Barrel

A mural (this was a mistake) of Silly Putty photo transfers looks like a pencil drawing.

A Spanish-speaking abuela gives me $16 for the artwork.

A Bus ride to nowhere drops me off in an unfamiliar apartment complex in SFO.

Elementary school kids entertain with makeshift instruments.

A young assistant teacher comments on an old song they heard on the radio: “it’s actually ‘BARREL’,” pointing at their solar plexus.

Buffs + Candy

Players debate the value of League of Legends Baron buff when paired with Lemonheads.

Sutro Tower

Cresting a hill, standing on the trunk of a brown Mustang Fastback with black racing stripes, riding it like a Lime scooter, steering by grasping a roof-mounted handlebar, I see it: the three red and white legs of Sutro Tower.

I guide my ride through gently worn paths in the grass.

You'll Get It Worse

Hanging out.

In this corner of the station.

Late at night.

Expecting no one.

Children hurry through.

While their mother's back is turned, they glare at us with anger and resentment.

"You'll get it worse if there's no blood," one mutters at me.

Stephen!

“Stephen!”

I Wear This Mask

At the end of the checkout line, collecting groceries in bags, I feel something on my face.

Like walking through a single spiderweb strand, without thinking, I raise my hand to brush aside the feeling.

But it touches something sticky, and my vision unravels like two identical overhead transparencies sliding out of alignment. My ears begin to burn as anxious termites fill all the empty space in my chest cavity.

The mask slips, and I can see its blurred outline hanging on my face.

I rush down a hallway to a restroom and stare at my reflection in mirror-polished stainless steel; it’s there, flickering into existence with the impermanence of a far-away radio distress call.

I grasp the mask delicately with pinched fingertips, marveling at its gossamer complexity: a snowflake pattern cut from black crude oil with the same faint acrid aroma.

Why? How? When? My mind asks and answers the same questions in an instant, knowing that I already know the answers:

We wear our mask to survive future pain.

We built our mask from society’s prompts.

We’ve been building and refining the mask from the first moment we felt the anxious termites of shame filling our chest cavity.

“This mask is mine,” I murmur to myself, as TC enters the restroom. I can see their mask covers their entire body.

Insanity

At the same place

At the same time

Same night of the week

With the same people

And the same drinks

And the same smells

And the same music

Looking at the same tired faces

Having the same conversations

With the same fleeting realization that we’re doing this again

Expecting different results

Never Did Get My Laundry Back

I’m walking to the laundromat after work, carrying a black burlap Primal Rage duffle bag of dirty clothes. One of the details in the previous sentence is untrue.

The laundromat is past an airplane terminal, and curbside stewards are loading passenger baggage onto a conveyor belt. One of the details in the previous sentence is untrue.

I stumble over a crack in the sidewalk and fall to the ground, catching a glimpse of the duffle bag as it lands neatly on the conveyor belt. One of the details in the previous sentence is untrue.

Wincing in pain at the faint red scrape visible on my knee through the tear in my jeans, I become aware through my peripheral vision that my duffle bag has disappeared out of sight. One of the details in the previous sentence is untrue.

Thankfully, it’s a very short run from the curb to the cargo hold of the awaiting plane, as workers rhythmically toss suitcases, then my duffle bag, into an opening in the plane. One of the details in the previous sentence is untrue.

I leap through the opening. One of the details in the previous sentence is untrue.

Strangely, the pilot announces an emergency takeoff procedure, the cargo hatch closes, and the plane begins to shudder as its engines rev up and carry it down the runway. Two of the details in the previous sentence are untrue.

Strangely, the pilot announces an emergency evacuation procedure, and I join passengers and crew as they leap out of the trundling plane. Two of the details in the previous sentence are untrue.

As my scraped knee is thwacked on the tarmac, and just as the skyrocketing dull pain reaches my brain, the plane explodes in a fireball at the end of the runway! All of the details in the previous sentence are untrue.

I blame recent TikTok videos of hot air balloon tragedies and Steal a Brainrot victim crashouts on this dream.