WWWP

So I've been trying to get myself to do more creative writing. It's a hobby I had and employed at a much greater frequency in my teenage years, and something I've really been missing and needing to do again. In order to surmount the incredible amount of writer's block I experience, I've been giving myself prompts. Today I decided to revisit and album I adored a few years ago and see what feelings it brought up and whether or not they could be translated into a story of some kind. This is what I ended up with.

I do suggest playing the following song while reading, as my words are inspired by the music:



The Feeling Seller stood at the intersection of Murphy and Lynch, twirling a thick cardboard sign he had designed himself that read “HAPPINESS® BACK BY POPULAR DEMAND.” In the window of his modest shop in front of which he stood rested against the fingerprint smudged glass a Help If Wanted sign. He was a successful man for a man in his trade, and the Feeling Seller’s integrity was a feature in itself that brought in loyal customers again and again. His patrons often requested Integrity® from the Feeling Seller, but were consistently sent away with a prescription of Temporary Disappointment® to be taken with a light dose of Pride® and a hot meal. In his integrity, the Feeling Seller was careful not to over-medicate: he took every case seriously and attached a great deal of import to his work.

There were people in the Feeling business of course, with less integrity than the Feeling Seller. These were people aptly referred to as Feeling Dealers. Feeling Dealers were only in it for the money, and would commonly, dangerously, prescribe their customers large doses of Positive Feelings without taking care to balance out Joy® or Contentment®, for instance, with Humility® or Melancholy®. Those customers tended to lack, on a general level, any Empathy® and would more often than not end up back at the Feeling Seller’s small shop where their Feelings, if repairable, would be returned to their respective default settings after being given careful amounts of Introspection® and Optimism®. The Feeling Seller knew the harm of giving a person too much of a good thing, and subscribed to the notion that less, especially when in regard to feelings, was more.

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#DEMODFROWNLAND
#TERMLIMITSFORMODERATORS

WWWP

Track One - Don't Just Sit There


I am not a romantic but I was in love once. For a variety of reasons the relationship didn’t last and we didn’t last much longer than the summer. It was a whirlwind romance of sorts, I was sixteen and he was seventeen. We had one of those connections that has only replicated once more in my experience thus far – the kind of connection in which you, from the start, feel that you had known the other person your entire life and that every moment of loneliness you had ever felt was not for nothing: like eating a light dinner to prepare for an indulgent dessert, it was to prepare yourself for the amount of happiness another person you could bring you. I have loved a lot of people – not in the romantic sense; in fact I often wonder if I am even capable of being in love anymore, it’s just not something I necessarily desire or feel a need for in my life. But there is a different and wonderful difference between loving a person and being in love with a person, and I had that with Chris.

We had the indie-movie version of teenaged love; we met while working at a movie theater together. We shared a passion for Neil Gaiman and on our first date we watched the midnight premier of Stardust. We would go to parks in the middle of the night with a blanket to gaze at the stars until the automated sprinkler systems chased us away. We threw our shoes over telephone wires and made each other mixtapes (real mixtapes, cassettes and narrations and the whole package). We played Mario Brothers in his basement and made out in his car for as long as we could before one of my parents, having heard us arrive, would come out into the driveway and call me inside. He taught me how to tightrope walk and I taught him to play "Hey There, Delilah" on guitar.

Years after we had broken up and I had moved away I met Chris for coffee, pie and scrabble at the restaurant we would frequent after our shifts at the theater. It’s a strange thing, falling out of touch with someone to whom you once felt so strongly connected. The small talk we made was painful, and the question we were both dying to ask was whether or not the other person had found someone else. We knew we couldn’t be together, the timing wasn’t right. But Chris will forever be the person I had to set free, because I loved him. In some ways I’ll always be waiting for him to come back.

__________________

#DEMODFROWNLAND
#TERMLIMITSFORMODERATORS