Chapterone

Puddles become disturbed by treaded tires rocketing across the newly darkened pavement. Water from these puddles fly out and hit other cars, people and concrete. Though it has not rained for some time, that's kind of how I would like my book to start. It's dark now, and it's not the clouds, it's midnight in December and actually quite clear. The exposition should end here, given the copious amounts of passive voice. Unfortunately I'm lazy so just deal with it, considering this is just a rough draft all the little things will be edited out for more stylistically accepted precepts. The water from one of these puddles splashes onto my pants. "Shit," says I, "now how am I supposed to get to work, would you look at that terrible attempt at dialogue, I mean it is horrendous, of course I'm no Stan Lee when it comes to dialogue, although its possible that he isn't either, I don't really read comics.

The most exotic food I keep in my house: Neanderthal-style puffed rice. I am mildly listening to television, I pay the cable bill and honestly I don't know why. I am eating the cereal I previously mentioned, it's getting soggy in the indie soy milk I drink because I pretend to be mildly lactose intolerant. Buddy Holly would have been better than the Beatles but Iowa fucked that up, at least we have gay marriage, or did, depending upon if and when this gets published, which I doubt because so far I have said little of any literary merit, well I guess I'm using meta fiction. Does mentioning a literary technique in your writing cancel out your use of said literary technique?

That question was rhetorical, because by the time it is read by someone other than myself I will be dead or out of earshot, in that order because I'm a writer so I'm a bit cynical pessimistic and a little on the suicidal end of the psychoanalytic test that I took.

Jesus Christ look how much I have already written. He can't cause he is dead. I'm even using informal language such as "cause" rather than "because". Breaking all the rules before I even know they are rules, though pointing them out implies knowledge.

Would you call this poetry? Or an essay? Or random pseudo intellectual bullshit nonsense. I call it:

CHAPTER ONE

A week later I am at my parents house because it is currently Christmas, not exactly my idea of a holiday.

“Raymond”, my buddy Jeff said to me the other day, “I believe that Christmas should be taken back by the pagans.”

I agreed with this statement, both of us are atheists so there is no way that we can do this on our own, I know a pagan, he is kind of a dick. Well at least there is consensus amongst two atheists in Minnesota.

My parents own ferrets, I prefer their company to that of their owners, so I am currently sitting outside wearing an enormous poofy jacket, Jelly, the female ferret with only one eye (birth defect not an accident, this ferret has had a cushy life), has wrapped herself around my neck and is quite possibly asleep. Snow is falling, of course it is, and welcome to the return of passive voice, I use it because I don't care about run on sentences either.

New paragraph.

And another. My mother has a bucket full of pistachio shells out here on this porch. She really likes them, I like them too, but they are green so that's a bit of a turn off. Although their extreme saltiness is hard to resist, I would reach down into the bucket and lick the shells but I am currently on withdrawal, if you ever meet me and have pistachios with you, do not share them with me for you would have to ask me to share back. Does that make me a bad person or am I just obsessive?
I get up and take the ferret inside, if it was asleep it no longer is because it is over there licking itself. Is that common behavior for ferrets, I've only ever seen them in pictures.

I throw my coat on the sofa and sit by the fire, my mother says something and takes my coat, presumably to hang it up, I imagine she was sweetly chastising me for my general lack of organizational skills or appreciation for Zen and the chi of her household. Whatever, I just throw my coat on the floor in my apartment, I don't mind.

When I was sitting I realized that I may not exist, actually that's a little further down the road but this is when I sort of began to suspect it. No that's not right either, it's one of those looking back you think, hey I should have realized that, only not really, you are only saying that to make yourself feel like you were capable, it was just at that particular moment your synapses weren't firing properly enough to figure it out. Anyway, yeah I experienced something quite different, the décor changed, but didn't, I'm not sure, soon after I dozed off into sleep.

I had a dream about tea. The tea had duck flavoring in it, I'm not sure why but it did, so I bought a tea called pot-head's choice, my friend didn't believe that it was a real tea. I never got to drink that tea. It was a dream.