Yes, A Dark Time Passed Over This

No One’s Forcing You To Do This. You Willingly Tie Yourself To These Leashes. And You Willingly Become Utterly Socially Autistic. You No Longer Pick Up On Basic Human Communication Clues. You’re At A Table With Three Humans, All Of Whom Are Looking At You And Trying To Talk To You, And You’re Staring At A Screen, Searching For Strangers In Dubai.

Nothing Again. No One Is Listening. No One Is Waiting To Hear The Kicking Of A Man Above. It Is Unexpected. You Have No Ears For Someone Like Me.

For Years I Feared The Opening Of Every Elevator, Half-convinced That From The Opened Doors Would Come A Bullet, For Me, Shot By A Man In A Tan Trenchcoat. I Have No Idea Why I Feared This, Expected It To Happen. I Even Knew How I Would React To This Bullet Coming From The Elevator Door, What Word I Would Say. That Word Was: Finally.

I Need Eight Hours To Get Maybe 20 Minutes Of Work Done. I Had One Of Those Yesterday: Seven Hours Of Self-loathing.

Well, My Background Is Journalism. I Don't Have Any Creative-writing Experience Except For One Class I Took As A Sophomore In College.