Now I really don't know if any of this is good, but I am trying something different. It's more of the writing for writings sake kind of thing, but trying to do it enough to get in the groove. Usually about 5 hours is what it takes, but I don't have 5 hours.
“What are you going to do when the machine runs out? You can’t reload the thing, and they won’t reload it for you if it isn’t out in the hall. You’re going to have to put sodas in the fridge, like a reasonable human being.”
“I am just going to put it back in the hallway for a day, that’s ok. Then it’s coming right back in here with me. Think of it, unlimited soda.”
Outside in the hallway, the two masked guards took their breaks. One removed his mask and the other kept his on, remaining completely silent.
“I know it’s you in there, Marcus.” The unmasked guard said. His long red hair flowed elegantly, a cowlick in the front giving him plenty of volume, and he looked a little like one of the guys who dies in Braveheart.
Marcus didn’t respond, standing stoically with a guardlike posture.
“You’re on BREAK, Marcus. If the Remingtons come through, they are going to think you are working. They are going to make you go outside and shoot down one of those flying bird things again. Or, worse yet, you are going to have to fix the bridge. Me, I don’t have my mask on. Look at me. I look like I’m on break. Because I am on break.”
Sargeant Marx poked his head out of his office and craned his head around the door.
“Phil, shut it.” He said. He had an ostensible seriousness about him, and he slowly pulled his head back into the room. Marcus turned around and saw something in the room that Phil couldn’t see from his vantage point. The door shut.
“Look, I’m not that mad at you about what happened… wait who was he talking to in there?” Phil put his ear up to the door but heard nothing.
“You think too much.” The doctor said, pointing a little black stick at a wallsized chart. He gestured indiscriminately at the white lines flying willy nilly on the black background.
“Are you sure that’s what it’s saying?” Jerry asked with furrowed brows.
“That’s all it could mean. This test discovers whether or not you’re thinking too much, and you most certainly are.”
“Well, what am I supposed to do? Now I am going to think more about the fact that I think too much, and that can’t be healthy.”
The doctor scratched his chin, and fiddled with his stethoscope for a second. “Lay back on the matt.” He pulled a sheet of what looked like white register tape over the elevated platform and Jerry pulled himself up onto the table like a child mounting a pony.
“This isn’t good either.” The doctor tisked. “You better close your eyes, there’s only one thing I can do.”
When Jerry closed his eyes, he heard the doctor scramble and pry open a metal box. His feet sounded like the tiny feet of a cockroach scraping on the bathroom floor. Jerry tried to lift his head up and roll off the sheet, but he was suddenly accosted with a globule of freezing cold cream. His eyes rolled back into his skull and he was gone, a light surrounding his complete darkness and transporting him up a waterfall.
Jerry thrashed the oars against the water with an unhuman urgency. The rickety little canoe was splintered and the revolutions of the oars made circular indentations in their wells. A young boy sat curled up on the other side of the boat, recoiling in terror at Jerry’s flagrant movements.
Jerry shook his head and braced to regain control of his motor functions. He noticed he could control his upper torso, and with great difficulty he extended that control over the rest of his body. His arms grinded to a hault like a train stopping in its tracks, and he looked down at his arms which were now well sculpted on the delta.
He laid flat on his back and he could hear the seagulls overhead. He sat up and looked South, as indicated by the overhead sun, seeing a thick fog which obscured where land probably was. Jerry reached down to something metal sitting against his neck, and he found it was an hourglass on a chain link necklace. It had all emptied into the bottom side.
“Don’t flip it back over!” The boy cried, reaching a hand out toward Jerry and craning his body completely in the opposite direction. Jerry dropped it and put his hands up in a “ok I will not turn that back over” gesture.
“You’ve been thrashing at the sea for hours,” The kid stood up and inched toward him with raised eyebrows. The boat started wavering from side to side, and Jerry pulled the kid down.
“Are you crazy?!” That big vein jumped out in the middle of Jerry’s forehead. “You’re going to tip us over! I can’t swim.”
Jerry saw his own reflection in the water, and stretched out his oversized arms, as they grew into big pig turnips in the water below. The kid sunk back to his original spot, wrapping himself up with his arms. Long ovular shadows drifted casually in the dark water below.
Marcus listened to CDs he thought were intended for teenage girls. Maybe that said something about hiw emotional maturity level, but mostly he resented that as an adult male he was expected to repress all of his emotions. He kept his Taylor Swift going strong, he empathized with her hatred of her ex boyfriends. Maybe it was that he hadn’t had a meaningful relationship since he was her age. He sung with the windows open a crack, and occasionally had to avert his eyes when he’d see his own face in the rearview mirror. He didn’t recognize the fragility or tenderness in his own eyes looking back at him, and the sort of squinty look on his face was more embarassing than the fact he was singing what he was singing.
“Listen, I have hours of instruction. Why can’t you send one of your stooges? How am I even supposed to know what this guy looks like? Hours on this sea can transform you completely.”
“It has to be you.” The head monk looking type of guy put a big soft paw on his shoulder. “They see one of the government officials, he is going to run for it. This isn’t a tourist attraction. He is coming here to study.”
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