Excuses for muses
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Sitting in English Class one day, with “54Xmax” on the left of you, and “Earring Girl” on the right, you work on your short story. You aren’t doing very well because you had lost your muse after an odd bout of poem-writing epiphanies, which, happily, produced many great, great, poems. You are feeling silly from boredom. How can you write about boredom???? But any way, the short story isn’t going very well. You have about four lines of it written out, but you aren’t really happy with it. “Earring Girl” makes a grunting noise and turned towards you, starting to mumble your story out loud. To which you begin laughing hysterically in boredom. But, being rather impressed with your typing skills, you pay little to no attention to her. A few seconds later she emits a couple of pig-like laughs.
54Xmax[edit | edit source]
Then “54Xmax” turns to you and says “Could you like not read that out loud” in his uniquely degrading fashion, you know, the kind that make you feel like whatever you were doing was totally dumb, even if you were to be doing something that would solve world hunger. To which you and E.G. begin laughing quietly. There is a second of silence, and then, epiphany strikes.
EPIPHANY[edit | edit source]
We would now call E.G. the Egg.
“How awesome is that!!!” You say out loud.
“Pretty awesome” says Egg.
Then, “54Xmax” begins to read your story, much to your dismay. But he emits his surprisingly girlish giggle, and your feelings of worry leave immediately. Egg and you laugh and laugh, and the loudness level escalates to a point at which the teacher, in an entirely different room, interrupts. “Will you girls stop laughing” he says in a tiredly annoyed kind of way. To which, in your head you say: yeah ‘cause this school is a no fun zone then you think: how geeky was that?
Then, “54Xmax” says: “You know it’s not that funny” with a slight smile on his face, as he leans over to read the past few lines of the story.
Assuming a high-aired persona, you say in a flat tone:
“I know”
Then you go on with your business. You are staring at your computer, and the others are working busily on their stories. Then “Egg” says: “Just leave it”
You look at her and say “All right. I hope its going to be good enough!” Just then the bell rings “Shoot the bell!”
“You’ll have to finish it tomorrow” says Egg.
“All right”
The rest of the day passes much the same, with you at a loss for a muse, and constantly having trouble finishing various items of class work.
The Next Day[edit | edit source]
The next day you wake up sluggish and apprehensive about the coming day. And the short story. ‘Aghies’ you think. Not looking forward to that one! You turn on Queen (your all time favorite), and proceed to put on your shoes, of course, the wrong way. Left and right, who knows anymore?
When you had finished getting ready, and it was time to go, you reluctantly turn off the music and rush down the block to school, directly into English class, where you sat at the computer, yet again, to your useless and insanely written short story. Egg sits down next to you again, loggs on to the computer and proceeds to direct your attention to her short story that she has just gotten back.
Lucky Bastard[edit | edit source]
Lucky bastard you think. “What does he think” you say sweetly, as if you have high hopes for her success. But in your head you think "I hope he said that he wouldn’t line his bird cage with it. You know, just ‘cause it was that bad. Not that I’m mean or anything. Or jealous." ‘Agh’…confusion… “He thinks I should combine it with Bob’s. I don’t why.” She exclaims innocently, turning to you, once again, as if you were interested. “I do. Know why I mean” you say as if you were her utter and total superior. "I hope she gets an inferiority complex. Serves her right…turning in her short story...yeah maybe a bit jealous…" Realizing you aren’t going to answer her, Egg turns back to her story and proceeds to make some corrections where they are needed. From your surprising lack of inner monologue, you say out loud: “There aren’t even a lot of corrections. Why are you so perfect? Of course your story is good. Darn you!” realizing you had just said this out loud; you clamp your hand over your mouth, and begin to laugh slightly and wait for the reaction. This never comes. She didn’t even hear you. "I think she needs hearing aids" you think sarcastically. And then you say that out loud, this time to receive a response. “What?” she says like an old lady, you know, tired-like, feeble, lets say around 95. And not one of those bright sporty old ladies. Like a sluggish one... “Oh nothing. Just saying that your story is good.” "As usual" you say inside your head. It’s not like your narratives are ever bad, it’s just that hers are always good. And everything, every single thing that she writes gets an “A”.
Butterfly Day[edit | edit source]
"Oh my gosh. I’m so violent today. Wow. Dis-Egg day." ‘Jieizus’. “You know today is Happy Butterfly Day” says Egg girl happily, turning to you. “Oh my gosh really!” you say excitedly. This is new! “Yeah from my old school” she says, sensing your excitement. “Oh my gosh really??” you say as sarcastically as you can, completely turning yourself to look at her, with a surprised look on your face. “Yeah!” she says, totally not catching on. “What do you do then??” you ask, this time seriously. “We wish everybody happy butterfly day. Duh!” she says, as if you should already know. Which you honest to God did not have a clue. “You mean you don’t like try to fly like a butterfly…or dress up…or like at least draw them?” you say, getting way too into the whole thing. "Wow. I’m bored." you think. “WE DREW THEM ON OUR HANDS!!!!!!! And when we said Happy Butterfly Day, we showed them to people! There are witnesses!!!” she says growing more excited by the minute, and astounded by your lack of understanding.
Diverse School[edit | edit source]
“MISTER!” you yell to your teacher. “I’m busy!” he says, as if you should have been observant enough to know. Actually you did, you just should come before all the rest. A girl two computers down from you suddenly jetts up from her seat and interjects: “Will you guys like watch my computer?” says Naomi. “Sure.” you say. “You know you could lock it” “I don’t want to close everything down.” “…you don’t have to…” you say. “Umm…I don’t know how” she says, pretending to cry as she heads towards the door. “Fine I’ll watch it” you say, turning back to your computer. Once again contemplating how to write your short story. You then turn to Egg and say. “I’ve got like 5 pages of nothing” you emit a sigh/groan, which earn you a couple giggles from the people across the room. After sitting for a little while longer, you delete the 5 pages of nothing and proceed to press random buttons on the key board. “Purple!” says Uniqua “Green!” Says Zoe and Pablo, Pablo being a female. 'Yeah I know. Mean parents.' “YELLOW!” yells Cara “Well that was odd.” you say staring at them, wondering what they had taken earlier.
Cocaine[edit | edit source]
“…crack cocaine….” says Mr. Maykitup, perceivably randomly. You begin laughing again, causing a chain reaction of laughter throughout your side of the room. But then you decide that you had to get back to work. This short story was very important for your grade. 'Darn it' you think 'cursed muses!!! You were created for a reason' at the same time shaking your fist in the air, face turned upwards. “You should write about purple elephants flying in my pants!!” says Uniqua. And then, the muses came back. 'Blessed spirit' you think 'go muses go muses!!!' And so you begin to write about the purple elephants. But what is the conflict??? “The conflict should be…” you say out loud, rather loudly, spinning away from your computer. “There should be a mouse in there too!!! Elephants are always afraid of mice!” says Lorenzo. Yeah, you have a diverse school. And then you had the conflict, and a story. You begin writing faster and faster, and soon have a full page of writing about purple elephants flying in your pants, with mice, which are scaring the happy little elephant out of his wits. And it is actually rather good. But then, tragedy strikes. You lose the muse. Again. There is just nowhere else to go with the story. You try harder and harder, and manage to get out a half of a page more of the elephant. But it is hard writing without the muse, so you soon gave up. “I don’t want to…like take my pants off!” said Lorenzo after spilling the entire contents of his milk carton onto his lap. “But it feels bad! Alright, I’m going to need to take my pants off…anyone have pants I could borrow?"
Pants with Elephants[edit | edit source]
And then, you would put that in your story. The owner of the pants in which the elephant was caught, would tell him he was going to need to take his pants off, and so end the story. But what about the middle? That’s pretty much necessary in a story. What could happen? Maybe he would try several times to get out…maybe he’ll discover that he isn’t really flying…yeah…that’s a good idea!!! Just suspended in air! Right! Everyone knows elephants can’t really fly…and he can’t get away from the mouse! YES!!! And so you begin writing again, but not that well.
“You makin’ fun of me man?” said Egg, referring to the title of her short story, A Life Lesson in Gosssip. Gossssssssip, gossssssssip you say over and over in your head. “No, that’s just great” you say suppressing a laugh “Gossssssssip!!” You both share a merry chuckle at that and say at the same time. “Gosssssssssssip” You even end with the “ip” at the same time! ‘…by lunch time, I’m squealing all.’ you read off Egg’s paper, immediately laughing and picking on her. Gossssssssssip! you think yet again. “You makin’ fun of me man” she says yet again, in the manner you would expect a member of the ‘Mafia’ to do. “Is that how you really spell ‘Mafia’?” she asks, and then after seeing your nod of affirmation “Well. Learn something new everyday.” This is brought on, of course after you had written something (PERSONAL) on your computer having to do with mafia. This talk of mafia, of course, deterrs you into thinking of the time your mother was ripped off by the Godfather. It was really quite interesting…you see it was after she had cleaned their room… “INOT NOSDRAHCIR!!!” yells Cara, sitting up in her chair, staring at you expectantly. God knows why.
More Epiphanies[edit | edit source]
Hearing your name, you lose your train of thought, and suddenly have an epiphany. You know exactly what to do with your short story. So you do it. And you aren’t distracted once. And it is lucky too because, pretty much, you were going to die. Not literally of course. Not really metaphorically either. Idiomatically you think. Any way, you would have failed.
The Ending[edit | edit source]
You're not sure how well you did, but you are sure that you will never write about purple elephants in your pants ever again. Wow. Good ending.