Me and the neighbors were all standing outside our building. The fire alarm had gone off, and we were waiting for the fire department to give us the okay to go back in. It was cold, people were anxious, someone didn’t have time to find their shoes.
As the sole writer in the group of normies I took it upon myself to try to help in the way I best knew how.
I noticed something. I wrote it down. And then I shared it aloud.
“Uh oh,” I read to them, “they’re attaching the hose to the hydrant. That’s a troubling sign.”
Everyone listened to me and clapped when I was done.
“Thank you,” someone said, “I wouldn’t have noticed unless you wrote that.”
“I am troubled too,” another said. “I now feel less alone in this situation and maybe even life in general.”
Everything was fine in the end, someone on the first floor had just burned their dinner, the whole ordeal took maybe a half hour, and I felt good about my role in the world.
Later that week at The Writing Conference it was a different story. Everyone there was also a writer. I was looking for something to observe and write down and share, but they kept beating me to it.
As I was walking thru I noticed a writer already noticing me. They looked very intensely toward my waist, scribbled something on a pad and then read it aloud.
“His fly is down,” they read.
What kind of cliche fiction is that, I thought?! But then I looked down, and it was as true as a textbook. For the first time in years my zipper was in fact all the way down, a bit of blue underwear poking out.
“Um thanks,” I zipped up.
“So what do you write?” they asked.
All I could think of was the Adam Sandler golf movie Happy Gilmore, and how cuz he identified with a different sport it meant he didn’t hafta givvafuck, and maybe that’s why he was the best at it.
“Oh, I’m not a writer,” I said. “I’m a hockey player.”
“You mean like on ice with skates?” they asked.
“Yes,” I said, “I also hold a big stick and use it to try and hit small things and score. If you need to win a game I can help.”
“Okay,” they said, “I’ll let you know if I do.”
Someone walking past overheard us.
“I’m a hockey player too,” they said, “I had a hat trick last night. Who do you play for?”
“Oh,” I said, “I’m not really a hockey player.”
It was not that I didn’t think I could keep up the lie, but more that I just didn’t want to be the same thing as anyone else in the room, even if it was made up.
“Then what are you?” they asked.
“I’m uh uh uh,” I said.
They got their notebooks out and started jotting stuff down. I was worried they’d come up with something for me and maybe I wouldn’t like it.
I’m uh uh uh,” I scanned my recent memories for whatever I could find, “a… fireman.”
“Cool,” they said, “you’ll come in handy if this conference suddenly bursts into flames.”
“It already has,” I said.
Jonathan Bluebird Montgomery 