what is real after death? after love? after life?
a real-time hyperfiction experiment

Someone I’m mad about, waiting for me.

I am haunting the Bee Cave Whole Foods Market, where I worked for nine months and took in $20,000. But, hey, I had health insurance. Oh, and they fired me twice for Unpaid Time Off. Their external HR firm approved my medical leave. Both times. The second time, the store leader wouldn’t even open the HR website. I had a letter from them saying 12 hours were being added back into my account. They never added the hours. I was terminated for being 2 hours under UPT. I still had 7 full days of vacation time. Employers can substitute or swap out some paid vacation time for some unpaid vacation time. This company, owned by Jeff Bezos and Amazon, wanted to get rid of me. Then, denied my unemployment request. Why?

Okay, so sitting here, outdoor seating, good wifi, a soft sunset. The weather has gotten cooler again. 66 right now, at 8:35 pm. Lovely.

Not all is right with the world or with me. I’m beginning to break down a bit. Too many loose ends, things failing, jobs I get that are promptly cancelled, claiming a hiring freeze due to the made-up Iran war. Fight. Flight. Freeze. Fawn.

I suppose I could be accused of fawning my way back into a relationship that is just not meant to be. I need to be brave. Step back into the light, back into the darkness, with my cats, my high-life of creative ecstasy and serenity.

Lack of sleep has always been an issue for me. When I was at summer camp, say 11 years old, I remember staying awake most of the night because the counselor’s radio was on. I was singing along to the top-40 until dawn. The next night, I asked if he would turn it off when lights out was called. He agreed.

In my college years, I learned that sleep deprivation could bring on a brain fire. An electrical current of buzz and hum, fuel to get to the moon, adding more nitro to shoot for the sun. Well, we know how it worked out for poor Icarus. I’m more like his dad, Dedalus, the architect of the labyrinth.

As I’ve gone through many phases of life, I’ve learned to moderate, modulate, and get a grip on my sleep, my mania, my depression, and my creative rush. I still buy into the rush. I begin dialing back the fuel around this time of night. My conversation goes like this: it’s 8:45. I’m not hungry or tired. The temperature is dropping, and soon I will need to go home. My laptop is 74% charged. Phone and watch at 100%.

I am not tired, but I am not headed up either. In my routine, tonight, I will wrap up writing here in a few minutes. Grab another bubbly water. Head home and be reading by incandescent light by 10 pm. Sleep comes easy. Getting here was anything but easy. Many inflection points that could’ve gone poorly. A few suicidal ideation fantasies. All in all, I’m relatively happy and content.

I learned about the things I can control (my words, my actions and reactions) and what I can’t control (others’ actions). I couldn’t save my father in my teens and early twenties. Al-Anon gave me a framework for growing my own path, establishing a spiritual life of my own, unrelated to the church of my mom, University Presbyterian.

I cannot control the job market, my former or future lovers. Getting my own life in order is proving a challenge. Here’s what I do. I write. I soothe myself. I put down hopeful things, poems, songs, short stories. I put down hard things. I write in my journal.

I have learned that if I quit talking to others so much, the energy and story get’s more potency and demands more attention. In some way, writing is a way to decipher my life. Highs, lows, mistakes, aspirations.

I’m not going to tell you about my current struggle. Those chapters have been taken offline. I can tell you I auditioned for a play about a 91-year-old man who escapes his assisted living home to go find a younger woman he had a crush on. A woman who worked in his office. His car had been taken away. He stole a car. That’s how strong his idea of love was for this unconsumated crush from twenty years ago. I tried the same maneuver.

I have had a crush on a girl I’ve known since first grade. Long blonde hair, smashing smile, and the fastest girl runner on the playground. We had a few previous “hellos” and near misses. I was trying to get her to let me buy her dinner in San Antonio.

There were some indications that this would not be a good idea. She sealed the deal on one of our phone calls when she mentioned getting off our call to watch a Trump rally on TV. Ugh. She ghosted me. It was for the best. I won’t be turning over that rock anytime soon. It was pretty romantic. Wrote about it and shared the writing with her. Nothing. I wouldn’t have been able to hang with a right-wing clown supporter. Still beautiful, a bit tired and worse for wear, she seemed concerned that I was interested in her ranch land in San Marcos.

Her daddy had passed, and she was the new steward of the ranch. She talked vaguely about her ranching chores. She was not interested in entertaining my manic rant of a seduction song. Happier alone on the ranch, I guess. That’s okay. I do understand.

I’m happy now in a house without water or electricity. Great candles make the house smell wonderful. The cats enjoy me being home more. And the weather, as I mentioned, has gotten colder. Tonight will be cool and crisp in my bed with my two cats.

Ah. Life is fine here on the moon. How are things over there where you are?

Someone I’m mad about is no longer waiting for me. Untethering my boat. Time to sing a different song.

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