Here’s another story…..
He entered the am/pm superstore, walking past candyland, chipsville, jerkytown. He approached the register.
“15 on #3” he said. He put 15 cents down.
“you kidding” said the asian lady behind the counter.
“i wish” he said and walked out, having purchased 1/13 of a gallon of gas.
“you know it, this not 1933” said the asian lady as the sliding doors opened.
funny how biting the wit of register workers can be in short stories.
—
There he was again talking on the telephone. That’s the only memory he had. That’s the only memory he’d need. Something in that conversation sparked it. It made the right nerves in his brain pulse, the right connection of neurons fire in perfect syncronization. “oooh” he said. He was in a dream. He had never known for sure. But now he did know, somehow. He put the phone down and jumped up in 25 quick, amazing and meaningless sommersaults like the Ninja Turtles of the first Nintendo game did whenever they jumped.
—
The 15 cents got him further down Mission St, which was all he needed. It probably would have gotten him back too.
—
“Watch this” he told Marv Albert. The boy grabbed the green LCD numbers off his alarm clock and rearranged them into letters which spelled Paul. That was his name.
“I’m impressed” said Marv Albert.
—
It was all ok because he had read the Rza’s book, “the wu-tang manual.” He didn’t worry about being broke. Rza, who dropped on August 17, 1978, had written some nice quotes from artists as diverse as da Vinci and Picasso as well as other prominent figures of riff-raff such as Martin Scorcese, Samson and the prophet Mohammed.
“If there’s something to steal, I steal it.” -Pablo Picasso
—
Now Paul was in a movie to the soundtrack of Tom Waits’ Rain Dogs. There were Latin girls and subways and guns everywhere. Someone was walking spanish down the hall. He looked out side and sure enough someone was driving a big old black Mariah. The whole thing started to confuse him so he reached under his seat and pulled out a big cone of Strawberry Cheesecake and Butter Pecan Ice Cream.
—
Before he read the Wu-Tang Manual, he came across a quote by Sufi poet Jelaluddin Rumi. It had a profound effect on him in every domain of his life except this one: he could not get a girl to come around, he was still too shy.
The quote was this: “Let the body’s doings speak openly now, Without your saying a word, As a student walking behind the teacher, Says ‘This one knows more clearly than I the way.”
—
One time while Paul was dreaming but didn’t know it, he was down near Fisherman’s Wharf in a tourist store and he tried to steal a hat by putting it on top of his own hat and walking out. But it fell off and he was caught by the asian lady who ran the store. He had to sign a book of people who stole. Had he known he was dreaming, he would have signed himself as “Abigail and Albert Hockney, Pennsicola, Florida.”
—
If you’re scared of girls, you get laid alot more in your dreams than real life. Whether you realize it or not. One time he had to share a girl with the guitar player. He played the bass. If they would have practiced harder and perhaps did a few pushups everyday, there would have been two groupies.
—
Here are some more good quotes, all found in a book titled “A World Treasury of Folk Wisdom”
“To speak ill of anyone is to speak ill of yourself.” Afghan
“Worthless people blame their karma.” Burmese
“Too much praise is really mockery.” Ilocano (Filipino)
“A flatterer is a secret enemy.” Hungarian
“A good cat deserves a good rat.” French
—
When Paul was dreaming he liked to change his clothes very often. He could do it in a snap, however, they were not always the clothes he wanted them to be. One time he thought, it would be nice to wear a suede blazer right now. Next thing he knew he had changed into a blazer of Harris Tweed. “Close enough” remarked Paul. He then walked out of Arby’s and into the original cast production of Annie Get Your Gun.
—
The moral of this story is easy to see: the truth is anything you can’t forget.
—
(end)
this is a painting!
it’s called “the assembly line”
