One step in the wrong direction is one step away from the right one. One more day working pizza was one more day I wasn't taking steps to ensure a future away from fast food and other mediocre jobs. I was recently in a discussion with an old friend. We equally voiced concerns about prospective employment opportunities. Everyone is looking for someone with experience in the given field, yet no one is willing to give it. The only things I am qualified in are call centers and the food industry, neither of which I want to be doing. The only way I could get a position in the English world is to have experience, and the only way to get experience is to have a job in that field, which I can't get unless I have previous experience. I am at a crossroads with a morbidly obese plumber with four arms. I ask this man which way I should go. He
responds after a short coughing fit by pointing twice upwards and three times down, leaving me worse than when I started, and hating plumbers to a degree only understood by carpenters.
Abashedly,
Kyle
The child was born without sight. He entered into the world without a single image of mother or father and no hope for recovery. His parents were originally frightened for the difficulties that lay ahead, until they saw a billboard with the words, "Yes you can," written in a font that by itself could motivate a river to become a slightly larger river. They took this billboard as a sign, to help their son become anything he wanted to become. Tears filled their eyes as "yes you can" filled their minds. For the first time in this young boy's life, he heard the words "yes you can."
"So, what do you want to do with your life? You could do anything!" His parents were falling off their seats in anticipation. The blind child couldn't see why they kept falling down, but continued to think nonetheless.
"I want to be-"
*Thud* "Sorry." The mom said as she pulled herself back onto the couch. The anticipation was at its peak. Her various organs got black eyes for how hard her heart was beating.
"I want to be a cartographer." Said the blind boy.
"..." The parents shared glances of sadness and several other glances that usually don't get invited to those types of parties.
"I can feel those looks," said the blind boy, "I am going to be a cartographer, because 'Yes I can'.
The mother was sad because she was anticipating a more "exclusive" career path.
The father was sad because he thought "cartographer" was another word for "homosexual."
*Twenty Years Later*
I was walking into the university looking for the philosophy section in order to write down names and quote things they never said, to people that never read. I walked up to the fifth floor and located the map. I looked for philosophy....Ah ha! Philosophy, section B-BJ Alpha 3.443 x Annual rainfall sideways Blue. Okay...so...maybe I can just find it on the map. I stared at it for long enough to know that I did not speak korean. I looked around and saw a group of students with t-shirts that said "Korea is for Leavers" on it. I decided they would be able to assist.
"Could you come help me read this map, it's completely in korean."
The small group stared at the map in horror. One of them grabbed a cup of water and poured it over his head, lit his shirt on fire, and ran in circles until he passed out. Two of them jumped out the fifth floor window. The fourth sat reading his textbook casually. He looked up for just enough time to say "I'm from Cambodia."
A small library assistant walked past.
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"Hey! Can you help me? I'm looking for the philosophy section and this map is completely illegible."
She let out the loudest scream she could get away with in a library, and then vanished into a very quiet puff of smoke. I sat and stared at the smoke for a while and then back at the map. My only option was to try and decipher it. Could it be the picture of the half-horse, half-banana peel, or maybe somewhere near it? It most definitely isn't the cereal box top or the section marked with four dots and one square, unless that's what it wants me to think. After four hours, I began to lose hope. Then, not knowing what to do, I sat down on the floor, in a matter of seconds the world went dark. After the odd phenomenon I woke up in the philosophy section wearing a large sticker on my chest with an arrow pointing down that said, "You are here."
Opportunistically,
Kyle
Disclaimer: No punctuation was harmed in the making of the post, except for the ampersand. We beat the crap out of him, and ate his dog.
I'm was going to measure my room each morning solely to prove that it really does get smaller the more time I spend inside it, but since I eat in my sleep and my yardstick looked like a churro, I didn't. My room gives me a feeling similar to how mickey mouse would feel endorsing rodenticide; which would only happen if an underground organization of communistic midgets suddenly inherited Disneyland.
"You must be this short to ride." The power-hungry grin of the small man compensating for his size, and then some.
"Darn," said the tall man, "I'm six-five."
Rev. Revvvv Revvvv Rev Revvvvv.
"Hey! Hey! What are you doi- AHHHHHH!!!"
"Look," the midget said, "now you're three-foot-four and three-foot-one. You'll have to buy two seats. Next!"
Tip of advice for the world, and a few of its inhabitants. If you are trying to accurately define the word "boring" and the only thing that comes to mind is a sketch of yourself followed by a period, you have an incomplete sentence as well as a personality problem, and I have something to tide you over until those get worked out. What you need is a creative new idea to boost your juices and get you feeling sixty eight again.
Sometimes we have a lot of ideas that we share externally
. These thoughts are the kind that often question their existence, never pay rent, and end up only being used for reality tv shows aired from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m.*
The smarter thoughts might figure out what's going on and destroy themselves before they get a chance to be thrown out into the universe. It's a scary place out there, especially for ideas. These thoughts are usually thought right before you wake up and are gone right after giving you the feeling that it was an amazing idea. That day you feel frustrated, telling everyone what a brilliant idea it was if you could only just remember it.
And lastly, there is the brilliant thought, the hardest to find, and worth a fortune to whoever has tripped over one or two in their day. This type of thought, more often than not, requires a damp, dark area, often a basement of a parent's home, or maybe an abandoned meat cellar. They are prone to feel more comfortable in an environment with half eaten hot pockets, a roommate named Ryan, and the stench of unused potential. This way, the thoughts can remove all possibility of being turned into an action. When they come out in a non-cellar-like environment, they instantly feel awkward, like one does when they find out they are the smartest one at the party, by a lot. The idea feels a bit queasy at first, throws up into a plastic fern, gets a phone number, and then makes a quick exit, only to realize that the phone number was given to him by a pyramid scheme with soft black hair and a $350 dollar deposit.
Those relationships always leave him with an empty feeling in his stomach and a large manual containing 350 different ways of explaining the phrase "go for it."He has his thoughts on the meaning of "go for it", they usually go bowling together.
Activity for creative juice pumping: start with the phrase "what if..." This will take your mind instantly from thinking one dimensionally to thinking in however many dimensions you have the time to imagine. So rekindle that imagination and welcome the absurdities that are sure to follow. And always go for it! (unless "it" represents stabbing a coworker in the face with an icicle). What if... a hypothetical question changed the world?
What if...it was your question?
Impersonally (from a safe distance),
Kyle
*Such as: Mediocre Moms: A very personal and extensive look at moms that aren't special in any way.
Who's Wearing the Pants Now: Will a new pant suit tear this family apart?
Dog Wedding Planner: When one happy couple puts their wedding in the hands, or paws, of their cocker spaniel.
Frankly I was nervous. The door opened with the momentum of my hand and the men stared at me. My eyes began to size-up my future coworkers. One was large, one was medium sized, one was constantly oscillating in size. I wasn't sure what that meant or how it could happen. Or maybe it was just mine own eyes playing tricks on me. The large man stared at me. I could only guess that his brain had spontaneously imploded and all that was left were the basic motor skills to make a pizza. He clearly had nothing upstairs, in the attic, and plainly nothing in the guest bedroom. His anatomical house could be described as abandoned.
I began counting my options at this moment, I ended on three. Which is strangely the maximum number that these men could count to. The blank stares were passed around like bottles of beer on the wall. The third man decided to take this opportunity to drink the metaphorical beers and get metaphorically drunk. We didn't get too worried until he began to metaphorically take his shirt off. Once we got him some metaphorical coffee, he calmed down.
"I guess we'll begin your training now."
"Alright" I responded.
The second man returned to his pizzas and got lost in his own little sauced up world.
"Now sit in this chair and watch two hours of still frame animation showing you the pizza making process. Each frame should be no more than thirty five seconds a piece. If it ever takes longer than that, just call it some impolite names and hit it with this large brick."
"Does that ever work?"
"No one has ever tried it, they usually hit themselves with the brick first."
"Haha, worker's comp then, eh?"
"Don't you ever, ever say that again! You hear me?"
My body shrunk down into the chair and gave my brain authorization to ponder what that could have possibly alluded to besides the direct meaning of worker's compensation."
The first man stormed out of the room and I was left alone with my still frame animation, that I preferred to label as simply 'still frame'. Watching two hours of pizza can slowly bring the viewer to do strange acts. Mine involved a brick, a few broken teeth, and an almost satisfied hunger.
And that, was my first day at Papa Johns.
Personifiably,
Kyle
"Hello....?"
"There was no answer." Said a voice, a very manly voice.
"Who said that?"
"Still no answer." Said the voice a second time.
"Dang it! It's that stupid narrator again! Gets me every time!"
The narrator felt bad for interrupting the story and decided, at this point, to come back later and edit in his voice overs after the conclusion of the story. The narrator then went off to do whatever it is that narrators do when they're not narrating.
I searched inside the post office for any signs of life, all I could find were some half eaten tacos, a phone that was on hold, and a small sign that said "ring the bell for attendant." I searched for the better half of twenty minutes, being the second half. Nothing clued me in whether anyone was operating the store. I eventually became frustrated with looking and analyzing, and decided to flip over chairs until a better idea came to mind.
"Hey what are you doing?!"
"Oh my! I'm so sorry, I didn't know chairs had any opinions on being flipped over! I didn't even know they had a sense of location at all!"
"I'm over here. And I'm most definitely not a chair."
A poem: the only way to describe the lady inside.
The attendant's eyes tripled in size, and her face was deep in surprise.
A casual glance, gave shivers like ants, until I noticed her nose.
It was humongous, and a little bit spongeous, and gravity was not on her side.
I thought I could look past it, until it started to grow.
I'm grateful when she took my sendvelope and charged me $3.75.
"So.....how long will that take?" I asked as though my house was on fire and I could only take one thing with me.
"The package?"
"Yes."
"Well, that depends. Where did you order it?"
"... I just gave it to you?"
"Oh, this one? You should really be more specific."
"Can I buy a few stamps too?"
"Sure, which kinds?" She almost politely asked.
Be specific. Be specific. "You see. I'm getting them for my girlfriend. So, I want one that says, 'I love you', without saying 'I hope you die in a grease fire so I can finally give a eulogy.' I want it to have a deeper meaning than 'kiss me, I'm a stamp collector' and an undertone of 'baby, you're worth more than a 'forever' stamp.'' I want it to take her breath away and then replace it before she gets an asthma attack. I want that kind of stamp."
"Alright. I have exactly what you need. Two sets of commemorative stamps from our 1981 collection with an inverted dual-color print illustrating what Scottie Pippin would look like as head coach for a 19th century international cricket tournament."
"Perfect."
"That will be 23 gold doubloons, sir."
"..."
Post-Commercially,
Kyle
The small insignificant creature popped his head above the slightly-harder-than-earth, earth. The skin of the planets surface still smoking after four days. Black rock held like a blanket over the wasteland that used to be a metropolis. The small creature continued to look around, wondering what happened. The creature blinked. He had just gone to sleep a few months ago with the preconceived notion that he was going to wake up and maybe go steal a hot dog or something. Now the only hot dog he could see was literal and that spoiled his appetite. The small insignificant creature blinked again. He then returned to his hole.
The earth was not so calm as the creature. He said, "AHHHHHH!!!! MY SKIN!!!!" The earth kept spinning in frustrated pain. He could not wrap his mind around the fact that there was no planetary emergency room. Not that he'd be able to fit into a room. It was the principle of the thing. Be it documented that the earth in that moment became very blue. He also wondered where his brain was located, and why no one had bothered to teach him anatomy, or in his case geography. He had no idea what happened. One moment he was fine, sending a slight breeze over the tropics, changing tides, and growing mountains. The next moment there was a large flash and pain that was not planning to remove itself for some time. No one bothered to tell the earth about residual heat either. It was another thing he could add to his list of things that annoyed him. He began to reflect on his life. He knew it would take a very long time to reflect on everything, since he had reached a form of self-actualization at this point. Well, as self-actualized as a planet could feel.
I am, as the narrator, obligated to apologize for this story. It appears to be the preface of a post-apocalyptic adventure of survival and re-growth. However, no one from this explosion had survived, except for one small insignificant creature, and the earth.
The small insignificant creature continued to blink, and the earth continued to spin.
The End.
Globally,
Kyle
I am in the middle of a custody battle for my brain. My body claims rights to access the information that lie within, while my job requests my brain in order to work long, draining hours, in a cubicle the size of a shoebox, since brains "don't take up that much space". I have no idea why they would want just my brain, but it's up to the courts to determine if they do receive any sort of settlement. The hearing went as follows:
"Judge, sidebar."
"Ummm... the bailiff can't call a sidebar."
"Oh, right. Sorry." Said the bailiff, disheveled.
"Moving on... Let's start with opening arguments. Apple Rebate Center, you may begin."
"It was a night, just like today, except for at night. This sad excuse for a boy (points to me; I flex) began to think. He thought such a thought, it could revolutionize the thinking industry. Do you know how much money is in the thinking industry?" Said the prosecutor, his feet facing the exit, his eyes facing the judge, and the rest of his body, were directed toward the jury and a small nun. The jury broke into arbitrary laughter as they contemplated what exactly was going on.
One man held up six of his fingers. The corners of his mouth tried to touch his eyebrows in excitement. He felt good/proud. He didn't know what it all meant, but he did know that the man was fishing for a number. And that's exactly what he gave him.
"Six what?" asked the prosecutor.
"Pence, none the richer." Said the same man, now successfully touching the corners of his mouth to his eyebrows.
"What? No. Anybody else?"
"Million?" Said a balding man. This bald man found it unnecessary for the narrator to point out his baldness. He prefers the term "anti-growing".
"Wrong," the prosecutor complained, wincing in frustration.
The judge grew tired of this nonsense, and said, "Prosecutor, stop wincing, you'll get wrinkles. Also, for your information, the thinking industry makes as much money as they want, all they have to do is imagine it, and it satisfies them for the time being. They usually avoid paying their bills or house payments and go to bi-weekly meetings to imagine more money to last them the next few days. They usually die of starvation before they reach the third meeting."
"Correct!" Screamed the Prosecutor ecstatically. "Now, try telling me that it's not important to have such a marvelous brain as Kyle's, working to boost the economy! If the thinking industry goes bankrupt, what's next? The housing market? Fish stores? Mom and Pop onion shops? A domino effect will take out the economy and plague our lives forever. The thinking industry is vital for our survival." The last words spoken by the prosecutor were completely false. The thinking industry holds no shares, no market value, and no taxable income. It is completely and incompletely non-profit to anyone looking from the outside in. A third party once said, "I don't understand, they just sit there and think up money, that will never actually exist." However implausible the argument, the jury grew teary eyed. Maybe because they were thinking about onions.
"That is all." Concluded the prosecutor. Giving a hi-five to no one in particular.
"The defense may now try and follow a very moving opening statement with a not-very-well-thought-through statement if they wish." Said the judge.
"We would, your honor." Said the defense frantically.
 |
In memory of this man, who
is probably still alive. |
In a matter of minutes, we were expected, by the judge, to remove all parts of our argument that were well thought through. By the time we finished, we had a bit left over on the subject of belly button rings, and a small piece having to do with fertilizers being from distant planet. All of our well-thought-out arguments were quickly removed by the bailiff, who began using them to draw pictures of himself with wings and a bailiff outfit made entirely of macraméd sequins. The bailiff quietly chuckled, and then slowly lulled himself, and three others, to sleep. We were going to have to change our strategy. We all arose, walked to the front, and put on our best puppy dog faces. We were additionally charged with animal cruelty. I knew we shouldn't have used real puppy dog faces. I just assumed since they were already dead...
According to the judge, they "let me off easy" with a mere seventy five years in solitary confinement, three hundred fifty hours of watching humane society commercials, twenty five hours arm wrestling with Martha Stewart, and a seven dollar and fifty cent fine (the judge had forgotten her lunch that day).
Also, my job ended up winning custody of my brain. In all the excitement of their victory, they ended up burning my brain at a horribly planned party. They left the party feeling oddly as though they had lost the lawsuit altogether. Several of the men additionally felt embarrassed for confusing my brain for the makings of a small fire. They got over this feeling of discomposure with ten pints of chocolate syrup and a marathon of Full House. As they say, "A brain is a terrible thing to light on fire."
This claim is valid. Moved to a 3,
Panoramically,
Kyle
"Grumble. Grumble." Grumbled my stomach.
"I'm fine," I coaxed myself.
"Grumble! Grumble!" Today, he was insistent.
"Will you turn that thing off?" shouted the small, insecure man in the corner as he chewed on his necktie.
I resent anyone who prefers the taste of diamond patterned polyester over plain printed silk. It shows a lack of etiquette if you ask me. The man glared at me, but missed, hitting a newly-trained temp in the right shoulder.
"Ouch," she exclaimed, "that almost hurt as much as the evil eye I got last Monday. Right in the forehead!" Her British accent wore off into more of a slight speech impediment as she spoke.
"I could go off to lunch, but then who would be here to do all these exponentially monotonous tasks?" Decisions made my brain hurt.
I immediately imagined up twenty nine miniature men, Irish decent, to stand each on one letter of the keyboard, the spacebar, period, and perhaps a comma, if necessary. The little men would, in harmonized unison, jump up and down on the various keys, wearing silly hats, for the sole purpose of typing completely dull sentences onto the vibrant screen. If they made a mistake, they would obviously be forced to relocate Engineer "P" onto the backspace button and give Engineer "O" double duty to manage the keys "P" and "O". Engineer "O" would obviously be involved with a union and require overtime pay for his two-times work load. We would respect his demands, giving him three chocolate chips in lieu of the standard allotment of two.
These imagined replacements allowed me to feel comfortable enough to make my way up to the cafeteria named either "cooks: in training" or "cook: sin training". And leave the monotony to them, for the time being.
The doors of the cafeteria opened quickly and shut even more quickly. I walked too slowly and was consequently split in half by the sheer force of the door closing.
"Looks like we're going dutch!" I said to my other half. My left half glanced around, hoping no one else heard that joke. My right half became annoyed with my left half for thinking he was better than him. To understand this enmity, we must understand the character of the brains.The left brain is termed as the logical side. It is also usually arrogant, as well as ostentatious as times permit. The right brain is known for it's creativity. This brain is insecure, but can occasionally paint.
When I was finally able to pull myself together, I stood in line for the grill. There was no one else in front of me, yet the grill man insisted that I would be helped once all the other customer's had ordered first. I looked for his logic; All I found were two paper clips and some pocket lint that looked like no one even remotely famous.
I ordered the chicken quesadilla. Unfortunately they were out of chicken, and quesadillas. They charged me $5.13 for a paper plate covered with an amateur drawing of what was supposed to resemble a quesadilla.
Sub-terminally,
Kyle
They claim that Raul's connection with royalty had to do with his great great grandfather owning a small pet, not resembling an amphibian, that was later traded to a man with three too many mustaches. Raul was that man's son. Those that told him this were high off of moon dust and would not be coming down for quite some time. They giggled some more, and then told Raul that he ought to be doing things that potential kings were supposed to be doing.
Raul sat on a cloud, staring at the horizon. The horizon, being self-conscious, became irritated with Raul. Raul immediately had a feeling that someone had issues with him. This frustrated Raul, more anyway. "Who gives them the right to just name me king!" He yelled, "they didn't even bother to ask! Or at least give me a fruit basket!" Raul cried a thousand shimmering tears, and a few dull ones as well. The radiant tears ran down his face, bouncing off the cloud, becoming a very short and pointless rainstorm.
Meanwhile in Scotland, a man was also having quite a terrible day. He walked contemptuously down the walkway across Main Street and Guilds Ave. The depressed look plastered on his already boring face. A small rainstorm appeared above him, soaking him to the core on an extremely cold evening. As he looked around, to his horror, he was the only one hit by this spontaneous shower. He continued to walk, and continued to have a horrible day.
Pinkerbottom is such a horrible last name. The same reason as to why Raul's last name is not Pinkerbottom, at all, but Starllion. "King Starllion," he repeated, after thirty thousand previous repetitions. "It's got that ring to it." This failed to calm him. He took his anger out on small floating clouds, who, in turn, absorbed his punches and made ridiculous faces at him. He should have become more infuriated by these tiny, socially rebelious clouds, but since he had already reached the physical limit of irate, it was impossible. Thoughts of escaping the sky kept him company throughout the day. He would obviously head terrenal, since it was forbidden and he felt that's what one should do if that person was rebellious pre-king. It would take preparation. Three entire minutes of preparation; that being a lot for anyone with an attention span less than that of a small hummingbird who thinks it's a tree. Raul paced upon his custom-built Cumulus 3500 cloud. Raul never paced. It was a verb that started with a "p". He questioned whether heading to earth would even be worth his time. "What do people even do on that large spherical object that we continuously hover?"
Raul escaped out the back door of a cloud. The one closest to the earth's surface, seven thousand feet away. Everything was great until he realized that clouds don't have back doors and he was now in the process of falling. Fast. Raul thought of what he should be yelling. He recognized that the first item of business to address in the afterlife would surely be his death. He had to make a good first impression with the dead. They must have some sort of influence there. He wondered if he died on the earth's surface, would he go to landwalker heaven? or if there were different heavens for sky and land people? He realized that this might not be the best time to ask such questions and he returned to his rehearsed yelling. He assuredly became bored of this and began to count seconds, equally boring. "I wasn't aware of any problems with filling time while falling. I always thought it just sort of happened and then was over." Raul tried to argue. No one was around with a sarcastic rebuttal, except maybe the wind. The wind rushed passed him, mockingly showing their freedom and most of all independence of gravity. Any form of autonomy rubbed Raul the wrong way. "It's just the start of anarchy," he would reason, "why don't we all just become presidents of ourselves?" It was thinking like this that proved to the chairmen that Raul was the perfect candidate for king. They had no idea what he meant by such sentences, but they sounded...intelligent. Let's return to Raul, who is still falling. "AHHHHHHH!" He screamed. His screams, dying thin as his vocal chords became stiff from the amount of screaming that he screamed. And Raul wasn't normally a screamer, just more of a shouter, or dramatic voice escalator.
His falling was immediately stopped by a net that decelerated slightly quicker than he did, causing for his acceleration to be slowly diffused and coincidentally stop his fall. He lay there wondering where he was and if this was the afterlife. A voice quickly broke his moment of introspective analyzation.
"I hope it's one of them geese," yelped a voice.
"Nah, I saw no beak."
"I'm certain there was a beak, or my name isn't B-town Smithy."
"It's not."
"Not what?"
"I can't believe my eyes! It's a cloud rider! Yee dawgie! And he's got one of them royal seals on 'im."
"What does that mean?"
"It means we got ourselves a bargain chip!"
"Awlrite! What types of bargains we gonna get? I'm up for anything but mashed potatoes."
"No. Like, we say, "if you want your royal man back, you gonna give us five hundred million pounds of starcrop."
"Who gonna give us five hundred million pounds of anything? And where are we gonna stick it all, I only got seventeen pockets!"
"Let's just collect 'im. I'll fill you in later, numbskull. Numbskull not being a rude name calling for the ill educated youngster, it was his name.
To be continued, and finished,
Translucently,
Kyle
My heart raced around my chest; attempting, and succeeding, to break his previous record. My heart had a grim smile reaching from artery to artery. He knew exactly what was going on and exactly what to do in order to make my stomach hurt and my face look squeamish. I wondered if I really wanted to go through with this. "Stick it out" my conscience said. I almost took its advice, but my conscience turned out to just be an elderly gymnastics coach and was trying to teach me a vault technique, and I didn't feel that this was the right time for that. I ignored him. He ignored me back. That bugged me.
I walked the walk. I talked the talk. That didn't seem to work. I did the only thing I knew to do in that moment: I walked the talk and I talked the walk. All who were in the proximity to see such a marvelous gesture stared. Some didn't last long; their brains imploded. If you stare at awesome for longer than the amount of awesome that you have inside of you, your brain will implode. Your brain cannot process any more awesome than you possess. It's an almost proven fact.
She hunched over her keyboard, soaking the pixels into her ginger laden head. Peering over numbers, computing this and calculating that. That, by the way, is very hard to calculate. And this, is very hard to compute. Which might explain the beads of sweat leaking out of her pores.
"Fliggn Tragtipt Lichetensetied!!!" She screamed.
"Hey Jan?"
"Oh, Hey Kyle! How is you today?"
"I'm sorry Jan, you used the wrong tense in your sentence..."
After that I could only make out mutterings of ancient pagan death threats towards me. I had recently taken a poll on how she was going to kill me and get rid of my remains for putting in my two weeks.
45% said she would begin by switching around my organs. Then light my head on fire. And then slowly push me through a garlic press.
32% said she would pull out all of my individual hairs, weave them into a noose, and then lynch me.
21% said she would cry herself to sleep and then use those tears for my drowning.
2% were impartial to the subject and subsequently voted Ralph Nader for president in an unofficial census that would later be used to swat flies in an uncomfortable office building that was situated between the white house and the off-white house.
"Jan, I am putting in my two weeks."
"Wha??? I....I...'m don't know what to say."
"Are you a robot Jan?"
"No. $#%%^#"
"How did you just speak in symbols?"
"Are you serious about quitting?"
"One second"...text text text...*bing*..."Yes I am."
"But why?"
I was really unlooking forward to telling her why I was quitting. First of all, it involves me hating my job. Lastly, this job that I hate is also slowly dragging me to the summer cabin of the Grim Reaper and his extra grim family. By this time, a small amount of steam could be seen coming from Jan's ears.
"Well...," I tried to speak as I stumbled on the words in front of me. I stubbed my pinky toe on some of the vowels. Stupid words.
"I found a different job." I finally said.
"Is it at the Apple rebate center?"
"No Jan. That's where I'm working now. That's actually why we're having this conversation. I'm quitting here."
"Right. But why?"
"I thought we just went through this."
"Yeah. I'm just hoping the more I ask you, the more you'll change your mind."
Jan then tried to convince me that I wasn't really Kyle and that the real Kyle would not be very happy once he found out that I was impersonating him and quitting the best job in the world. I found her argument persuasive and I went to go find myself. I finally did find myself, living in a cabin in the woods. After much debate, he gave me permission to quit. I seemed to be pretty upset with myself over the matter.
So, I only have a limited time to spend in the A.R.C. (Apple rebate center). Jan said since the acronym of the Apple rebate center is ARC. I can only quit after forty days and forty nights. I showed her where to stick it! That being on the bulletin board in the break room.
Loosely,
Kyle
"Welcome to the newest game show on television! Are we really medically licensed?! Let's welcome our first contestant of the night, Kyle Jacobson!" Cheers erupt from fans who wonder why they're there and more importantly, why I'm here. One man wondered so deeply they had to implement euthanasia to prevent any more suffering of that man. Why am I here? Oh yes, that's right, I have a tendency of putting people in danger.
"I hope you don't mind," said my mind. I had no idea how to respond to that. Might as well try.
"Mind what?" I cautiously pressed.
"Hahahaha, that's rich. I'm feeling kind of tired. I think I'll take a nap," said my brain.
"WAIT NO!" I petitioned. To no avail. Zzzzzz.
"Kyle," sang the doctor. Literally. "First question....have you ever been diagnosed for any problems dealing with your current health problem."
"No."
"Dang. Well, I got nothing."
"What do you mean you've got nothing."
"Well, if no one else was able to diagnose your problem, then I'm 98% sure I can't either."
"Okay...." I said as I slouched down into a ball of mental problems.
"Complementary toothpick?" He tried sounding helpful. The only thing he was helping was the mustache revolution.
It came time for my sleep study. Which was, as anticipated, cruel and unusual. Definitely more unusual than cruel. This might have to do with an award given a few months back, "most boring medical facilities." They ranked second. Right below the local monochromatic, monotone, and monotheist gynecology lab. Dull, dull, dull. The sleep medicine center was pulling out all the stops to become "fresh," as my doctor failed to describe it.
"Now," said the doctor, "we are going to begin tonight's festivities with an unofficial news program.
The lights dimmed and the plastic-looking news anchors took their places to provide a boring subject in a less boring way.
"Welcome to channel seven and three-quarters. We're the Medical Journalists. Bringing you News every hour, on the hour, Unless we're late or don't feel like telling the news. And we're also exempt for Jamaican holidays, pet's birthday parties, imaginary biopsies, and any other occasions that we deem completely unnecessary. I'm Janice Fairweather."
"And I'm John "Pixie Stix" Wilson. We've got Bob Michigan here with us. Bob is going to tell us all about the lucky old gypsy man who won a party pack of syphilis in a BINGO competition. Hi Bob."
"Hi, thanks John. Alright, now back to you John."
"I actually just sent it to you Bob."
"And then I sent it back John."
"Take it or I'll set you on fire Bob."
"Received." Said Bob, "now back to you John."
This play of pathetic banter went on for an unnecessarily long time. It would have gone on longer had John not jammed his microphone down Bob's throat.
"Why am I here again?" I asked, knowing very well that I wasn't going to get a logical answer.
"You're not here." Said a voice.
"Then where am I?"
"You tell me."
"This game sucks."
"Well, that's not very nice."
"You're not even real. You're a stupid voice coming from a void, and that's all you'll ever amount to be."
After having dozens of wires attached to parts of my head that I didn't even know existed, I began the study. The word study alluded to a test immediately following. That test was only one of my patience. I slept for eight hours overnight with an indian guy sitting at my bedside staring at me during the night. I thought it was creepy. I thought it was even more creepy when I woke up in the middle of a crime scene and the indian man was kneeling on the ground in handcuffs. "I wonder if I passed the test?" I wondered.
This is going in my giant bin of things I don't want to take a part in ever again. Now, if anyone asks you to take part in a sleep study. Hide your kids, hide your wife, hide your husband.
And just remember children, that there are no coincidences in a made up story.
-Economically,
Kyle
For the past couple of months, I have worked furious and furiously at producing my first mini novel, "Robert Daisy and His Future Neighbors." It is, up to this point, the highlight of my writing career. I am going to share a piece of this work with you. I plan on submitting it for publication within the next month or so. I hope you enjoy. Also, stay tuned next Monday and Wednesday for some great experiences from my life. Bon Appetit.
Robert Daisy and His Future Neighbors
Kyle Jacobson
PART I: ROBERT DAISY
The sun tried to warn the world. The world didn’t listen.
Who knew that the end of the human race would fall on a Thursday? This Thursday, actually. If anyone did know, it surely wasn't Robert Daisy. He didn't have many ideas at all, especially about the end of the human race.
PART I: CHAPTER I
Drool began to seep onto a pile of freshly printed papers; papers that happened to be Robert’s presentation for the meeting that he was currently in. The drool ran over such words as “shovel” and “immediate”. Robert hadn’t a clue about the vigilante saliva. He was asleep.
“Robert”, said an excessively large and slightly obtuse man standing over him at the mahogany table, “ROBERT!”
“Whiafu?!” Robert seemed completely startled and oblivious to his current situation. He had no idea what was going on. He let out a yawn. A pause. A little yawn. Then a second pause for dramatic effect. Now, if anyone were to ask him what he thought was going on currently, he might have said something along the lines of, “I’m uncertain that I’m not living in a false reality where my friends really aren’t my friends and I’m the target of some sort of futuristic governmental conspiracy.” He could not have been more right, but nobody did ask him.
Mr. Obtuse stood and stared. He stared for as long as it would take. He always stared for as long as it would take. For example, last Tuesday, when his car broke down, he only just stared. The car apologized, in writing, and then quickly started and filled itself with gas for the obtuse man’s inconvenience.
Robert repositioned himself, reviewed some notes, and slipped off into a blank stare towards the right hand corner of his presentation. The word presentation bounced around a few times in his head, then circled about with large signs representing their strike over such an unfair brain to be working for. Ideas have become so headstrong over the years. Presentation.
Mr. Obtuse continued to stare.
“Why is blubber boy still staring?” Robert mused. “Doesn’t he have something better to do, like give a presentation? Or maybe grow his mustache a little more on the left side of his face to catch up with the right side?” Robert’s thoughts circled, and then picked up momentum.
It wasn’t until Robert wiped the, hopefully unnoticed, drool from the tip of his presentation that within his average-sized brain a neuron fired and as some say, “a light bulb went off.” Except, this light bulb brought no light, no vision, no joy, and definitely no warmth. It brought only shame, embarrassment, and cold. It was his turn to give the presentation.
Now, Robert had always been a highly charismatic guy. But, even the best smooth talkers have a point of no return. He stumbled to the front of the room. But not after he inadvertently pushed a chair over which knocked the fake fern into Sara, the intern, who became blinded by a wave of plastic foliage along with some overlooked cobwebs. And only after tripping over a few other, slightly less important people than Sara and, after accidentally making fun of three of the companies chairmen, Robert made it to the front of the decreasingly large room. The light from the projector found it’s spot in his cornea. It became hard to see and even harder not to imagine an interrogation room. Robert’s heart began to beat like waves bashing against a littered beach. A bead of sweat travelled down premature wrinkle lines. Robert paused. Robert breathed. Robert began his presentation. It’s very unlucky for Robert that he day dreamed and even unluckier that he had sweaty palms. He could feel the heat of the projector light staring at him, not unlike the way Mr. Obtuse liked to stare. Now Mr. Obtuse was just fiddling. Not really with anything. Just fiddling. And Robert was nervous.
***Not less than 2 hours later***
Robert’s presentation had ended over an hour ago. He sat in his leathery chair, listening to Mr. Obtuse drone on and on.
The seconds slowed as the last minute remained on his “longer than life” shift this Wednesday afternoon. Robert continued to sit and stare, not necessarily in that order. The clock stopped at three seconds to five. He could not believe this, the second time this week. The first time the clock froze just before leaving time, obviously a Monday, was quickly waved off as a crazed-excuse to go home early by Robert, and probably due to Robert’s overactive imagination. He closed his mouth, fuming with regrets, bad words slithering across his molars, just itching to shoot out of his mouth and splatter on the expensive-looking tie of Mr. Obtuse. He mimed that he was locking his mouth and throwing away the key in order to prevent himself from letting the bad words slip out. Little did Robert know that his mouth loathed him when he did such things. It was so demeaning.
***Ten minutes and five seconds after the clock was fixed.***
Robert drove not knowing where he was going; his hand-crafted motorcycle spitting out licorice as he hit some potholes. It was not a surprise that it was spitting out delicious candy pieces, since that was the way Robert designed it in the first place. Robert began his childhood taking apart almost everything that could be taken apart, such as televisions, fishing poles, chipmunk heads. He now spent the better half of his free time putting them all back together, just not how they were designed originally. He invented and created and shaped and formed the parts into applicable and partially useful items. For example, if one were to look closer at Robert’s hog, they would instantly realize that the main shaft belonged to a highly out of date Shop-Vac. No one ever did get that close to it because it had about as much aesthetic appeal as an upside down picture of the letter “X”.
Robert’s bike was named Steal Maxwell; it was not named after anyone even slightly important. These "toys" of his were what gave him comfort, in place of friends and healthy relationships. Relationships which he always seemed to screw up with his complete and utter lack of potential and his unusual manner of staring into the eyes of his dates. Some said it was "creepy", others said it was "extremely creepy," the way he would stare. It might have also been that Robert was always searching for something; something that seemed so distant; so removed from his life. He was never fully there. That’s one of the reasons why he began so many different hobbies. He was looking for something, he just didn't know what. There was no way he could have known that the thing he was looking for was named Emily, or that she lived in Connecticut, or that she had never eaten a strawberry.
Robert blasted the throttle into a speed not recognized by most humans, 7 MPH. He tried dirt roads and cruised freeways; storm drains and stoplights. Nowhere that Robert went, seemed to fill the void of self-inflicted loneliness that plagued him so intimately. He was not a proactive man; he liked to wait for good things to happen. Now look where he was: Working full-time for white supremacists in a small branch of the marketing wing of “Folddables Inc.”. The same white supremacists who desire nothing more than to drink stale soda and laugh at pictures of kittens with humorous text attached. Sometimes Robert wondered that if he were using just ten percent of his brain, how much they were using during such activities. He estimated a number close to, but not reaching, .02889402%. And after analyzing such things, Robert placed them in the “not so important” file in his brain. He began to wonder if he really enjoyed life. “It’s better than the prospect of death,” he reasoned.
He was regretfully brought back into reality by the noises “Steal Maxwell” made. The noises somewhat soothed him. The hard clicking noise that pumped rhythm through Robert’s arteries made him feel calm, relaxed. The oscillating crunches caused by the radiator caused his brain to dance a beautifully metaphorical waltz in his frontal lobe. And Robert especially loved the constant screeching noise-a noise that sounds very similar to when a group of vultures finds a broken down bus full of fat people in the Mohave desert. Though even with the compilation of the soothing noises of his bike, he had no idea why he felt so conflicted inside, he tried to shake it off, but the feelings didn’t wish to leave. He jammed the throttle to an eardrum-destroying 8.2 MPH. And with the speed, went his problems. Or so he thought.
The sun said to Robert, “good evening sir, it is currently 7:36pm, I hope you enjoy the rest of your extremely short time left alive.” Robert clearly didn’t understand a word that the sun tried to tell him, because Robert only speaks a rudimentary form of English and not "Sun." Robert had mistaken this warning as what he would later call an "unusually hot day for April."
There's the first chapter. I'll be able to give out the rest once it's been published.
Transpeciatedly,
Kyle
The child was born without sight. He entered into the world without a single image of mother or father and no hope for recovery. His parents were originally frightened for the difficulties that lay ahead, until they saw a billboard with the words, "Yes you can," written in a font that by itself could motivate a river to become a slightly larger river. They took this billboard as a sign, to help their son become anything he wanted to become. Tears filled their eyes as "yes you can" filled their minds. For the first time in this young boy's life, he heard the words "yes you can."
I am in the middle of a custody battle for my brain. My body claims rights to access the information that lie within, while my job requests my brain in order to work long, draining hours, in a cubicle the size of a shoebox, since brains "don't take up that much space". I have no idea why they would want just my brain, but it's up to the courts to determine if they do receive any sort of settlement. The hearing went as follows:
I resent anyone who prefers the taste of diamond patterned polyester over plain printed silk. It shows a lack of etiquette if you ask me. The man glared at me, but missed, hitting a newly-trained temp in the right shoulder.
Raul escaped out the back door of a cloud. The one closest to the earth's surface, seven thousand feet away. Everything was great until he realized that clouds don't have back doors and he was now in the process of falling. Fast. Raul thought of what he should be yelling. He recognized that the first item of business to address in the afterlife would surely be his death. He had to make a good first impression with the dead. They must have some sort of influence there. He wondered if he died on the earth's surface, would he go to landwalker heaven? or if there were different heavens for sky and land people? He realized that this might not be the best time to ask such questions and he returned to his rehearsed yelling. He assuredly became bored of this and began to count seconds, equally boring. "I wasn't aware of any problems with filling time while falling. I always thought it just sort of happened and then was over." Raul tried to argue. No one was around with a sarcastic rebuttal, except maybe the wind. The wind rushed passed him, mockingly showing their freedom and most of all independence of gravity. Any form of autonomy rubbed Raul the wrong way. "It's just the start of anarchy," he would reason, "why don't we all just become presidents of ourselves?" It was thinking like this that proved to the chairmen that Raul was the perfect candidate for king. They had no idea what he meant by such sentences, but they sounded...intelligent. Let's return to Raul, who is still falling. "AHHHHHHH!" He screamed. His screams, dying thin as his vocal chords became stiff from the amount of screaming that he screamed. And Raul wasn't normally a screamer, just more of a shouter, or dramatic voice escalator. 
I walked the walk. I talked the talk. That didn't seem to work. I did the only thing I knew to do in that moment: I walked the talk and I talked the walk. All who were in the proximity to see such a marvelous gesture stared. Some didn't last long; their brains imploded. If you stare at awesome for longer than the amount of awesome that you have inside of you, your brain will implode. Your brain cannot process any more awesome than you possess. It's an almost proven fact.
