- Let's cruise. Let's roll the windows down and go back by that
bookstore to see if it's open. Let's eat drive-through food until we can't
take it anymore. I still have those packets of mayonnaise you squirreled
away back in Dallas; we could put mayo on anything and have it taste moist
and delicious. My treat this time.
     You're behind the wheel, though. I have enough bags here by my feet
that I'd just as soon not switch sides. I even -- you know what? I even
might have a map of this place from the last time we were here. I've seen
that bus stop before, the one we just passed. An old man shouted at us from
the sky-blue bench they have next to it for people to sit down.
     That bruise is hurting me. Maybe I can find something soft in the
backseat to cushion it. But drive slower, would you? The road's bumpy.

   - Bacon double cheeseburger. We can save the packets; that'll be greasy
enough on its own. Dig in to that and let me know how it is. No, I'm fine.
Just curious.

   - This is it, this is it. I marked it on the map. We can cruise around
tomorrow. For now I want to stop.

   - We were close, weren't we? That wasn't the place I thought it was, but
I've been there before too. Maybe you weren't with me. I had a low-rider
then; very ostentatious. It wouldn't work for us now.
     Everything I got from that health-food store is in the trunk. Once
we're a little farther away we can stop and open it up. There's wheat
crackers and wasabi peas and who knows what else. You might not like all of
it. Can't beat the price, though.

   - Maybe it wasn't this town, anyway. I marked something on the map,
though. We could go back. No, not now. Just, someday, we could.

by Aaron for Mike known as Big Bird * eVille, Tuesday, 2002

I think this may be the single slightest story I've written so far. Nothing happens on camera, nothing's implied clearly OFF-camera, nobody is clever or even weird. There are just some people in a car, feeling uncertain. It is revealed at the end that they're thieves, but that's not supposed to be a gotcha or anything. Oh well.

The speaker's paralysis reflects something that frustrated me about writing these little first-person monologues (even as I threw myself into doing another one), which is that you can't exactly have them interacting with the world at all. The monologuist is a ghost, incapable of performing actions because nobody who's sitting around talking says "And now I have just gotten up and am walking around..." if you see what I mean. Had I *really* gotten that brain-in-a-vat feeling into the story I would consider that a success of its own.

Also, you might well ask why I thought I needed to explain how bus-stop benches worked.

- everything is by Aaron Mandel; please ask first if you're about to steal something -

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