Imperative

Wake up.  Don’t hit the snooze button.  Time to go to work.  Get up.  Get out of bed.  Need to shower.  Get dressed.  Put on nice clothes.  Grab breakfast.  It’s the most important meal of the day.  Apple, bagel, yogurt, cereal, donut, bacon, take your pick.

Get in the car.  Get on the train.  Read the paper.  Listen to music.  Ignore everyone else.  Don’t give the homeless guy a dollar.

Get to the office.  Work.  Get some coffee.  Work.  Stare at the computer screen, check your email.  Make copies.  Get some printer paper.  Go to the bathroom.  Go to a meeting.  Go to lunch.  Go back to the office.  Get to work.  Stretch your legs.  Work.  Get some water.  Work.  Time to go home.

Fix dinner, watch a show.  Watch the news.  Go to bed.  Have sweet dreams.

Wake up.  Shouldn’t have hit that snooze button.  Wake up.  Time for work.  Get out of bed.  Shower.  Fix your hair, brush your teeth.  Go get dressed.  Put on nice clothes.  Eat breakfast.

Go to work.  Ignore the homeless person.  Try not to be late anymore.  Say hi to Linda.  Get a cup of coffee.  Check your email.  Raid the supply closet for paper clips and a few new pens.  Pay attention while your boss gives you feedback.  Have lunch with Brad.  Console him that the promotion didn’t work out.  Go back to the office.  Watch the clock, watch the screen, watch the birds outside.  Get back to work.  Pack up, head home.

Grab drinks with Shelly.  Talk about last night’s episode.  Go home.  Go to bed.  Have sweet dreams.

Wake up.  Get out of bed.  Take a shower.  Get dressed.  Eat breakfast.  Go to work.  Ignore the homeless.  Get some coffee.  Work.  Eat lunch at your desk.  Shop online.  Work some more.  Play a game.  Check your email.  Do some work.  Go home.  Go to the gym.  Watch the game while you run on the treadmill.  Make a mental note that it’s not your fastest time.  Go home.  Cook a meal, save your leftovers.  Go to bed.  Have sweet dreams.

Wake up.  Get out of bed.  Take a shower.  Get dressed.  Eat breakfast.  Get to work.  Have those leftovers for lunch in order to save money.  Sit in the break room and listen to Tony talk about his kids.  Get back to work.  Notice that your plant is drying up because you haven’t watered it recently.   Work.  Go home.  Order take-out.  Go to bed.  Have sweet dreams.

Sleep in, it’s the weekend.  Watch TV, go on a date, see a movie, try a new restaurant, ride your bike, try kayaking, see your friends, have sex.

Wake up.  Get out of bed.  Take a shower.  Get dressed.  Eat breakfast.  Commute.  Work.  Complain about Mondays.  Work.  Set your Facebook status to a joke about Mondays.  Work.  Email your coworker a cartoon about Mondays.  Work.  Eat lunch.  Work.  Tweet about Mondays.  Work.  Commute.  Dinner.  Bed.  Have sweet dreams.

Wake up.  Get out of bed.  Take a shower.  Get dressed.  Eat breakfast.  Commute.  Work.  Eat lunch.  Work.  Look for a new job.  Work.  Commute.  Work out.  Dinner.  Bed.  Have sweet dreams.

Wake up.  Get out of bed.  Take a shower.  Get dressed.  Eat breakfast.  Commute.  Work.  Eat lunch.  Work.  Celebrate Terri’s birthday.  Work.  Commute.  Dinner.  Bed.  Have sweet dreams.

Wake up.  Get out of bed.  Take a shower.  Get dressed.  Eat breakfast.  Commute.  Work.  Eat lunch.  Work.  Commute.  Dinner.  Bed.  Have dreams.

Wake up.  Get out of bed.  Take a shower.  Get dressed.  Eat breakfast.  Commute.  Work.  Eat lunch.  Work.  Commute.  Dinner.  Bed.  Have dreams.

Wake up.  Get out of bed.  Take a shower.  Get dressed.  Eat breakfast.  Commute.  Work.  Eat lunch.  Work.  Commute.  Dinner.  Bed.  Have dreams.

Work.  Eat.  Work.  Eat.  Dream.

Shuffling

(This particular piece comes from another writing exercise involving a deck of cards.  Each card has a sentence fragment, such as "yesterday's Wall Street Journal".  You draw a card and write for several minutes starting with that phrase.  I basically smashed a bunch of these separate exercises together to try and form a narrative.)

Yesterday's Wall Street Journal lay across his chest, spread open and draped over his torso as a makeshift blanket.  Bill wrinkled his nose at the smell of the man's body odor and took note of the fact that the Dow closed strong yesterday, signalling a second straight quarter of growth.

The man groaned and shifted.  The paper fell to the floor.  Bill looked at the man sitting to his right.  Khakis, blue polo, a cellphone surfing the web.  Across the aisle next to the sleeping vagrant was another man in khakis with a green button up shirt and tie.  He had a cellphone out and was staring at it.

The smell of Susie's leftovers drifted up from the plastic grocery bag in Bill's lap.  Citrus and fish, her orange shrimp over rice.  Susie had started cooking more after the last physical, when the doctor told Bill to get his cholesterol down.  The man in khakis and grey polo to Bill's left sniffed again, tapping on his cell phone screen.  Bill shifted his feet and looked down at the bag of leftovers.

The straggling cuticle on his right hand continued to nag him.  He bit down on it and pulled, a chuck of flesh ripped free.  Bill let out a whimper, and saw blood already pooling in the gash.  It dripped onto his khakis.  A throbbing ache began to replace the sharp pain.

A super model with a large cat stared at him from a sign over the sleeping man.  She was naked, with her arms crossed over her breasts.  She sat on a couch with her legs spread, the cat crouched in front of her genitals.  "Nothing looks good when it's covered in fur."  So sayeth an animal right's group.

The train slowed to a stop and the doors opened.  Bill jumped up and tossed the bag of leftovers onto the homeless man's lap.  He ran off the train.  He still wasn't across the river, but Bill decided he wasn't going to work today.

Opening Day

The sun had not yet risen on the first day of deer season.  The air was cold enough to show exhaled breath.  The ambient darkness was fading into grey, and the first hints of orange were peeking over the tree line.  Dad had always said that a hunter had to be up before the deer, which meant a hunter had to be up before the sun.

Showers were a no-no.  Deer could smell the soap.  Apparently soap was worse than unwashed armpit or synthetic raccoon piss.

The early light illuminated the rifle my dad had bought for my birthday.  Bolt action, 7.08 mm.  The scope had been sighted in over five months of shooting at targets in preparation for this day.  Clothing had not been as carefully thought out.  Shivering and sunflower seeds are apparently how hunters pass the time.

That and visualizing.  A buck, eight points, would step out from between the yaupons to enter the field.  It would walk into the middle of the field and stand there, flanked by mesquites, staring up as regal as an insurance logo.  A shot would ring out, just one, and the proud beast would fall dead.  His head would be stuffed by the following Saturday, the same regal pose flanked by Star Wars movie posters, glass beady eyes watching Mario Kart.

“Ocho” wasn’t the last.  Imaginary bucks are no limit, and as sunflower shells pooled at the bottom of the stand like the sand in an hourglass Ocho was followed by a ten point, a running twelve point, a leaping twenty point bigger than anything the family had ever brought down.  Antlers as big as an elk’s keeping watch over this year’s dinners of venison steak, venison sausage, venison chili.  Dad would call uncles and cousins to come see the trophy. 

“Can you believe it?  My boy got the biggest buck in the county.”

A shot, an actual shot, shattered the image.  In a gap in the tree line between pastures a deer collapsed to the ground.

Dad got there first.  He set his rifle down and pulled out his folding buck knife.  The three point’s eyes rolled around as it flopped and twitched on the ground.  It kicked out its legs and kept trying to lift its head, kicking up tufts of dust as blood seeped from its nose and pink foam gurgled out of its mouth around the protruding tongue.  Its chest hitched and heaved, and blood spread from the hole in its side where the bullet had punctured its lung as the deer slowly drowned in its own blood.  It was still twitching as my dad kneeled down beside it.

“Dad, don’t…it’s not dead.”

“Just nerves.”

“Don’t.  Please.”

He waited until it stopped kicking, until the chest stopped moving.  The tongue lay still on the ground, and the eyes stayed open as Dad sunk his knife into the chest below the sternum and began sawing back towards the genitals, having to pull back and hack at times at the sinew.

“Can you help me?”  he asked as he began pulling out entrails.

“No.”

He looked up.  “We’ve got to get the guts out so the meat doesn’t spoil, and we need to bury them so it doesn’t attract predators.”

“No!”  I threw the gun down in the dirt and ran all the way home.  He didn’t call after me, or chase me, or ever speak of it again.