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My Attempt at Writing Something By: Richard Davidson on 9/16/2002; 9:48 PM I was staring at the computer monitor. Sweat was dripping doggedly, and you could hear it's warm, hollow barking resonate through the room. I had to write something, or my reason for being would wane, and then there was always the danger I would cease to exist. I'm against that. I pounded my head against the desk a few times, to see if I could jar loose any thoughts or memories. All I could remember was that there's a big bottle of aspirin in the drawer downstairs. I lit a cigarette, and coughed as the smoke wafted up my nose, which isn't where it's supposed to go at all. In the spring, before my allergies kick in, sometimes smoke can come out there, but it definately shouldn't be going in. I started thinking about the American Cancer Society, but that wasn't helping, so I looked at the TV where a punter by the name of Walker was about to tackle the return guy, but instead walked out of the screen, and fell in a puddle on the floor of my office. He was only eight inches tall, and demanded to know why. I was about to explain the physics of it, when I realized I didn't understand it myself, so I told him I might still have some beer. He accepted that as the reality it was, and no one had lime Jell-o that day. I got him a beer, and told my wife she might not want to come upstairs for awhile, as an NFL player had fallen out of the television again, and she's always had a hard time accepting that. She simply walked quietly outside, and began turning toadstools into Arabian Horses, which is what she usually does on a Monday night. I was back upstairs before you could say "install the DX-27 Regurgitator, and inject monosodium guadalahare into the decentralized lituaniator," and there was Walker, the eight inch punter sitting casually on the computer desk, leafing through some of my photos, and staining the desktop with some kind of fictional fluid he was coated in. "What is that nasty goop you've got all over you?" I asked, as he flickered in the pale moonlight. "I don't know. It comes from squeezing out of the TV screen, I guess," he muttered, hammering in a few of the loose nails on the wall behind him with his fist. "I don't understand why that would happen," I mused, nonchalantly burning the Wall Street Journal, and some old underwear. "I guess it would look cool in the movie, and imply some kind of magical property to my sudden materialization here," he sung, in the key of F flat major. "Fine," I said, although I doubt I really meant it. I asked him if he was here to help me think of something to write about, and if he'd ever been to Dallas, and what the chances were of his cousin Frank being related to my Real Estate broker's husband's nephew Olga, and why the half life of Plutonium is just so darn long, and what his take on classical opera was, and a blank look came over his face, as if the Swiss had been fighting again. He told me the most amazing story I have ever heard in my entire life. It had thrills, drama, laughs, long sections of obscene poetry, and everything you'd ever want in a story told to you by an eight inch punter who fell out of your TV set, and I thought, "Halleluliah! I have something to write about," until he added, "but you can't use any of it." "Not even what the main character did for a living?" I asked, knitting socks. "Especially that," he answered in semaphore. "Well then, what's to stop me from killing you?" I asked in perfect Latin, picking up the large ax I keep handy just for times like this. His eyes got as big as saucers, and he tried to leap back into the TV, but bounced into the blade of the ax, and right out the window. I couldn't believe he'd gotten away, and wondered what could happen out there. As I read in the following day's paper, he'd decided that all humans were a threat, and gone on a five state killing spree. "Thirteen Inch Color Punter Kills Twelve" was the headline, and I thought, "my God, he's growing. I remembered that I knew an insane scientist who lived down the block, and I got in my car and drove over to his house, which was next door. I never could figure that out, but I guessed it was one of those weird science things, so I just accepted it. I pounded frantically at the door, my heart racing, blood pumping, stomach digesting those Doritos, for what seemed like seconds. He flung the door open with the force of a withering petunia. "What is it?" he screamed quietly, "why are you pounding and pounding on my door?" "It's an emergency," I stammered, "it's t-t-t-terrible," I stuttered, "it'th really bad," I lisped. "What is it? Calm yourself down, what is the matter?" his narrow face showed the concern of a nun with a boil. "You'd better come inside." I sat down, and he gave me some tea containing arsenic and old lace, and finally I composed myself enough to tell him. "I can't think of anything to write," I sobbed, using his head as a napkin. "What?" he vomited. "I said I..." "I heard you, you idiot. Why would you come screaming over here to the house of a genius such as myself, and scare me half to death over something like this?" "Well, I thought you could help." "Well, maybe I don't want to." he was sulking now, and I didn't have any cookies. "Well, there is another matter," I said, realizing that was three wells in a row. "Yes?" he looked interested now, but tried to remain aloof. "You know that thirteen inch color punter who's been killing everybody?" He scowled at me. "Don't be ridiculous, it hasn't killed everybody. If it had, would me and you be sitting here talking right now?" "He had a point." I said, instead of writing it down. "What's that?" he looked confused. "Oh, I'm sorry, I got all messed up on where the quotes were, and I just messed up. Don't worry about it." "OK," he said, simply not getting it at all. "Now what's this about the twenty seven inch punter?" he asked absurdly. "Twenty seven inches!" I screamed with all my might, scaring Dr. Von How into spilling his tea. Dr. Von How concentrated intently, trying to think of what to do about this horrible problem. He consulted his dusty books, logged onto the internet, ordered some great gym shorts, and then, after three and a half hours, stood up and said, "I've got it!" "What's that, doc?" I asked dejectedly, losing at pinball for the seventeenth time. "The solution to your problem!" "OK, what is it?" I asked, trying to pretend to be interested. "You could write about this!" he said smugly, and I nearly made him pay for that too, but I was worried about the killer TV punter. We piled into his 1927 Jalopy Special, with no roof, and as we rounded the corner, the newsboy shouted, "Read all about it! Four foot seven color punter kills millions on Atlantic Seaboard!" "We've got to hurry!" whistled the doctor. "If he gets to Florida, it's all over." I couldn't imagine why, so I settled back into the seat for a nice nap. I'd be needing my energy to deal with the TV punter I should have killed. I fell asleep quickly, and dreamed of fish, as I normally do. When I awoke, I was amazed to see a Nuclear Power Plant in front of me, and looming over it, flickering against the night sky, was a Seven Hundred and Fourty Two Foot, Six and a Half Inch color TV punter, still growing rapidly. He had his foot in the reactor core, and as in all good postwar science fiction, the nuclear power was making him mutate. The doctor roared past the front gate, knocking the guard right off of his little stool, and flew up to the door of the plant. We raced inside, down to the main reactor room. "Doctor, what if it blows?" I asked, breathlessly. "Then we'll be atomized." "Oh, good," I answered, "I was worried that we'd be killed!" "I've got to reverse the polarity of the reactor, or he'll destroy mankind!" I thought the doctor had a good point there. Reverse the polarity of the reactor that's making him grow, and surely that'll make him shrink. I mean, that makes sense doesn't it? I mean, nobody's going to read this that actually has a scientific background, and can tell me that what I'm talking about here is absolutely ridiculous, right? "That's exactly what I'm counting on," panted the doctor, who was feverishly working some controls that I couldn't even understand if I was actually smart. Near the wall, for no other reason than to fit the plot, there was a periscope that looked out over the main cooling towers. I could see something that made my mouth so dry that I considered running down the hall to buy a Coke, but probably didn't have the time. "Ah, doctor?" "What is it?" he asked, annoyed. "I think you better hurry up." "I'm hurrying, I'm hurrying!" he barked. "Well, it's just that..." "What?" he screamed. "I think he's going to try and put that cooling tower through the uprights." The doctor squinted into the periscope. He could see that off on the horizon, a few miles from the cooling towers, there were two radio antennaes, and there was a huge iron beam laying across them, where some workers were constructing a third tower. The Nine Hundred Sixty Two foot, Eight inch color TV punter was just standing there, motionless, flickering quitely against the sky. "What is he waiting for?" the doctor asked. "Maybe he's waiting for the whistle." "That's it!" said the doctor, "he won't kick until he hears the whistle!" We were both relieved, but something was nagging at my memory, some little detail I hadn't thought of. "Well, you better hurry up just the same..." I started to say, when it hit me. The 11:22. It was the last train of the night, and it would be here in five minutes. I told the doctor, and he turned white, and then flesh colored, and then white, and then flesh colored again. "Make up your mind!" I hollered, but that wasn't doing any good, so I started turning knobs and buttons too, as if that would work. The doctor injected me with some sort of anesthetic, which is usually fine, but I could feel darkness overcoming me. When I woke up, I was back in my office, eating a chicken sandwich. My wife poked her head in, to ask me if she'd used too much mayo, like my mother used to. I gagged a little, and assured her she had, and she smiled, and went back to herding chickens, which is what she normally did on Thursday nights. Thursday? Where had the time gone? I went downstairs to ask my wife what the date was. "September 16th, 2002." she told me gracefully. "TWO THOUSAND TWO!!!" I roared, unable to believe it.
RE: My Attempt at Writing Something By: Chris Link on 9/16/2002; 10:37 PM Richard, you have a great way with dialogue and absurdity and somehow keeping the dialogue from becoming absurd, although I always come away feeling like I just experienced a flashback, which I don't normally do until Friday night.
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