Just for the fun of it, me and a few friends challenged each other to write a short story based on only one word.
The word for this challenge was "revolution." This little five minute
read is what I came up with. If you like it then I humbly suggest trying out my
book when it comes in this winter. It will be called "The Remnants of
Pryr" and it is being published by BWL Publishing
Revolution
Ch.1-
I
will be gosh darned if that morning alarm seems louder on a Monday. Louder and
angrier too. I shouldn't complain I suppose, at least I have a job to wake up
to. So many Americans are out of work thanks to old man Reagan's economic
disaster. Mr. Coffee and a little music will help set my mind right before
class. Ever since I was a young man, music has always been my safe haven from
outside stressors. I turn the giant nob of my record player and it clicks on,
still set to FM I don't bother flipping on a record and just leave the radio to
play while I drink my coffee and collect my supplies for today's lesson. Sleigh
bells, glockenspiel, tambourine, triangle, maraca; all these elements are
necessary to make an adolescent symphony of inadequacy. Oh, it's not the kid's
fault, bless their little hearts, it's the lousy school system that can't
afford to get me real instruments. That and of course, the Ocotillo County
school board's strict censorship of any music that might be deemed offensive.
Shake it off, Pete. The kids need you, even if it is a watered-down version of
you. The radio cuts from the latest Bruce Springsteen track and instead is
replaced with the voice of an old man babbling about a revolution. I figure it
simply must be a programming error at the station downtown and flip the player
to auto-drop the next record. As the needle pops and hisses over the dead air
of the first cycle before Greg Allman's voice breaks the near silence; I’m
pushed back a few decades to my father explaining what r.p.m meant. I'm eight
and my father had just purchased our family's first record player, I bother him
with countless novice questions about the machine's mysterious inner workings
including the meaning of the stamped letters r.p.m next to some fantastic
switches. Revolutions per minute, he says. Revolution is something going around
in a circle he tells me. Like the record playing its worn-out song. Like me
wading through the days for my life to take a turn. I dump out the generic
music instruments onto the sofa and slide in a few Bob Dylan records. To heck
with the school board. Today the kids will learn about real music.
Ch.2-
Piece.
Of. Shit. That's all it is, just a piece of shit. One headlight, only two
windows can roll up, stalls out at every damn red light. Mom should have just
trashed it instead of pawning it off on me for a phony sweet sixteen gift for
her baby girl. She's a piece of crap too. Her and the car both. If it breaks
down on the way to work again Mathers is goona fire me for sure. Skeezy old man
always eyeballing my ass when he thinks I'm not looking. Penny Mart ain’t much
of a job but it least it pays. Besides I get to sneak Crunch bars all the time.
That squealing sound from under the hood is getting on my last damn nerve. The
radio might drown it out. I turn the mettle peg where the nob used to be and
static fills the air. The car backfires like a shotgun as half a word squeezes
through the static. Sounded kinda like "revolt." To Hell with it. I
click the radio back off as I pull into the parking lot. Revolt, ya that's
exactly the word for how I feel about this place. The engine sputters for a few
seconds after I turn the key off. This job is revolting, this car is revolting,
and my life since I dropped outta high school is revolting. I can't do this
anymore. The Y.M.C.A. down the road offers free classes, maybe they could help
me get my diploma and get a better job. I'm going to sign up for classes right
now. That creep Mathers can take this job and shove it! I’m outa here. If my
piece of shit car will make it there of course.
Ch.3-
Never
have I been accused of being an impractical person. My colleagues have
frequently made note of my reliability and tactfulness. I have, however, been
considered too restrained. Too methodical and analytical in my thought process.
I place great value on the criticisms of my peers because it helps me define
and refine my self-concept. As far as the previously stated peer critique is
concerned, I choose to exercise a wide breadth of individual perceptionallity.
I choose to view their complaint as a compliment. Being restrained emotionally
has helped me achieve positive effects in my life. This job for instance. Could
any average 25-year-old get his first job directly out of college as an
assistant editor? No. I can conduct myself in a mature, non-emotional way that
shows a depth of character that far surpasses the competition. That is why I am
trusted by the head editor of Sunset Press's reference department to put out
the final product for mass production. In other words, I'm so good that I get
to hit the precious and all-powerful print button. More often than not I hit
the print button on conservative self-help books or the latest world atlas.
This week is a 200-page cookbook with 120 color photos. Sunset Press is a small
publishing house but it’s at least a job in the industry of my choice and it
looks favorable on a resume to future employers. The next cubicle over I can
barely make out the low mumbling of voice from a radio set. It is against
policy to play any music on this floor because it greatly distracts from the
writing /revising process. The theory is that subconsciously you might end up
typing the words to a popular song instead of your assigned work. Despite this
possible pitfall, someone has snuck in a small AM/FM radio. With its antenna
concealed under a desk it isn't getting very good reception and the only thing
that comes through audibly is the gruff voice of a man saying what sounds to
the word "evolution" or maybe it was "revolution." What a
reckless decision to bring in a radio to a workplace that requires so much
mental focus. doesn't that jerk realize how distracting that is? As I try to
focus closer on the green block letters forming across the black screen of my
computer monitor, I can't help but hear the radio's wordplay over again between
my ears. Which was it? Revolution or Evolution? Maybe it is both. Revolution is
evolution. Mindlessly correcting spelling errors, I am compelled to let my mind
wander into the seldom-seen outback of hypothetical thought. If evolution is
slow growth, and revolution is fast change, then is it possible for the two
forces to have a symbiotic relationship, one needing the other to perpetuate
itself? like the predictable biological mechanism that I have become, I hit the
print button without thinking. Another future forgotten masterpiece sent to the
printing department. I notice that the radio isn't playing anymore and hasn't
for a short time. How much time passed since my imagination took over? damn it,
that’s why radios are forbidden in on the editing floor! Apparently, I have to
teach that bastard in the next cubicle about acceptable work conduct. As I
begin to storm out of my cubicle my eye catches something unfamiliar on the
monitor. I sit back down for closer inspection. Oh god. This… can’t be… I don't
make this kind of mistake, it goes against all that I am. In my absent-minded
delirium, I typed "revolution is evolution is revolution is
evolution" in a repeated sequence directly in the middle of page 200.
There it is, interrupting the recipe for the green chili pork roast, is my huge
glaring mistake. I can feel all of the blood drain from my face. My heart seems
to stop beating and then start again twice as intensely. I am going to be fired
for this.
Ch.4-
Dad
comes to pick me up early from school today. It was real early before I even
get to go to Monday music class. He never comes to get me early, not even on my
birthday. He says school is pointless after sixth grade anyway, but I can’t
stay home and I can’t go to work with him yet. this must be a big deal cuz he
never misses work. "No work - no food," says dad. The first thing I
notice is our dog Rambo is in the back of the truck and so is the green wool
blanket we use to wrap up my riffle. Dad's eyes are red. The truck is loud, and
I raise my voice to ask him what’s going on. "This is the big one, boy.
Yer uncle Mike came by the job site today and told me about what he heard on
the radio. Says the communist bastards are trying to overthrow the government.
Some kinda revolution and we gotta get out to yer uncle's place real
quick." I look over my shoulder, in the bed of the truck I see the barrel
of my 22 sticking out of the green blanket and all my dad’s hunting gear, and
his gunny sack full of other stuff. "It was on the radio for real
dad?" I ask. He ignores my question, “Yer uncle and yer cousins are
hunkering down out at his place and after we meet up we are going to head to
our spot at Redfish Canyon." His breath smells sour and now I know why his
eyes are red. I scoot the beer cans on the floor with my foot. He usually only
gets red-eyed when we talk about mom. Those times he cusses a lot and falls
asleep on the couch on the back porch. "Don't be scared boy. We been
talkin' about the rooskies dooin’ something like this for a while now."
I’m not scared. I didn't want to go to Monday music class anyway.
Ch.5-
Margie
at the front desk tells me Carl got here an hour early today. She hands me the
rest of my messages on small slips of paper and I say, "better than his
usual hour late." She smiles sympathetically and I start down the
long corridor to the production booth. The walls are covered in painter's
plastic and lift with the draft of my passing. The remodeling has taken longer
than I was promised, but image is important in the radio business and you can't
try to convince today's hit rock stars to come to your radio station if it
looks like a damn library. When me and Carl went into this business together a
year ago we never thought it would take this long to convert an educational
radio station into a top ten pop chart station. It would be easier if Carl didn't
have Jack and Coke breakfasts and whiskey sour lunches. He wanted to be the
D.J. so damn bad. All the fun and none of the responsibility. Responsibility
that falls into my lap. I flip on the lights to the production booth and there
is Carl, laid out over his control board. I sigh so loud I want him to hear it
through the glass in the studio which no doubt reeks of booze and body odor.
Partially surrounded by an odd assortment of records, and tapes from the old
educational collection and some newer material, Carl appears lifeless. I flip
on the intercom mic and say as calmly as I can, "ok. Carl old buddy, time
to get to work." Without moving an inch he mumbles "Way ahead of
ya." That's when I noticed the on-air button was lit. In a panic, I switch
to the live feed. It's playing on a loop, just some old guy repeating
"revolution". By Carl's leg is the case for an album called "The
History of Revolutionary War as Read by Charlton Heston." That deadbeat
couldn't even get the right album on before he passed out on the control board.
Immediately I flip off the feed. Running my fingers through what’s left of my
hair I try to calm down. I say, "OK this will be fine. What’s the worst
that could happen?"
-END-
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