Stories Inside

These stories are in my head.

They don’t come out normally. They don’t say hi unless they have to, they don’t have proper manners outside of tribal feasts, and they only present themselves at the most inappropriate times and in the most inappropriate situations.

They dress themselves.

The only time that I can get them to show themselves to someone other than my feeble psyche is that strange, awkward time between 3:15 and 3:32, when you begin to think that once you’re free you really will be able to see your wishes come true at 3:33 on the dot and the fact that it’s half-evil only means it’s double good. The number of the Beast follows strange rules at this time, becoming more a symbol of luck and potential rather than danger, edginess, or even material effectiveness. It’s a symbol, that’s all it is, but it has power all the same when you’re half-drunk on caffeine, sensory overload, and that strange feeling that the words on the screen of your computer monitor, notebook paper, or particular Men’s bathroom stall are moving independently and fleeing from your fingers/pen/pencil/blood-soaked bone-tool decidedly towards either periphery of your bleary vision.

So the stories are pretty picky, to say the least. But I’ve decided to force them. I’m showing you. That’s the writer’s work. Perhaps they’ll lose their magic when they find themselves out in the terrible world, exposed to the critical eye and the existence of both Hershey Bliss Chocolate Bunnies and Sour Starburst Jellybeans being given consecutively as gifts for Easter (formerly a time reserved for feasting, now reserved for slowly dissolving pieces of sugar in hydrochloric acid both in-and-outside of human stomachs) and, failing that, Halloween (my favorite time of year, especially for the months-old candy and hope of potentially causing caffeine-induced heart attacks, which is a story I will tell you when you’re older chillun’) and, having been left-over from that wondrous time, finally for Christmas (from resurrection to birth quite untouched, not unlike Jesus) which is when they will be finally gobbled up by unknowing children and adventurous adults alike and exist forevermore as a possible carcinogen, not unlike the stories themselves.

One can only hope that each of these stories will bloom into beautiful little tumorous bulbs.

Nevertheless, I’m showing you them in this small collection of recollections of collected curios and curiosities. I hope you find them interesting.

Welcome to the show.