How I'm Feeling Right Now

Short Story Gone Wrong

Most of this evening, I've been trying to drum out some kind of beginning for a short story that's due next week. In the end, two attempts came out of it. And before you ask, yes, these are fictional accounts.
This first one isn't much, but I felt it was worth mentioning:

Groggily, I roll out of bed until I tumble onto the floor, tangled in an elaborate noose composed of my own appendages. Part of me knows this is my little, drowsy way of forcing myself awake; the other part doesn’t give a shit.

                Pushing myself up off the somewhat grimy carpet, I scramble around for my phone in hopes of discovering what ungodly hour it is. I’m surprised my phone even made it back here in one piece; sure, I never lost it, but I sure as hell considered breaking it in half on several occasions. Not that it would have been a big deal anyways; I’ve been needing an upgrade for a few years now.

                See, my mother refuses to buy into the whole smart phone craze. Sees it as a waste of money, or so she says. I just think she doesn’t know how to use them and doesn’t want to admit it. I’ve caught her glancing over how-to’s online about that sort of thing, puzzling over the interworking’s of Microsoft Word. How she even got online at all is telling of just how far along she’s come. But whenever I bring it up, it always comes down to me having to pay for my own 3G, and on a college kid’s budget, that’s just not going to happen.

The second one is a bit lengthier:

College is the best place to fuck someone over.

                Everyone’s so damn fragile, little china dolls with all their dreams and hopes and morals and ideas lined up at the compound. Those wide blue eyes almost seem to widen in the brief moments before they’re crushed, when they realize just how unprepared their little sidewinder suburbs have made them.

                I’ve been traipsing through life for a while now without too many cares or worries. All I look for these days is a good drink, a good fucking, and some misery to share with the world. And I have plenty of the last one, enough to share with the whole goddamned class.

                My closest friends are the folks who I’ve screwed the worst; funny how that works, really. Sometimes I just wait off in some distant corner of the universe, wondering whether or not anyone will ever find me, or even bother looking for me. But they always come running; they always know where I am, like I give off some unique scent of woe and depravity, as if my pain leaves markings in the sand to trudge after out of desperation and uncertainty of what else to do.

                I see Brian as my greatest achievement in life. He was a pretty cool kid once, a down to Earth sorta guy who went through life loving everyone and everything. He hadn’t a care in the world and wanted for nothing. It was only when I pumped his girl fullah drugs and she went and died on him that he began to lose focus, began to question why, began to see just how fucked everything really was. It’s funny; I was giving her the pills, but he was the one who was awakened by it all. In a way, I was his Morphius. I tried at calling myself Morphine Morphius for a while after that, but no one really gave a fuck what I was called, as long as I had their stuff. But I kind of enjoy that too in its own sick way, me being a nameless bringer of doom, a wraith that haunts the doors of those who come knocking on mine.

                Brian took it a step further; he lives with me these days. The closest he could get to me without strapping an umbilical cord to my chest like some kind of eerie harness, not that I would mind that much. This life gets kind of lonely sometimes, hence number two on my shit-to-get-done-daily list. I don’t really have a type; I don’t think any guy really does. I mean, a hot chick is hot, no matter what color hair she has or how big her tits are or how wide she can spread her legs. Attractiveness can’t really be categorized or measured, it just is. Kind of like my dick. But you don’t wanna hear about that; even I get tired of hearing about it pretty quickly these days.

                I consider that the price I pay for sticking it in more places than I should. I can’t stop myself; it’s like an addiction all its own, a rush I get from putting myself literally out there for someone else. And, try as I have before, I can’t stop wanting after it, needing it, craving it constantly, an appetite that can never be satisfied.

People say that I’m sick, that I should go see someone. I tell them I do; I see a lot of people every day, and none of them have ever been able to help me. That’s when they usually call me an asshole and walk away. I’d be bothered if I thought they wouldn’t be back.

See, that’s the one good thing about all of this, the twisted life I supposedly live; I may always be alone, but I’m never without company. It’s like misery has its own radio wave that calls out, a wailing beacon that can only be heard by the ears of those nearly deafened by the benign bullshit that fills their unfulfilling lives. We’re constantly meeting under the most obscure and unprecedented circumstances, like we really give a fuck where and how we find each other, just as long as there’s someone else to help carry the burden.

Why do you think Brian’s stuck around as long as he has? I mean, besides the fact that he doesn’t really know my role in the whole his-girlfriend-being-dead thing. Yeah, yeah, so I haven’t told him; call it my sick fascination with life-or-death scenarios, but I almost want him to figure it out sometimes. Almost.

He sure as hell doesn’t stay for the fucking décor, for the shit stains that crawl across the walls, consuming our wallpaper like a hungry caterpillar, growing more pudgy and pungent every day. Not for the beds, the wretched, molding mattresses that haven’t had the ability to support anyone’s back for a few years now. He might stay for the rent; we don’t have any, just about the only good thing about the dilapidated mess. But what he really waits for is an end.

I mean, how can you not after seeing the shit he has? It would have been enough seeing his lover kick the bucket, but his parents, his career, his dignity? Only so much around you can die before you become obsessed with it; just ask Emily Dickinson. That bitch was messed up.

I was an English major once, way back when I thought it majorly mattered, back when I thought I’d actually do something with it. You know, a diploma. That’s when I thought that letters scrawled on a piece of paper meant whether or not I was gonna do well in life, when I figured I’d go work in some swanky-ass company and live in some not-so-swanky place and maybe sleep with some girl I actually loved.

Love. What the hell is that shit anyways? Everyone’s always trying to define it, apply it, study it under some little fucking microscope, waiting for it to squirm or reveal all its secrets. Well, let me rip away that mystery right now; love is a figment of our imaginations. It’s what we think we want for an uncaring, unhelpful, cruel, suicidal, violent, violating world. We want to think it’s not all that, that someone out there really gives a care about someone outside of themselves. Except that at the end of the day we’re all very, very alone. I would know.

People stay with Brian and I for days, weeks, years at a time without so much as a “please” or “thank you.” I hardly notice that they’re even there, because they don’t seem to care that anyone else is here. It’s like we’re all already dead, spiriting through our lives like they were never there to begin with. Everyone’s seen it at some point; I’m just the only one who’s accepted it.

Curious to hear what you guys have to say about either, so feel free to leave a comment or text me and let me know what you think. Any and all feedback is appreciated, even if these are just random ideas and not fully fleshed out yet. Also, I haven't edited any of this yet, so let me know if you notice anything that doesn't make much sense.

An Editor's Self Assessment

It's after nights and papers like these when I really have to wonder how I can enjoy editing.
I mean, what kind of sick fuck puts himself through such a masochistic process? More often than not, the essays you do get are fairly poorly written, with sentences that aren't actually sentences and words repeated over 30 times in a four page paper. The round-about arguments made start becoming jumbled in your brain, and by the time you reach the last page, you hardly want to make any more marks on the page; your pen is probably out of ink already. And afterwards, you have to confront the individual in question about it, all the while needing a positive frame to put the crooked, wrinkled, ripped picture in.
Sure, not all the work I've gotten is that rough, but those mostly come from other English majors, and even then we all make mistakes. Hell, you can probably find a few errors here as you're reading. So, why do I do this anyway? Why do I want to spend the rest of my days studying huge manuscripts from cover to cover ins search of any and every error within?
To be honest, the answer's pretty simple; I'm helping other people. At the end of the day, I'm changing someone else's life for the better. They'll get a better grade on that essay because of the edits I put forward, or they'll rework their story in a way that makes it more comprehensive to a general audience. Even if they don't take any of my advice, at least I've gotten them thinking about their work and jogging their brains with all sorts of ideas of where to go next with whatever they may be writing. Can it be grueling? Yes. But the pay-off, while not material, is clear; meeting new people and making their lives just a little easier, not to mention more experience with editing in general. The best kind of reward there is (though money is nice too :P)
Ironically, I cannot stand editing my own work for whatever reason... But perhaps that's a thought for another evening.

A Grand Return

Well, it's been a while, that's for sure, but I'm as ready to jump back into this as ever.

For those of you unfamiliar with what the heck this is, my name is Luke Muench, a 21 year-old English student looking to share some of his writings with the world.

So, enough faffing about, let's get down to business, hmm?

This comes from one of my writing classes this semester, a publishing class to be a little more specific. The task that was provided for me was to write a narrative within the mind-set of an orange with the persuasive tone of a preacher. As you can imagine, I had a lot of fun writing this; I had even more fun presenting it, with absurd hand gestures and the over-the-top preacher voice. Try to imagine it, it's much more enjoyable that way :P

Orange You Glad?

       Today, my brothers, our Lord has sent us a glorious sign from above, a shining symbol that our toils and troubles have not been in vain, that we are, in fact, on the righteous path of salvation, Of course, I am talking about the brilliant drops of life that we bathe in this fine morning, that shine on our skin like the morning dew and fuel our feverish growth to someday reach our ultimate purpose.
       Of course, I refer to the rain.
       Now, I know what some of ya'll may be thinkin' to yourselves, that rain ain't anything special, that we are still threatened by the moving menaces of these Earthly plains that plot and scheme to tear us down from our precious perches, our sacred homes provided to us by our Mother, who holds us above all evils to this day. But, my friends, to say such things is to ignore the bountiful gifts brought unto us by She who deigns to let us live, who has forever been our life and death incarnate. Do you think that we deserve such treasures, that we are entitled to the richness of such holy drink? Still thy tongues! For you cannot yet conceive of what sacrifices have been made for you to simply be here.
       Do you not feel the life coursing through your souls? Without it, we would all be grimy rinds, curled up on the ground in utter decay, sinful shells left in the mud for carrion to carry off. That is the lifeblood our Mother provides us from her own bosom, giving up some of Her own time in this world for our sakes, so that we may one day spread Her word and seed, letting Her teachings remain timeless.
       I will not lie to you, my brothers; there will always be pain in this world. There will always be cuts and bruises on our skins, always be those carried away before their time, always be Gravity, trying to drag us into his realm to suffer and writhe eternally. There will always be death. But it can only mean something if we hold the life and gifts given to us today with the utmost joy and thanks, and if we can bring ourselves to be glad for the bad so that the good might mean that much more.
       Can I get an Amen?


If you have a hankering for more of my work, feel free to look at past posts, as well as my various film critiques, which can be found through Rinema or on my Facebook page. Until next time, live life to the rhythm of your heart.