Excerpt #1 from: The Stings Don't Hurt So Bad When You're Busting Down The Beehive

 

“This is going to be a significant moment. A change!”

Fuck that.

I am standing on the porch smoking a cigarette behind the crowd of people gathered on the stairway.

Mel is in the street about to symbolically release an orange birthday balloon into the sky.

Her hand holds the purple string attached to the bottom of the balloon.

She looks uncomfortable: shoulders hunched, face frozen in an awkward expression like a cartoon ice cream freezer pop.

Her roommate lights her up with flash photography.

“Dude, ____ this is going to be a real fucking significant. Like a breath of fresh air or something. And I have documented the event as it occurred.”

“Yeah!” someone says.

“Go ____!” someone else says.

Alone and observing, I remembered something my third grade teacher said about the ramifications of releasing balloons into the air. She said they have the potential to pop over the ocean and kill a whale.

Rubber lodged in the blowhole.

My third grade teacher is dead because of a brain tumor, and I never really liked my third grade teacher—a full year of lunch detention.

Her roommate turns around and lights up the crowd kidnapping another moment in time.

“Dude these photos are going to come out so fucking great! Yo, did I tell you guys that I’m going to be doing a photo shoot in Philly for _____ Magazine sometime next month? It’s going to be so fucking rad man. I mean I already did a shoot with some porn stars, but this could mean the big time.”

I think about what constitutes the “big time” for her roommate and think about its relevance.

Mel is still standing in the street holding a balloon and looking uncomfortable.

Real uncomfortable.

The honest kind of uncomfortable which you see in high school locker room showers.

I think about a car coming around the corner too fast and hitting her on the hip, her doing a backflip, and landing on her feet, looking around to see if we all saw what had just happened.

I think about cutting off her roommate’s tongue, gluing it to his forehead, and calling him a unicorn for the rest of the night, while someone else took photos to document this moment in time.

Her hand let’s go and the balloon hovers upwards following a path of ascension.

Snap.

“WOOOOO!” someone says.

“Yeah!” someone else says.

Flash.

I think about a whale dying.

I think about shooting the balloon down before it disappears, and ruining the whole moment.

Mel reaches the sidewalk, newly baptized.

Still uncomfortable.

I think about how I am a piece of shit, and a horrible person who should drown in a bath tub of chocolate pudding.

So pointless.

(BTW: That magazine that contacted him was actually a fraud scam based out of Philly.)