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Fictions

Do these stories play well with others?

They don’t make ’50s moms anymore. Come back here and eat your breakfast! You need a good breakfast. Fifty years later he’s grabbing an apple and is out the door. The curtains have all fell off the windows. Not enough time. Can’t be bothered. The place lacks a lady’s touch, that charm. Doesn’t matter so much, though, since he’s hardly ever there. Heard him once refer to the place as a way station. Where do you read your books, someone asked. Oh, I cut that out a while back.

. . .

A crunchy apple goes a long way. The only thing I like about the military is their apples. You know those military pillows, the ones that make you feel like you were in a car accident? Hate for those. But the apples, hold onto them. And ask for peanut butter.

Life is simple before it gets revved up. Mid-way into your day there’s so much you wanna say to them but you can’t because you don’t wanna get fired. But oh god in heaven or bethlehem wouldn’t it be wonderful to just let it fly. Give them a piece of your mind, as it’s said.

Hmmm…. I wonder just how much I can get away with, he thought. If it would change any of their behavior towards me…

. . .

The idea of saving. I don’t need saving. She said, I’ll save you from yourself. But also acted like she really wanted to be with me. She had a way with insults without directing slinging them. His way was to take them silently, internalize them. His was a way of pain. No matter how much he scrawled it out on the pad the pain never left.

I should start selling my pain to fuel cars and strengthen the economy.

. . .

Time is short, is money. Time is big money, big money, big money. He always wanted to go on the family feud. But all his ideas ran out. You know, he couldn’t put two and two together which was embarrassing. Every time he was made to wait in some line he knew his ambitions were going out the window.

Don’t even know what I wanna do any more.

Time smacked him around a bit. He became subject to other people’s random accidents. He was left to pick up the pieces after a hit and run. He lost his whole family to someone like this who just drove off too scared to stop and take the responsibility. He could reason through it if only he could stop crying.

How much are my emotions worth?

Big emotions, big emotions, big emotions… doesn’t sound right. Companies don’t want to hire a guy who admits “I feel everything.” And just how is that an asset to us, they say.

Oh I get it. If you had your way, the entire place would be just robots walking around. Is that it? People are nothing to you?

Dude, you need to stop internalizing. We’re just very production oriented. Just business. I’m sure you understand.

. . .

Shoes put on. Shoes slid on one at a time. Right shoe activated, tied. Left one, smack! And I’m out! Wow, didn’t see that before, how we have roaches crawling on the outside of the house. I wanna be resilient as a roach. Drop your rude bomb on me, I will not be phased. I can produce impenetrable alien spacecraft emotions. What can you do, oh, continue to be bitchy? Oh, I can continue to baffle your little minds and penniless jabs.

I’ve played enough chess to know, I can win up here.