Visit to the Punctuation Hospital

I just got back from a punctuation hospital. As I dashed in, I had to take a long pause because my friend was in a comma. Then the doctor had to explain further that my friend might have to be put into braces, or even brackets. That disturbed me so much I tried a door to get some fresh air. Instead, I stumbled upon this weird ward that they only use for people who dress in Santa outfits. All the patients worked as freelance Saint Nicks, but all suffered from Santa related injuries. Their rooms were connected by semi-colons, because semi-colons connect independent clauses.

I went back to my car to find a ticket on my car. While they wanted me to immediately pay the fine, the police really wanted to de-emphasize the reason for fining me. That's right.... I got a parenthetical citation.


                             

Be careful... THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!

Midnight Talks that Redefine

Maybe it was because I had never seen that much liquid spewing out of my face, but afterward, I felt invincible. Bulletproof. Like Super fucking Mario had eaten a sparkling star, ready to go tame Yoshi and make baby Italian plumbers with the Princess behind the castle. 

After scaling two wooden fences, drop kicking two yapping poodles and a furry creature that looked like a fox had shagged one of those bicycling Mormons, I threw handfuls of gravel at her window for what seemed like hours. 

“She’s asleep,” I thought, still chucking rocks, “This was stupid… I’m…” 

My thoughts were interrupted by a loud “OUCH!” 

A perfect face peaked out of the window. Even though I had dreamed of this moment since I was ten, I didn’t dream beaning her nose. Somehow, it made it more beautiful. 

“Who’s there?” she called out, sounding more scared than I planned in my dreams.

I wrote an epic speech confessing my love, using Shakespeare and video game metaphors, but I threw up on it on the way over. So I stood there in my plastic knight helmet, staring at her serious, but soft, brown eyes. 

After a silence that I’m sure was heard from Jupiter, I found my balls and my voice, “Oh… um… hey Sam…”

Her voice wavered, “Who’s…?”

“IT IS I!” I blurted, trying to ignore the slurring in my speech.

“What?” she asked, sounding more scared than impressed.

“Um… it… it’s Pablo.”

“Who… What? Look, I don’t know who you are, but if you don’t get out of here, I’m going to call the cops… or worse…”

“No… look Sam…”

“I have them on speed dial…”

“No,” I protested, “Seriously, Sam…”

“I’m going to call them right…”

“Sam, seriously… please don’t,” I stammered.

“Sam,” she said to the night, “Sam… no one has called me that since… since…”

“I know, you prefer Samantha now. But I… I remember you as Sam. ‘Member, you and I used to cross the highway we weren’t supposed to and play pinball and drink Slurpees until our brains froze? ‘Member have burping contests in the back parking lot of Food Lion? ‘Member when you called me ‘Gordito’ and I’d get pissed off and you’d say sorry and offer me those crappy ice popsicles? Don’t you remember in high school when your dad died and you started to get boyfriends and you told me about how they’d go into your bedroom and…”

“Oh… Pablo…heeeey…” her voice dropped, “What…what the hell are you doin’ here?”

“I just… was… in the neighborhood and…”

“Your mom moved eight miles away... and your dad is still in jail…”

“Yeah… um… shoot…”

“Well… what do you want? And why the hell are you wearing a plastic knight helmet?”

Feeling like a total douche, I ripped off my plastic helmet and chucked it on the wet lawn, “Look, I was playing D and D, and some chick was there. We never get girls to play, so everyone was flirting and making up stuff to impress her. And she reminded me of you. ‘Cept she was fat… and had a unibrow… anyway, I was getting ready to smote her and win for the night when she offered me some beer. As much as I hate getting out of character, I’ve never had a girl offer me anything like that. We drank one, and then two… and that’s when it got all fuzzy. Next thing I remember, she was smacking me with her bag of dice and yelling, ‘Just do it! Just do it already!’ 

I was like, ‘do what?’ and she kept pulling my hands over her… and I just... started laughing and…” my voice trailed off.

“You what?”

“I just… I guess realized that I didn’t want to be another guy. Another chump who wanted to get laid, yanno? Then I remembered all the nights in middle school laying on my driveway staring at the stars telling me how your dad used to... and…I just… I just wanted to say that I… I l-like y-you.”

“You LIKE me?” she snorted.

“Yeah…” I said, “I like you. You’ve always been the coolest girl I’ve known. Even after you got popular, I still knew you are a punk rocker at heart… even when they teased you… and I just…” my head dropped even lower, “…Yeah… I like you Samantha Cooper. I like you a lot. I always have.” 

When I finished, all the air fell out of my lungs. I looked up again and I saw her better in the light. Her face was smeared with green avocado scrub, her long wet hair tied up in a towel, and her fuzzy blue bathrobe made her look so vulnerable. 

“You look adorable,” I said, feeling pathetic.

“You’re kidding right?” she said staring down at me with those perfect brown eyes, “Look… you’re real sweet… and I do remember… really, I do. Those were some good times…” she said, looking off into the distance. She sighed, “You want to come up?”

My eyes got bigger than ever before, “You’re serious?”

“I ain’ gonna ask twice,” she said disappearing and returning to throw her bed sheet out of the window. 

Using the sheet to climb up the wall was harder than it looks in the movies. I tore all the Virginia creeper off the wall, maneuvered around some windows, and finally placed one foot on the ledge. However, while I tried to get both my legs over, I slipped and landed balls first on the balcony. After placing an icepack on my crotch for an hour (and a few giggles), we laid out on the on her floor talking about old times, air guitared to the Clash, and looked at each other face-to-face, remembering what it’s like to feel understood.

A Story of Laughter or Brain Damage

Every time I look at you I think, “Man, was I ever that good looking?”

To which you will say, “Why, you had to be. You’re my father.”

To which I will reply, “THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK! You were adopted.”

To which you will reply, “THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK! I was an adoption cover up so that way you’d accept responsibility for your own son.”

To which I will say, “THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK! I worked in counter intelligence! The information you received about your adoption was FAKED!”

To which you will reply, “THAT’S WHAT YOU THINK! I worked in counter-counter intelligence! That fake adoption was FAKED!”

To which I will say, “BLIMEY! I have a double double agent in my midst.”

To which you will say, “I AM VICTORIOUS! Now wipe my bottom, Father.”

I know Jackie... it hurts me too...

Writing is like Controlled Schizophrenia

Someone asked me why I write fiction. I think I tried to say something cool like, “It connects people” or “I like to create worlds” or “Chicks dig it”. But really, I think it’s because I've been crazy lonely.

           

           When I was taught how to write short stories, I was told to know the characters so intimately, you can carry on a conversation with them. To me, this sounded like controlled schizophrenia, complete with a permanent residency at the Bates’ Motel. 

However, the more I got into the lives of the characters I created, the more fun I had with it. My first character was a womanizing, smokin’, black party guy from the Bronx. Coming from me who was (at the time) a goodie-two-shoes white boy from Texas who greatly respected women (and still do), it shocked me. I got an A on the assignment and my teacher wrote: “I don’t want Sean [my character] to live on my street, but I do want to go bowling with him!”

  I remember staring at the assignment in shock afterwards thinking:

Where the heck did that come from?

For some reason, being able to write/think/speak new ideas from another person's perspective gave me permission to feel thing that I once thought was my “weird”. Don’t get me wrong: I still feel insecure at times. Even though I have many friends that are girls, I still silently freak out when I have feelings for them. And while I don’t claim to understand all the things in my life, sometimes life is just easier to understand when it happens to other people (even if some of those people are made up in your head).

When I create characters to write about, I am free to discover and confront pockets of emotions that I’m uncomfortable with: like the fact that I don’t have a working plan with my life right now, that I don’t really have a place to call “home” yet, and even though I genuinely endorse my beliefs, there are times where I am tempted to say “@#$% it” and go live in a trailer with all of my imaginary friends.

Well, they said we could have it...

But by some miracle, writing this way makes me appreciate the quirks of the people around me. People in my life usually morph their way into the characters of my writing and I am forced to see where they fit in the story of my life. I have to see where there good and dark spots are, and empathize with their stories as well.

In short, writing fiction allows me to appreciate people for all that they are, and therefore allows me to love my neighbor. 

What do you think? Why do you write?