#shaunwrites

The Last Days of Late Great Orlando, Florida story by ShaunWrites / art by Judyta

Orlando, Florida: the year one million. The Pope is at it again. Disney World has deployed the Buena Vista shock troops to keep Her pointy-hat goons out of Epcot Center, but it’s no use. Everything is fucked: organized religion, the government, big corporations.

And individuals who think for themselves are like *totally* S-O-L. And the only remedy to all this shit can be found in a secret room, at the end of a secret tunnel, inside the world's largest McDonald's Play Place on International Drive. If you want to know, I’ll tell you the story of what I found there…

Chapter 1: Here’s what’s up

There’s one plastic tube in the world’s largest McDonald’s Play Place where if you crawl down it just right, it’s not like the other ones. Because when you get to the end of this one, there’s this torch-type thing.

And the only way you can see it is if you’re crawling through it with a lit cigarette in your mouth like a flashlight kinda like I was. So you light the torch-thing with your cigarette, and after that you’re good to go ‘cause that’s like the signal.

Somebody pulls back this little hatch, and they ask you for a password. So the first time I was there, I was thinking, what password???, so I just said the first thing that came to my mind: “Fuck Applebees.”

So I said that, and the guy tells me, “Right on” and says I got it right and lets me in. He tells me, “Welcome to The Resistance,” and gives me a beret and signs me up for a Tumblr account.

And now, here I am.

...

More Stories: http://shaunwritesthings.tumblr.com

Twitter: @SASpalding / @ShaunWrites

Ulysses story by ShaunWrites / art by Pati

Rex hoped his increasingly cloudly thoughts were a sign of brewing mental instability. He wanted that elusive type of artistic insanity that kids from the midwest like him dream about catching like a disease when they move to New York to write their first novels. 

  If only he could find a way to feed this growing mental disease! But how? he thought. Maybe by reading Burroughs and drinking rye whiskey straight from the bottle. 

  He stepped away from his computer desk and picked up his unread copy of Ulysses from the stack of books next to his bed. He turned to the first page. If only he didn't hate reading so much. He closed the book. Whiskey-only for him tonight.  His plan was to get drunk and write something so sharp that it would sever the page. Thankfully the phone rang: that would be a good excuse for why he didn't end up writing anything tonight.

  "Hey, I'm coming over." Emmy said on the other line.

  "What's the special occasion?"

"Because you have my computer, and I need it back for work tomorrow."

  Rex's usual ritual was to write freehand during the week and type things out during the weekend when he borrowed Emmy's laptop. "I'll bring it to you," Rex offered.

  "No, I'm already on my way, don't bother."

  ...

...

...

  Emmy showed up a half-hour later: no pleasantries, just business. "I'd be okay with you borrowing my computer if you ever remembered to return it. But no, every week I have to go out of my way to come over here to pick it up."

  Actually, that was Rex's plan. Rex couldn't convince her to come over any other way anymore. "I'm really sorry I keep forgetting. You won't need to come over again," he said.

  "Whatever." She pointed to his desk. "Can I get the computer?" 

  He handed it to her. She took it, sat on the floor with her back propped against the corner and checked her email fuming in silence.

  He watched her out of the corner of his eye. He loved the sexy way she scrolled through websites. And oh, how the blue glow from the monitor reflected in her zebra-stripe framed glasses. And oh, how his fluorescent lights reflected off her tortoise-shell water-droplet shaped earrings.  And fuck! She wore a pearl necklace. As part of her regular wardrobe, too. And it wasn't even just for special occasions -- she could be cleaning a drain, and she'd still be wearing it.

  She looked up at him while her browser was loading and saw him staring longingly at her. "Don't let me stop you from doing whatever you do around this time."

  So Rex picked up his copy of Ulysses and turned to the front page again. "You ever read Ulysses?" "No." She went back to reading her email.

  "You should. It's a good book."

  "Oh?" She clicked her trackpad to close a browser window. "What's it about?"

Rex hesitated. "I don't know." He hadn’t read it. And it was only then that he just realized he hadn't even taken the time to read the summary on the back of the book jacket.

  "Oh." She sat back and got through her emails. Finally, she powered down her computer and got up. "I gotta go."

  "Can I get the computer back on next Friday? I need it to write."

  "We'll see."

  ...

...

...

  Emmy wasn't back that Friday, so Rex couldn’t type up his stories. It gave him less time to write but more time for his drugs. 

  He bought a couple sheets of Hypno-Paper from his dispensary. The way it worked was that they loaded it with enough hallucinogens that it made any words you wrote on it feel as real as real life.

  So when Emmy never came back with the computer, he wrote her back into his life. On the hypno-paper, he described her sitting there on the floor in the corner like she always did, checking her weekend emails, looking adorable with her tear drop earrings and zebra-stripe glasses.

  And God, she was so real. When he described her pearl necklace on the hypno-paper, it sparkled into real life.

  "Emmy? I uh --" He hesitated wondering what would be the first thing he said to her. "I don't know if you happened to read any of the drafts of the novels I was working on that I left on your computer. Don't worry. If you did, I'm not angry. They weren't private. I expected you might get curious and take a look. I just wanted to know... if you did read them, what'd you think?" He looked longingly at his hallucination of Emmy sitting on the floor in the corner and waited for her answer. 

  No response.

  That's when he realized he needed to put the words in her mouth. But shit! He had no idea what she'd say. How would she actually respond to a question like that? 

  Yeah, he knew that with all the drugs in the hypno-paper running through his brain, he was just talking to his corner: plaster wall, brown carpet, spider webs, wooden baseboard. But that real world was on hold. Right now, he needed to invent the words that she would say back to him. He wrote them on the paper:

  "I did read some of them. Oh my god! Like, how'd you know I would?" she told him.

  "I know how curious you are." Rex said back to the hallucination.

  "Ok, you caught me red-handed. I read all of them."

"And what did you think?" He scribbled a response for her on the hypno-paper.

  "I really, really loved them."

  Then, Rex described in detail how she would coyly smile at him. And she did.

  ...

...

...

Real Emmy did come back on a Tuesday evening, unannounced. She’d barged in, started organizing Rex’s stuff and stuffing his piles of trash into the garbage bags she brought. It was totally random. And the whole time she was there, she was berating him about having no future. What the fuck caused this?

  "I don't want you to come over here anymore if you're just going to be mean to me." Rex said watching Emmy separate his still fresh food from his half-eaten trash.

  "If telling you the truth is being mean to you, then I really don't want to be here either. You need to get a job that will pay your bills or you're gonna die here. That's it." She shook her black trash bag filled with his empty bags of chips.

  "Why are you being mean to me?"

  “You understand that I’m the only person who’s nice to you, right?”

  “Stop being mean to me. You just keep saying mean things.”

  "You don't go outside and meet people. How do you think writers get published? It's not what they write. They just know a lot of the right people. Stop thinking your stuff is something so special that a million other people couldn't write it."

  Rex heard himself squeal: "You don't know anything about what I write!"

  "Oh, you really want to go there? You think I didn't read some of the stuff that you left on my computer?"

  He felt his expression sink: in complete fucking terror about whatever she was going to say next.

  "It's like you left the files open every time you returned my computer purposely because you wanted me to read them."

  Increasing fear. Rex waited for her to tell him what she thought.

  "So since we're talking about it right now, I wanna let you know that I don't want you to write about me anymore."

  "I don't write about you."

"What about the girl who sleeps on the floor in the corner of the main character's tiny apartment. And then her mom dies, so now she lives somewhere else. Oh, and she comes to visit every week... How is that not about me?" She dropped the trash bag on the floor "All of it is just details from when we lived together. If you're gonna do that, at least don't make sound like some fantasy. I don't talk like that girl."

  "It's not you. I don’t write about you.”

  "I showed it to three different people, and they all instantly knew it was about me."

"You showed it other people?

  "A. You wrote it on my laptop that I let you borrow. B. You always leave the documents open. It's not like it’s a secret that you wanted me to read them. C. You wrote about me without my permission. I think that's enough to show it to other people. What if it gets published one day?"

  "Why'd you show it to someone else?..."

"I just told you."

  "...It wasn't finished!" He clenched his fists. "Most of those are like first drafts. They're months old. They don't even have any of the corrections in there."

  "They weren't reading it to critique you. I just wanted to see if I was being weird and reading too much into it or if they actually thought it was about me. And they proved it."

  "When I let you stay here, I thought you were my friend."

She kicked the trash bag. He was gonna get it now. She screwed up her face about to start yelling. And then suddenly she didn’t. She didn’t look angry at all, and that was so much worse.

  "I'm still enough of your friend to see when you need help… I was in the City for six  months -- in a really bad time in my life -- sleeping on your floor in the corner, and my life is still way more put together than yours. And you’ve been here for over a year." She crossed her arms and composed herself. "And a few days ago I realized that I got out of this hell and you haven't because you're like a wounded dog. And you being like this  didn't bother me when I was like you... when I didn't have any friends, and with everything happening with my mom... and I was broke. But now… whatever." She sighed "Maybe you should go back to Minnesota and live with your parents again. At least you'll save money. You're not really getting anything out of being in New York since you never go outside anymore anyway."

  "Is there anything else you think I need to hear?"

  "I know you're mad. But how do you think it makes feel when you describe me in your stories like some ungrateful cunt? You know I'm not like that at all. And if I was like that while I was staying here and all my shit was happening, I'm sorry." She put her hands together like she was praying. "I wouldn't be letting you borrow my stuff all the time, and clean up your place, and throw out your trash to make it presentable if I didn't appreciate everything you did for me."

  Rex couldn’t look her in the eyes.

  "But I'm not going to come over here anymore until you promise me you'll go outside and start actually living. Next time I come over, we’re going somewhere. And you can remember how good it feels to be normal. And stop writing about me so much. Okay?”

  Rex sat back down at his desk without looking at her.

  "Call me if you wanna do something, okay? I can introduce you to a friend of mine who's a book agent."

  "Do you have a boyfriend?" He asked without turning around.

"What?"

  "Do you have a boyfriend now?"

  "I don't think of you like that. We've talked about this."

  "I'm not asking if you're into me. I'm asking if you have a boyfriend."

"I guess I've been kinda seeing someone."

  "Spend time with him then. Don't worry about me."

"Alright, I'm leaving now."

... ...

...

Real Emmy never came back with the computer that next Friday or the Friday after that. 

  So Rex re-upped his supply of hypno-paper at the dispensary. And as the weeks went on, he wrote about Emmy coming over every night. 

  Rex and his hallucination of Emmy sat on the foot of his bed. "Don't you ever get sick of coming over here?" he asked her and then he scribbled down her response.

  "Never! You're so fun to be around."

  Rex described the way she'd scoot closer to him and slide her arms around his waist to comfort him, and she did.

  She leaned over, “Don’t you remember what I told you the day I moved out?” she asked. “You’re the only person I’ve ever been able to really trust.”

  He pushed away from her. "It's just that, I'm cooped up here all day everyday. I want to be able take you somewhere special." Then, he wrote her response:

  "I know you can't afford to go out and take me places. I've told you before, I'm alright with that. You don’t have take me anywhere special impress me. I like just staying here with you."

  "But where does this life end? What if I never actually make it?"

  "I'll always be here." She clasped her hand in his because he wrote that she would. "And I'll read everything you write. Someone as talented as you is going to make it, okay? It just takes time."

  "I'm afraid --" He thought about it for a second. "I'm afraid, that when I die, I'll never mean anything to anyone. And if you weren't here, I'd just be invisible."

  He considered having her respond, but realized he had more to say. He wrote that she just looked deep into his eyes and said nothing.

  "I just love you so much…" he said, as he described on the hypno-paper how the four walls of his apartment would fall down revealing a picture-postcard view on top of the Brooklyn Bridge. Just as he put the period on the sentence, the walls crumbled around them. The two of them were sharing a blanket on top of the Bridge, at sunset, staring out at the Manhattan skyline. "...I want to take you everywhere in the world with me."

  He wanted to make this absolutely perfect, so he made her interject: "But I can't. I have a job. And a new apartment. And new friends now. I can't just --"

He held her tight to calm her down. "No, don't speak. Shhhh... Just enjoy the sunset."

  More Stories: http://shaunwritesthings.tumblr.com

Twitter: @SASpalding / @ShaunWrites