By Tom Fennario
You asked, and it was true that I had been drinking. In fact just about everything you kept saying was the undisputable truth, it’s a part of your nature. Boy, you were really letting me have it! I was in no shape to defend myself against your onslaught of facts, figures, and historical accounts of overall bad behavior. We were really moving, the city was disappearing underneath our feet, it seemed reasonable to assume that eventually we would just run out of pavement, and then I would be stranded, stranded there with you standing arms akimbo at the edge of the world. Something had to be done, and quickly at that. Like a fool, I thought maybe words would help. Words! I’d stop writing them if I could!
“Listen,” was the first word I said, followed shortly thereafter by whole barrage of the little bastards.
“I can be a deplorable degenerate on occasion, but don’t you see that’s part of what you like about me? You would be bored if you had no reason to stand around, sighing and blowing your brown hair out of your blue eyes. You knew I was a rascal when you decided to start killing time with me. So shit, buy the ticket, take the ride.”
Boy oh boy, such vanity! I would never say words like that nowadays. I just don’t like myself that much anymore!
“If you had been listening to a word I’ve said all night,” you seethed from the teeth out “you would know that I think that you’re too boring to be a rascal. You’re actually just a vain Hunter Thompson wannabe.”
What does one do after getting caught passing a phrase stolen from a literary genius off as his own? What does one do in the face of such spiteful truth? If you’re me, you climb up a nearby lamppost and refuse to come down or even look at the rotten, truth spouting face still calling your name. I held my head up high towards the light, ignoring your pleas for adult behavior. My corneas began to burn, forcing me to shut my eyelids. And the remaining light that continued to seep in was a brilliant orange.
Excerpted from Lickety Split