Came Out to Watch You Play, Why Are You Running Away?

I recently found this email I wrote to Amy almost two years ago. I thought it would be fun to reproduce it here as it may be my finest work inspired by sleep delirium:


Dearest Amy,

Thank you much for the e-mail. It is great to communicate in this fashion because, as we all know, the written language-- in all of its wholesome goodness-- is a powerful thing. And no powerful thing ever became...um...not powerful? Understand? Or perhaps I should put it thusly: understand!

Knowledge is power.

Let’s see, what can I tell you about myself? Hey! I’ll let you in on a little secret. I can tell you my keys to creative writing. See, if you’re like me, which you are, we don’t overdo the usage of precedent adjectives, which is not to say we don’t use those adjectives, we just rearrange them in such manner that their true power is delivered in a post-object sort of way. Actually, I find it much more exciting, in appropriate cases, to turn the adjective into its own noun and make the original noun its possessor. See? We’re taking a trite boring idea and giving it an identity of it’s own.You see, we can establish more credibility with the reader if we don’t insult his or her intelligence. For example (por exemplar), let’s take even the most basic sentence to illustrate this theory:

Susie saw a strange cat.

Apply my theory. First, we eliminate any questionable hypothetical the reader mustn’t be bothered to think about. Like, if Susie saw a strange cat, was the cat-- in and of itself-- strange? Or was Susie’s perception of the cat strange? That is to say, is Susie really reliable enough for us to trust her opinion of whether or not the cat is strange? I mean, what has Susie ever done with her life that is so great? No, we need to lose the ambiguity while maintaining the true message of the statement. We’ve got to roll over on the cat, make him responsible for his own description. If we make the cat possessive of his own strangeness, then Susie’s perception has no relevance. So we could rearrange it thus:

Susie saw a cat’s strangeness.

For our purposes, however, strangeness still seems to be a lingering perception (probably owing to the -ness suffix). So we find a more abnormal word which will trick the reader into believing it as fact. So, let’s do:

Susie saw a cat’s oddity.

Better, but our new arrangements have offset the quality of the original verb, “saw”. It is no longer good enough for Susie to see, whereby we are still lending her the benefit of the doubt. And many good sentences will use the double-verb format to portray both action AND feeling simultaneously. Brilliant!

Susie noticed and undermined a cat’s oddity.

Or something like that.
I’m sorry about all this. I am very tired. It is almost 5 in the morning. I can’t go to sleep. Actually, writing all that nonsense up there has made me most sleepy. I don’t know what to do. I can’t wait to see you today! Fun stuff! Coffee and conversation. That’s all we need, sir. Ma’am. Madam. Such an unbelievably contrived contraction. Do we still have tact? We’ve certainly convinced ourselves.... whoa, you know what I just noticed? The word “ourselves” has the word “elves” in it. Any “self” has the word “elf” in it. Like s-elf, the super elf. Protector of the Blazed Stone of Jurkelpendod. You know, monster used to try and steal that stone but, it never really happened for them. Because of self, the super elf. Yep, the super duper elf. Thank him so kindly. Hey, if you think this is weird, just imagine me, struggling to keep my eyes open--finding it too fascinating to stop== and yet making no sense whatsoever is lame! I think that drunk crazy guy affected me in some way. A horrible doorbell way.

I’ve been drinking alot of Sam’s Choice purified drinking water, too. That could be it. How about a story about a lovable dragon named Lucifer. Huh? He finds himself in a hamlet outside of some big city in Vermont (if there are any) and hides in the Anderson's’ barn until he is befriended by Leon, the Anderson's’ youngest boy. Huh? They begin a short-lived friendship of playing every afternoon after Leon gets home from school. But it’s not long before Lucifer is discovered by Mr. Anderson, who forms a murderous mob (with the flaming torches, pitchforks, and LET’S NOT FORGET the boards with nails in them) because, let’s face it, literature and history bare this out, dragons are just not safes the drunk and violent posse arrives and the Anderson barn, ready to exterminate with extreme prejudice when (wouldn’t you know it) little adorable Leon is willing to sacrifice his life to save the life of his dragon buddy.Being relatively unmoved by the sentimentality and ignorance of a boy, the bloodthirsty mob casts Leon aside into some hay. They begin an assault on Lucifer when he retaliates with an ass-load of fire breathing. Of course, the stage is set for mass homicide and it comes, the townspeople’s burnt corpses strewn about in a now flaming barn. In a would-be touching moment, Lucifer drudges half-alive over to Leon (who is also within an inch of his life). Lucifer bites down and swallows Leon whole because, after all, that’s what dragons do historically, they kill people.

The end.
Drew