “Adelaide.”
. “Yep.”
. “Could you… uh….” He tapped the keyboard lightly, uncomfortably. “Could you come to my house and help me do my laundry?”
. I had to laugh. “Do your laundry? Where’s your mother?”
. I regretted that comment the moment it passed my lips. I kept forgetting that things didn’t work that way in Seth’s home.
. Seth shrugged. “She went away. On business, I guess.”
. On business? What business? Factory workers don’t go on business trips. There was still so much about Seth’s family that I didn’t know. Like why his mother would leave a kid like Seth to look after himself over an extended period of time. Though it sounded like Seth knew no more than what he’d told me, and I couldn’t hold that against him.
. “When will she be back?”
. Seth shrugged again. “Dunno. But my laundry and dishes are piling up, and I’m hungry.”
. I’d developed a soft spot for Seth, and he didn’t need to add “I ran out of ramen” for me to agree to go help him out.

. I waited in the parking lot after school. Seth didn’t drive. It wasn’t that he couldn’t if he wanted – he just hadn’t gotten around to getting his license.
. Seth would be nineteen that summer. I figured it was about time he started taking care of himself, especially if his mother made a habit of up-and-leaving for indeterminate amounts of time. Call it maternal instinct, but I was ready to take on the challenge of preparing this kid to face college in less than a year.
. “Your car smells like a box of crayons,” Seth commented as he ducked into my 2003 Volkswagen Golf.
. “Just what I needed to hear.” I checked the rearview and backed out of my parking space. “Look, I got it used from this eclectic little old lady. And the air freshener is pine.”
. “I didn’t say it was a bad thing.”
. “All right.”
. Seth played with the knobs on the radio while I dreaded the state of his house. I’d never been inside before, though I’d seen the place when our friends dropped him off after long drives and Denny’s runs. Parking on the grass (the driveway was full), I couldn’t help noticing that the townhouse seemed a lot bigger from the perspective of a housemaid.
. “Come on,” Seth said, popping out of the car like a Jack-in-the-box. “We can just go in through the garage.” I followed him tentatively. The garage didn’t look too bad. But that didn’t necessarily indicate anything. Maybe Seth never made it out to the garage with his trash.
. Seth crashed through the door without holding it open for me, and I tripped along behind him. Yes, the garage had been a poor litmus test for what lay inside. I tried to pretend it didn’t smell too bad and waded to the kitchen through clothes, soda cans, junk food wrappers and other debris. I had to ask: “How do you live like this?”
. Seth shrugged and laughed. “It’s easy. Too easy.”
. I sighed. “All right. Let’s start with laundry. Do you have a basket?”
. “…Basket….”
. I looked around and found a basket on top of the washer machine. “Put your dirty clothes in here,” I said, passing Seth the basket. He looked sheepish. I sighed in exasperation. “Okay, I’ll come.”
. Like scavengers, we rooted through the carpet of crud. I wasn’t too picky and let him judge what needed to be washed without commenting on what was left behind. He must have owned as many pairs of jeans as I did. And as many shirts, and as many pairs of underwear – which is especially scary because I have this weird compulsion that my panties and bra must match the rest of my outfit, so I have a lot of underwear.
. “Umm… I think I need to wash these pants,” Seth said apologetically, indicating the pair he had on. Without further warning, he pulled them off and threw them in the basket.
. “Oh my God, Seth!” I shielded my eyes in horror.
. “It’s okay. I’ve got boxers on.”
. “I don’t care. Put something else on. You must own something that isn’t currently carpeting your floor.”
. I toted the overflowing basket downstairs and ran the load of laundry, showing Seth which buttons to push. “How do you know that?” he asked in awe. “This isn’t even your washer!”
. I stared at him in disbelief. “Uhh…. They’re all pretty much the same. How about some food?”
. That piqued his interest. I dug through the fridge, trashing several leftovers that had seen better days. Seth watched in amazement as I scrambled four eggs that seemed fresh enough to eat. He remained oblivious to my requests that he hand me a spatula or a plate, so it was dinner-and-a-treasure-hunt for me. I threw some bacon on the side and toasted a few slices of bread. Seth wolfed it all down while I loaded the dishwasher.
. “You’ve got to rinse them before you put them in the machine,” I explained.
. “Mmhmm,” Seth said around the largest bite of eggs and toast I’d ever seen anyone take.
. “Wanna help me get some of this trash out of here?” I asked when he was done.
. He looked at the wrappers, cans and pizza boxes on the floor. “Looks all right to me,” he said calmly. I noticed he still wasn’t wearing pants.
. I snapped. “Seth, I’m not your mother! I don’t mind helping you out, but God, you’re going to have to get it together! People won’t just do this stuff for you your whole life. What are you going to do when you go to college next year?”
. “I guess I’ll figure it out when I get to college next year,” he said, pairing the statement with his classic reply, the shrug.

. Going to Seth’s house after school became routine. I got the house looking habitable again within a couple of days. But the routine stuck even after his mother returned from whatever “business” trip she’d been on.
I look back fondly on those afternoons of studying for my AP Literature test while he destroyed boss after boss on his Xbox. Most days we had dinner together, even if it was just something dumb like peanut butter and jelly. Our friends liked to tease us, saying that I might as well just move in because we were more or less married anyway.
. “You should,” Seth told me sometimes. And sometimes I wanted to. I felt like he needed me there while his mother was working, and the more time I spent at his house, the more I realized that she was always working.
. Springtime flowered all around us. Unfortunately, that meant exams. I’d never had such a stressful birthday as that May morning when I took the AP Literature exam. When I stumbled out of the testing room, bubbles swimming in front of my eyes, Seth was waiting for me.
. “Happy birthday,” he told me. I was flattered that he’d even remembered. “Can I take you to lunch?”
. “Seth, we always go to lunch together,” I mumbled.
. “I mean, can I take you out to lunch?” he corrected.
. Out to lunch? That definitely was not allowed, and I said so. In twelve years of school, I had never cut a class, never left school grounds without permission, never taken any chances with the administration. Why should I start now?
. “We have Journalism after lunch hour. Let’s go then.”
. He was so persistent about it that I agreed. Lunch break, although it had never provided enough time for me to eat, stretched out like Laffy Taffy that day. I was famished after my exam. I couldn't help thinking, Seth had better something really good in mind.
. As soon as the bell rang for fifth block, we signed out on newspaper business and headed for the parking lot.
. “This way,” Seth directed.
. “My car’s over there. Where it always is,” I said.
. “But we’re not taking your car,” he said with a grin. He reached into his pocket and dangled a set of keys in my face. “We’re taking mine.”
. My jaw dropped. “You got your license?” I squealed. I hated the sound of my voice just then. It sounded like it belonged to a silly fangirl, not an almost-high-school-graduate. I blushed.
. “It took me like, three tries…” he confessed. “But I got it in time for your birthday!”
. “This is so exciting, Seth! Where are we going to go?”
. “Well, since I emptied my life’s savings account to buy this car and have about ten dollars left to my name…. In ‘n’ Out?”
. That was so typically Seth. He drove us there in this clanking garbage can he appropriately called “Brown Car,” which was covered with more dents than paint and was missing the left mirror. He bought my burger and fries. It was delicious.

. My phone rang early in the morning the day of graduation. I knew something had to be wrong the moment Seth’s name appeared on the caller ID. Seth did not make phone calls, not even to me.
. “Adelaide?”
. “Yeah.”
. “You’re not going to like this,” he said. The static was heavy: It sounded like he was somewhere really noisy.
. “Where are you? I can barely hear you.”
. “I’m in the back seat of my dad’ car. He’s got the radio up really loud. I don't want him to hear me talking to you, else I’d turn it down.”
. I swore. “What the hell are you doing in your dad’s car? We’re graduating today!”
. “I’m not,” he said despondently. “My dad wants me to move in with him.”
. I was enraged. “And he won’t let you get your diploma first? What kind of father does that?”
. I could almost hear him shrug in the silence at the other end. But his answer surprised me. “I don’t know. I want to be there. I was always the Nobody people didn’t expect to graduate. I wanted to prove them wrong.”
. I couldn’t speak.
. “Adelaide?”
. “Yeah –yeah, I’m here. What do I do?”
. “Do?” he asked, bewildered. “Why would you have to do anything? I was just calling to tell you I wouldn't be there. And congratulations, since I won’t see you later.”
. “When will you see me?” Suddenly that question seemed more important than Seth graduating or me being at the ceremony. It’s strange the way habit works on our minds. After seeing him almost every day for the past six months, just the thought of life without him left me feeling aimless and hollow.
. “Hopefully soon,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. I’ll dig some of Dad’s cash out of the walls and buy a train ticket home.”
. “Promise?”
. “I’ll do my best.”
. “Promise.”
. “Why is it so important that I promise?”
. “Because,” I said. “I need you here.”

Yes, I totally stole the name "Brown Car" from Allison.
And yes, I had a friend who made me do his laundry, and yes, he ended up walking around his house in boxers, which was really awkward at the time but now I really just laugh every time I think of it. My home friends probably know who I mean. ^_^

Andrew Piercey gets half the credit for this. It's going to be a series of short pieces much like this one, but we haven't gotten around to writing any more yet.

Episode One: The Majestic Awakening

Once upon a fabled time, in an extravagant Motel 6 kingdom of beige, there lived an insipid, balding, oft-inebriated, carbon-based biped named Epic. One humid, sultry summer day, he succumbed to the power of consciousness a smidge later than usual and laboriously opened his booze-laden eyes. After languishing in his sleeping chamber for three quarters of an hour, he decided he ought to digest a grapefruit, relishing the pulp innards in particular. 1200 seconds later, he finally extracted himself from the Down comforter by flailing his hairy “brasos” (as he called them in his Spanglish dialect) and slithered into the kitchen like a basilisk. Something in the refrigerator, which he had purchased at a JFK auction, reeked of Poseidon. “Unfortunate,” said he. “I have no nourishing, digestible perishables now.” All of Epic’s perishables had indeed perished in the open meat drawer overnight. “Blast… Now I shall have to proceed to the zoo to obtain a variety of animal crackers.” Without further ado, he transformed all of his potential energy into kinetic energy and rose majestically to his feet. Between the rank kitchen and the peach-colored (and debatably, –flavored) door, he tangentially ceased at his closet (whose door was also peach-colored and –flavored) to retrieve the lace-trimmed umbrella he had obtained at a Mary Poppins auction. And then, ponderously, timidly, and hung-over-ly, he ambled adventurously into the great outdoors of suburban Chicago.

To be continued…..

A weird one.... It could probably stand some more revision if anybody has any suggestions. I don't consider very much of my work complete, do I? Haha.

FOR A HERO

When I left the office at two, all I wanted was a gyro. That’s it. Just a foot-long gyro with some bacon, cheese, and other artery-clogging scrumptiousness oozing from between two slabs of carb-a-licious bread. That’s a man’s lunch, and Lord, did I need it after the morning I’d been through.
I couldn’t tell you if there was anything exceptional or portentous about that particular June afternoon; I recall it as being the epitome of a perfect summer’s day, complete with children laughing and darting about the municipal parks while an ice cream truck played “Pop Goes the Weasel” ad nauseam and raucous seagulls vied for French fries in a McDonald’s parking lot.
I was only subconsciously aware of the ultimate Frisbee game that was taking place as I passed the Lincoln Street Park (as I said, I had tunnel vision for that gyro) until a superbly-lobbed disc shot out of nowhere and smashed into my face. The surprise of it knocked me to the ground.
The part of my brain responsible for registering pain was a bit delayed on the uptake, but within ten seconds, it hurt like the devil. I wondered if my eyeball had popped out and the socket was now filling with blood or circulatory fluid. I almost laughed through the pain at the thought of my eyeball rolling around on the sidewalk, shooting frightened looks at nauseated passersby.
I slowed my thoughts before they could reach the point of panic. I reasoned, If my eyeball had popped out, everyone near me would be screaming bloody murder. I must be fine. Relieved, I shifted my weight to stand up.
“Sir!” The man’s anxious voice came from above me, drowning me in violet. Confused, I reached up to rub my eyes. Why was everything purple? “No, no! Don’t move!” His hands gripped my shoulders firmly, pushing me to the ground. “You just lay down right here. An ambulance is on its way.”
I’m not sure why, but his tone angered me beyond all reason – his tone, and the inexplicable purple hue that matched it. “I don’t need an ambulance,” I barked, and proved it by shrugging him off, leaping to my feet, and taking off down the nearest alley. It was only a Frisbee, for God’s sake.

I came across a gentleman (I use the term loosely, for the man wore his home on his back and reeked of street life) who was in the process of snorting a line of cocaine. “What are you looking at?” he growled. His gravelly voice hung between us, blacker than a night without a moon. Fear, I recognized at once. It was as if I could read his soul in that moonless night. Suddenly I realized that the colors I kept seeing when people spoke were, in fact, ghosts of their souls, or at least, of the piece of the soul that feels emotion. This wizened old hobo thought I was some rich snob who would unquestioningly turn a homeless drug addict like himself in to the authorities.
“I’m not looking. I’m running away,” I explained. If I could relate to him, maybe he wouldn’t cause me any trouble.
He chuckled, and it looked like ashes dancing in the air between us. I read less fear this time, but more despair. “Ain’t we all, kid. Ain’t we all. Hey, you got any money?”
“For what? For more of that?” I gestured towards the unused cocaine.
The man chuckled and shook his head. “You’re all the same.” He turned away and resumed his numbing practice.
Pitying his hopeless state, I asked, “How did you get into that stuff, anyway?”
He turned back, and he didn't even have to speak for the wave of puce green to knock into me. “You think you’re better than me ‘cause you’re white and you got money comin’ out your ass,” he sneered. “Well let me tell you somethin’. You couldn’t pay me any amount of money in the world to trade places with you. I don’t need your change. I don’t need your jobs. I don't need your pity.” He ticked off my supposed offenses on his fingers in the most violent fashion of counting I had seen. “You don’t know me. You don’t know about my life. I suggest you quit talking like you know everything, you son of a bitch, ‘cause you don’t know shit.”
Taken aback, I smiled awkwardly and strolled out of the alley without responding. I don’t have to be this guy’s hero, I thought bitterly. If he’s happy living on the streets, let him stay there. I spent the rest of my walk to the sandwich shop trying to push that encounter to the back of my mind.

“Thank you for walking me home, Charles,” said the pretty girl in the yellow dress. “You really didn’t have to.” Timidity, I diagnosed: uneasiness with a dash of pity.
“Mina, it’s never a problem. The city is dangerous,” the young man replied gallantly. I nearly choked on the rosiest, bloodiest crimson I’ve seen in my life: love – and the most glorious of romantic loves ever nursed toward a woman in a man’s heart.
Mina laughed daintily and opened the door. “Good bye, Charles.”
“So… I guess I’ll be seeing you soon?”
“Well, Charles, as we work in adjacent cubicles in the same office, I’m sure we’ll be seeing each other again very soon. Good day.” The door clicked shut.
“Take care, Mina!” Charles’ posture suggested that his feet knew it was time for him to go, but his torso wanted to continue the conversation; consequently, his departing path zigzagged, and for all my efforts to avoid collision, we crashed.
“I’m sorry! So sorry!” we stammered to each other. Desperation had all but blotted out the love I’d sensed just moments earlier.
I softened my tone. “Why don’t you tell her, man?”
He narrowed his eyes in suspicion. “Tell her what?”
“How much you love her!” I said joyously. His initial bliss had swept me up and carried me away like a hot air balloon. “It’s not every day that a love like this comes along! Don’t let it get away!”
He narrowed his eyes further. “Do I know you?” The poignant red quickly shifted to an obnoxious shade of yellow. Clearly, my turning up as an obstruction in his meandering path had irked him, and bright encouragement from a stranger was less than welcome in his private, two-person universe.
The back of my neck heated up, and I scratched at it uncomfortably. “Oh… no…. No, you don't,” I said, deflated.
“Then why don’t you keep your nose out of other people’s business?” he snapped, and with that he continued on his way. I gazed after him in disbelief. Someone as in love as he should have smiled at anything I might have said. Even if this girl didn’t understand his sentiments now – well, a love as strong as his couldn’t possibly fail! Couldn't he see that? I weightily resumed my quest to the sandwich shop.
And then, from the door where the pretty girl in the yellow dress had disappeared, emerged a couple, fingers entwined and eyes locked onto one another as they descended the front steps. One of them was Mina. Now it all made sense. The young, affectionate man I had bumped into could never hope to be with the girl of his dreams when she was already happily married. He must have thought that I was intentionally mocking him. At any rate, I figured I ought to forgive him for misplacing his anger and taking it out on me.

At the sandwich shop, I took my seat a little more heavily than usual. “What can I get for you?” asked the tired, early-thirties waitress. Blue shrouded my consciousness: this poor woman was wallowing in misery.
I forced myself to remain positive for her sake. “How about a smile?” I quipped cheerfully, plastering a half-sincere one on my own face. The suggestion earned me naught but a death stare. Utterly defeated, I sighed and ordered my sandwich. After the day I’d had, I really needed a gyro.

A short story that I wrote today... It all started with the opening paragraph. I don't know where it came from. It popped into my head and instead of being like, "Now would be a good time to pay a visit to the school shrink [do we have one of those?]," I went, "OH WOW! That was flippin' brilliant!" and expanded it into the following, as-yet-untitled narrative.

I don’t have an appendix. I’ve never had it removed, but I am quite certain that I do not have one. They told me I wouldn't notice it unless it failed, but I remain convinced that I simply do not, have not ever, and will not ever have an appendix.
I do, however, have a pair of strong, working legs. Sometimes they carry me beautiful places, splashing through living streams and treading barefoot amongst waltzing wildflowers. With these legs of mine, I can dance myself dizzy and scale the snowcapped mountains until I have to crouch to keep my head from getting lost in the clouds. But then, sometimes, they carry me places I ought not to go. These feet have trod the primrose path, or else the train tracks in my crossing to the wrong side, as often as the crystallized mountain pass. But I don't like to worry about that – lots of people lurk the streets on this side of town, and at least I have good, working legs to get me here and back again. On the other hand, I can’t say that I have a good, working appendix – and thank God for that, because I’ve heard those can kill you if they go wrong.
Fortunately, I also have two lips and a tongue. With these I can trill my jubilation or warble my sorrow out of sight. I can taste the electricity in the rain like aluminum between my molars, and the burning kiss of a lover like wasabi under my tongue. I have tasted the blood from pressing my lips to a frozen post and parting too suddenly. Now to be sure, they sometimes drip with poisonous utterances, and their print is upon the forbidden fruit as though I’d worn lipstick on the day I tasted it. But lots of people taste liquor and lies and lust, so I don't like to worry about it. Isn’t it good enough that I have the tongue to savor them? Yes, it’s good enough – no matter that I am missing an appendix, for I do believe that I am better off without one.
I am pleased to say that I also have a strong set of lungs that take in some 20,000 breaths of nitrogen and oxygen each day, and a pair of eyes that can differentiate between the red of the cardinal and the green of its pine perch, and a stomach that seldom complains regardless of what abnormal food combinations I put into it (though I must confess that it is ailing me grievously as I write this, and has been for some six days now), and a pair of ears that can recognize the clip-clop of my own horse’s hooves over that of other men’s, and – oh, but I must pause! Perhaps I should not continue to blame this horrendous pain on my sister-in-law’s questionable cooking.
Where was I? Yes, I have two hands – with five fingers each! And with them I can work out my mother’s favorite hymns on the ancient piano in her parlor! The only thing I am missing is an appendix, and everyone knows that a man is no better off for having one, so I must say that – oh! Mercy – I am quite satisfied with

In my creative writing class on Wednesday, the professor asked us to try and write something unlike anything we'd ever written before. Just in class, right then - "and, go!" He said we didn't have to finish it, but I liked the challenge and thought I might have been on to something with a few of the images I'd played with during class, so I wrung a draft out of my brain (I say wrung because it was really, really difficult). Why? Because our class has been reading Samuel Beckett, and it was in my head, so that's what came out of my pen. This grotesquely Beckett-esque beast of nonspecificity. (May I just say that Conor Oberst has nothing on this guy? NOTHING, okay? And also that I prefer the William of the same surname. That is, William Beckett, not William Oberst, who may exist but I've never heard of him if he does.) Anyway, here's the ... hmm. I don't know what to call it. Definitely prose. It's got a story to me but I don't think anyone else will consider it a narrative because it's so abstract and describes a moment, not a progression of events. All right then: here's the product.

"Extra-ordinary"

Vinyl: navy blue, crosshatched, convex/concave: perhaps a disenchanted hot-air balloon with modest aspirations. Distillation: a peculiar settling buoyancy washes over body/spirit/mind. Rising, falling, breathing: more human than tides, to be sure, but less honest.
The upper door of the yellowed old Frigidaire hangs open. Behold: slumber (or some ersatz semblance of such). Loose-knit as the feeble linen shells and dripping with Freon, digits mesh with digits. Disquiet: a scene experienced in Pointillism (points of light and dark point to right and. . . the other).
Swimming, but in silence and stillness; so, drowning? Flat lines (and fault lines) are for mortals (which we are not). Hopeful romantic wrestles hopeless pedantic: a narrative documented in the Moleskine. Tightly wound as estimation, digits flesh with digits. A drum line, tattooed upon the deepest shoals of the vista of the timeless human voyage (no horizon). Extra-ordinary: this has never happened before.

I'm going to post the explanation in a bit - why I wrote it like this (besides Beckett's influence), what it's about, what inspired it, etc. But I'd like to get an initial reaction first.