a shot story?
Krystan graduates from college today!! Congratulations!! We'll have her family here and then on Saturday at 7 we are having her graduation party at our house where we will have a fund raising room set up.
You can come in and take whatever you like and decide what you want to pay. Even if you don't want to pay anything. Please come and take our stuff!!!! (If you are our friend that is, no strangers!).
I know this is supposed to be about our move and all that, but I was cleaning up my computer here and i found this short story i read a long time ago at Will's Pub here in Orlando. I think it's an understatement how much that place effected my life. Who would ever think a bar would effect a straightedge kid...
As for the short story. I hope you like it, if you have a big enough attention span to read it:
She's bad at driving and at her worst under the gun. She's a squirmer, but only when she's caught. Blue eyes aren't the best pictures here. He sits beside her; he's holding his ticket in his hand. He has no bags and here is why:
He woke up at 5 am this very morning 4 hours before he needed to arrive at the airport. There was a pain in the back of his head and his eyes itched from a lot of things that didn't happen.
He told himself there was plenty of time to pack his bags, "There is plenty of time to pack my bags."
Instead at 5:17 he stepped into the shower, the water warmed his cold, it quieted his fear and it swept away the oil from his skin, which ran down a drain at the bottom of the shower, and he stood. He felt a chill coming in the water and still he stood. The cold water fell on his head and then he was covered in cold water and he stood.
He stood so long that the warm water came back and faded three more times. His fingers were pruned when he toweled himself dry and did not shave. His watch told him things. It told him when to eat, it told him when to work and it told him the best moments in life were up to someone else, for instance he was immediately due to arrive at the airport with only one hour before his plane left.
"I don't have time to pack!" he said.
She's bad at driving. I've already covered this. I feel like I shouldn't have to bring it up, but I guess you don't listen very well. She's bad at driving. It also bears noting that it's not that she is a clumsy driver (clumsy is not a sin), which is true she is not clumsy at all. However she lacks confidence. She lacks confidence in everything she does. However, she is very good at hiding her lack of confidence. If she only knew how good she was at that she might realize a certain amount of confidence for herself. But she doesn't, oh well: bad at driving, good at hiding!
Because she hides her confidence so well instead of letting out of herself naturally her low self-esteem finds it's own way out. It finds it's way out of the back of her brain, it moves around in her mouth in the early parts of the morning when it's the only time she might say something honest to herself (instead she brushes her teeth) then it jolts out her arms and down to her hands where it waits, shaking, shake, shook.
She merged onto the freeway by her house with no problems. There are no cars on the freeway at 5 in the morning where she lives. As she drives closer to town the traffic thickens. These other cars are not friends at a party, they are invaders to her home, (uninvited!) please don't spill the beer on the rug and smoke outside. As the cars close in the panic moves from her hands and into the steering wheel and down the gas pedal. She sees slow cars in front of her but because she is no longer in control she does not change lanes. The cars rush by her like fighter jets going horribly wrong at an air show. The tires scream by on the asphalt like a thousand souls in purgatory. Don't move anything! You know this will be the crash we all watch on the evening news!
The newscaster goes:
"This just in, a four hundred and thirty-five car pile up has halted traffic in this fair city. Choppers are standing by.
"Yes! Choppers here, I'm flying high above the city and I can no longer see the reason why! I can see clearly from here how useless the morning commute a half hour early so that everyone knows that I'm on time to work and the purposefully late commute home to my wife who's just fucked the palates instructor only ten minutes before really is." I can see an angel's hand full of cars spread across the road like Vincent Van Gogh's biggest mistake with a paintbrush."
"Chopper? Can you see any survivors?"
"Yes Brock! I can see! I can see the hands rising from the wreckage. They're reaching for me! I can feel their voices just beyond the heat of the fires. Brock standby, I'm going to jump down and see if I can pull her out." And The Chopper himself stepped out of the helicopter and landed on their windshields like a giant raindrop.
Giant raindrops were falling on her window; at 5:45 in the morning she passed her exit. The carnage outside her window was tooooo much to take. She passed her exit four more times before the road was clear enough for her to merge. I wish I could tell you she no longer panick-ed. However the parking garage was a newscast of an entire different political view.
So she's a squirmer; but only when she's caught. Blue eyes aren't the best pictures here. He sits beside her; he's holding his ticket in his hand. He has baggage and here is why:
Six months and three days prior he lived in a house that had two stories, three bedrooms, one converted to a home office and one a guest bedroom the dog always slept in and the garage had two cars and a lot more room. There was a young wife in the dining room hooked to ventilators and machines that bleeped and another one that he swears to god sounded like ticking clock.
Tick, tick, tock.
He read her a book one time where a man had found a woman in a dream world and stole her from it. But because the man and woman in the book were very in love and always afraid that someone would come and take her back to dreams they grew thick dreadlocks. They braided the dreadlocks together, eventually the dreadlocks bonded permanently. He thought it was a beautiful story.
When they told them she was sick, he grew his hair. He stopped washing it. He used wax and lighters and everything he could. When she past away he did not call the ambulance for 45 minutes. Here is why:
He wanted to shave his head.
She sits in the airport because she doesn't want to be scared anymore. He sits in the airport because he doesn't want to be scared any more. It seems that somewhere else makes most people feel brave (and this is the part of the story when arrogant people conclude this is about them).
Next to them stand a man and his family. There is a baby, there is a wife, and there is a shit load of luggage. This morning when the man carried his family's luggage down stairs and into airport shuttles he cursed his family. "Did you pack the whole goddamned house?" But he only asked under his breath so no one would hear. He said a lot of things that he didn't want people to hear. Sometimes people heard anyway. One time he was on air up high above the city in a helicopter telling a man in a studio about the current events in traffic. The man thought he had heard the all clear from his producer and then turned to his pilot and said, "I'd like to piss on this whole city, and I bet I could from here."
He had said it live on the air. Two weeks later his boss recommended the man take some time off, "Take some time off, when you get back we'll all sit down and evaluate the situation."
Mostly the man was afraid he was going to be fired. He was afraid he would lose his pension. Shit!
The family sat on their bags, and the girl sat in her seat with a false confidence and he sat in his seat not sure where he was going. The attendant called their numbers one at a time and they passed through the gateway like they were walking out of purgatory right into heaven. I'm pretty sure Sir Galahad was there watching with a smile! Angels played harps as flight attendants all dressed in white closed doors and passed out sample peanuts. Pilots sounded just like the Metatron passing the word down. Please fasten your safety restraints, and restrain from smoking, We have clear skies ahead and we should reach our destination about a half an hour early," and later, "To your right you can see the apathy of a nation fading into the ruins of a profiteering metropolis, to your left will be our untimely death."
"This just in, a fiery crash has stopped a nation. In the years to come we will tell this story so out of proportion that these victims will become legends. They will be painted like heroes and instead of johns and hookers, janitors and executives who don't flush. Assholes who can't be bothered by wet paint signs and maybe one seven-year-old child free of sin only moments before. The truth about people will be buried under bedroom pillows in favor of copyrights on mediocrity and blockbusters that will win critics choice by default."
You can come in and take whatever you like and decide what you want to pay. Even if you don't want to pay anything. Please come and take our stuff!!!! (If you are our friend that is, no strangers!).
I know this is supposed to be about our move and all that, but I was cleaning up my computer here and i found this short story i read a long time ago at Will's Pub here in Orlando. I think it's an understatement how much that place effected my life. Who would ever think a bar would effect a straightedge kid...
As for the short story. I hope you like it, if you have a big enough attention span to read it:
She's bad at driving and at her worst under the gun. She's a squirmer, but only when she's caught. Blue eyes aren't the best pictures here. He sits beside her; he's holding his ticket in his hand. He has no bags and here is why:
He woke up at 5 am this very morning 4 hours before he needed to arrive at the airport. There was a pain in the back of his head and his eyes itched from a lot of things that didn't happen.
He told himself there was plenty of time to pack his bags, "There is plenty of time to pack my bags."
Instead at 5:17 he stepped into the shower, the water warmed his cold, it quieted his fear and it swept away the oil from his skin, which ran down a drain at the bottom of the shower, and he stood. He felt a chill coming in the water and still he stood. The cold water fell on his head and then he was covered in cold water and he stood.
He stood so long that the warm water came back and faded three more times. His fingers were pruned when he toweled himself dry and did not shave. His watch told him things. It told him when to eat, it told him when to work and it told him the best moments in life were up to someone else, for instance he was immediately due to arrive at the airport with only one hour before his plane left.
"I don't have time to pack!" he said.
She's bad at driving. I've already covered this. I feel like I shouldn't have to bring it up, but I guess you don't listen very well. She's bad at driving. It also bears noting that it's not that she is a clumsy driver (clumsy is not a sin), which is true she is not clumsy at all. However she lacks confidence. She lacks confidence in everything she does. However, she is very good at hiding her lack of confidence. If she only knew how good she was at that she might realize a certain amount of confidence for herself. But she doesn't, oh well: bad at driving, good at hiding!
Because she hides her confidence so well instead of letting out of herself naturally her low self-esteem finds it's own way out. It finds it's way out of the back of her brain, it moves around in her mouth in the early parts of the morning when it's the only time she might say something honest to herself (instead she brushes her teeth) then it jolts out her arms and down to her hands where it waits, shaking, shake, shook.
She merged onto the freeway by her house with no problems. There are no cars on the freeway at 5 in the morning where she lives. As she drives closer to town the traffic thickens. These other cars are not friends at a party, they are invaders to her home, (uninvited!) please don't spill the beer on the rug and smoke outside. As the cars close in the panic moves from her hands and into the steering wheel and down the gas pedal. She sees slow cars in front of her but because she is no longer in control she does not change lanes. The cars rush by her like fighter jets going horribly wrong at an air show. The tires scream by on the asphalt like a thousand souls in purgatory. Don't move anything! You know this will be the crash we all watch on the evening news!
The newscaster goes:
"This just in, a four hundred and thirty-five car pile up has halted traffic in this fair city. Choppers are standing by.
"Yes! Choppers here, I'm flying high above the city and I can no longer see the reason why! I can see clearly from here how useless the morning commute a half hour early so that everyone knows that I'm on time to work and the purposefully late commute home to my wife who's just fucked the palates instructor only ten minutes before really is." I can see an angel's hand full of cars spread across the road like Vincent Van Gogh's biggest mistake with a paintbrush."
"Chopper? Can you see any survivors?"
"Yes Brock! I can see! I can see the hands rising from the wreckage. They're reaching for me! I can feel their voices just beyond the heat of the fires. Brock standby, I'm going to jump down and see if I can pull her out." And The Chopper himself stepped out of the helicopter and landed on their windshields like a giant raindrop.
Giant raindrops were falling on her window; at 5:45 in the morning she passed her exit. The carnage outside her window was tooooo much to take. She passed her exit four more times before the road was clear enough for her to merge. I wish I could tell you she no longer panick-ed. However the parking garage was a newscast of an entire different political view.
So she's a squirmer; but only when she's caught. Blue eyes aren't the best pictures here. He sits beside her; he's holding his ticket in his hand. He has baggage and here is why:
Six months and three days prior he lived in a house that had two stories, three bedrooms, one converted to a home office and one a guest bedroom the dog always slept in and the garage had two cars and a lot more room. There was a young wife in the dining room hooked to ventilators and machines that bleeped and another one that he swears to god sounded like ticking clock.
Tick, tick, tock.
He read her a book one time where a man had found a woman in a dream world and stole her from it. But because the man and woman in the book were very in love and always afraid that someone would come and take her back to dreams they grew thick dreadlocks. They braided the dreadlocks together, eventually the dreadlocks bonded permanently. He thought it was a beautiful story.
When they told them she was sick, he grew his hair. He stopped washing it. He used wax and lighters and everything he could. When she past away he did not call the ambulance for 45 minutes. Here is why:
He wanted to shave his head.
She sits in the airport because she doesn't want to be scared anymore. He sits in the airport because he doesn't want to be scared any more. It seems that somewhere else makes most people feel brave (and this is the part of the story when arrogant people conclude this is about them).
Next to them stand a man and his family. There is a baby, there is a wife, and there is a shit load of luggage. This morning when the man carried his family's luggage down stairs and into airport shuttles he cursed his family. "Did you pack the whole goddamned house?" But he only asked under his breath so no one would hear. He said a lot of things that he didn't want people to hear. Sometimes people heard anyway. One time he was on air up high above the city in a helicopter telling a man in a studio about the current events in traffic. The man thought he had heard the all clear from his producer and then turned to his pilot and said, "I'd like to piss on this whole city, and I bet I could from here."
He had said it live on the air. Two weeks later his boss recommended the man take some time off, "Take some time off, when you get back we'll all sit down and evaluate the situation."
Mostly the man was afraid he was going to be fired. He was afraid he would lose his pension. Shit!
The family sat on their bags, and the girl sat in her seat with a false confidence and he sat in his seat not sure where he was going. The attendant called their numbers one at a time and they passed through the gateway like they were walking out of purgatory right into heaven. I'm pretty sure Sir Galahad was there watching with a smile! Angels played harps as flight attendants all dressed in white closed doors and passed out sample peanuts. Pilots sounded just like the Metatron passing the word down. Please fasten your safety restraints, and restrain from smoking, We have clear skies ahead and we should reach our destination about a half an hour early," and later, "To your right you can see the apathy of a nation fading into the ruins of a profiteering metropolis, to your left will be our untimely death."
"This just in, a fiery crash has stopped a nation. In the years to come we will tell this story so out of proportion that these victims will become legends. They will be painted like heroes and instead of johns and hookers, janitors and executives who don't flush. Assholes who can't be bothered by wet paint signs and maybe one seven-year-old child free of sin only moments before. The truth about people will be buried under bedroom pillows in favor of copyrights on mediocrity and blockbusters that will win critics choice by default."