People.

                He accidentally pressed capslock instead of tab. Dammit. He pressed capslock again. A symbol popped up in the bottom of his screen telling him that it was no longer on. The page stood in front of him, line already indented. That was strange. He must have pressed both capslock and tab at the same time. At least it wasn’t a complete failure. Undeservingly proud of himself at this fact, he began to write. His female protagonist in skimpy loin cloths drew plans on a cave wall for a primitive bicycle. It was sci-fi that took place ten-thousand years before Christ. Genius. He reached to his left and bit off a large chunk of his much-too-large brownie. Before giving himself a chance to swallow, he grabbed a handful of potato chips and stuffed them in his mouth as a brownie-chaser. The saltiness and crunchiness offset the soft sweetness quite well. It was like dipping onion rings in apple sauce, or French fries in a Frosty. He didn’t know why it tasted good, it just did. He washed his mouthal concoction down with a swig of iced tea. Lemony. He returned to his typing. He was a natural at writing science fiction. At least, he thought so. He’d never let anyone read anything he wrote, but if someone did, they’d be impressed. He just knew they would.

                The protagonist began collecting petrified sticks with which to make her bicycle. Yeah. That was good. Petrified. Yeah. He wished he had Cheetos instead of potato chips. He felt like something cheesy. He would get up and check the refrigerator for something cheesy to dip potato chips in, but that was way too much work. He took another bite of chocolate clogged arteries, followed by a mouthful of heart attack chips and a gulp of iced diabetes. What was a good word he could use? He opened up Google Chrome and went to thesaurus-dot-com. A good word, a good word. That word was long, it was probably good. How did you pronounce that? The ‘p’ was probably silent. He placed the word in his text, followed by “as her boobs bounced up and down with joy”. He had to make sure everyone knew the protagonist was hot. Yeah. She had big breasts. That was good. Yeah.

                He was an excellent writer, really. He used words that even he didn’t understand all throughout his writing. That’s what thesauruses were for. His concepts were new and innovative, sometimes to the point of nonsense. His characters were charismatic and good-looking, all of them, ever. His plots thickened so much that you wouldn’t be surprised if velociraptors attacked Mars in a book about mid-eleventh century Shanghai during the Song dynasty. Although, that was partly because he had velociraptors in all of his books. Still, even if you replaced velociraptors with rabid lemurs, you wouldn’t be surprised. That’s what science fiction was all about. Doing things out of the ordinary. Falling in love with your heroines. Learning new words. That’s what it was all about.

                “The sybaritic cavewoman fell into the lake and got her loin cloth all wet. She had to take it off. The raptors anticipatorily watched her strip down to hot nakedness,” he wrote. He could’ve written Star Wars.

                He flipped the coin. Heads. What a strange corridor he was in. There were only two walls as far as he could tell. He could see for miles down either direction. The walls never seemed to stop. The walls were perfectly white. So white that staring at them almost hurt his eyes. He looked from one wall to the other. What were they made of? He walked up to one of them and touched it. White board? It was so smooth and shiny. He could easily write on it with a dry-erase marker. That’d be fun. He could work out so many equations on this board. He was sure of it.

                A marker fell from the ceiling. He looked up for the first time. The ceiling was white also, but not as shiny or smooth. As he stared at the ceiling his eyes began to burn. Too white to look at. He looked down at the ground where the marker had landed. The ground seemed to be made of the same stuff as the ceiling. Not too shiny, not too smooth, way too white. He bent down and touched the ground. It felt like it was made of marble. It didn’t really look like it, though. Something was wrong with it. He looked down each end of the hall again. As long as he looked at something different every few seconds, his eyes were alright. He just needed to keep busy. If he kept busy, he’d always be changing sights, which would keep him sane and his pupils undamaged. He was sure of it.

                He walked over to the coin on the floor and picked it up. What a strange coin. There didn’t seem to be an edge. How was that possible? He had used these in thought experiments before. Ideal, edgeless coins. His professor from college had used it in his explanation of “Almost Sure”. If an ideal coin were flipped again and again, infinitely, you could be sure that it would always land on either heads or tails. That made it a “Sure” event. The “Sure” event should have probability 1, he always thought, but his professor had said it didn’t have probability. It simply happened always.  To explain this, the thought experiment was expanded. As the coin was flipped ad infinitum, the probability of the infinite sequence becoming (H-H-H-H-H-…) as it always landed on heads was improbable, but technically possible. That didn’t make sense to him, since the probability of that occurring was 0. If the probability of heads always being flipped was 0, then the probability of tails being flipped at least once was 1. That meant it was going to happen. It had to. His professor said this was wrong because it didn’t have to. Idiot. That guy really wasn’t good at probability. If he flipped a coin infinitely, it would land on tails at least once. He was sure of it.

                He picked up the marker and walked over to the closest wall. He took off the cap and looked at the marker. The cap was black, as was the tip. The rest of it was white. Too white. He wrote on the wall in large black letters, “TAILS”, underlining it with a sloppy curved line. He walked to the opposite wall and wrote “HEADS”, underlining it as well. He put a single tally underneath it. This would prove his professor wrong. He was sure of it.

                He flipped the coin. Heads. He put a tally under the heads side. It was bound to happen at least once.

                He flipped the coin. Heads. He put a tally under the heads side. Twice was pretty probable, comparatively.

                He flipped the coin. Heads. He put a tally under the heads side. He’d eventually get tails

                He flipped the coin. Heads. He crossed the four tallies. Eventually.

                He flipped the coin. Heads. Satan laughed.

                He wished all the fucking lights would go out while he watched TV. It was one thing to have no lights on in his small apartment, but if the city would just shut itself the fuck off, “COPS” would be a thousand times more interesting. Fuck. He sat on his rugged, olive-green couch watching crack-heads get the shit beaten out of them by police officers. He wouldn’t be surprised to see someone that he knew. One of his neighbors. That’d be a load of shits and giggles, to see his neighbor from across the hall in some run down old alleyway getting caught buying crystal meth. He’d probably try to run. Of course he’d be caught, and the police would beat his ass with their Maglights and nightsticks, one of them putting their knee on the poor his back while another one read him his Miranda rights. There’d be a beaten-up, old pick-up truck in the background, browner than a shitty asshole. The same pick-up truck that was downstairs in the parking garage. A load of shits and giggles.

                He heard a scream from outside his window. What a neighborhood. People were killed outside of his apartment every fucking day. What did anyone do about it? Nothing. Nothing but report it in the six o’clock news the next day. If the shootings were gone here, there’d be nothing to talk about on TV. A load of shit if you asked him. How in the Hell did he end up here? How did his life get so far downhill in a matter of three years? It made him want to climb out that open window and just fall. Fall like he’d never fallen before. Fall with a purpose. Not like those crazy people who jump out of planes. They fall for attention, and for the rush. They fall just for the fun of falling. Him, though, he’d fall with a purpose. He’d hit the ground with a purpose, too.

                Another scream came from outside his window. What a busy night. Two screams without gunshots? The muggers must have been having a field day. You’d have thought that people would have enough sense not to go out in this neighborhood at this time of night. Some people were just fucking stupid. A cross-dressing heroin-shooter was being grappled on the TV in front of him. That is, until the TV went black. Fucking shit. He must not have paid his power bill that month. He sat for a few moments on the couch. The room seemed darker than it should have been. It was almost like the city had turned all of its lights off at the same time the TV went off. Maybe there was a power-outage. Just his luck. As soon as the outside lights went dark, he could’t watch anymore “COPS”. Fuck life.

                He stood up from the couch and walked over to the refrigerator. He really should just kill himself. He opened the large, grey refrigerator door. The only problem was, he was afraid of what was beyond death. The refrigerator was pretty empty. He wasn’t afraid of going to Hell, and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t be going to heaven, if it existed. He was afraid of just stopping. He grabbed one of two cans of generic cat piss beer, and a jar of mustard. He wanted some continuance after death. He needed to know that if he killed himself, that wouldn’t be the end, just the end of life. He put his beer and mustard on the counter and opened up a drawer in front of him, pulling out a plastic knife encased in a thin clear wrapper with the word “Wendy’s” near the bottom. He needed to know that there really was purpose behind falling with a purpose. He grabbed a box on the counter to his left marked “Saltines”. Unfortunately, there was no way he could know. He curled his arms around all of his ingredients and carried them to the TV table next to the couch.

                He sat on the couch and began smearing crackers with mustard and washing them down with cat piss. What a fucking life. There was another scream, this time coming from the hallway. This time, a man’s voice. A girly man, to be sure, but a man nonetheless. His walls began banging, until finally it was his door banging What the fuck? He heard a slight moaning, harmonizing with the banging. Someone was hitting his door really hard. He stood up and walked over to it, undoing the chain from its resting place and putting it to good use as a secondary lock. He slowly turned the handle and opened the door slightly. As soon as the door was open enough for him to see through the crack, it was banged the hardest it had been banged yet, knocking it off of its hinges to the ground. He quickly stepped to his left, barely missing being crushed by the falling door. In the hallway in front of him was his neighbor from across the hall, threatening to eat his brain in a slow, almost incoherent drawl. Next to him was a small girl, she couldn’t have been more than thirteen, also threatening to eat his brain. It would have been more realistic for her to eat his kidney, but he forgave her for that. Behind these two were a half a dozen more zombies, on their way to share the meal of his flesh. Before he could react, his zombified neighbor began clawing at his face, while the undead child took a large chunk out of his stomach. Fuck that hurt.

                He was going to die. He was going to die and become a zombie. He was going to leave this life behind and yet it wouldn’t be the absolute end. There, there was concrete proof that death wasn’t the end. He took comfort in that.

            He sat on his bed, periodically looking over at the pile next to him. New socks. He began to grab each pair of socks and lay them out in rows along the bed, just below where the blankets were folded over. Nike, Nike, Gap, Gap, Gap, Gold Toe, Gold Toe, Gold Toe. He began another row under the previous one. Nike, Nike, Gap, Gap, Gap, Gold Toe, Gold Toe, Gold Toe. And so on, and so forth. Eight pairs of Nike, twelve pairs of Gap, twelve pairs of Gold Toe. He had quite the collection of new socks.

            He opened up a package to his left. It was time to add to the collection. Champion. Eight pairs. He formed two columns of four pairs each next to the existing columns. Nike, Nike, Gap, Gap, Gap, Gold Toe, Gold Toe, Gold Toe, Champion, Champion. He had quite the collection of new socks.

            He hunched over and looked down at his feet, wiggling his toes freely. He picked up the closest pair of socks to him. Nike. He imagined what it would feel like to have them on his feet, surrounding them, engulfing them in comfort. He imagined the feel of the semi-cotton fabric against his heels, the warmth, the smooth texture. Wonderful. He had quite the collection of new socks.

            He put the pair of socks back in its place and longingly stared at the array that he’d set out. He began to bite his lower lip, holding back the tears of a love lost. He moved his hand along the bottommost column, stroking each pair of socks in turn. Nike, Nike, Gap, Gap, Gap, Gold Toe, Gold Toe, Gold Toe, Champion, Champion. He could never go back again. He had quite the collection of new socks.

            He stood up and looked away from his collection. In front of him was a chest of drawers. He walked up to the apparatus and pulled open a drawer. He reached in and pulled out a lone sock, green stripe covering the toe. He clenched it in his fist, failing to hold back a single tear, which fled down his face and landed on his thumb. Damn feet. Damn dirt. Damn washing machine. He could never go back again. He had quite the collection of new socks.

            He sat with the eraser end of his pencil in his mouth, his hand clenched around the yellow writing utensil, his eyes staring at nothing. He breathed in, he breathed out. He needed inspiration of some sort. Not just any sort, though, but of the idea-giving sort. He breathed in, he breathed out. He wrote:

Expiration happens after every inspiration.

Though if one were to not inspire,

One would expire. So,

I guess you could say

That expiration happens,

With or without inspiration. 

            That was no good. He erased his work. It was horrible to have to write with a pencil and paper. Scribble this, scribble that, rub out this, erase that. The lack of computer was hard on the nerves. He breathed in, he breathed out. Oh what he would give to be able to write something unique and thought-provoking. He imagined stabbing himself in the leg. He imagined stabbing himself in the arm. He imagined stabbing himself in the chest. This wasn’t working. He needed more than just an imaginary injury to get himself some inspiration. He needed more. He breathed in, he breathed out. He wrote:

“I wish I wish I was a fish,”

He said with much disdain,

“For if I were a little fish,

Then I would feel no pain.

Though, if I felt no pain at all,

And felt nothing in its stead,

Then surely I would be no more,

No more than the dead.”

            Awful stuff. Scribble this, scribble that, rub out this, erase that, erase this, rub out this, erase that, rub out that. It was a horrid process. He breathed in, he breathed out. The worst part of it was, he didn’t have much time. He wished he had done something about this sooner. He breathed in, he breathed out. More time. It was a horrible time to want more time. He had very little left. He breathed in, He breathed out. Just thinking about it, made him want to… die. Strange how things worked out. He wrote:

                        Now I will destroy the whole world.

Simple yet perfect. And with this he folded the paper and carefully set it on his chest. He breathed in he breathed out. With even more care, he let his hand fall to the bed, being sure that he still grasped the pencil. He breathed in, he breathed out. The pill would kick in soon. He breathed in he breathed out. He  closed his eyes. He breathed in, he breathed out. He breathed in.

                He worked at Burger King. He made flame-broiled Whoppers. He wore paper hats.

                “Would you like an apple pie with that?” He said to the customer in front of him. No? What a surprise. The answer was always no.

                “Would you like an apple pie with that?” He asked of the next customer in line after taking her order. No? What a surprise. The answer was always no.

                The only thing that kept him sane at this job was the fact that it was simply a first job. A stepping-stone. He’d find a better job in a year or so. He had plenty of time left in his life to work his way up the business ladder. What he didn’t know was that this job would eventually get too cushy. There’s job security in the fast food business. And they’d make him manager! Now that’s an honor. He wasn’t going to spend the rest of his life working at Burger King. And ten years later he’d get into a car accident. It wouldn’t be fatal at first, but the doctors would make a mistake in the emergency room. Things were left in patients all the time. The surgeon would get his watch back as soon as the autopsy was done. Of course there’d be a lawsuit, but the damage would already be done.

                Anyways, that was ten years down the line. For now, he worked at Burger King. He made flame-broiled Whoppers. He wore paper hats.

                “Would you like an apple pie with that?”

                “Would you like an apple pie with that?” No? What a surprise. The answer was always no.

           He vomited. It was disgusting. If anyone was watching, they would have been disgusted. Fortunately, no one was unfortunate enough to be forced to watch such a horrible activity. He sat up, clutching his porcelain vomitorium. Why did he drink so much? He had no idea. He grabbed his glass and took a sip from a gross amount of wine. Fucking wine. You couldn’t even call it a sip, really; it was way too voluminous. You’d hesitate to call it a gulp, too. Gulps involve throat movement, a movement like the Adam’s Apple has a life of its own and has decided to move slightly up the throat, followed by dropping all the way to the bottom of the throat until it again rests itself in the middle. His throat had no such activity. His voluminous sip slid itself down his esophagus like nothing was there. Disgusting. He wiped some residue off of his cheek. Disgusting. He again hurled himself towards the opening in the toilet. Disgusting. He took another drink.

                He ran down the street, headphones in ears, iPod in hand. Well, it wasn’t an iPod, some other company made it, but people called it an iPod. He hated that. Not that he remembered what it was called. It said Phillips on it, but that was just the company that made it. Still, people shouldn’t call it an iPod, it wasn’t an iPod.

                He ran down the street, sweat under his arms. Sweat everywhere, really. He was a very sweaty person, especially when he ran. If he weren’t running, the sweat would be pooling underneath him. Well, I guess if he weren’t running, he wouldn’t be sweating so it wouldn’t be pooling. Unless he was doing something else that was strenuous. Then it would be pooling and he wouldn’t be running. Ha. Take that, you. You out there.

                He ran down the street, pointing at a person across the street. It created a sort of tension that could even be felt by the cars passing between them. He stopped pointing at the person and began moving his hands and arms to the beat.

                “I’m stopping with the man in the mirror.”

                His head pulsated as he stopped momentarily and pointed at a dog being walked by another passerby. The passerby looked at him strangely and kept jogging with her dog in front. He bobbed his head somewhat and kept walking, as if the moment hadn’t happened. He continued to make hand motions to the rhythm.

                “You got to stand up, stand up, stand up, yeah make that change.”

                With each “stand up”, he motioned at a person near him to stand up. This was a complicated gesture. He didn’t want to point toward the sky the whole time, so he forced his hand into a curving motion which made it point up for an instant, still implying “make an upward motion with your body”, yet in a more rhythmic way. People stared as he ran past them.

                He ran down the street.

            He walks into his two-story, luxury home, loosening his tie. It’s been a long day at work. He takes off his coat and hangs it next to the door, pulls off his stylish brown hat and hangs that on the same rack as his coat. His house is completely empty of life, excluding himself of course, but this is normal. He lives alone. He walks to the right of the room and steps through a doorway, entering another room. He walks to the far side of this room, and from various cabinets and bars pulls out a highball glass, an ice bucket, sugar, lemon juice, club soda and a bottle of Old Tom Gin. He uses tongs to fish out two cubes of ice, which he then places in the glass. He then pours the gin into the glass, filling it about half of the way up, pours a bit of sugar into the glass, then fills the rest up with a mixture of lemon juice and club soda. The perfect Tom Collins, on the rocks. He had three every night… They calmed him.

            She takes a few quick glances around. No one is looking at her. She brings her hand up to her mouth. Still, no one is looking at her; everyone is too engrossed in their quiz. She finished early. She bites her thumb nail, tears off a piece with her teeth in an extremely grotesque manner, then spits out the piece of dead human tissue. It lands on the carpet near her… They get in the way of playing the violin.

            The car turns right onto 2^nd Street as he pulls a ski mask over his face. It’s the middle of October and he is obviously not skiing. He pulls gloves over his hands, as if he were cold. Right. The car takes a left onto Hudson Avenue as he opens up the glove compartment and pulls out a small handgun. The driver chuckles as he takes the firearm and places it into the large pouch-like pocket of his pullover. The car stops in front of a small store with a large ‘k’ on it. He steps out and the driver speeds off in the car. He walks into the store, walks towards the register and pulls out the gun… He needs the money.

             She pulls out her package, “Menthol” it says on the box in small letters. She hits it against her hand a few times; what this does, she has no idea. She opens up the package and pulls out one of nine cylindrical devices. Each device is filled with a brownish semi-powder which smells like rabbit food mixed with fermented grapes. She pulls out a red piece of equipment with “Bic” written on the side, then sticks the cylindrical device in her mouth. She flicks a small wheel at the top of the red apparatus, her hand shielding it from some unknown force. She then immediately moves her finger to an almost unseen button below the wheel and a spark appears, followed by a small flame. She then lifts the flame to the end of the cylindrical device, breathes in, lets go of the button, pulls the cigarette out of her mouth, and lets out a long puff of smoke… It makes her feel so good.

            Who could ask for any more?

                She pedaled. She pedaled some more. That was interesting. She continued pedaling. The slope uphill was really starting to bother her knees. She’d get to the top eventually, though. She pedaled. Her breath became faster and closer together. Her lungs began to shrivel. She pedaled. It was like an inferno outside. She normally wasn’t a sweater, but today, today she couldn’t stop sweating. That was normal though, since sweating was a reflex reaction. There was her medical schooling kicking in. If only she had finished. She could never finish anything, so it really wouldn’t have been like her to finish school. At least, that’s what she told herself. Technically it was true. There were few things she actually finished. Her book. Her paintings. That garden. Although, she was good at starting things. And there was one thing she could always finish… Wait. That wasn’t a good thought. She hated thinking bad thoughts. This bridge was really long. She pedaled. There was the top of it. She could see it. She pedaled, but the top of the bridge got further away. She was no physicist, but she knew that wasn’t possible. Maybe it was an optical illusion. Maybe this was the longest bridge in the world.

                The girl’s body dangled in the closet. No one knew it was there, yet. She enjoyed doing things in a very cliché way. Death by hanging was one of the most cliché things out there. It must have been tough to do, but not as tough as you might think. There was a rope around a shelf. The shelf had been secured extra well, it was the one she kept her piles of books on. All she had to do was take the books off, and it would hold her weight easily. There was a stool tied to another rope. She stood on the stool, on her tippy-toes of course, and pulled the rope. It was creative, though, you had to give that to her. She had always been a creative person. She’d started writing a book. She’d painted some paintings, kind of. She even had plans for a garden. She couldn’t finish any of them though. This was the one thing she could finish…

                She pedaled.