K-P

Storm clouds linger and dampen the morning sky. Snow falls in clumps of lazy hail and it splatters on the ground like cascading frogs. The din of traffic clamors just outside your window. Cursing, impatient commuters pump their fists in the air and wave their middle fingers as if their hands were the hands of Moses, as if their hands could part this sea of aluminum and plastic and carbon dioxide as easily as they could part their hair. You begin to wonder: if thunder is God snoring, and rain is God crying, then this must be God hocking loogies on the world.

This is the way Monday begins: with groaning misery and the deafening roar of regret. Monday begins not with the rising sun, but with the early morning call of the alarm clock and the relief of bedsprings as you pull yourself together.

You're all popping joints and aching muscles, and you drink coffee: not one cup, but two. You pour cereal and eat it quickly before the milk takes over and turns the whole thing to mush. You don't shower. It doesn't matter; no one will notice and the secretary you think is so perfect has been avoiding your awkward stares lately. You watch TV in your boxers, calculating how long it will take to drive to work in this weather. You jerk off, then check the time (you can spare a minute), and jerk off again. You use baby oil because it feels better, and because coffee makes your mouth dry.

You wash your hands now, but using soap is too much of a hassle. You run your tongue across the sandstone contour of your teeth; you've forgotten to brush them, so you gurgle with water. It doesn't matter. No one will notice. You should've left already and you dress quickly from a pile of clothes on the floor, and that's when you realize you've lost your wallet and keys. You search frantically, promising tomorrow you'll be prepared. But tomorrow knows, and so does everyone else, that your promises aren't worth the air that carries them. You find your wallet on the kitchen table and your keys cowering in your coat pocket.

Now fly, boy, leave, and vamoose: your life won't wait for you.

erotic_cookie

It was an interesting read but I was a little confused when you changed the story from a general description to a personal point of veiw (I can't remember that proper name for it right now).

Just a personal note. Life can be a lot worse and this one isn't that bad at all.

K-P

Thanks. I think I should change the beginning... it's not needed, I think.

And, it's only supposed to be tragic in the sense that some lives are inescapably redundant. It's not even my life; it's just what I'm afraid my life might turn into.

Or, perhaps is it nowhere near interesting enough to be considered a story?

Chris Miller

Stories that begin with descriptions of weather often lose me. E.g. "It was a dark and stormy night." I guess they all strike me as cliche somehow. But you did such a good job I read on.

You jerk off with baby oil because coffee makes your mouth dry!? Holy shit! No wonder you can do it twice in a row. No wonder you don't bother to shower. Was this intentional, or just a really funny non sequitur?

Nice use of 2nd person. Tough POV. Worked here.

Really liked the tone, the dark humor. Be interested in seeing something a bit more fully developed from you. Writing I mean...

gurgle=gargle

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K-P

Hmm... if the baby oil / dry mouth thing isn't clear, I really don't wanna explain what I meant.
Thanks for the posts. I've been reading last year's Best Nonrequired Reading, and quite a few of the stories used the 2nd person perspective. I just wanted to take that style for a test drive.

Jimbob

K-P,
I liked this piece, particulary the first paragraph. It's hard to come up with a frersh way of describing weather, but I think you've done very well. I'm wondering if you got your inspiration for "like cascading frogs" from the movie, "Magnolia," which incorporates a rain of frogs into the story line.

Jimbob

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hirshmon

Overall it was pretty good - it had an EXCELLENT first paragraph and then it started to die down a little as it got more and more monotonous (which was probably your point).

It was very good in the department of description and a lot of it seemed very poetic.

But man, that first paragraph was excellent. I loved the simile with the middle finger and Moses, and I liked the juxtaposition of the frogs and Moses... I'm guessing that was an allusion to the ten plagues, otherwise it was just a bad analogy.

Changeling

"The snow falling in clumps of lazy hail" I didn't quite get what lazy hail was.
I loved the description of God hocking on the world, it encaptures a crappy monday morning perfectly.
The stuff about jerking off was funny as well as depressing, and unfortuantely - no matter what anyone else says, identifiable.
There is some good shit here. Tighten a bit and read it aloud to yourself to hear how it flows.
Get it sounding good enough and introduce a name and you have a start of a longer story. It isn't dissimilar to the start of American Beauty (in my top ten films)
Keep it up.

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cryptika

Hi K-P,

Wow, thanks for an entertaining and engaging read. I was a bit wary with the first sentence or two - like Chris Miller mentioned, stories that open with descriptions of the weather, well, I don't often like to go there , but you had me by the cursing commuters, and it only got better from there.

The third paragraph is hilarious ! Oh, I can just picture it in my head. Well I can't picture the baby oil / coffee, necessarily, nor am I sure I want to (!) - actually now, that I think about it - but it's humourous nonetheless.

And kudos to you for a great story in 2nd person POV, I don't think I could have pulled it off.