Babylon
(Trying something a little different...a "blast" from my past. Dim presents..."Babylon"...what would have been my first blog entry if there were blogs back in 1998.)
The sun exploded today.
Blunt, I know, but there's really no sense in beating around the bush on this one. I hate reading things that talk about water lilies and seagulls all the way through and then end up being about the author's perverted obsession with Lucille Ball. So, now you know. This is about the sun exploding today. A significant event, in and of itself without question, but it would appear dwarf-like in stature if i did not disclose a bit of my recent past to explain its great galactic importance. No pun intended.
My morning started off pretty much like a normal Saturday morning. I had gotten home late the previous evening after spending an absurd amount of time and money on a newly discovered watering hole, a place that I liked instantly, but I suspect will never visit again, since it is most likely singed to the scorched ground from today's colossal fireball.
Anyway, I was sleeping off quite a few Rolling Rocks and an outstanding roast beef sandwich this fateful morning. Now, I know you are saying that everything tastes outstanding when you have had quite a few Rolling Rocks, but this roast beef sandwich was something else. I will spare you the delectable details and I would highly recommend this all night drunk food joint if I was not thoroughly convinced that it, too, is a giant tinder stick at this very moment.
So, the phone rings at 11:23 this morning, startling me from one of the better sleeps I've had in awhile. You may ask how I know it was precisely 11:23. Well, when the phone rang, I immediately woke up and stared at my clock radio and said out loud to nobody, "Who in the HELL is calling me at 11:23 in the morning?!?", not stopping to realize that the majority of this doomed planet's population did not get in late the previous evening after having quite a few Rolling Rocks and a roast beef sandwich.
Needless to say, I was instantaneously bent out of shape since it disturbed a rather Rip Van Winkle-esque batch of z's, which was rare. I haven't been sleeping well lately and a voice inside my head says it's stress-related, but unfortunately for it, it happens to be the same voice that tells me that I was one of the Smothers Brothers in a former life, to which all the other voices in my head argue the impossibility of that, since neither Smother Brother is dead yet. So, I don't listen to that voice, not only because it makes no sense, but also because it causes quite a racket.
In addition to this little sleep problem, my body hasn't been in the best shape, since I have been suffering from (#1) Cotton Balls in the Head Syndrome, (#2) Rodents on a Treadmill in My Belly Syndrome, (#3) Little Pinprick Pains in My Brain Syndrome, (#4) Really Funky Sly and the Family Stone-like Heart Rhythm Syndrome, and (#5) the Pesky Thing in My Throat that won't Melt Away Syndrome. So, these things, combined with my obvious hypochondria, various neuroses, and the fact that my bedroom is as temperature-friendly as Goldilocks' porridge all mixed together to make a cocktail of restlessness. And the best sleep that I WOULD get every night would be during the nano-second before the alarm went off. So here I am, Saturday morning, sans alarm, and the phone rings.
I pick it up and growl a "Hello?" A voice whispered in my ear "Where's your freedom?" Now, this was a refreshing change since most of the time lately, when the phone rings while I am sleeping, I pick it up and it's so-and-so from some bank asking for my roommate while mispronouncing her last name. When I say that she's not home, then they ask me if I am Mister My Roommate's Mispronounced Last Name. When I say no to that, they ask when would be a good time to reach her and I would say "Anytime is good except for the current time of 8:26 AM (or whatever time it actually is), so call back in a minute." I hang up and when the phone rings again in a minute, I let the machine get it. It's the little things that make me happy.
I was so startled that it wasn't Joe Bank-Guy on the phone, I failed to pay attention to the caller's question, so I re-inquired with a "Huh?," to which he responded again, in a slightly louder whisper "Where's your freedom?" Looking back at it now, I think it's a pretty cool thing to call and ask a stranger out of the blue, but I was kind of groggy from the lack of sleep, the quite a few Rolling Rocks, and the roast beef sandwich, so I mumbled "Must've left it in the car" and hung up. Funny thing is that I proceeded to throw on some clothes with the full intention of retrieving this freedom thing from my car, but when I left my apartment, I forgot all about it and decided to get the mail instead.
The mail was a major disappointment, with the exception of a certain entertainment magazine that I receive on a weekly basis. I opened it with a youthful exuberance when a pang of hunger drove me to microwave some leftover Thai food for lunch. This was the very same Thai food which gave me and my friends weirdo X-Files-like dreams the other night, so I was slightly hesitant, but bizarre dreams are nothing compared to washing pots and pans, so I nuked it and began to eat. The Pad Thai must have reacted well with the quite a few Rolling Rocks and the roast beef sandwich since I experienced no obvious psychosis unless, of course, you count this story.
So I ate and read my magazine and was embarrassingly intrigued to find out that I could purchase a video tape of two celebrities engaged in some homemade hanky-panky for $29.95 plus shipping and handling. I wasn't embarrassed at the time, mind, you, but if I knew then what I know now...I mean, a celebrity sex tape pales in comparison to the entire eradication of humanity. Well...sort of.
So, after writing the check, I took a shower which was an OK shower as far as showers go, but the water got really hot towards the end, which should have clued me off to this whole exploding sun thing, but I was preoccupied thinking of my celebrity sex tape which would have arrived in 4-6 weeks, most orders shipped within 24 hours upon receiving payment. I shudder to think what happened to that tape now. I remember my video store displaying a copy of The Usual Suspects that someone left on their dashboard for an hour in the summertime heat. It wasn't a pretty sight. I could only imagine what a nuclear explosion would do.
I'm cleaning the hair out of the drain, lamenting the obvious fact that I'm going bald; a fact that, in retrospect, seems insignificant in the wake of the galaxy's annihilation, but let's face it. If the skin is going to be melted off of our bones in a split second of solar brilliance, we are vain enough to hope that our hair is properly moussed. At least I am.
After the shower, I got dressed and hopped into the car, completely forgetting to look for the freedom thing again, which I now assume is in the trunk with the Rollerblades I haven't used in a year and a half and a Native American wig my friend wore this past Halloween until we made fun of him because it made him look more like Hiawatha than Sitting Bull.
I drive to a local bookstore/music store/cafe with the hopes of drinking coffee (which I don't like) and writing something that doesn't want to be written. Upon entering the store, I plop down on a comfy chair and begin people-watching with the hopes of jump-starting some inspiration. No suck luck. Before the scream of questionable masculinity that emanated from me at the moment of the sun's explosion today, I thought I was pretty cool. And I thought that cool people went to cool places to hang out with other cool people and do cool things. And a lot of people in bookstores are actually cool, but it just bothers me that some people are walking around with Sartre and Machiavelli under their arms, while others just moseyed on by to pick up the new Guns and Ammo and "The Ron Goldman Story". Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against NRA people and true crime buffs. I'm sure that they are really fascinating to other NRA people and other true crime buffs, but they, like most other people, serve no useful purpose to me whatsoever. And thus went my inspiration.
So I abandoned my hopes of writing something meaningful and adjourned to the cafe to scald my mouth with coffee that I don't even like. I am an impatient person and this impatience contributes to the third degree burns my oral cavity suffers at the hands of this loathsome Coffee Monster. Not only do I rush to drink it so I can go home and get away from the NRA people and the true crime buffs, but I rush to drink it to get the damn thing over with because I hate the taste of coffee.
I order the coffee because 1) I notice that most of the cool people in the bookstore are drinking coffee or some mutant coffee hybrid, 2) and most importantly, I'm hoping that this torrid liquid will miraculously melt this lump in my throat, promptly curing syndrome #5, and 3) If I ever get the chutzpah to ask a girl to have coffee with me, it would be beneficial if I actually drank the stuff. It wouldn't be too cool to just sit there and watch her drink it. It would be like asking a girl out to go bowling and then saying, "No, you go ahead. I'm sitting this one out because it aggravates my sciatica."
I leave the store after pausing ever so briefly to weigh the options of purchasing a 50% off desktop calendar of "365 Days of Chicken Soup for the Soul." It's a little too "Shiny Happy People" for me, not to mention the fact that those self-help morons really piss me off, so I pass on the calendar and leave dejected since I couldn't write about anything and that disgusting coffee beverage did nothing to help Syndrome #5.
I get on the highway to go home and it hits me. I could write about this "Where's your freedom?" thing and have it be this really deep and cool philosophical piece and everything. I'm getting pretty stoked forming the story in my mind, not really paying attention to the road ahead, when I look up and all I see are tail lights. I slam on the brakes causing the Radiohead cassette tape case that was on my seat to hurtle against the dash at Top Gun-esque G-force. Once the car settled down, I looked up and saw it: The sun, just above the tree tops. It was HUGE and getting bigger by the second. I'm not sure if it actually got warmer out because at that same moment, I put on the defroster to get some ice off my window. All I could think about was that my little freedom story seemed pretty weak against this thermal holocaust. I kept thinking about how good that roast beef sandwich was and if I could call my bank and cancel that check, since I'm sure the video tape will not be arriving within the 4-6 week timeframe now. The sun filled up the entire sky. A golden, gaseous globe. And then...BOOM!
The sun exploded.
I'm almost sure of it. But don't quote me, though. Like I said, I haven't been sleeping well lately...
The sun exploded today.
Blunt, I know, but there's really no sense in beating around the bush on this one. I hate reading things that talk about water lilies and seagulls all the way through and then end up being about the author's perverted obsession with Lucille Ball. So, now you know. This is about the sun exploding today. A significant event, in and of itself without question, but it would appear dwarf-like in stature if i did not disclose a bit of my recent past to explain its great galactic importance. No pun intended.
My morning started off pretty much like a normal Saturday morning. I had gotten home late the previous evening after spending an absurd amount of time and money on a newly discovered watering hole, a place that I liked instantly, but I suspect will never visit again, since it is most likely singed to the scorched ground from today's colossal fireball.
Anyway, I was sleeping off quite a few Rolling Rocks and an outstanding roast beef sandwich this fateful morning. Now, I know you are saying that everything tastes outstanding when you have had quite a few Rolling Rocks, but this roast beef sandwich was something else. I will spare you the delectable details and I would highly recommend this all night drunk food joint if I was not thoroughly convinced that it, too, is a giant tinder stick at this very moment.
So, the phone rings at 11:23 this morning, startling me from one of the better sleeps I've had in awhile. You may ask how I know it was precisely 11:23. Well, when the phone rang, I immediately woke up and stared at my clock radio and said out loud to nobody, "Who in the HELL is calling me at 11:23 in the morning?!?", not stopping to realize that the majority of this doomed planet's population did not get in late the previous evening after having quite a few Rolling Rocks and a roast beef sandwich.
Needless to say, I was instantaneously bent out of shape since it disturbed a rather Rip Van Winkle-esque batch of z's, which was rare. I haven't been sleeping well lately and a voice inside my head says it's stress-related, but unfortunately for it, it happens to be the same voice that tells me that I was one of the Smothers Brothers in a former life, to which all the other voices in my head argue the impossibility of that, since neither Smother Brother is dead yet. So, I don't listen to that voice, not only because it makes no sense, but also because it causes quite a racket.
In addition to this little sleep problem, my body hasn't been in the best shape, since I have been suffering from (#1) Cotton Balls in the Head Syndrome, (#2) Rodents on a Treadmill in My Belly Syndrome, (#3) Little Pinprick Pains in My Brain Syndrome, (#4) Really Funky Sly and the Family Stone-like Heart Rhythm Syndrome, and (#5) the Pesky Thing in My Throat that won't Melt Away Syndrome. So, these things, combined with my obvious hypochondria, various neuroses, and the fact that my bedroom is as temperature-friendly as Goldilocks' porridge all mixed together to make a cocktail of restlessness. And the best sleep that I WOULD get every night would be during the nano-second before the alarm went off. So here I am, Saturday morning, sans alarm, and the phone rings.
I pick it up and growl a "Hello?" A voice whispered in my ear "Where's your freedom?" Now, this was a refreshing change since most of the time lately, when the phone rings while I am sleeping, I pick it up and it's so-and-so from some bank asking for my roommate while mispronouncing her last name. When I say that she's not home, then they ask me if I am Mister My Roommate's Mispronounced Last Name. When I say no to that, they ask when would be a good time to reach her and I would say "Anytime is good except for the current time of 8:26 AM (or whatever time it actually is), so call back in a minute." I hang up and when the phone rings again in a minute, I let the machine get it. It's the little things that make me happy.
I was so startled that it wasn't Joe Bank-Guy on the phone, I failed to pay attention to the caller's question, so I re-inquired with a "Huh?," to which he responded again, in a slightly louder whisper "Where's your freedom?" Looking back at it now, I think it's a pretty cool thing to call and ask a stranger out of the blue, but I was kind of groggy from the lack of sleep, the quite a few Rolling Rocks, and the roast beef sandwich, so I mumbled "Must've left it in the car" and hung up. Funny thing is that I proceeded to throw on some clothes with the full intention of retrieving this freedom thing from my car, but when I left my apartment, I forgot all about it and decided to get the mail instead.
The mail was a major disappointment, with the exception of a certain entertainment magazine that I receive on a weekly basis. I opened it with a youthful exuberance when a pang of hunger drove me to microwave some leftover Thai food for lunch. This was the very same Thai food which gave me and my friends weirdo X-Files-like dreams the other night, so I was slightly hesitant, but bizarre dreams are nothing compared to washing pots and pans, so I nuked it and began to eat. The Pad Thai must have reacted well with the quite a few Rolling Rocks and the roast beef sandwich since I experienced no obvious psychosis unless, of course, you count this story.
So I ate and read my magazine and was embarrassingly intrigued to find out that I could purchase a video tape of two celebrities engaged in some homemade hanky-panky for $29.95 plus shipping and handling. I wasn't embarrassed at the time, mind, you, but if I knew then what I know now...I mean, a celebrity sex tape pales in comparison to the entire eradication of humanity. Well...sort of.
So, after writing the check, I took a shower which was an OK shower as far as showers go, but the water got really hot towards the end, which should have clued me off to this whole exploding sun thing, but I was preoccupied thinking of my celebrity sex tape which would have arrived in 4-6 weeks, most orders shipped within 24 hours upon receiving payment. I shudder to think what happened to that tape now. I remember my video store displaying a copy of The Usual Suspects that someone left on their dashboard for an hour in the summertime heat. It wasn't a pretty sight. I could only imagine what a nuclear explosion would do.
I'm cleaning the hair out of the drain, lamenting the obvious fact that I'm going bald; a fact that, in retrospect, seems insignificant in the wake of the galaxy's annihilation, but let's face it. If the skin is going to be melted off of our bones in a split second of solar brilliance, we are vain enough to hope that our hair is properly moussed. At least I am.
After the shower, I got dressed and hopped into the car, completely forgetting to look for the freedom thing again, which I now assume is in the trunk with the Rollerblades I haven't used in a year and a half and a Native American wig my friend wore this past Halloween until we made fun of him because it made him look more like Hiawatha than Sitting Bull.
I drive to a local bookstore/music store/cafe with the hopes of drinking coffee (which I don't like) and writing something that doesn't want to be written. Upon entering the store, I plop down on a comfy chair and begin people-watching with the hopes of jump-starting some inspiration. No suck luck. Before the scream of questionable masculinity that emanated from me at the moment of the sun's explosion today, I thought I was pretty cool. And I thought that cool people went to cool places to hang out with other cool people and do cool things. And a lot of people in bookstores are actually cool, but it just bothers me that some people are walking around with Sartre and Machiavelli under their arms, while others just moseyed on by to pick up the new Guns and Ammo and "The Ron Goldman Story". Now, don't get me wrong. I have nothing against NRA people and true crime buffs. I'm sure that they are really fascinating to other NRA people and other true crime buffs, but they, like most other people, serve no useful purpose to me whatsoever. And thus went my inspiration.
So I abandoned my hopes of writing something meaningful and adjourned to the cafe to scald my mouth with coffee that I don't even like. I am an impatient person and this impatience contributes to the third degree burns my oral cavity suffers at the hands of this loathsome Coffee Monster. Not only do I rush to drink it so I can go home and get away from the NRA people and the true crime buffs, but I rush to drink it to get the damn thing over with because I hate the taste of coffee.
I order the coffee because 1) I notice that most of the cool people in the bookstore are drinking coffee or some mutant coffee hybrid, 2) and most importantly, I'm hoping that this torrid liquid will miraculously melt this lump in my throat, promptly curing syndrome #5, and 3) If I ever get the chutzpah to ask a girl to have coffee with me, it would be beneficial if I actually drank the stuff. It wouldn't be too cool to just sit there and watch her drink it. It would be like asking a girl out to go bowling and then saying, "No, you go ahead. I'm sitting this one out because it aggravates my sciatica."
I leave the store after pausing ever so briefly to weigh the options of purchasing a 50% off desktop calendar of "365 Days of Chicken Soup for the Soul." It's a little too "Shiny Happy People" for me, not to mention the fact that those self-help morons really piss me off, so I pass on the calendar and leave dejected since I couldn't write about anything and that disgusting coffee beverage did nothing to help Syndrome #5.
I get on the highway to go home and it hits me. I could write about this "Where's your freedom?" thing and have it be this really deep and cool philosophical piece and everything. I'm getting pretty stoked forming the story in my mind, not really paying attention to the road ahead, when I look up and all I see are tail lights. I slam on the brakes causing the Radiohead cassette tape case that was on my seat to hurtle against the dash at Top Gun-esque G-force. Once the car settled down, I looked up and saw it: The sun, just above the tree tops. It was HUGE and getting bigger by the second. I'm not sure if it actually got warmer out because at that same moment, I put on the defroster to get some ice off my window. All I could think about was that my little freedom story seemed pretty weak against this thermal holocaust. I kept thinking about how good that roast beef sandwich was and if I could call my bank and cancel that check, since I'm sure the video tape will not be arriving within the 4-6 week timeframe now. The sun filled up the entire sky. A golden, gaseous globe. And then...BOOM!
The sun exploded.
I'm almost sure of it. But don't quote me, though. Like I said, I haven't been sleeping well lately...
posted by Dim at 12/22/2005 09:04:00 AM
5 Comments:
Whooooa. Okay, first thing: The sandwiches look really, really good. As does the bar. Very fun! I wish I lived near Boston, too. Second thing: You know I love your work and think you're the greatest, but...I don't get it. I'm sure it's because I'm an idiot, and not due to you or your story. Did you actually write this in 1998? Was it all a hallucination? Please explain. I thought it was great (as always) but I'm just a little slow on the uptake today. :)
p.s. It always makes me smile when I see that you've posted something new. Keep up the good work, Dim.
OK, first things first. Long before I was Dim writing blog entries, I was dim and writing short stories and a ton of poetry. I moved onto music reviews (live and CDs) as well as some news-satire and essays for a now defunct e-zine.
What you have here is one of my older short stories, which was written easily a good 7 years ago and mostly written in a car (while I was driving).
Surprisingly, a huge chunk of the story is 100% true, or was, at the time. Some minor details and one, the exploding sun bit, aren't. Although the inspiration for the story did come on my ride home from that bookstore and from seeing a huge HUGE winter setting sun over the treetops that caused all the cars to jam on their brakes.
I ran across this story the other day and thought it sounded like a satirical blog entry for its time. Since I am a bit on the dry side (and my home PC is giving me desperate troubles), I decided to throw it on and see what reactions you and JG had to it. Probably should have given a little more background to it so you wouldn't have those question marks around your head, though. Sometimes I change lanes without putting on my blinker. Hmmm...another car metaphor.
Thanks, as always, for the encouragement and you have total and complete liberty to tell me if something sucks!
- D.
That explained it perfectly. Thanks. :) I love that you got the idea from a gigantic setting sun. Very cool.
Since my blog is just my general ranting and discussion of goings-on in my life (no wonder no one reads it), it's nice to read an actual literary work that you've written and posted. Like I said, I always look forward to a new post from you. I would find it hard to tell you outright that something sucks, but rest assured that nothing has sucked so far. :)
WV: erkfks is that when an erk "fks" another erk? Who knows?
I was a bit confused myself, as I've only had half of my morning coffee, which I DO like. I was thinking, "Did the sun explode in '98? Surely I would have remembered that." I liked the story and would love to see more of your old writings intersperced (sp?) with your new Dimmings.
PS Re: Boston We went there in 8th grade for a 3-day field trip, and I fell in love with the city.
Thanks you guys! I'll go through some of the old stuff and see if I can recycle it into the blog. A lot of it is dated and I don't want to fall into the trap of not coming up with anything new. But I appreciate your feedback!
Yeah, Boston really is great. I love this area and really can't think of a better place to live. I don't go into the city as often as I should, but when I do, it's fun.
- D.
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