I’ve been holding onto these…

——

STRAND
My Train of Concentration had derailed in a small township known as Grey Mattersville. It’s located directly behind the big graveyard.  The one where my optic nerves are buried.

The once insect-like flicker of the lighting had evolved.  My attention span was soon reduced to a single strand of mozzarella clinging to its Pizza Mother as the horrible, penetrating, Hydrogen Bomb Hand of God dispassionately lifted away a slice for consumption within his drop-ceiling heavens.

CONE
It was a ‘normal’ Thursday when I woke up, but somewhere between the ice cream machine and the donkey, Thursday took on a new, more colorful adjective. At least I have a vanilla-choco swirl cone.

MARKER
As the projectile made it’s instantaneous journey through my guts, a thousand moments passed. Each following the next acted as a marker indicating an invisible dotted line stretching from the tip of her revolver, through me and into the now blood-speckled wall behind me.

POKE
Jumpers almost always remove their glasses before taking the plunge of a rooftop. I admire that. I wouldn’t want the broken glass ground into my freshly hamburgered face either. With my luck, my autopsy would be performed by the one half-retarded coroner in the state and I’d be declared an accidental death. Or worse, a murder. There needs to be zero doubt that I wanted anything other than to die by my own hand or all of this means nothing.

And another thing… those jumpers have the right idea. This shit is taking forever. More cuts would probably expedite the process, but I hadn’t predicted how slippery the blade would become after switching hands.

Listen to me. My life is rapidly shitting out of my arms and all I can do is complain. I mean, it’s two steps. 1. Poke self with knife. 2. Die.

I can’t even die right. And where did the knife go?

Damn it all to hell, I can’t see shit without my glasses on.

HIP
The nursing home is on the phone telling me mom has fallen out of her bed again. Says this is the third time this month. Says the words “shattered” and “hip”.

My first thought is that mom doesn’t have health insurance. The second is wondering if my first thought should have been about her health and not her insurance. The third, I think I forgot to brush my teeth this morning and that doctor is kind of cute.

PEPPERMINT
I’m cleaning off the retarded kid while thrashing my short-term memory for the location of my cigarettes. God, I feel sorry for this kid. Not because he’s stuck in this place. Not because he’s stuck with embarassed parents that only visit twice a year. My pity for him is deeper than that. The poor guy will never have a job. He’ll never have sex. He’ll never be able to read a book. The limits of his accomplishment are eating all the candy out of the visitor’s bowl and stinking of wet dog and peppermint.

As soon as this kid’s hosed off I’m walking next door and smoking at least two full squares.  God does not exist.

VENUS
Our mouths split the atoms in the room with a chain reactive cadence. Spastic breaths escape between the slippery melting pot of saliva and sweat and flesh. She wants to be my Venus. Her Mars? That’s me. Too bad I’m not in the same solar system. I’m out charting new planetary bodies.

ENVY
After the doctor tells me I can go, I spend another hour trying to remember how pants work. For that matter, what are pants? I leave the office, a young woman in tow, yelling something about a bill. There’s something familiar about her and for a moment I consider turning around to conduct research. But only for a moment.

Eventually I find my car. I spend an hour trying to remember how cars work. For that matter, what are cars? An audience gathers to watch as I give the car oral commands. Open! Go! The car does not comply and my audience at how stupid it is.

Oh, how I envy my audience. They know what I’m doing wrong. If only I could know what I’m doing wrong. Maybe then I could do something right.

Wait. What are pants again?

——

© Eric Adams

Dear Sir/Madam,

Let’s cut through it.

I desire the position you desire to fill.

At the risk of sounding over-confident, I assure you my confidence is not ‘over’ and, well, here goes:

Among all the other candidates in the little stack before you, it is very likely that I am the most resourceful, the most efficient, the most organized, the highest skilled with the highest number of useful skills and mostly punctual. I say ‘mostly punctual’ because –let’s be honest– no one is perfect and if I have a fault it’s that I might be in 15 minutes late a day each week.

I have a degree in graphic design and while I do not refuse to share that information, I have consciously chosen to not include it on my enclosed resume. Frankly, believing there is any worth in weighing education against candidates for a graphic design position is nonsense as any design professional can tell you that one year of real experience is worth five years in college. I have ten years of experience.

To that end I have enclosed what really counts– my portfolio. One look through it is all you should need to make your decision, and in the unlikely event you feel my work doesn’t make the cut, I suspect it will at least impress you. That is, if my candor has not already.

Good luck in your search.

Sincerely,

Eric Adams

I found this site: www.oneword.com

It’s a writing tool. They give you a new word every day and 60 seconds to write anything about it. ANYTHING. Ideally the word inspires you. You don’t even have to use that word in your writing. You just have to write.

I’ve been doing it on and off for a few weeks and it’s a good exercise before I delve into writing something that’s actually important.

Here are a few of my better ones…
PANE
Rainwater collected inside the pane. The window installers told me that this wouldn’t happen, but of course installers are here to install things and collect money, not install things then re-install them correctly.

Seems everyone in this fucking country is trying to fuck everyone else. Sometimes in the crotch. But more often in the wallet.

BLONDE
In Ohio, I don’t see many blonde guys. Do they dye their hair? Does the ocean beckon them telepathically, turning them into surfers? I’m blonde. As is my entire family. Together, we just might be the blondest force in the midwest.

None of us have every been surfing.

PURPLE
My eyes throbbed with excrucuating terror. The whites become purple. The blacks became white. The salt was slowly melting away my ability to see. This is what I get for watching YTMND. I deserve to be punished.

LOCKED
The cat was taking its afternoon nap on the window sill when I heard a CLICK. Father had his gun. Frightened for my cat’s life, I leapt up from my chair and begged him to put it down.

Locked and loaded, father was determined to have his his revenge. I had poisoned his dog only two days previous.

OBSCURE
“Good god, man. How obscure is that reference?”.

I laughed. Pete had no idea that the reference was from a 1970′s conspiracy film about how milk is a waste by-product of cows – as opposed to it being a nourishing life juice for calves… and humans.

“You’ll just have to get used to it, Pete. I’m milking this for all it’s worth.”