Daily writing exercise, 750words.com
fiction by Jason Edwards
He’s sitting in a house he built himself, out of an old grain silo. It’s actually pretty boss; the problem is, he has no snacks. And he needs snacks, fucking snacks, stat.
There are no, for example, Cheetos. No Doritos. No Fritos. Is it crunchy, does it end with -tos? It’s not in his boss house. God damn it.
The first floor is nothing much to look at. A hole busted through the wall, dirt floor, lots of junk and bric-a-brack all piled up, higgledy-piggeldy. Old prams, broken chairs, stacks of lumber from the build, cans of dried paints. Obviously absent: Ho-hos, Ding-Dongs, Twinkies, anything at all made by Hostess, Little Debbie, or their ilk. But there is a staircase against the round wall, and it goes up through ceiling fifteen feet above.
Popcorn: nope. Cheezits: nope. Hardwood floors of polished mahogany: yes. Windows, triple-pain glass: yes. Gorgeous view of a stunning landscape: no. Rather mediocre view of farm building and an old tornado-wrecked house: yes. Can you eat these things? Fucking no.
On this floor there’s a largish area with rugs and couches and a television. Bookcases hide the stairs that came up. Next a few walls go up eight feet, a half-bath, as they call it, there’s a kitchen area. This is the area of doom and gloom, at least today. It has no Funyuns, no cheese cubes, no Lil’ Smokies. There’s a pantry with ingredients, but ingredients aren’t snacks. Cans of things and bags of things and boxes of things. Edible? Strictly only. Enjoyable? You kiss your mother with that mouth?
In the middle of the room, a spiral staircase that goes up to the third floor. Bedroom on one side, study-cum-office on the other, large bathroom in between. This is not an exercise in irony. There’s not going to be suddenly lots of Twizzlers and Gino’s Pizza Rolls stashed in secret nooks and crannies. The bed-side tables flanking the California King. The air-craft carrier-sized desk. The jacuzzi tub, the separate shower with room enough for five peoples. If only there were five people in it now, carrying buckets of chicken wings.
The bedroom area on one side, the office on the other, the bathroom in between along the wall, and opposite that, what could be called either a very steep set of stairs or a lazy ladder. It goes up to the fourth floor. A gym, sort of, a hobby area, sort of. Is he into small appliance repair, as a hobby? Say, vintage Easy-Bake Ovens, with fudge brownie packets to test that the repair was successful? Or perhaps old Sno-Cone Machines? For godsakes, maybe even a box full of old candy wax-lips to make the world’s first edible candle? Fuck me in the ass right now.
The gym area has a treadmill but no Gatorade Chews, a weight bench but no Power Bars, an exercise bike but no Energy Goo. There’s a sound system and a TV screen for distraction. Go ahead, turn on the TV, get distracted from the lack of bowls of salted peanuts with commercials of bowls salted peanuts.
There’s one more floor, and a proper ladder this time, and the ladder goes up to the roof. Oh don’t worry. It’s protected on all sides by a three-foot railing, so you can’t accidentally fall off from lack of energy from lack of snacks. If you ever heard a story about an amateur astronomer who keeps a decent-sized telescope in a large water-proof footlocker on top of a boss house made out of an old grain silo who also kept in the locker bags of Peanut M&Ms, you’re experiencing what we call pure mother fucking fiction. He does have the water-proof foot locker, the decent-sized telescope, and he also has mostly overcast nights and a distant but not-distant-enough small town that barfs up an unexpectedly huge amount of light pollution, and whatever the spiritual hole the universe has created to take the place of bags of Peanut M&Ms.
And that’s pretty much it. He gets up, he goes to work, he comes home, he watches TV, makes dinner, does some work in his study, goes to bed. It’s not a bad life. Except for the fact that it’s pretty much the worst life any human being in the history of human beings has ever led. For there are no snacks. There’s no punch-line to this, there’s no moral, there’s no revelation. If there were, he’d eat those instead. Instead, he just sits on the dirt floor at the bottom of his boss house made out of an old grain silo and pines and pines and pines.