Here is the rough beginning to a story I poked at a while ago but never invested any time to finish—and probably will never finish? It was my attempt to write something more humorous and light-hearted. What do you think? Is it worth moving forward on this?
UNTITLED STORY START
In my seventh week of unemployment, at the very moment I placed my 735th red queen on a black king in my blue plaid boxers and red-trimmed black robe, I came to the realization that I had had quite enough of myself. That, in fact, I’d never actually gotten the hang of being me, and perhaps that wasn’t really my fault, any more than it was the bread’s fault that the toaster popped the toast before it could really be called toast at all instead of what it really was—moderately warm bread.
It’s hard to explain the kind of reaction one has when he realizes he is moderately warm bread instead of the golden crisp toast he had always believed himself to be.
My immediate reaction, in fact, was to come to the conclusion that a fundamental problem with myself was somehow related to the fact that I didn’t care much for toast, yet I was encapsulating all my faults and aspirations into a toasty metaphor.
Perhaps I should like toast more. More to the point—perhaps the fact that I was sadly equating the quality of my character and my life to the act of further cooking an already fully-baked consumable clearly hinted to the source of my issues.
All these thoughts, mind you, came during the process of dragging a red queen onto a black king while sitting—or rather slouching—before my computer in boxers, a robe, and white tube socks.
Was I a boxer-and-tube-sock person? I’d never bothered to really ask that before, and now that the question was presented, the whole idea of boxers and tube socks seemed a bit absurd. Well, perhaps not those alone, but when throwing the robe in on top of it, and the body occupying it in the middle of the day? Well, I simply couldn’t defend it.
I took pen and paper and stepped away from the computer. I started a list. I called the list:
Things about me that may or may not actually be me, depending upon which me I would like to be, none of which has anything to do with toast.
I am terrible at coming up with list titles.
I have a sudden, strange obsession with toast.
I am unemployed.
Before I was unemployed, I was an Assessor for the Village of Halifax in the city of Winnoka Falls, Minnesota.
I never actually wanted to be an Assessor for the Village of Halifax in the city of Winnoka Falls, Minnesota.
I am male.
I am thirty-seven.
I listen to light Jazz and New Age.
I am married to Evelyn, who is now a librarian but who was a clerk for the Village of Halifax when I met her.
I have no children.
I have never wanted children.
My favorite color is emerald green.
I eat half a tuna salad sandwich and a side of baked beans every day for lunch.
I think I will lose weight by eating a tuna sandwich and baked beans for lunch.
I purposely don't think about eating the convenience store ham and cheese sandwich, chicken stick and chocolate bar afterwards when I'm still hungry.
I have always wished to learn a foreign language, but have never found the time.
I tend to make excuses about never having any time when, in fact, I have become almost smothered by free time.
I have little motivation.
I am overweight.
I am not very attractive.
I am sullen.
I am unhappy.
I have no self-confidence.
I really hate making lists.
I crumpled the list into a tight ball, tossed it to the trash, missed, picked up the wad, placed it in the trash, and went to the bathroom to get ready. I was about to do something irrational. Wreckless and bold. Something that would change my life forever. That people would talk about for years to come.
I just didn't know what yet.
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