Ballswell That Ends Well

Abridged Version

Here are some things I wrote.  Finally fixed the links on the master compendium, but figured I'd condense that into this- which is the new top of the page.  Any new posts will appear under this one.  

 

Short(or long) Stories(Fiction):

The Sink at Sunset - Guy has mobile home of a heart.  This is life at 20.

Shells - My drug induced interpretation of the scramble suits in A Scanner Darkly caused this short. 

Saint Dympna - Mental patient goes missing after big mishap.

Nine-Tenths is Nothing - Our children are here to replace us.  One man attempts to slow this process by proving he is better than them and protecting his wife from kid perverts. 

The Last Boat to the Disappearing - A seven vignette fiction piece about flaming zombies.  As much as I wish I had written them gay, they are actually on fire.

Story Starter Exercise - A brief story about a friend who got kicked out of his own house and did a lot of drugs while living in the woods.

The Hippie and The Scientist - Right after I read Choke and Fight Club, I wrote this.  Please skip the "ending."

 

 

NON-FICTION(though probably embellished mostly by stunted ability to recall)

The Most Puke I Have Ever Seen - Imagine this next scene.  Try to visualize it with me.  My eyes open to the ceiling, my body shocked out of deep REM sleep.  My legs and waist are moist. . .

 Strange Format - Saturday Show   -  Seriously the strangest format or lack thereof I have ever used.  Almost like a poem.  I've bad luck and things get out of hand. 

Drunk People - An interesting twist-- I'm not drunk in this story. For once in my life.

 Dead Cicada - A woman is assaulted while holding her child.  I intercede.

You're Creepy, Hunter - A girl tells me I am creepy.  I get even.

Salvia Gets Too Real - Fourth and worst trip on Salvia.

A Retelling of the First Time I Smoked

Pissing in Pools I & II - My double standard on people who pee in pools.

 Phoenix - I don't think I am supposed to write about something that is supposed to be anonymous.  Oh well. 

 Be Amazed -  I create a syntax for poetry.  And a new poem.

Black and Mild - I'll miss drinking with friends on top of the roof at my old apartment.  I will miss that Mediterranean market, with its natural soaps and cheap spices.  I will miss all those families who called the cops on me when I played music too loud on Monday nights.  Ahh

 Graham's 21st Birthday - "No, dude, we're walking home.  It's like two blocks."

A Warning - First Friday's in Richmond!

Hunter Takes it to the Limit, Throws Up Everywhere - In The Top Five Drunkest Nights

A Trip To Walmart - Seriously one of the best destinations while high.  Interesting, entertaining, sometimes a little creepy.

To Move My Body - When reality sinks in, when you think you've got nothing, you become psychic, telepathic, and shameless. This story has procession of Segways!

The Things I Remember - I somehow wake up at 2PM in my dorm, still drunk from the night before.  A rough bus ride does me in.

Hunter Blacks Out, Goes To Patient First, Blames Free Beer - Pretty self explanatory.

A Tucker Emulation, It Seems - The very first story I wrote.

JMU, PART I - The first and, since, only time I have been breathalyzed.  There is no part II.  Part II would be better though, as it includes doing mushrooms, a starving French guy, five plus parties, nearly getting run over, really drunk chicks with australian accents, and BLOODHOUNDS.  But this story has none of that.

Bloody in '08 - A New Year story, complete with someone who attempts to smash a full, unopened champagne bottle over his head.

 

Other:
At The Edge of The Neighborhood - Vivid zombie dream.

A Clerihew and some other stuff

A Haiku - About a day I spent at the river getting drunk with someone I didn't know.  She was taken and I fell and cut myself on a rock.  Then there is a sexual allegory at the end.  There, I ruined it.

Shut Down or Reset - Up late? Two options.  Special bonus feature: scene from this year's Best Friends Day @ Hadad's

My First Near-Ticket on a Bicycle

Autumn - The Greatest and Best Time of Year

 

Master Compendium, which probably still has a few broken links.   Also, I don't think my spellcheck is working, and I'm not perfect.

Buried Near the Living Dead II

    Nothing matters, in the face of the living dead (I certainly don't).  They will always haunt you, creep up from their shallow, lightly packed graves--  reaching for you with their melting flesh, howling.   And you think you want to share with them, things you forgot to say.

    Every thing you see in the living, you compare to the dead.  Every thing you see in the living dead, you'll compare to the alive.  We can't escape it, it's just something humans possess/possessed.  To be possessed, by this, this meaningless, lifeless bloodlust.  

    All the living dead want is to hold on to you, gnaw away with maws wide.  All the living want is to hold on to the idea of the living dead's mouths, shut.  Shut the fuck up, you howling dead.  

This will bury me near the living dead.

Buried Near the Living Dead I

As soon as it is reassembled she tells me, in so many words, the whole thing means nothing.  The hour or so it takes to make our way to the lock, in the first place, is simply for fun.  The lock itself, the half hour looking at it, greasing its triggers-- this is for final confirmation.

This whole affair is a test.  The cell accepts me, and I'm no longer a part of this phase.  Just someone who can operate a gun, pick a lock, and fuck my way to information.  Without this splinter cell, they say I will die.  

But I see it like this.

Fuck.  You.  

Drowning in Valerian

Drowing in Valerie N.
She's got the melatonin, 
and valerian. 

Help me sleep and split and start
over, over there where they aren't
telling us what's art.

Obvious my coterie
took no notes on notaries'
hooked coats, oaths or me.

Pulling the Puzzle Apart

Things I guess I'll need:
-Furniture

    *lounge chair
    *new mattress 
    *dining table / big table
    *chairs
    *pillows
    *comforter/sheets

-Kitchen

    *magnetic knife strip
    *glass wear / glass storage
    *prep table / island
    *silver ware, plates, glasses, mugs
    *RAGS, cloth napkins

-Food stuff:
    *Nuts.  Yes, I'll need to get more nuts.  Walnuts, pecans, blah blah blah.  
    *Cans, tons of canned food.  Tomatoes mostly.
    *Rice.  All the rice.
    *Glass jars and lids

Things I'll want:

-Soda machine
-art
-nick nacks?  wtf is that, anyway.  

Ugh. 

 

Services, Things to Transfer/Cancel:
Electric
Verizon
Netflix 

Crack the Skye

I'm awake.  I mean the sun rises and I'm awake.  I'm really awake.

I nearly freeze to death walking to my car. Inside, the windows frost over and Katherine groans.  I reach for a blanket.  It is a literally frozen chef coat that I grab.   It is a sheet of ice now, like an Eskimo coat-hanger. I should just keep a simple, dry, old man blanket in the car, like they used to back in K's day.

I start the car and charge the engine.  I don't know if there's a precedent in the Richmond court system or elsewhere that states reving the engine too loudly is illegal, so I do.  I turn off my lights like they're a nuisance.  Like anyone asleep is going to wake up and anyone awake is going to be around to hear or see or be bothered.

Six is a weird time to be alone, because that's what you are.  There is no danger of wrecking your completely white vessel in apocolyptic frost fall.  There are no cars on the road, save for those parked. There's no gushing, just cool(freezing).  Stillness.  

The car shudders, cold itself.  I notice the sunrise in the rearview.  The sky is sutured to a blocky horizon.  I don't know why I'm awake or what drives me.  

This is boring.  To write, to read.  And fucking Mike is pacing around upstairs, frantically stomping from one end of the house to another.  I already can't concentrate and I want to saw his legs off.  But seriously, why is he awake?!  What is he up to?
Because it's not gainful employment.   

 

 

 

In the dawn, your face is haunting. . . 

 

 

The Weekend Is Not Fun

    The weekend is not fun.  Stop posting that "[You] can't wait for the weekend!"  I hate you.  The weekend is work, and yes, sometimes that can be fun, for I've a slight passion for what I do.  

    I once considered Thursday part of the weekend.  Now, I get to cook for the affluent and scrub and run dishes in a dishwasher's stead.  This isn't exactly my idea of fun or relaxation.  

    You know what I did Tuesday, though?  I rode my bike around in the cool Fall air, stayed up all night, went to a bar, saw a great couple of bands-- Fuzzy Baby, a Richmond staple capable of a myriad of instruments and styles, and Monarchs(These are not The Monarchs.  Well, they are, but not the right ones.)-- and walked a friend home twenty blocks because he got a flat.  Then I cooked for him and his neighbors, with an Indian guy who could talk your ear off about Raita.  And he did.  Where's my ear?  Still can't find it.
    I drank and surprisingly well, considering the downed twelve pack and copious smokes that proceeded and extended into the night.  Lungs, liver, and mind saturated; I had no problem dancing or being genial.  Others faired not so well.

    One cohort technically got kicked out, but by sheer will made his way back into the bar to retrieve his hoodie, then proceeded to make out with another cohort.  I don't say worker after 'co' because we don't really do the same thing-- we just occupy the same space.  Which, if you were taking this literally you would say is impossible.  

   Someone was lucky enough to have Fuzzy Baby mention her birthday during their set.  She was also unlucky enough to have been born around that day so that twenty four years later people would buy her enough free drinks to make her puke.   Hard.  Though I was told, "Maybe later," when offering to buy a drink.  This ultimately made me feel bad after someone bought me a drink for making me feel bad.  This may not make sense, but that's because you weren't there.  Unless you were, in which case it should.  If it still doesn't, meh.

    But don't you see?  These are the fun times for us.  We're like the opposite of "Weekend Warriors."  We are the upside down.  The calendar defying, disbelievers of time.  We work on the weekends when the rest of you are off.  We work for you.  Just remember that the next time you're happy.  I want to say, "Remember that and don't be," but really just keep us in mind.

    

Mr. Roller Coaster Ribs

I am running around frantically in this, the near mare of nights, looking for things to prep in what is, now that I'm awake I realize, a very dry and room temperature walk-in which makes sense considering the items I grab; a few warm weather vegetables.  There are also toys in there, which is something I ignore as I hear my co-worker through the thick, metal door ajar.  

Next thing I know, the two of us are out in the dining room flipping chairs in our faded whites before guests arrive.  Unfortunately they arrive as we do this, and there are still a few loose ends.  Two pairs of shoes are on the carpet and there's an old, salmon colored couch in the middle of the small dining room that I don't acknowledge, in the dream, as my real life couch with its rips and tears and creaky back rest.  I begin to think this is someone's, or the appearance of someone's house, made to comfort patrons, like a small ranch facade connected to a huge underground maze of pipes and dirty hands.

My chef is in the dream but I don't remember why or how any of this connects to riding low set rollercoasters in the park at night with my girlfriend's family and a life-like version of Petunia from Futurama.  In any case, that's what happens next.

We ride the violently frequent waves of low amplitude, which reveals that my body harness is askew.  Good times, as now only my left foot remains shackled to the train traveling 30mph. Odd method of restraint, as my leg is bending in every unnatural way- cracking here and there.  I hit the side of the train with my head and my foot comes loose.  The train leaves me suspended apart, an island in the air listening to "Petunia's" daughter's voice fade up and down the rails, "Should we help him?" and her mother's narrow response, no, and something about cold sores.  The rapidly ascending tracks crush my sternum.  

And everyone I'm with goes into a museum while I lie there on the grass.

Please Hire Me

_{My girlfriend loves how seriously I'm taking the second-job hunt.}

Dancers (Rich)

---

Date: 2011-07-18, 2:51AM EDT
Reply to: job-u44vy-2499845058@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

---

 

Looking for a few female dancers, this is not for a strip club this is a private business.Please Only serious inquiries only i will schedule a day to meet with u, give u the basic information and build a portfolio!!!! This is A Chance For Good MONEY!!!! so if u a BullShitter DONT WASTE MY TIME Thanks!!! 

• Location: Rich
• Compensation: 300-1,000 an event!!!
• This is a contract job.
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

PostingID: 2499845058

---

 

 

Hunter Caldwell to job-u44vy-2499.

show details 3:24 PM (17 minutes ago)

 

Hi, no bullshit, I am an amazing dancer.  I can move my hips real good and you know when I lay down the moves, all eyes are on me.  Although I am not a female, I am sure I can do anything from the slap to the robot.

And girls need boys to dance with.  Hit me back.

 

 

 

Looking for a good job? (Work from home)

---

Date: 2011-07-17, 11:22PM EDT
Reply to: job-x5mfp-2489661624@craigslist.org ^{[Errors when replying to ads?]}

---

 

We are looking for a few good sales agents to make calls to businesses. We offer programs that save them a ton of money on their electric bill. This is a great position and it offers you some fantastic income potential. Agents can make up to $70-$700+ per sign up. If you are interested please reply to the e-mail above. 

• Location: Work from home
• Compensation: $1K+ per week
• Telecommuting is ok.
• Principals only. Recruiters, please don't contact this job poster.
• Please, no phone calls about this job!
• Please do not contact job poster about other services, products or commercial interests.

 

 

 

Hunter Caldwell to job-x5mfp-2489.

show details 3:33 PM (10 minutes ago)

 

Hi, yes, I am looking for a good job.  Well, a great job really.  Making "$1K+ per week," sounds fantastic.  

Say, what are we selling?  Electric breaks to big corporations?  I'm in.  I can sell anything, especially electricity/lightning.  Just give me a phone and I'll have half the city begging for Tesla Coils that don't actually do anything but make their hair stand up!

Once, I was making a sales call and the person on the other end said the child the company was trying to photograph for school had died!  Can you believe that?  Also, once I called for someone actually named God.  Let's just say I've seen(heard) a lot in my day.

Say, how long do you think it would take to convince a big company to buy whatever it is we're selling so I can get that big paycheck?   And is compensation based solely on commission? 

-Hunter

Then I get a 4 page response detailing the company, that it is about energy deregulation in the north.  It is clearly automated, the header being a, "100% Legit Work-at-home program."

 

 

Hunter Caldwell to Susan

show details 3:57 PM (7 hours ago)

 

Hello, "Susan," it appears you ignored all of my questions and excited anecdotes.  Instead you sent me what appears to be a 100% legitimately automated message asking me to move north.  "Susan," I like where I live.  There is a river, and a lot of good food.  I'd like to take this opportunity to extend an invitation to my town.  

Please respond if you'd like to go out on a date in Richmond.  Then we can talk business.

-Hunter

 

Susan xxxxxx to me

show details 5:19 PM (6 hours ago)

Hunter, I get 100's of ad replies and operate a business,  we invite to a conference call to talk to all. and this email was not automated.  We just can't stop and talk to each person one on one ---- it would take me more than 2wks to get to you -----  all i ask is that if you want to work with us join our call ----- if you want to extend to a one on one it can be arranged. Sue xxxxxx!!!! AND I AM NOT ASKING YOU TO MOVE ANYWHERE -----?????

 

 

 

Hunter Caldwell to Susan

show details 11:17 PM (5 minutes ago)

 

Sue,

I send 100's of e-mails a day so I know what it's like- exhausting!  Though I think you may have a different definition of 'automated' than I, perhaps you use Merriam-Webster whereas I use Oxford.  These misunderstandings are common in that case.  Here is what my dictionary says: "verb - convert (a process or facility) to largely automatic operation."  Such as responding to 100's of ad replies with or without a click of a button- sending a pre-written statement. 

Luckily you yourself got back to me within two weeks, and I am still very much interested.  I would love to chat with you and your friends before my big move.  When will this happen?  Do you use Google+ or Skype?

-Hunter

 

Hunter Caldwell to Susan

show details 11:19 PM (4 minutes ago)

 

*That is actually what my dictionary says for "automate."  Regardless, I have sent you an invite to Google+, because Google suggested it.  We can be friends.

 

Twelve Miles, a sinking pirate ship, a torn deltoid, and several entrees later. . .

So I can barely type without leaning at some awkward angle.  The mouse is on the left hand side and my strokes ssslide across multiple kuilmjeys(keys).  I just wanted to write something tonight to say thank you to some people I know, for sure, don't even read this.  SB, DZ, MFlowers, Rachhh, G-money, Kimberly, and of course Suckatash.  You guys have made my week.  

Happy birthday to the first two.  Your part was the most reckless binge drinking water-fun, pirate-boat-riding, awesome dj-havin' party ever.  I missed you guys.  Karsen's bond 4ever.  Though I can't lift my arm above my chest, it was fun times!  Riding my bike to Hadad'sn was my favorite part, oddly enough.

Graham and Kim.  Thank you.  For, though you may not believe or cannot imagine my pain, agreeing that I may have hurt myself.  And, you know, giving me rides.  It's appreciated.  I owe you.

MFlowers and Rachhh, congrats on the new house.  I think it's a wonderful space and tonight was really enjoyable.  You are two of the most pleasant/interesting people I know, and the group there is anything but mild when it comes to admirability and adorable.  
    The food was awesome.

Suckatash, my one.  The only that can put up with my whining at 3AM.  Thanks for icing me down, taking care of me, and when all else failed drugging me until I passed out.  I love you.  Thanks for waiting on us after we barely survived the lake.  The food was amazing, and as always the service was above and beyond.

In further news, I am really excited to annouce I will not only be rewriting Clarinets I, but I will be writing II and III shortly.  Expect sea monsters and  lighthouses!

 

last train

The Longest Day Rambles On

    Today is the longest day of the year.  Specifically, for a moment today, the Tropic of Cancer reaches out to the sun, exposing the Northern Hemisphere for what seems like a long time.
    But the day doesn't seem longer.
    Sitting amidst and adding to -with an additive packed cigarette- the inescapable Richmond haze, I puff away, petting a dog slumped on the stoop.  Her bowels insist on turmoil.  For days now, nothing but puddles and chunks, smeared red where they land.
    "It's this heat, right?"  She just stares at me, blinks. 
    It's this heat, right? I ask myself silently. That's slowly killing you?

    The grey colligation of water and air, the thick of the night, creep in just as steadily as a day before.  A day after.  Even the rustling leaves sound the same as yesterday.  But I listen closely and I look above to the trees.  This loud tickle means a storm, but these trees sway gently.

    The grandfather dog, that is to say the one panting so loudly now that I can no longer hear what I am no longer sure is rustling, lays next to me.  He seems fine.  No puddles.  Just old age.  If I were his age?  Hell.  Hell, will I make it?
    A cough, probably 'smoker's', burning my lungs.  Sun burn cooking my skin.  Ivy scratching my neck.  Swollen spider bite.  A busted pronator teres.  E coli drowning my sperm.  MRSA rotting my flesh.  Pox, planter's warts, poison- all of it poison!  

    I can confirm the rustling is actually two noises- a car's engine and AC units- that play in deceitful unison.  The only things magical about tonight are drinks involving muddled lemon verbena and knowing I have just enough money to turn the AC on tonight.

   P.S.

    I don't need money.  Plenty of things are free.  The freak show that is Byrd Park provides an abundance of entertainment.   From the thigh-deep cess to geese missing bills, their tongues all hanging out of crude, cracked holes.  There are events like tonight's that educate me on bike path's like the East Coast Greenway, a 2,900 mile trail stitched together from the southern tip of Florida to the Canadian border. 

 

Plenty of things