.. .... ..
I wrote this a while ago. I started to write more tonight but i started to feel myself trying to for words from my fingers so i quit. For now.
____
You could probably get away with calling me what ever your mind can think
of, as long as it gets my attention then that moniker will do. But if you insist on knowing my real name I will tell you. It is Alan Greer. I have middle name as well but its unimportant and kind of silly anyways. I am currently employed at the Bremerton branch of the Central Kitsap Library although I really have no business being here. I sort of bluffed my way into the job. I am shy but for some reason I do really well at interviews and on top of that I have a creative and sometimes quick imagination. The interview was short and the interviewer walked away thinking that I was a published poet and had a passion for reading along with four years of library experience. It was not all a lie. I did have a couple poems published when I was a kid in some stupid online contest thing. I also do love to read and have been visiting libraries ever since I was a child. My ruse would be foiled if you brought up the dewy decimal system, but luckily we have computers and databases and maps of the library around here or I would have probably been outed and have lost my job months ago. I can here you asking me why I did not just go out and work fast food like every other twenty year old nobody who has no clue what he wants to do with his life. I did try that. It lasted about six months actually. I worked the grill at a local McDonald's.
I busted my ass flipping burgers and dumping fries in to places that could not have been sanitary and scraping grease out from under or behind the stove. I probably still have scars from the grease burns. I was always cheerful and never said no when they asked me to stay late and close. I clean every thing I was asked to clean. I cooked every thing I was asked to cook. And I open and closed more then any one teenage guy should. But one Saturday morning around six in the morning I got a phone call from my manager. She wanted me to come in to work. I told her that I was pretty sure that it was my day off. She agreed of course and then started to batter me with your a hard worker speeches and tried to explain that in life sometimes things do not go according to schedule. My first thought was to hang up the phone. My second thought was not really a thought so much as it was an out pouring of blabbering about how I am the hardest worker she has and how I hope she would missed me because I quit. I was then told that normally a two weeks notice is given for these sorts of things. I told her not to worry and that if she wanted she could keep paying me for two weeks but I still was not going to show up to scrape grease off the god damn grill for some stupid inspection anymore. Not only was that not going to happen but I also would not be showing up to work for her at all anymore. The next thing I heard was the date and time that I could show up to return my uniform and collect my last check. Then she hung up. As I put my phone back onto the receiver I thought that I probably should have been nicer to the poor lady. She was a decent person to work for and she tried her best to encourage people to take pride in what they do. But I was not nice. And at that point there was really nothing I could do about it. So I just rolled over and went back to bed. I decided that I would never work food service again. So that is the reason why I am now currently a bookslinger at the local library. Despite me really having no idea about my job, it is not such a bad place to work. As I said before I really do enjoy reading and the people I work with are nice enough. It also gives me a chance to meet all sorts of different types of personalities. One of my past times is people watching and there is certainly no shortage of different sorts of people at a library. From the do it yourself mechanic to the junior college student trying to write a term paper on his impression of the philosophies of Camus. They are all here at one time or another. But I digress. I am trying to tell a story here and I ended up giving you my life history.
The library today has been busier then normal. A lot of students have been in and out all day.
Sundays are supposed to be relaxing, not all active and lively. It is like every teacher in town told their student to to the library this weekend and find a good book to read and every single student waited till the last minute to go.
'Where can I find that one book by the guy who just died? The one about the war?'
That is a pretty vague description, but I suppose you are referring to Slaughter House Five?
'Yeah Yeah I think thats it'
Kurt Vonnegut wrote it and yes he did just die. Try fiction.
'But it is supposed to be made up. You know, not real'
I guess maybe you should try the fiction section then. Like I said. Real would be, you know, non-fiction. As in not fake. I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice but it was unavoidable. I get easily annoyed at people who do not understand the difference between fiction and non-fiction.
I don't think she caught the sarcasm because she just politely thanked me and walked off towards the non-fiction section. I opened my mouth to try and correct her but was promptly cut off by what can only be described as a blizzard of books and glass and pencils and bits of paper and the loudest noise I have ever heard in my life. And then, life stopped for just a moment as if to allow me to see the flurry of knowledge falling into chaos. I read a book once by Stephen king. A series of them actually. The Dark Tower it was called. In one of the books in the epic the two of the character find themselves floating in their car and where also transported to a different sort of reality. I distinctly remember the word 'todash'. The details don't matter in my story. I mentioned it only because that is the way it felt. Eventually the moment passed and time caught up with me. I found my self losing touch with gravity and taking flight towards the back wall. Despite the epic pandaemonium I still had a moment or two mid flight that gave my brain a chance to think one single thought. And for some strange reason that thought was me wondering weather or not that girl realized she was walking towards the wrong section of the library before the whirlwind and explosion threw the library in its own personal bit of anarchy. What an odd thing to think while being hurled at a wall by some sort of explosion. Just as the thought was finishing up I was slammed against the wall behind the counter.
And then there was blackness.
Its funny how in writing a story that actually happened to you the details seem to shift and fade beneath your fingers. You think you remember exactly what happened. You have a sort of plan of action in your head. And then suddenly you vomit out of your finger tips something completely strange to you. Foreign even. Yet its not foreign. You begin to think. No you begin to know that what you wrote is truth. In short the story from here on out is both unknown to me and known. It is there in all its palpable weirdness. And it is not. It is a shadow and it is the shadow caster. It reality and the ether. Dynamic and static all at once. You do know if the couch is I really in you living room until you actually walk into the space and see it sitting there. That is my story.
There was blackness and then sound. Then there was wind in the trees and the flutter of paper. I heard a branch or stick fall to the ground. I heard the movement of leaves and somewhere the trickle of a stream or brook. I told myself to open my eyes. At first there was nothing. Then there was a the dull light of ether early morning or late evening. It was diffuse though as if I was looking through a fog.
____________
I wrote this a while ago. I started to write more tonight but i started to feel myself trying to for words from my fingers so i quit. For now.
____
You could probably get away with calling me what ever your mind can think
of, as long as it gets my attention then that moniker will do. But if you insist on knowing my real name I will tell you. It is Alan Greer. I have middle name as well but its unimportant and kind of silly anyways. I am currently employed at the Bremerton branch of the Central Kitsap Library although I really have no business being here. I sort of bluffed my way into the job. I am shy but for some reason I do really well at interviews and on top of that I have a creative and sometimes quick imagination. The interview was short and the interviewer walked away thinking that I was a published poet and had a passion for reading along with four years of library experience. It was not all a lie. I did have a couple poems published when I was a kid in some stupid online contest thing. I also do love to read and have been visiting libraries ever since I was a child. My ruse would be foiled if you brought up the dewy decimal system, but luckily we have computers and databases and maps of the library around here or I would have probably been outed and have lost my job months ago. I can here you asking me why I did not just go out and work fast food like every other twenty year old nobody who has no clue what he wants to do with his life. I did try that. It lasted about six months actually. I worked the grill at a local McDonald's.
I busted my ass flipping burgers and dumping fries in to places that could not have been sanitary and scraping grease out from under or behind the stove. I probably still have scars from the grease burns. I was always cheerful and never said no when they asked me to stay late and close. I clean every thing I was asked to clean. I cooked every thing I was asked to cook. And I open and closed more then any one teenage guy should. But one Saturday morning around six in the morning I got a phone call from my manager. She wanted me to come in to work. I told her that I was pretty sure that it was my day off. She agreed of course and then started to batter me with your a hard worker speeches and tried to explain that in life sometimes things do not go according to schedule. My first thought was to hang up the phone. My second thought was not really a thought so much as it was an out pouring of blabbering about how I am the hardest worker she has and how I hope she would missed me because I quit. I was then told that normally a two weeks notice is given for these sorts of things. I told her not to worry and that if she wanted she could keep paying me for two weeks but I still was not going to show up to scrape grease off the god damn grill for some stupid inspection anymore. Not only was that not going to happen but I also would not be showing up to work for her at all anymore. The next thing I heard was the date and time that I could show up to return my uniform and collect my last check. Then she hung up. As I put my phone back onto the receiver I thought that I probably should have been nicer to the poor lady. She was a decent person to work for and she tried her best to encourage people to take pride in what they do. But I was not nice. And at that point there was really nothing I could do about it. So I just rolled over and went back to bed. I decided that I would never work food service again. So that is the reason why I am now currently a bookslinger at the local library. Despite me really having no idea about my job, it is not such a bad place to work. As I said before I really do enjoy reading and the people I work with are nice enough. It also gives me a chance to meet all sorts of different types of personalities. One of my past times is people watching and there is certainly no shortage of different sorts of people at a library. From the do it yourself mechanic to the junior college student trying to write a term paper on his impression of the philosophies of Camus. They are all here at one time or another. But I digress. I am trying to tell a story here and I ended up giving you my life history.
The library today has been busier then normal. A lot of students have been in and out all day.
Sundays are supposed to be relaxing, not all active and lively. It is like every teacher in town told their student to to the library this weekend and find a good book to read and every single student waited till the last minute to go.
'Where can I find that one book by the guy who just died? The one about the war?'
That is a pretty vague description, but I suppose you are referring to Slaughter House Five?
'Yeah Yeah I think thats it'
Kurt Vonnegut wrote it and yes he did just die. Try fiction.
'But it is supposed to be made up. You know, not real'
I guess maybe you should try the fiction section then. Like I said. Real would be, you know, non-fiction. As in not fake. I tried to keep the sarcasm out of my voice but it was unavoidable. I get easily annoyed at people who do not understand the difference between fiction and non-fiction.
I don't think she caught the sarcasm because she just politely thanked me and walked off towards the non-fiction section. I opened my mouth to try and correct her but was promptly cut off by what can only be described as a blizzard of books and glass and pencils and bits of paper and the loudest noise I have ever heard in my life. And then, life stopped for just a moment as if to allow me to see the flurry of knowledge falling into chaos. I read a book once by Stephen king. A series of them actually. The Dark Tower it was called. In one of the books in the epic the two of the character find themselves floating in their car and where also transported to a different sort of reality. I distinctly remember the word 'todash'. The details don't matter in my story. I mentioned it only because that is the way it felt. Eventually the moment passed and time caught up with me. I found my self losing touch with gravity and taking flight towards the back wall. Despite the epic pandaemonium I still had a moment or two mid flight that gave my brain a chance to think one single thought. And for some strange reason that thought was me wondering weather or not that girl realized she was walking towards the wrong section of the library before the whirlwind and explosion threw the library in its own personal bit of anarchy. What an odd thing to think while being hurled at a wall by some sort of explosion. Just as the thought was finishing up I was slammed against the wall behind the counter.
And then there was blackness.
Its funny how in writing a story that actually happened to you the details seem to shift and fade beneath your fingers. You think you remember exactly what happened. You have a sort of plan of action in your head. And then suddenly you vomit out of your finger tips something completely strange to you. Foreign even. Yet its not foreign. You begin to think. No you begin to know that what you wrote is truth. In short the story from here on out is both unknown to me and known. It is there in all its palpable weirdness. And it is not. It is a shadow and it is the shadow caster. It reality and the ether. Dynamic and static all at once. You do know if the couch is I really in you living room until you actually walk into the space and see it sitting there. That is my story.
There was blackness and then sound. Then there was wind in the trees and the flutter of paper. I heard a branch or stick fall to the ground. I heard the movement of leaves and somewhere the trickle of a stream or brook. I told myself to open my eyes. At first there was nothing. Then there was a the dull light of ether early morning or late evening. It was diffuse though as if I was looking through a fog.
____________