A story to come based on the following sentences.

When she told me what happened I was cheating on the New York times crossword puzzle. I wasn't listening the way I should have been because I was trying to figure out thirty-four across and staring at Theresa's legs. I was trying to think of an eight letter word for Greek column while at the same time trying not to think about sex. I wasn't trying to think about drowning.

I wasn't trying to think about anything.

?

There is a kind of therapy called "Free Association Therapy," (Freudian psychology or psychoanalysis) I think. No, I need to correct myself here, I don't think that it's real - I know that it's real. I'm just not sure if I'm doing it right now. I very well may be, but I very well may be wrong too. More often than not, I am wrong. Who knows? Maybe I just wanted to talk to myself. Or maybe I just wanted to tell a story. Hell, I don't know, maybe I just wanted to tell hundreds of abstract autobiographies about myself.

Their plot summaries would read, as follows.

1. There is a boy who longs for something.

2. He does not know what it is.

3. He never finds it.

4. He dies hungry.

For commercial purposes, sometimes the stories will go like this:

1. There is a boy who longs for something.

2. It is purpose.

3. He falls in love with a beautiful woman.

4. Death is inevitable but never mentioned within the story.

Here is flash fiction I wrote based on a word I saw in the dictionary:

I remember the first time I was to ride an elephant.

"Father," I said. "I'm scared. What if I fall?"

My father shut his eyes tightly, and his head fired backwards from the sheer force of his own ferocious laughter. He ran large, ringed fingers through his thick, tamed mustache.

"My son," he said. "You do not want to fall. If you do you will break your neck, and if that does not kill you then the elephants feet will surely trample you. Hold on tightly to the howdah and you will be fine." He proceeded to place his hands around my frail wrists, pulling my palms up to his face and placing them onto his plump, round cheeks. "If all else fails Nima," he said, "You can grab hold of my whiskers!" He laughed again, and with a mighty rumble, shook the earth. As he roared, I watched his mustache dance happily above his many crooked teeth. Two charcoal handles doing a boogaloo over an open smile, his face growing redder and redder.

- I may be going, or very well already may be, insane.

Advice.

Keep away from women who self indulge.

On the young.

There was once a little girl named Zooey who used to play with toy horses. She stopped one day after finding her mother fast asleep in a bathtub full of warm tomato juice. They never spoke again.

Paste.

My dream is to write a story so hilarious it will land me on the Conan O’ Brien show. After being invited on to the show, they will lead me into a room where I will be powdered and prepped and prompted. A stagehand will walk into the room - at some point - and say, “Five more minutes, Mr. Rowe!” and I will swallow a knot that has been clotting in my throat for the past hour. I will crack, “Okay!” back to the stagehand before he leaves, and then spin my chair around to look at myself in the mirror. When the door is closed, I will reach up to stretch out my shirt collar. I will pull, and I will tug, and I will sweat, realizing only too late that I am being cooked alive inside of my suit. I will brush this notion off as ridiculous. I will try to locate the source of my soaring body temperature as something other than my nervousness, coming to the conclusion that my suit is actually several sizes too small. I will realize that my pants are too tight, my tie is too tight, my shoes are too tight, and my belt is snapped on so tightly that it is cutting off the circulation to my penis. My entire suit will be filled with water, essentially transforming me into an Indian sweat lodge. I decide to myself that I will charge anybody who hugs me 100 dollars. I begin to shift uncomfortably in my seat.

“We’re ready for you Mr. Rowe,” a man says to me, poking his head into the room as he holds a clipboard tightly out in front of him. He has on a tiny black headset with a tiny black microphone rooted sternly in front of his tiny black mouth. He will be wearing a tight black T-shirt with a tight black belt and tight black pants and shoes. I will walk too closely behind him and be overly aware of the swishing my footsteps are making as I shuffle my feet down the hall. He will sweep me beside and I will be catapulted onto the stage and into a million people’s living rooms. I am now stumbling towards an eight foot tall Conan O’ Brien. I will stick out my palm for his handshake only to have my hand swallowed by his own. He will start to shake me. He will shake me with so much ferocity that I will feel overwhelmed and begin contemplating striking him in the groin. This way, if I run, he cannot chase me. I decide to not kick him in the groin. When we go to sit down, I suddenly realize how large Conan O’ Brien’s head is. I realize that Conan O’ Brien has the largest head in the entire universe. It is huge. If Conan O' Brien wanted to, he could swallow me. That’s how big his head is. His head is bigger than I could have possibly ever imagined - bigger than should ever be humanely possible; bigger than I could have ever written about. They don’t make font big enough to describe it. 3,677 of the earth’s suns could be fitted into just one of Conan O’ Brien’s pores. His head is that enormous. I will then realize that Conan O' Brien has been speaking to me, and I haven't heard a word that he's been saying. I have completely forgotten that I’m live on the air.

“What!?” I will shout, panicked, my voice cracking like an eggshell because of how terrified I am. He will just laugh.

“So, Ian,” He’ll chuckle, that famous Conan chuckle. “How big is my head?”

And then I will blink. I will remember that the entire reason for me being on the show is because he has read whatever it is that you just read. What I just wrote, this, right here, now, is the entire reason that I’m on the show. I will have forgotten that I wrote this excerpt to be funny, only I didn’t realize how large Conan’s head was going to be. Bigger than I could have ever imagined.

Bigger then I could have ever written.

Once

I used to have nice shirts once

Nice shirts in grade school

I would tuck them in

Tuck them in and wear a shiny black belt -

An oil spill glittering neatly across my waist.

I tied my own shoes

I combed my own hair

But only after I had doused my head

I would part it

Determined to impress Courtney Conrad.

I would stand up straight to speak

My voice, frail and soft like a slice of bread

- ringing out -

Hello Hello Hello!

I would chirp in a high pitched voice, swinging my arms down the hallways as I charged

Hello Hello Hello!

A smile of mismatched piano keys

Hello Hello Hello!

Singing to her off key on the playground as I dangled upside

down

I was very in love then

In grade school.

When I was very young.

Hello Hello Hello.