november 6 etc
Decided to throw a few paragraphs of something I'm working on out into the world in the hopes that at least one person reads them and thinks "I want to see where this goes..." and then maybe texts that to me.
--
Call and Response
I told the man who said his name was Ken that I missed what the world was like before everyone had a smartphone in their pocket.
I told him about how I used to buy ringtones for my various dumbphones and that most of them were themes to beloved television shows.
I told him a very detailed story about the time I dropped my old-school candy bar Nokia handset off the roof of my building in Montreal while drinking with a guy who would later become a rock star who fell from grace for sex pest reasons, and that upon recovering the phone the only evidence of its fall was the moisture from the puddle it had bounced both into and then out of before coming to a full stop next to dumpster.
The man who said his name was Ken didn’t ask what TV shows. He didn’t ask about the rock star sex pest. I wasn’t that surprised. He didn’t come across as much of a listener. He came across like a guy who waited for his turn to talk and then waited for his next turn to talk. And in the conversation we were having —— I was having it and he was breathing nearby at any rate —— he said the same thing every time it was his turn to talk: “Two fifty is as low as I can go.”
There was no “buddy, I’m sorry, I’d like to but I just can’t,” nor was there an annoyed “the price is the price!” He was as empty a vessel as anyone I had ever met. A Man who was simply There. For him, this little exchange wasn’t about smalltalk and it definitely wasn’t about diving into the deep, rich experiences and memories of a fellow traveler and finding some moment of true human connection along the way. It was just a thing he did “to get him the house and into the world” because he was “retired” and also “a widower.”
Lies, all three.
--
I don't really know what it is but I started writing a neighbourhood private eye thing a few weeks ago when I was thinking about rereading all six books of Joe Ide's IQ series (which is good even if the first few are way stronger than the rest). It doesn't have a title at the moment but a guy in it is named Collin and I was playing with Collin Response.
Also, if you missed the post for November 5, here it is.
Nighto.
🌲 gonna sleepy
🌼 go sleeeepy
🌱 touch eepy
🌳 grass eeeeeeeeeep
🌷 now zzzzzzzzz
Be good to yourself.
If you enjoyed this post, click the little up arrow chevron thinger below the tags to help it rank in Bear's Discovery feed and maybe consider sharing it with a friend or on your socials.