Writing for the Writer

I can’t even cook proper meals, he said, it’s macaroni and cheese and ramen noodles every night if I don’t get takeout Chinese or a pizza because it’s too much trouble. I’m writing these words for a fellow writer who isn’t writing them because he can’t write, or do much else, even as I’ve told him to just get over his problem and get on with his life. He has requested that I don’t conclude with judgment on him, and I’ll honor that, though I reiterate that he needs to get over and get on because I can’t keep writing for him.

The Neighborhood Sloths

We’ve found our neighbors’ kids asleep on their porch, on our porch, on our patio, on our lawn, and even in our beds. They snore like buzzsaws, become immovable masses, impervious to shakes, nudges, and airhorns, and if you’d ever meet their parents, you’d understand how it all fits. You’d wonder just what the heck was wrong with us, why we put with what we do, what glue is it that holds us together, allows us to sleep at night.

The Man Who Fell Out of the Sky

I had lunch with the man who fell out of the sky, roast beef sandwiches at the outdoor café and an ice cream cone afterward. At first I didn’t believe his tale, since he would have been dead from impact, and how he didn’t know from where he came and only had selective bits of memory, but then he showed me the crater by the town’s outskirts, the bowl-shaped impact that was burned black and displaying perfect concavity. I saw that and believed him, looked at him with awe, his ice cream cone quickly a milky goo, wanting to touch his skin, feel a tingle of radiation, the warmth of stellar beings.