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.

From Africa, With Love.

Did I know the giraffe was going to jump out of the convertible? What in the hell kind of question is that? I don’t speak giraffe. The giraffe did not communicate to me that he was going to jump out of the car and hit his head on the bottom of the overpass. Of course I didn’t know the giraffe was going to jump out of the convertible. Giraffe’s are supposed to be well behaved! At least that’s what I always learned on the Discovery Channel. I don’t even know how he got his seatbelt undone; giraffe’s don’t have opposable thumbs you know. How did I manage to get the giraffe into the car? Why, Mexicans of course. I mean hello you dummy, you know the ones – the ones always standing out front of the home depot? The ones always looking for jobs? Granted, they were a little hesitant at first when I showed up in my cherry red, Sebring convertible with the top down, shouting for them to go on ahead and hop into the back of the car. But you say one word enough times to them no matter what it is, and it’ll become work, work, work – which of course translates into pesos, pesos, pesos – which in turn becomes pennies on the dollar. Great cheap labor those Mexicans.

Why did I steal it?

Why?

Sir, if I have to explain myself than you are obviously too stupid to understand it, and explaining myself wouldn’t make any bit of difference. I don’t need to explain myself. And don’t even bother with all of that, good cop, bad cop mumbo jumbo. Everybody already knows that cops are all assholes. How do I know that? You mean, how do I know that!? Well officer, I once got pulled over for speeding while my wife was in labor in the back of our car – you know, the back of my, cherry red Sebring convertible? Well, when I get pulled over I says to him,

“Officer, you gotta be kiddin me! You gotta let us go! My wife is in labor!”

And he says: “Sir, have you been da-rinking this evening?!”

The nerve!

Anyways, I say to him,

“As a matter-of-fact officer, I have had a couple of da-rinks this evening, because as you see– me and my wife here were at the Applebee’s enjoying our happy hour. And I mean, officer, it wasn’t my first choice to drive, but you see, you can’t just help not going into labor, just about the same way you can’t help not resisting a good sale on Happy Hour drinks! I mean, talk about a bargain on drinks! And I get the Long Island Iced Teas too! Because, you know – you get more bang for your dollar that way. And my wife here, well, she’s trying to be healthy for the baby, so she drinks Cosmopolitans, on account of all the cranberry juice they put in there. You know, the juice is good for the baby.”

So, the officer looks at me, and then he looks to the back seat and says –

“Sir, there is nobody in your backseat.”

And when I turn around it dawns on me that I’d gone and left my wife at Applebee’s. And she was squirming and bleeding and screaming and squirting baby juice all over the place back at Applebee’s. And that’s why, to this very day, our son’s name is: Long Island Applejack Cosmopolitan Rixie.

But back to the original reason for this story. The reason I think all cops are assholes is because – Oh, you mean you wanna hear the giraffe part of the story?

O.K.

Well, there I was – at Applebee’s – minding my own business and trying to enjoy my Long Island Iced Teas, when there was this party, making this big ole fuss. And I’m just trying to watch some goddamned baseball, but that’s not happening on account of how goddamned noisy all these people are being. And you know how it is with baseball – it’s such a high-octane sport – you need to watch it with your full attention. Anyways, I go over to them and I say,

“Hey folks! What’s all the commotion about?”

And they look at me kind of like, hey, who the hell is this handsome fella? But then one of the girls turns to me and says, (all snooty like, mind you)

“Well, our friend here is going to Africa.”

“Africa!?” I say. “ Africa? Why in the good Goddamn would you want to go to Africa? You know how many people are trying to leave Africa?!”

“Well,” the girl says. “Even if we explained it to you, you probably wouldn’t understand.”

“Wouldn’t understand!?”

“Yes, you wouldn’t understand.”

“Africa. I wouldn’t understand, Africa?”

“Yes. You wouldn’t understand Africa. Now please leave. You’re ruining our party.”

So I said: “Oh, I’ll leave. But I’m coming back. I’ll show you Africa.”

And that’s when I left to go get the Mexicans, to go break into the zoo, to go and steal the giraffe. Because there are giraffes in Africa – get it? And I was gonna take it home and teach it how to shit on command, because I was going to take it to that bitches house and have it shit all over her house and lawn. And possibly her car.

Why?

Why!?

Because nothing says, “Fuck You” like a giraffe does when it’s shitting all over your shit.