Story In Progress

Harvey Danger said it best. "Hell is other people..."

I stand pressed against a wall under the canopy of a dark and abandoned restaurant, my only escape from the constant downpour that the clouds have been spewing for hours. I glare at passers-by huddled under umbrellas, rushing to get to the next pointless destination in their pointless lives.

"Pathetic," I sneer, lighting a cigarette. She always hated when I smoked, equated it with a slow and painful suicide. It was part of why I enjoyed it so much.

"Get out," I hiss. A startled woman hastens her pace at my sudden words. She looks back over her shoulder when she gets to a safe distance. A single finger conveys my opinion of her paranoia.

Once again I peer into my bag, be sure my tools are safe and dry. She often said I was a cliche character, the brooding artist, dull and predictable. It topped the list of my flaws, of which there is a physical copy possibly still taped to the wall of our studio.

Satisfied with my beloved's safety, I throw my pack back over my shoulder and step out into the cold deluge. I have a new studio now, a space borrowed from a strange girl and her syndicate of irritating misfits, but free from the stifling powers of her memory. She, who destroyed my work with her mere presence, who refused to understand that the process, the creation, will always be the only presence in my world that means anything to me.

"Get out of my head!" I say forcefully, ignoring the startled and leery looks thrown my direction from the humming drones surrounding me.

Me and John rode out from ocean heading east
I had to see with my own eyes the factories
I'm buggin out, we've never strayed this far
Right out of town southeast and down inside my filthy car

But when we got there all we saw were more malls and marble mansions
In emerald parks the singing larks proclaimed the great expansion
There is no beautiful garbage, they cleared it up already
Tears roll out the eyes and though I cry I hold the wheel steady

When I get home I cannot stand my house
My father still fighting with his drunk and unfaithful spouse
I hear the echo now I see it somewhere else
A thousand ways, a thousand days, a thousand towns across the commonwealth

Out on a date but like a dog she smells the fear and runs
Until we make our cheese us tortured artists are no fun
I dream of anger, sex with her should I succeed but still she caught me popping pills
This emptiness will not be filled or killed

Look at the earth, it's just so green
Perhaps it's envious of all the galaxies it's seen
Where forces swirl in symbiotic harmony
Free of the taint, the gas it's paid to parasites like me

Keep using love as the excuse for why we're fat and lazy
Wait to grow old, like we've been told go bald, go west and crazy
This is so pointless it actually holds up our evolution
Sing it to the bastards and free yourself from mental prostitution



~ Say Anything, Slumming It With Johnny