A Short Short-Story

[Allen]

>Sunoco<


I can feel my head boiling, my brain now soup, rolling over itself, bubbling, babbling at me. I walk in the dark to the gas station, an oasis of light surrounded by ink. My hands are hidden in my pockets, my face obscured by a hood as black as the void I traverse. No cars are on the street, and the traffic-light blinks its colors in rhythm, alone. I wonder to myself why there are no clouds, and why the sky is just liquid obsidian, undulating and squirming around itself like a snake.

My breath crystallizes before my eyes, and looking through a microscope I see the infinite number of geometric shapes I have created from the moisture and heat deep in my lungs. Triangles are everywhere, polygons with sheer facets polished infinitely clear, all in a cloud above my head now. Just like that, my work of art disappears though, and is gone.

Beauty like this, natural and sporadic, only lasts for a moment in the timeline that is my life. Damn. I want to relish my artwork, but it’s evaporated.

I continue on, shoes rebounding off of the blacktop that tries but cannot rival the darkness of the sky. I walk on and pass a man, clad in normal clothes, normal skin, but his hands are hidden too. I can’t help thinking that he has a knife hidden in the folds of his little wind-breaker, and that when I get within arm’s reach of him he will clutch me to his chest as a friend would, and then tear open my abdomen like a Christmas present. I shudder and move ten feet to the side, to avoid eye-contact or violence or recognition. I avoid him.

I walk into a dome of light, sickly artificial, and it makes me feel dirty and exposed. Someone is filling their car up with dinosaur blood for his journey home. I am not as lucky, relying on energy derived from consuming fat and sugar and fiber, and having it power my legs to move me about. This gas station is a fucking joke. I walk in.

It’s like a miniature supermarket, with the goods all arranged in patterns and according to color in a vain attempt at consumer-based hypnotism. I don’t have time for it, and I look away. The clerk behind the counter is bored, lazy, maybe 20 years old, and he doesn’t want to be here this late. I can’t blame him, because I don’t want to be here this late. I walk into a small separated part of the station where a pot of coffee is brewing. I fill my cup.

The clerk doesn’t look up from the desk. I toss a dollar and some clinking change on the counter. I don’t wait for him to count it or look at me, I just leave, my stop at the oasis finished. As I open the door to the outside world, a gust of cold air parts my bangs and I put my hood back up. Beginning to drain the coffee, cheap and worthless, I combat fatigue. I still need to make It home from here.

[RosettaStoned]

The language you use is simply beautiful. However, I feel like the ending is rather bland, almost like there's no substance to it. Just a suggestion would be to have some sort of climax, even if it's like a little bump compared to the mountains some stories have seeing as I think what you're going for is something kind "boring" (no offense, can't think of a better word). One other thing is that this kind of has the essence of a poem. I still like it a lot regardless. If/when you update it, post it here, I'd like to see it.

[yawanur]

I kind of liked it without the climax, just the language did it for me. I thought the sky would play into it more, just from reading the beginning, but either way.

[Jack]

I think it's great as is. Such a trivial but riveting snippet of a life (riveting in its triviality? Or its attention to such?) might even be ruined by forcing in conflict and climax.

[RosettaStoned]

Yea, on second thought, to add some sort of climax would kind of defeat the purpose of the story (or the essence rather). It reminded me of the short story "Where I Live" by Kurt Vonnegut.

[Allen]

Thank you all for your comments. I think I will leave it as it is, maybe revising or adding just a few lines to the ending. I'm glad you liked it and I thank you for your criticism, it always helps. In truth, I want a short, drop-off ending like I have it, but adding another line of explanation or introspection is certainly in the picture. Thanks again!