i submitted a story to Abe's Penny and got this response: "Have you written anything that touches on politics, or do you have any interest in writing a fiction piece related to current events? I'm thinking of something in the style of 1960s protest music, but not a song." current events and politics are like two things i am not interested in, so i wrote this story.
There weren't any lights on when I got on the trolley. And there were hardly any people sitting inside of the trolley. It seemed to be moving too slowly, like in a communist country. A man was sitting with premature balding. I stared at the little hairs on the ear of the man in front of me. The lights came on when we went in the tunnel. These are not the first things that happened to me. But they happened and they happened to me. The first thing that happened was I woke to my alarm clock. It was morning and I had been dreaming, deeply sleeping. I don't remember what the dream was but there was drool on my pillow. Then later I went to work and I stopped paying attention. I was concentrating on my job and not the things that were happening. I felt like the things that happened at my job were important. But I couldn't remember any of them after they were over. I didn't bring a lunch and on my break I was hungry. I ate food that I found in the employee refrigerator. I drank coffee at 8 and it made me feel jittery. These things weren't much but to me they were everything. And everyone else with their problems couldn't sympathize. At the end of my shift I walked to the bus stop. I was tired and read some Tao Lin poetry. Nothing happened on the ride home except I saw some cellophane. It was wrapped around a lamppost like it had been discarded. And people crossed the street looking at the crosswalk. No one was talking except on their cell phones. I looked at my reflection cast on the window. And through myself I could see everything. Like how the sky was the rest of the universe.
There weren't any lights on when I got on the trolley. And there were hardly any people sitting inside of the trolley. It seemed to be moving too slowly, like in a communist country. A man was sitting with premature balding. I stared at the little hairs on the ear of the man in front of me. The lights came on when we went in the tunnel. These are not the first things that happened to me. But they happened and they happened to me. The first thing that happened was I woke to my alarm clock. It was morning and I had been dreaming, deeply sleeping. I don't remember what the dream was but there was drool on my pillow. Then later I went to work and I stopped paying attention. I was concentrating on my job and not the things that were happening. I felt like the things that happened at my job were important. But I couldn't remember any of them after they were over. I didn't bring a lunch and on my break I was hungry. I ate food that I found in the employee refrigerator. I drank coffee at 8 and it made me feel jittery. These things weren't much but to me they were everything. And everyone else with their problems couldn't sympathize. At the end of my shift I walked to the bus stop. I was tired and read some Tao Lin poetry. Nothing happened on the ride home except I saw some cellophane. It was wrapped around a lamppost like it had been discarded. And people crossed the street looking at the crosswalk. No one was talking except on their cell phones. I looked at my reflection cast on the window. And through myself I could see everything. Like how the sky was the rest of the universe.