Writing Exercise Number 1

It was the most vivid dream Jonah had ever had, the remnants of it still burned into his eyelids as he squeezed them tightly shut. Scrabbling out of bed and into the end-table, he attempted to grab his jeans and hit the bathroom before answering the door. He failed, tripping in the cords of his now damaged alarm clock amongst the other wreckage that was his bedroom. The door was insistent that it be answered or it would bend his spine and fracture the mind of the fool that ignored it. BOOM BOOM BOOM, two quiet, long breathes, BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!

Jonah managed to get his jeans and yesterdays undershirt on in the most clumsy way possible while jogging down the hall to the foyer of his loft. Two of his framed accomplishments crashed on the slate floor after being struck by his flailing arm shoved through the inside-out sleeve. One his Master of Science from MIT in electrical engineering the other an old employee of the month award from his first job at Burger Princess.

Finally, bleeding slightly from three abrasions and feeling like he was about to lose bladder control, Jonah opened the door. She was six feet tall, angry and his neighbor. Lois was the type of gal that would be great for Jonah, smart, genuine and completely without sarcasm. She worked as a LifeFlight nurse, and kept the strangest hours like Jonah and also shared the same deep seated love of reading indie-comics. They had had several long, baffling conversations about a comic that maybe 300 people in the whole world had read, yet never saw anything but nuisance in each other since he had moved in next door.

"WHAT

THE

FUCK" she shouted

Jonah flinched and made the universal confused and/or "stick em up" hand gesture.

"Don't give me that bullshit." she seethed this time, literally shouting a whisper through her teeth.

"Lois, I have no idea whats-"

"Really? Really. Jonah. OK, Jonah, I am sure you don't know anything about my father's credit card being charge twenty-fucking-five thousand fucking DOLLARS JONAH!"

"WHAT are you talking About!!" Jonah was now convinced this is how the sawed of shotgun was inspired.

"Two days ago, we're on his boat, at the dock and Dad says, 'Jonah go pay the man for the gas for me.' And hands your his Amex. Now, in that ten minute span, Jonah YOU ordered six whatever-the-fuck converters, delivered yesterday at 4 by the way, OVERNIGHTED."

"I have no idea what.." He stopped, not just because she was screaming at him again, but because he remembered what he hadn't told her that day on her fathers sail boat.

"Those, whatever they are, are 90 pounds apiece, Jonah, and HAZARDOUS, you have to have a license to buy one...and electrical licence JONAH!" she spit in his face, and said, "We're done, don't call me or look at me, OH and you will be going to jail for this, my Dad's a vengeful prick with lawyers, have fun with that ASSHOLE." She attempted to slam his door, but in a microsecond realized that she could just turn around and get back on her 900cc BMW and did so, making the motion art in the process.

Jonah stood there for at least two more minutes after the air stopped smelling like her five foot burnout on his front walkway. He remembered none of it. Not the lake, the boat, her father had never invited him to do anything, much less ride on his goddamn boat. No this was way to weird.

The dream. It hit him like nausea, drippy sweet with a false promise of relief after the hard part. Running again now, down the hall, into the garage where he finally, he urinated. Jonah barely noticed beyond grim acceptance. He total attention was on, in his words, THE FUCKING SPACE SHIP IN HIS GARAGE.

To be continued...