An Image

After a week hiatus, this is my second week in the Indie Ink Writing Challenge. (It would be week three, but last week I didn’t realize that I needed to sign up again. My mistake)

My challenge comes from Zee. The challenge:

Write about the biggest decision you have ever had to make and include at least one lie in your story…

What I found to be the toughest part about this challenge wasn’t so much the content, but how to make the content interesting. What I mean by that is that if I am talking about myself, why should you, the reader, care? We don’t know each other, what makes you want to know about my life?

It’s a fine line, in my opinion, between a ‘dear diary’ and creative non-fiction. My challenge was to aim for the latter.

Hopefully I succeeded.

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It’s funny how one brief moment of insight can push you to change your life. But maybe ‘insight’ is the wrong word. Maybe ‘inspiration’ or better yet, ‘warning.’

See, it was my first year in college and I made the decision to stay at home. It made sense, no need to pay money for rent or a dorm or food. I could just bus to school everyday.

But the problem was that when I was home, I wasn’t doing anything. Most of my friends were gone, so I would just sit around in my room all day, alone.

What eventually changed was that my Uncle moved into the house. I can still remember my Mom insisting that ‘he will only be here for two weeks, at the most.’ Four months later and he was still there.

One day I was sitting in my room, as I usually did, watching Family Guy, and eating Pringles. When I ran out of chips and needed to get more I saw my Uncle sitting in the living room watching Family Guy and eating Pringles. Basically doing the exact same thing.

That was my moment of insight. Or warning. It only lasted for a second, but it felt like an eternity. In that moment, I saw myself in 30 years, sitting exactly where he was sitting. In that moment, I was my Uncle. I had never grown up, never moved on.

When it comes to the town I grew up in, if you don’t leave when you have the chance, you will never leave. I decided it was time to move away. Far away.

As far away as I could get of that image.

I didn’t tell my parents when I started looking into international programs through my college. My first choices were in Asia. But no, I thought, that would be too difficult, learning one of those languages. Maybe an English speaking country? Yes, that makes more sense. England itself, maybe London? Too common a choice.

What about Ireland? That’s perfect. I had always wanted to visit Ireland, it had a beautiful image in my head. I settled on Dublin.

I was already finished with the applications when I finally told my parents. They said they were okay with the idea. I’m still certain that they thought it was just a notion that I was entertaining. That I would never, could never go through with it.

I still remember the looks on their faces when I got accepted.

Fast forward three months later and I am standing in the security line at the airport with my Dad. He convinced the ticket lady to give him a security pass, so he could see me to the gate. My Dad and I, we didn’t say a whole lot to each other, waiting for the boarding to begin. When it was time, we said our goodbyes and that was that.

On the plane, I look at my reflection in the window. It is an image of myself, and no one else. But I can picture you. Yes you, sitting at your computer, reading this.

By now I bet you’re wondering what in this story was a lie. Well, I’m not going to tell you. Not specifics anyways. Because if I told you why would you, why should you believe me?

The truth is that no matter how hard you try to tell the whole truth when you write about yourself, you are going to lie. Guaranteed. To tell the complete truth would make for extremely boring reading, because if you leave even a single detail out, you are lying by omission.

Lets also not forget the fact that deep down, we are all salesmen and women. We all seek to sell a crafted image of ourselves to each other. I did that here, everyone does. Think of every single memoir or biography you’ve ever read. Every single detail is crafted so that you’re reading a version of them that they want you to read. We all do it, even if we don’t realize it. Think about it, how many different versions of yourself are there? One for your co-workers, one for your friends, one for your spouse, for your kids. For your readers.

Maybe nothing in this story is true. Maybe I’m a completely different person than the one I specifically crafted here. I’m a 40 year old comic book nerd living in my parents basement. Maybe everything is true, and this admission is the lie. How could you possibly know? And maybe, just maybe this whole post-story-rant-to-reader is me further crafting an image of myself to you.

Or is it better to not think about it?

Urban Decay

I came up with the idea for this story, surprisingly enough, while I was driving around earlier this week. I was excited, because I had the idea to write this from the second person perspective. Not I, not he/she, but you. It’s a perspective you almost never see (outside Goosebumps “Choose Your Own Adventure” stories) and for good reason, it’s really hard to do.

I’ve also noticed that my stuff has been on the heavy/depressing side lately, and I wanted a bit of a change of pace.

Enjoy.

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You’re driving down a road and it becomes immediately clear that you do not belong here. Your car, while reliable, is slowly falling apart and being passed by people driving Porches and Ferrari’s. You even swear that you just got passed by a Rolls Royce.

You look around and see you’re surrounded by houses that should really be called “mini-mansions.” They are built from the brick of Depression Era houses; also mansions, tore down and rebuilt anew.

You’re driving down a road in which the medium income for residents is somewhere between $800,000 and $1.2 million a year. Driving along, you think to yourself how you’re almost entirely sure you won’t make that much in a lifetime, let alone year after year.

To your left is a private golf course that you have no hopes of entering.

But anyways, you continue to drive down the road, which begins to bend. And after the bend you notice that things aren’t quite the same.

The road, which was pristine and smooth as silk behind you, is beginning to show some wear and tear. It’s not horrible, but it is noticeable.

You look around and see you’re surrounded by houses that could be called “functional.” They are all built from the same cookie-cutter pattern, a sea of clones. The cars, like the homes, can be called “functional.”

There are no golf courses here. You can picture yourself starting a family somewhere very similar to this place, but not yet.

And so, you continue to drive down the road. On your right you pass a lake, in which you can see litter on its frozen beach.

The road has deteriorated severely. Potholes plague the street every few feet. After hitting a few, you curse to yourself and begin to swerve around the holes like orange caution cones.

There are no homes here that you can see. Plenty of shops, sure, and some places you frequent occasionally, like that cafe on your left.

A bit further still, and you can see places of residency. Apartment complex after complex, walls of them on either side. You notice how the signs are all written in two, three or even more languages.

You can’t imagine seeing that near the private golf course.

The condition of the road has become completely unbearable. It has turned into one gigantic pothole. The rattling of your car forces you to continuously turn up your radio, to drown out the grinding noise. The vibrations cause the panel on your steering wheel which houses the airbag to fall off. It dangles by a single wire, for the horn. You quickly tape it up again at a red light.

And finally you turn off this road and into your own apartment. You enter and find the four flights of stairs more exhausting than usual.

You walk inside your own apartment room, which is a mess. You see dishes in the sink, overflowing onto the counter, neglected for days, maybe even weeks. You pass the dishes and open the fridge. There isn’t much food, but you weren’t looking for food. You were looking for a beer.

You take a drink and look out the window. You see the skyline of the city begin to light up right in front of your eyes, in the evening air; the city coming to life. You smile, musing on the beauty of it.

You are home.

Stars are Cool

So I decided to participate in the Indie Ink Writing Challenge. The idea is that each week you challenge someone with a writing prompt, and in turn you are challenged by a different person.

The challenge for my first week comes from runaway sentence, who challenged me to:

Write a first-person narrative that begins and end with you lying in your small child’s bed.

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As I lay down the first thing I notice is how the smell of a child lingers long after they’ve gone. It is a sweet smell, a clean smell. My son’s bed is covered with images of Spongebob Squarepants. It’s his favorite show. Or at least, it was. My son is dead now.

His name is Daniel. Was Daniel. Will always be Daniel.

Daniel, he was our miracle baby. My wife and I, we struggled for a long time to conceive. The doctor told us that it would be impossible for us to have a child. Something about a low sperm count. And yet, ten months later, Daniel was in our lives.

I am lying on my back right now, on the ceiling I can see the adhesive glow in the dark stars that I put up. One night, Daniel and I were looking up into the sky, and he asked me what the stars were. I told him they were just like our Sun, only very very far away and that was why they looked so small. And in the typical fashion for a small child, that answer wasn’t enough. It just raised another question in his very young mind. Then another, then another. I answered to the best of my abilities, but what I remember the most was the way Daniel’s eyes lit up. He stood looking at the sky for a long time, then looked over to me and said, “stars are cool.”

I liked that; Daniels curiosity. I put those stars on his ceiling as a reminder for him to never ever lose that sense of curiosity; that sense of wonder and awe to the world around him.

It was a car, and a young man distracted on his cell phone. Daniel was five. I don’t have it in me to be mad at the young man. No one ever means to do what he did. Daniels death, and the guilt that goes with it is something that he will have to live with for the rest of his life. And for that, I pity him.

I rise from the bed and move across the room to the dresser. On top are various actions figures and trinkets; such as Daniel’s first pair of shoes, bronzed over into a monument to the past. They are covered in dust now, everything is. We haven’t touched his room since his passing. I’m told it helps the healing process, to leave your child’s room exactly as it was at the time they died. I’m careful not to disturb anything.

Today is the day of the funeral and a chill runs up my spine just thinking about it. Since the day of the car accident my life has felt hazy, as if I was in someplace other than reality, like I was in a dream. The closer to the funeral the more the haze begins to lift. Like I’m waking up. No parent should have to bury their child.

I can hear my wife calling my name, saying that she’s ready. But I’m not. I’m not ready for the haze to lift, for this dream to become reality. And so, I walk back to the bed and lay down. I smell his pillow, look up to the stars, close my eyes and see Daniel looking at the sky, waiting for me, if only for a few minutes longer.

This is the Real: Chapter 2

This is an excerpt from a failed novel of mine last year. Nevertheless, there were a few parts that I think turned out pretty good. This is Chapter 2.
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When you’re watching TV, you are practically guaranteed to run into one of those As Seen of TV commercials. Those commercials that seems to go on and on and on about a useless “miracle product” that absolutely no one needs. A blanket with sleeves, a pen that magnetically attaches to a necklace, the Clapper.

Well, you might be surprised to learn that people actually buy those pieces of crap.

It may also be a surprise that all of those products are developed, marketed and sold by one single company; the aptly named As Seen on TV.

“As Seen on TV, Customer Relations, how may I help you ?… So you want to return the Product? May I ask the name of the Product?… Oh, sir, I’m sorry but it is company policy that we cannot allow for returns on this Product, it says that on the packaging… We cannot accept returns for the Easy Wipe Toilet Paper Holder for health code reaso-… No, I apologize but we cannot accept returns for that particular Product even if it broke in half after its first use… We may be able to give you a new Product, or possibly a refund, I will happily transfer you to the manager… Have a nice day.”

It takes a certain type of person to actually order the crap As Seen of TV sells, but it takes a person of several magnitudes of “certain” to actually call Customer Relations of the Company. In short, those people who call in are very rarely “normal” by standard definitions of the word.

As Billy Drolek transfers the Easy Wipe Guy to his manager, he finds that he is beginning to space out and gives his palm a good stab with a pencil to snap himself out of it. He looks at his hand to see a graphite period in the middle of his hand and decides to scribble in a second period and a parenthesis to form a smiley face.

Billy has been working in the Customer Relations Division for two years, he was 23 years old. CRD only contains two employees, Billy himself and his manager, Mr. Shomster. Really Mr. Shomster could to the entire job himself, (they honestly don’t get a whole lot of complaints, as most people would just as easily throw the stuff away) but he just can’t stand the types of people who call in to complain about the crap products they sell. Right now, He is in his office in the middle of his third game of Minesweeper of the day, more than a little annoyed at the fact he has to talk to one of them.

The cubicle Billy occupies is in the middle of a veritable gray sea of cubicles. He’s always wondered why everything in office buildings have to be gray, even the carpet. He supposes that it’s because gray is so uninteresting that it keeps people from staring at the walls or the floor so they can do some work. Yet that doesn’t make a whole lot of since because As Seen on TV is more than fine with letting it’s employees decorate their cubicle with pictures, posters and knick-knacks.

Compared to other people Billy keeps his cubicle relatively knick-knack free. He has a few quotes he likes that he’s printed off and tacked onto the wall in front of his computer. He is partial to quotes from Marcus Aurelius’ The Meditations. Billy pulls up a game of solitaire and (rather ironically) reads quote 3:12 to himself:

If you do the job in a principled way, with diligence, energy and patience,
if you keep yourself free of distractions…

The other noticeable thing in Billy’s cubicle is a calendar he keeps on the wall to the right of the computer. It’s a calendar of American authors and each month a new person is featured, showing a picture of that author and a complete bibliography of their works. (One problem for the makers of the calender was that that definitely needed to feature Thomas Pynchon, but they could not find a picture of the damn guy. So the month of March just features a big Question Mark and his bibliography. It made Billy chuckle a bit)

What Billy likes to do is try to read through as much of the bibliography as he can before the month is out. It’s the middle of June and Billy is looking at a wild haired guy and has been trying to power through his copy of Infinite Jest. Underneath the picture and on the square for today is written “ Dr. Dobreski, 6-7 pm.” This is written in for every Tuesday and Thursday on the calendar, up through December/Hemingway. Today is Tusday, by the way.

He was just getting started on his game of solitaire when the guy who works in the cubicle in front of his computer stood up and turned to Billy. “Hey man, are you up for McDonnell’s after work tonight?”

Billy kept focusing on the card game at hand. “Nate, we go over this all the time, I’ve got my shrink appointment tonight. I can make it there around seven thirty tonight.”

Nate Krulman is Billy’s drinking buddy and McDonnell’s and his best friend (and for that matter, pretty much his only friend, really). Nate was hired at As Seen on TV around the same time as Billy, but while Billy was hired for Customer Relations, they hired Nate for the Product Development Division. It amuses them both that the stuff that Nate makes in PDD is directly responsible for all the weirdos that give Billy his job.

The phone next to Billy’s computer started to ring, further interrupting his exciting game of solitaire, he looked up to Nate, “I gotta take this, we’ll talk later.”

He sat back down and said to Billy, “I hope it’s not one of mine.”

“As Seen on TV, Customer Relations, how may I help you?…Okay, so The Clapper is defective? Is it not working?… Can I ask what you mean by ‘works too well?’…No, you see it’s activated by things that sound like claps, not only and specifically claps. If you don’t want it to turn on and off, you need to flip the switch off…Ma’am, As Seen on TV is not responsible if the sounds of your marital relations is causing the lights to turn on and off, and causing you to become a joke in your neighborhood. You just need to turn it off before you have marital rela-… I would be happy to transfer you to our manager. Have a nice day, ma’am!”

He hung up the phone and both Billy and Nate began to laugh.

Billy went on to play solitaire for the next three hours.

The office of Dr. Dobreski, PhD is located about five blocks away from the office complex of As Seen on TV, putting it about fifteen blocks away from Billy’s small, one bedroom apartment. The office is almost stereotypical for a psychologist. Dr. Dobreski has that weird chair that people in his profession are seemed required to have. Billy prefers to chose the option of sitting up right in the normal chair next to the weird bed-chair. Dr. Dobreski sits in his desk chair, pulled in front of the desk. The Doctor believes that his patients cannot connect with him if he is behind the desk.

Billy is currently avoiding direct eye contact and is reading the titles of the books on the shelves behind Dr. Dobreski. “I wrote my first entry last night.”

“Did you? And do you think it helped to put your immediate thoughts about it down on paper?”

As far as he can tell, the only books are on psychology, but that makes sense, he guesses. “I suppose, I mean, I don’t think I really ever actively tried to think about the daydreams. I always try to forget everything about them. I brought my notebook with me, did you want to read my entry?”

“If you have to ask me to read it, then I don’t want to read it.”

Billy now looks at The Doctor. He appears to be in his mid forties, and has a fondness for red sweater vests. He always keeps his notes down on his lap, but Billy thinks that might be The Doctor hiding his gut. Also, he always wears reading glasses and has what is normally called a bit of a“Jewfro.” “Uh…I’m not really sure I know what you mean.”

“Everything we talk about or do at our sessions are all up to you. You don’t need to ask me anything. You know that. I think the fact that you needed to know if I want to read the entry means you don’t think it’s too important. If you do think it’s important, you will never need to ask. So…do you think it’s important that I read that entry?”

“No, I really suppose not.”

“Okay then, and Billy, just remember that you never need to ask. Have you had an Incident since you wrote this entry?”

“No, but that was only last night.”

“Interesting, I wish we could talk about this more, but we’ve run out of time. I just want to end with one thing that I want you to think about: perhaps the reasons that these Incidents keep happening is that they are trying to tell you something. Maybe if you keep writing it out you will see something. This is just a thought, nothing definitive of course.”

“I’ll make sure to keep writing down all my daydreams, thank you Dr. Dobreski.”

Billy then got up and walked out of the office and into the waiting room. There was a young woman sitting there, completely entranced in one of the magazines that The Doctor subscribes to for his waiting patients. She must be knew, Billy has been going to Dr. Dobreski every Tuesday and Thursday for six months. Either that or she switch to new days or something.

He couldn’t get a very good look at her, every time he tried her eyes would dart to his and Billy would instinctively look towards something else. She was around Billy’s age, it looked like. And she had wavy reddish blondish hair. The young woman looked up and smiled. Billy, now embarrassed only managed a slight nod in her general direction before walking out of the waiting room and sighing.

Billy then proceeded to walk the twelve blocks from The Doctor’s to meet with Nate and knock a few back at McDonnell’s.

Visioneers (inspired by the movie of the same name)

So this story is a bit on an experiment for me. It’s in the first person, which is something I don’t do very often when writing fiction. The other thing is that this story is actually based off a movie called Visioneers. The premise of dreams and exploding, and the Jeffers Corporation all come from the movie. It’s on Netflix Instant Watch right now, I recommend it. Plus it stars Zach Galifinakis, so that’s a bonus.

Enjoy:

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I am a terrorist. Or a violent dissenter. A Crazy. The Enemy. It changes depending on the talking head that night on the network news.

I am all of these things because I have dreams. Not dreams in the “When I grow up…” sense, but dreams as in when I am asleep. No healthy people have had dreams in something like 15 years.

That’s the first symptom, dreams. Once you start having them it means that at some point in the very near future you are going to explode. Literally. Like, your head blows up like a bunch of TNT. The collateral damage has killed many, with millions of dollars of property damage. And I could go off at any time. That is why I am all of these things.

No one knows exactly why people are exploding. Nor do they know why those who explode begin to suffer from dreams. The only thing that is certain is that the two are somehow connected. The leading theory is that the explosions are caused by a build up of stress and overall negative emotion.

And I certainly fit that description. Once I started having dreams I went to therapy sessions. He told me to start writing my thoughts down as a way to release my negativity in small, safe bursts. He said to just write about my life. He told me this a few months ago, but hey, better late than never right?

The Jeffers Corporation is probably the source of most of my negative emotion. It’s where I work. Mr. Jeffers subscribes to the philosophy in which “Mindless productivity = happiness.”

I am a level 3 Visioneer. It is my job to read document after document and then fill out a form stating that I have read them. That’s it. I am not to correct, the documents nor am I allowed to critique in any way. Just read them.

About five months ago, all of the employees received a memo from Mr. Jeffers telling us that Daniel Smith, a Visioneer down in level 2 had exploded. There was to be a small memorial service for him in the cafeteria that day. I didn’t attend. I had never met Daniel Smith. That was the first time I had heard of anyone exploding.

But reports started coming in the next day. It was 16 people, I think, that exploded. It was explained that they were “suffering from dreams.”

About a week later I had my first dream. At first I had them only occasionally, but they became more frequent as time passed. Now I dream every night. It’s always the same. I picture myself as George Washing as I/he prepares to and then crosses the Delaware.

So I went to the doctor, who told me that the medical community had no preventative measure for exploding. It was then that I was referred to therapy sessions. They had me going twice a week to get my stress in check. All the while reports were coming in night after night of more people exploding:

“A man in NYC exploded in the subway today, killing 5 and injuring 11.” “A woman in Tulsa exploded when the grocery store was out of her brand of deodorant, injures 7.”

The therapy sessions were going nowhere. My symptoms started getting worse. Dreams aren’t the only symptom. Overeating and impotence have been known to manifest as explosions become imminent. Since my first dream, I’ve gained 15 pounds. As for impotence, well, let’s just say I haven’t had so much as morning wood for a month.

At the Jeffers Corporation the explosions started to become a serious problem. Each day we were given memos listing the employees who had exploded the previous day. We were all given these teddy bears that we were required to hug if we felt at all stressed or negative in any way. The bears squeaked when you hugged them.

I’ll never forget the look on John’s face when the bears were handed to us. John worked at the desk facing mine. It was a look of ultimate despair, like he wanted to cray, physically trying to cry but couldn’t, which made him want to cry more. John gave the bear one squeeze, then exploded. I was thrown into the wall.

Those bears were just the first step made by the Jeffers Corporation to quell people’s negative emotions. It escalated quickly. The Jeffers owned media outlets began to report that those who were exploding were trying to disrupt the country. We sought to destroy everything. We became terrorists.

And that’s when the crackdown began, when the “T” word was finally used. The “attacks” reached the 100,000 mark when the government (on behalf of the Jeffers Corporation) began the official policy on those exhibiting symptoms of explosion.

The Jeffers Corporation made the Inhibitors, which were installed on people with symptoms. They prevented any negative emotions from rising in the wearer and replaced them with happy thoughts. Many people had Inhibitors installed voluntarily. Others went into hiding. People were told to report “suspects” to the authorities for Forced Inhibition.

I did not go and get and Inhibitor placed on me. Frankly, I find the things disturbing. You see more and more people wearing them everyday; at work, on the street, at McDonalds, in the grocery store. You see them anywhere there used to be a sense of discontent. It has been replaced with content, but a false content. At least when there was discontent you get a sense that someone is alive, on the inside. That they can feel, sometimes strongly, that they have hopes. That they have dreams. Dreams of a better existence, something better than this vapid 9 to 5, mindlessly productive life that I live.

That inner life is now replaced with an empty smile and dead eyes.

Luckily when the government required all therapists to disclose those with symptoms to the authorities, mine had already exploded. But it’s just a matter of time before they find me. Mr. Jeffers required all his employees to take an evaluation last week. It was designed to flush out any dissenters from hiding. I failed it, I know I did. I didn’t even take the test, I drew a picture of George Washington crossing the Delaware. I don’t know why I didn’t just take it, why I didn’t lie. I guess I just don’t want to anymore.

I haven’t been to work since. I locked myself up at home and just decided to write. I have a reason to now, I didn’t when I was first told to. Back then I thought my life was meaningless, now I know it for a fact. But that doesn’t matter. For better or worse, it’s my life and I shouldn’t be forced to change it. I’ve been filled with negative emotion and stress all my life. It’s who I am! At least I can feel something right now, even if it is just stress, depression and rage. It’s better than nothing, right? And I feel other things too, like passion. It makes me human, for better or worse. And now I hear a pounding at the door. It’s the police. They’ve come for me. Funny, I was afraid of exploding, but hearing that knocking, and knowing what comes next…exploding doesn’t seem so bad anymore.

Goodbye….

What a nice day.