ok, this isn't about war at all. this is a short story i wrote for class, but i didn't know it needed a title. i pulled 'a war story' out of my ass at the last minute. i thought that i would just write it on the top and turn it in. but no, my teacher had different plans. we had to write our title on the board and then we had to guess what genre (science fiction, horror, romance, ect) each story was just by looking at the title. by this time my sweatdrop had grown a little. when we reached mine my teacher started talking about war and romance, and i started laughing because that wasn't what it was about at all. then it ended with her getting pissed and me getting dirty looks. damnit. that explanation sounded a lot funnier in my head. fuck, just read on.
"good morning, miguel." wallace said.
wallace said hello to miguel every morning. he felt that life is much more fun when you share it with somebody. wallace shared his mornings with his goldfish.
wallace loved his little apartment. there was something about the suburbs of iowa that made him smile on the insides. wallace loved the candy coating that came with living there. his neighbors were heroin addicts, but they always baked him cookies on his birthday. he loved his neighbors, even though they sometimes accidently on purpose baked in their used syringes into his cookies.
wallace stumbled into his cramped bathroom and squinted into the mirror. he splashed some water onto his face and ended up getting most of the water onto his clothes for some odd reason. wallace went into the kitchen so that he could make his bowl of lucky charms. he poured his bowl and brought it back into his bedroom. wallace hated to eat alone, and miguel was in his room. wallace thought that having a goldfish live in the kitchen was gross.
thirty minutes later wallace was done with his cereal. he grabbed his keys to his pimpmobile and was off. wallace was lookin cool cruisin down the freeway in his 77' volkswagon.
you're probably wondering why wallace got all that water on his shirt and why it took him thirty minutes to eat a bowl of cereal. well, wallace's hand fell off. it just fell clean off during the night. he's not an amputee, so it's not a matter of screwing it back on. he's just going to have to live with the fact that for the rest of his life, he's going to have to live it with just his left hand.
wallace arrived at his hot job as assistant manager of sears a little late that morning. he just couldn't seem to get a good grasp of the wheel. wallace brushed it off as 'just a case of the mondays'. wallace went to go pour himself a cup of coffee.
"good morning, stacy!" wallace said as he reached for the coffee pot.
"hi wallace". said stacy.
stacy's eyes grew wide as she realized that wallace was minus the usual number of hands. she didn't know quite what to say, i mean, what's the usual conversation to have with someone whos just lost a limb? stacy watched as wallace tried to grave the coffee pot unsuccessfully, and watched as it shattered on the floor and all over the company's fern, joey.
"oh my gosh! are you allright?" stacy asked
"oops! looks like someone has a case of butterfingers!" wallace laughed as he left the room, leaving stacy to clean up.
that night wallace sat down in front of his 13 inch tv to watch a bit of walker:texas ranger. miguel watched him from his fishbowl and noticed that wallace's left leg had dissapeared. not the entire leg, but just from the shin down. miguel raised his scaley eyebrow. he didn't really care, as long as he got fed.
wallace limped over to his dresser, looked into his mirror, and began his nightly routine.
"hello my name is wallace. i am intelligent thirty year old man. this day has been a great learning experience. i smiled at four strangers today. i got extra sprinkles in my sunday. my name is wallace, and i'm carrying the wheel. oh wait, no i'm not. that's from a song."
the next morning wallace got up and stumbled to his window that overlooked a beautiful polluted stream. he turned around to go to the bathroom, but tripped over his giant stuffed panda that he bought from the zoo last year.
the next morning wallace's right foot fell off and so did the rest of his right arm. now wallace was a full fledged gimp.
after untagling himself from the grips of the all mighty panda, wallace used his bed to pull himself up. he walked unevenly on his stubs to use the bathroom. after all that stuff was completed, wallace realized he had to be in the office in ten minutes. how was sears going to run without him?! in his haste, he forgot to pull up his pants, and he met up with the floor again. he quickly straightened out and ran to the door. well, his running was more like hobbling. he jumped into the volkswagon and floored it. now, i don't know if you've ever tried to floor a car with no foot, but this is a really hard task to accomplish. finally, wallace threw so much effort into his leg that his nub hit the accelorator, and he was off.
wallace arrived very disheveled and ran to his office. stacy saw wallace stumbling down the halls. she did a double take and rubbed her eyes to make sure she wasn't seeing things.there was at least a foot and a half difference between his legs. she decided to go talk with him to see what was up.
"hey wallace, can i talk to you for a second?" stacy asked as she opened the door.
"sure! come on it. pull up a seat." wallace said as he swung what was left of his legs onto his desk.
stacy forced herself not to look at his lack of feet and focused on why she cam in.
"wallace...you're falling apart."
"what?! what do you mean?! i'm a very stable person! and my self esteem is high! freakishly high!"
"i don't mean like that! ....you mean you haven't noticed?"
"noticed what?" wallace asked. he scratched his chin with his left hand, and when he was done his hand fell into his lap. stacy's eyes widdened with disbelief as he began to play with a paperclip with his two stumps.
"i...i...i..i must be losing my mind." and with that stacy walked into her office and banged her head on the table. repeatedly.
that night when wallace went to bed, he felt a strange detachment from the world. he nestled under his blue's clues bedsheet and fell asleep in a puddle of his own drool. he didn't even twitch when his head came loose from his shoulders and his body slumped to the floor.
the next morning wallace rose to the sounds of oingo boing playing on his clock radio. he jumped out of bed and stood up. well, i'm not really sure if you can stand up when you're just a head.
wallace looked around the room and wondered just when everything got so big.