Friday, November 1, 2024

2nd Place Fiction: Sensitivity training

A generous degenerate left something for you in a rest stop bathroom between the love-kit/temporary tattoo dispenser and the infinitely useless hand dryer. There’s no telling what it is, but it was quite assuredly left there just for you. It could be viral meningitis, but it’s more likely his memory of the time he lost his car keys on purpose in a place just like this.

He ditched his rattletrap and hitched a ride with a boatload of bozos headed who-knows-where. In your mind it looks like Maryland, but the smell of now obscures the spectral synapse he flicked to the tile wall opposite the urine trough.

You’re gazing at the space between your corneas and that ouroboros towel contraption. A man that looks an awful lot like a seven foot tall version of your dead grandfather glances askance at your deadbeat neckbeard and his face scrunches up like an old beefsteak tomato. No matter, though. Your head is a ways away now, in a diner that smells like peroxide and ripped nylons.

With you on the inside, this guy rubs his hands, glances left then right. Dead flies above, mummified in fluorescent lights, you see him through himself, reflected in a grimy chrome napkin holder. He’s got condensed soup posture and fried zygotes for eyes. He and his new found pals just burned one down in the parking lot and he’s been awake through one too many axial rotations.

Back in the now, you’re eating a breakfast sandwich and drinking something that looks like coffee but tastes far more sinister. What’s-Her-Tits the clean-up princess wipes down the table next to you in a manner one might call half-assed. Her name tag reads “Mandy”, but you could swear it said “Nikki” last time.

“Thought your name was Nikki…”, you say, disregarding every social cue you ever picked up on.

She flares her nostrils, and pops her gum obnoxiously, gives you a look that screams “Quit wasting my time”.

Chewing like so many bovines, you point at her name tag to clarify. She pulls at her polo shirt, peering intently at whatever is you’re talking about. It hits her just as the humdrum bossa nova piped in from a back office starts over.

“Ohhh… Alright… I find these things all over the place”, she says with a clumsy laugh, lip curling like she sniffed some limberger.

“Lots of turnover at this place, ya know? Girls get wise and quit, leave these in the toilet or out back where we smoke. I pick ‘em up. Got a different one for every day of the year. Tomorrow is a ‘Chantelle’ day.”

You crumple up your wax paper wrapper and push it to the edge of the table, speckled formica coming into focus. She picks it up and tosses in in a rolling bin of plastic utensils and kid’s menus with subconscious crayon erotica drawn all over them. Her nails are painted pink antacid, and she’s got her ponytail pulled through one of those just awful adjustable hats.

“Nice seeing you again, whoever you are”. Your A-game is on point at 4AM.

“Hang on”, she says, as you stand up to leave.

She drops a sanitizer soaked rag, and wipes her hand on her khakis. Forearm to sweaty forehead, she fidgets for an instant and unclips her nametag, hands it to you.

“You can be Mandy now.” She gives you a smile that’s almost all tongue.

“Won’t you need this for today, next year, though?” You scratch at your earlobe and your face gives a twitch.

“Nah…”, she says. Her eyes get glassy. “I’m moving to Sedona next week. Gonna work in a resort, clean up after old rich sickos and leatherback sand hags.”

Snap to our man who left his timespan in the bathroom. You find yourself in him, walking into a cineplex, blackhole vomit carpet patterns under uneasy feet. The show started nine minutes ago, but you’ve seen the movie before. It’s the one where the paperbag aliens come and muck everything up. You know the one…

A generous degenerate left something for you in a rest stop bathroom between the love-kit/temporary tattoo dispenser and the infinitely useless hand dryer. There’s no telling what it is, but it was quite assuredly left there just for you. It could be viral meningitis, but it’s more likely his memory of the time he lost his car keys on purpose in a place just like this.

He ditched his rattletrap and hitched a ride with a boatload of bozos headed who-knows-where. In your mind it looks like Maryland, but the smell of now obscures the spectral synapse he flicked to the tile wall opposite the urine trough.

You’re gazing at the space between your corneas and that ouroboros towel contraption. A man that looks an awful lot like a seven foot tall version of your dead grandfather glances askance at your deadbeat neckbeard and his face scrunches up like an old beefsteak tomato. No matter, though. Your head is a ways away now, in a diner that smells like peroxide and ripped nylons.

With you on the inside, this guy rubs his hands, glances left then right. Dead flies above, mummified in fluorescent lights, you see him through himself, reflected in a grimy chrome napkin holder. He’s got condensed soup posture and fried zygotes for eyes. He and his new found pals just burned one down in the parking lot and he’s been awake through one too many axial rotations.

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Back in the now, you’re eating a breakfast sandwich and drinking something that looks like coffee but tastes far more sinister. What’s-Her-Tits the clean-up princess wipes down the table next to you in a manner one might call half-assed. Her name tag reads “Mandy”, but you could swear it said “Nikki” last time.

“Thought your name was Nikki…”, you say, disregarding every social cue you ever picked up on.

She flares her nostrils, and pops her gum obnoxiously, gives you a look that screams “Quit wasting my time”.

Chewing like so many bovines, you point at her name tag to clarify. She pulls at her polo shirt, peering intently at whatever is you’re talking about. It hits her just as the humdrum bossa nova piped in from a back office starts over.

“Ohhh… Alright… I find these things all over the place”, she says with a clumsy laugh, lip curling like she sniffed some limberger.

“Lots of turnover at this place, ya know? Girls get wise and quit, leave these in the toilet or out back where we smoke. I pick ‘em up. Got a different one for every day of the year. Tomorrow is a ‘Chantelle’ day.”

You crumple up your wax paper wrapper and push it to the edge of the table, speckled formica coming into focus. She picks it up and tosses in in a rolling bin of plastic utensils and kid’s menus with subconscious crayon erotica drawn all over them. Her nails are painted pink antacid, and she’s got her ponytail pulled through one of those just awful adjustable hats.

“Nice seeing you again, whoever you are”. Your A-game is on point at 4AM.

“Hang on”, she says, as you stand up to leave.

She drops a sanitizer soaked rag, and wipes her hand on her khakis. Forearm to sweaty forehead, she fidgets for an instant and unclips her nametag, hands it to you.

“You can be Mandy now.” She gives you a smile that’s almost all tongue.

“Won’t you need this for today, next year, though?” You scratch at your earlobe and your face gives a twitch.

“Nah…”, she says. Her eyes get glassy. “I’m moving to Sedona next week. Gonna work in a resort, clean up after old rich sickos and leatherback sand hags.”

Snap to our man who left his timespan in the bathroom. You find yourself in him, walking into a cineplex, blackhole vomit carpet patterns under uneasy feet. The show started nine minutes ago, but you’ve seen the movie before. It’s the one where the paperbag aliens come and muck everything up. You know the one…

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