Mike Barbazette
Creative Writing
Taylor
The artificial, fluorescent light is blinding, saturating everything in this office. In the monotony of the office, everything is one shade of grey or another. My eyes follow the maze of fabric walls to the one directly in front of me. There’s a small poster of the Andromeda Galaxy on it; one of the few items of personal expression the manager will allow. It’s a bit of an escape, I suppose, something to recalibrate my eyes to actual color, to something beyond the office. And when you get several hours into the work day, you need it, constantly and throughout the rest of the day. Glancing up at the ceiling tiles, I notice something; off-white with little specks of black. It is as if they took the colors of the night sky, and inverted them. Clever, they’ve managed to replicate the outside universe and create our own little reality to live in for eight hours a day.
“Hey, champ, Friday night. You ready to get wasted?” I hear from beyond the wall.
My co-worker, Gary, is leaning nonchalantly on the divider with one elbow resting on top of it, threatening to tip it over at any moment. He is, like me, wearing the standard office uniform: black oxford shoes, dark slacks, button-down shirt with a tie, and a sport jacket that matches his pants. Unlike me, he has taken to the recent trend of wearing a pink shirt with some sort of off-the-wall tie. His current tie sports a printed light bulb with a small light emitting diode in the center. Attached to the fabric is a small gold chain that causes the LED to light up when it is pulled. He calls it his “idea tie” as if the common office stiff needs an original idea to drudge through the work that we are assigned each day. This particular tie is just one of a surplus of others with various sports teams, beer logos, or N.A.S.C.A.R. drivers’ numbers on them.
“Yeah, sure, I wouldn’t mind having a drink to unwind,” I reply in full-knowledge of what the next question is going to be.
“Sweet dude, you want to join me and the boys for a drink at the bar?” he asks.
“Nah, maybe next week, I think I’m just going to go home and relax by myself.”
“No problem, bro, maybe next week. I’ll talk to you later. Don’t work too hard.” he gives me a thumbs-up and drums a quick pattern on the divider before walking back to his desk. This ritual occurs at the end of every week. He’s a nice enough guy, and I appreciate him trying to include me in various post-work activities, but I could never relate to him.
---
My life up to this point is somewhat of a blur, as if I was only along for the ride. I grew up in a typical, middle-class suburban town called Seville. Beyond the repetitive background of cookie-cutter houses were the usual corporate chains that fulfilled the communities shopping needs. You bought your groceries at Safeway, your clothing at Kohl’s, and the audio video equipment for the latest Hollywood blockbusters at Best Buy. I attempted to play several sports (basketball, football, ice hockey) throughout junior high and high school. It was fun at the time, but after realizing I would never make it professionally I usually lost my passion for it. After completing High School, I attended Ohio State University. I tried several areas of study that interested me (anthropology, sociology, political science), but after completing the introductory courses I got quickly burnt out. I finally settled on a business degree in order to salvage my college education into something I could make a career out of.
---
So, here I sit, presently, at Meditech, Incorporated. We distribute medical equipment to hospitals in the area. It’s a solid job, one that will last me for life. It allows me to get by, to exist, without much struggle. It’s not particularly satisfying, but I can accept it and live with it. Most of the day consists of information entry into databases, and reports on profit gains; incredibly exciting stuff. I am finishing my last report as the clock is nearing five.
After shutting down my computer, I grab my sport coat and make my way down the stairs and out the door. I walk through the asphalt parking lot field and trees of tall, metal light posts until I reach my blue Ford Escort. Driving out of the parking lot and onto the highway, I enter the on-ramp towards my mother’s house one town over. I visit her fairly frequently ever since my father’s death several years ago, to keep her company.
---
I remember the day it happened vividly. My mother was out shopping. My father and I were watching the Bengals play on television. I didn’t particularly like watching football, but I did so to humor him, as long as we got to spend some time together. It was late afternoon, the 70s era curtains were shut tight so very little sunlight bled through into the dark living room. The television, the main source of light, glowed over both of us and reflected light off of the yellow and orange flower pattern wall paper. I sat on the end of the olive green couch that sat atop the dirty, white shag carpet. Across from me, he sat on his favorite brown leather recliner. Speech slurred, he started to complain of a terrible headache and blurred vision. He took a couple of Advil in response, but several minutes later it became too much and he collapsed. After calling an ambulance, I left a note for my mother. When the emergency crew arrived, my father was taken out on a stretcher and I accompanied him on the ride there. Now lying on a hospital bed with me by his side in a sterile, white patient room, my mother met us at the hospital. The stroke was severe, the doctors said. He was now conscious, but we could not understand him when he spoke. Half of his body was paralyzed. Several days later he went into a short coma and finally passed on due to excessive bleeding in the brain.
---
Walking through the door of that same room, I was cheerily greeted by my mother, “Isaac, so nice to see you again. I have some good news.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“Today, at the CVS Pharmacy, I was waiting for a prescription to be filled. And, you know my Movado wristwatch, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, everywhere I went, Kohl’s, JC Penney, Sears, none of them carried the right wrist band. They’d always say it was too slim and direct me to a jewelry store.”
“Yeah, I recall you mentioning that.”
“So, anyway, I was walking around CVS, just browsing. I stopped by the watch case, and to my surprise they had a slim watch band. It fit my wristwatch perfectly. It’s one hundred percent genuine leather and it was only four dollars and ninety-five cents. Is that a deal or what? Have a look.”
She holds a small plastic case in front of me. Inside there’s a leather wristband, dyed dark blue to match the face of the watch. Sure enough, there are two stickers fixed on the front. One says, “Genuine 100% leather.” The other says, “Just $4.95!” These days, she likes to shop craft fairs and department stores to look for sales; it keeps her mind off of the loss.
“That’s great, Mom. What’s for dinner?”
“Oh, I made a stuffed-pepper casserole. I just took it out of the oven. Get the table ready and I’ll serve it.”
This is the usual routine. We’ll sit down to dinner and have harmless, pleasant conversations. She asks how my job is going, and tells me about the latest bargains. The conversation is ending and she shows me to the door. I hug her, kiss her on the cheek and bid her farewell.
It is nighttime now, the weather is cold, but the sky is clear. There are very few lights here to wash out the night sky. Each pin-point of light, some bigger than others, shines brightly against the dark purples and blues of the atmosphere. I often stare up at the sky, wishing I could be out there. It’s like some sort of cosmic emotional highway robbery. I can hear and see other places on earth, and if I wanted to, I could go there. The stars though, they look like I could reach out and touch them, but I’ll never be able to get any closer than I already am.
I know by the time the light reaches my eyes, it is already thousands of years old. For me, the stars are like old friends from an earlier time period. Wise and knowing, they watch down at the earth at everything that happens. When history repeats itself with another needless war or a new dictator looking to exert power over others and control their lives, the stars observe this and sigh prophetically.
Finally taking a break from the sky and getting in my car, I pull away from the house. I take the on-ramp and begin my trip back home. Driving along the freeway, there is synthetic light everywhere, so much that I am getting a headache from it. It bathes the road in yellow and blocks out the night sky turning it pitch black. Against the simulated black sky, these lights dot the air over the freeway in an attempt to reproduce it, but this light is man-made. This light is new and unfamiliar. Overhead, these streaks of light pass by indifferently as my car sprints swiftly across the pavement. Moving through these points of light is like moving through a crowded room full of strangers.
After exiting the expressway, I slowly cruise the side-streets toward my plain, brick apartment complex. The old trees arch over the road like a tunnel guiding me back home. I arrive at the parking lot and pull into my assigned space. I open the large, glass door with my key and head down the hall. The walls of the hallway are bare white and meet the floor with forest-green carpet. Both the walls and the carpet are dirty and stained from all of the traffic over the years. Unlocking the door to my room, I step through to more bare white walls, but this time with stained, blue carpet.
I switch on the cheap lamp I bought from IKEA. It’s a white plastic bowl that sits atop a brushed metal stem and base. The lamp dimly lights the sparsely-furnished studio. It’s the only real living areas besides a small kitchen and a bathroom that’s like a gym locker. The room is very simple. In front of the 19” television there is an old couch that was found at the local goodwill store. Next to the couch there is a rack of four wooden snack-tables, but two are missing. One missing snack table is currently holding up the television and will do so indefinitely until I find a decent, cheap stand. The other table is on the opposite side of the couch, holding up a plain, crème-colored touchtone telephone. There is a generic-looking white clock on the wall above the television, the kind of clock you’d see in a high school classroom. The only other piece of furniture is a small liquor cabinet with several varieties of hard liquor and a few highball glasses. The cabinet is cherry-colored wood with glass windows on the front doors.
My head is still pounding. After making a mix of rum and coke, I sit down in front of the television. Images of snack foods, affluent teenagers, reality shows, and girls gone wild flash by, making my head hurt even more. I switch off the television. My vision is slightly blurred, but I haven’t even finished half the glass off. I just want to escape reality, but it comes calling on the phone in the form of Gary.
“Hello,” I answer wearily.
“Izzy, what’s happening, dude?” he asks. He knows I don’t like to be called that. “The bar is jumping and there’s karaoke. This one chick is totally checking me out; she’s digging my vocal skills. I sang Somebody to Love. I think I might try to hook-up with her.”
“Awesome,” I’m trying to sound enthusiastic for him, “I’m just trying to relax, I’ve got an incredible pain in my head.”
“Did you drink too much,” he inquires, “you’re sort of running your words together.”
I, too, noticed my speech was slurring as I talked to him. “I’m fine; I just need some fresh air. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Later, dude.”
I set down my drink and walk over to the glass sliding door. I slide it open and step out to my ground-floor patio. My headache is worse than ever. I lay down to rest in the grass. On my back, eyes skyward, I notice a particularly bright star. It’s glorious, somewhat blurred, but it takes my mind off of the pain. I am feeling peaceful now.
The star is getting closer now. It is growing in size and brightness. Slowly, it approaches me. Its path is fixed directly towards me from the sky. It gets brighter and brighter, until I’m completely surrounded by a blinding white light. I close my eyes for a moment to shield them from the light. When I open them, the light is beginning to fade slowly. When the light finally fades, I am in outer space. I am surrounded by stars. I am looking down on all of existence. Finally, finally, I take my place among them.
Creative Writing
Taylor
The artificial, fluorescent light is blinding, saturating everything in this office. In the monotony of the office, everything is one shade of grey or another. My eyes follow the maze of fabric walls to the one directly in front of me. There’s a small poster of the Andromeda Galaxy on it; one of the few items of personal expression the manager will allow. It’s a bit of an escape, I suppose, something to recalibrate my eyes to actual color, to something beyond the office. And when you get several hours into the work day, you need it, constantly and throughout the rest of the day. Glancing up at the ceiling tiles, I notice something; off-white with little specks of black. It is as if they took the colors of the night sky, and inverted them. Clever, they’ve managed to replicate the outside universe and create our own little reality to live in for eight hours a day.
“Hey, champ, Friday night. You ready to get wasted?” I hear from beyond the wall.
My co-worker, Gary, is leaning nonchalantly on the divider with one elbow resting on top of it, threatening to tip it over at any moment. He is, like me, wearing the standard office uniform: black oxford shoes, dark slacks, button-down shirt with a tie, and a sport jacket that matches his pants. Unlike me, he has taken to the recent trend of wearing a pink shirt with some sort of off-the-wall tie. His current tie sports a printed light bulb with a small light emitting diode in the center. Attached to the fabric is a small gold chain that causes the LED to light up when it is pulled. He calls it his “idea tie” as if the common office stiff needs an original idea to drudge through the work that we are assigned each day. This particular tie is just one of a surplus of others with various sports teams, beer logos, or N.A.S.C.A.R. drivers’ numbers on them.
“Yeah, sure, I wouldn’t mind having a drink to unwind,” I reply in full-knowledge of what the next question is going to be.
“Sweet dude, you want to join me and the boys for a drink at the bar?” he asks.
“Nah, maybe next week, I think I’m just going to go home and relax by myself.”
“No problem, bro, maybe next week. I’ll talk to you later. Don’t work too hard.” he gives me a thumbs-up and drums a quick pattern on the divider before walking back to his desk. This ritual occurs at the end of every week. He’s a nice enough guy, and I appreciate him trying to include me in various post-work activities, but I could never relate to him.
---
My life up to this point is somewhat of a blur, as if I was only along for the ride. I grew up in a typical, middle-class suburban town called Seville. Beyond the repetitive background of cookie-cutter houses were the usual corporate chains that fulfilled the communities shopping needs. You bought your groceries at Safeway, your clothing at Kohl’s, and the audio video equipment for the latest Hollywood blockbusters at Best Buy. I attempted to play several sports (basketball, football, ice hockey) throughout junior high and high school. It was fun at the time, but after realizing I would never make it professionally I usually lost my passion for it. After completing High School, I attended Ohio State University. I tried several areas of study that interested me (anthropology, sociology, political science), but after completing the introductory courses I got quickly burnt out. I finally settled on a business degree in order to salvage my college education into something I could make a career out of.
---
So, here I sit, presently, at Meditech, Incorporated. We distribute medical equipment to hospitals in the area. It’s a solid job, one that will last me for life. It allows me to get by, to exist, without much struggle. It’s not particularly satisfying, but I can accept it and live with it. Most of the day consists of information entry into databases, and reports on profit gains; incredibly exciting stuff. I am finishing my last report as the clock is nearing five.
After shutting down my computer, I grab my sport coat and make my way down the stairs and out the door. I walk through the asphalt parking lot field and trees of tall, metal light posts until I reach my blue Ford Escort. Driving out of the parking lot and onto the highway, I enter the on-ramp towards my mother’s house one town over. I visit her fairly frequently ever since my father’s death several years ago, to keep her company.
---
I remember the day it happened vividly. My mother was out shopping. My father and I were watching the Bengals play on television. I didn’t particularly like watching football, but I did so to humor him, as long as we got to spend some time together. It was late afternoon, the 70s era curtains were shut tight so very little sunlight bled through into the dark living room. The television, the main source of light, glowed over both of us and reflected light off of the yellow and orange flower pattern wall paper. I sat on the end of the olive green couch that sat atop the dirty, white shag carpet. Across from me, he sat on his favorite brown leather recliner. Speech slurred, he started to complain of a terrible headache and blurred vision. He took a couple of Advil in response, but several minutes later it became too much and he collapsed. After calling an ambulance, I left a note for my mother. When the emergency crew arrived, my father was taken out on a stretcher and I accompanied him on the ride there. Now lying on a hospital bed with me by his side in a sterile, white patient room, my mother met us at the hospital. The stroke was severe, the doctors said. He was now conscious, but we could not understand him when he spoke. Half of his body was paralyzed. Several days later he went into a short coma and finally passed on due to excessive bleeding in the brain.
---
Walking through the door of that same room, I was cheerily greeted by my mother, “Isaac, so nice to see you again. I have some good news.”
“Oh yeah, what’s that?”
“Today, at the CVS Pharmacy, I was waiting for a prescription to be filled. And, you know my Movado wristwatch, right?”
“Yes.”
“Well, everywhere I went, Kohl’s, JC Penney, Sears, none of them carried the right wrist band. They’d always say it was too slim and direct me to a jewelry store.”
“Yeah, I recall you mentioning that.”
“So, anyway, I was walking around CVS, just browsing. I stopped by the watch case, and to my surprise they had a slim watch band. It fit my wristwatch perfectly. It’s one hundred percent genuine leather and it was only four dollars and ninety-five cents. Is that a deal or what? Have a look.”
She holds a small plastic case in front of me. Inside there’s a leather wristband, dyed dark blue to match the face of the watch. Sure enough, there are two stickers fixed on the front. One says, “Genuine 100% leather.” The other says, “Just $4.95!” These days, she likes to shop craft fairs and department stores to look for sales; it keeps her mind off of the loss.
“That’s great, Mom. What’s for dinner?”
“Oh, I made a stuffed-pepper casserole. I just took it out of the oven. Get the table ready and I’ll serve it.”
This is the usual routine. We’ll sit down to dinner and have harmless, pleasant conversations. She asks how my job is going, and tells me about the latest bargains. The conversation is ending and she shows me to the door. I hug her, kiss her on the cheek and bid her farewell.
It is nighttime now, the weather is cold, but the sky is clear. There are very few lights here to wash out the night sky. Each pin-point of light, some bigger than others, shines brightly against the dark purples and blues of the atmosphere. I often stare up at the sky, wishing I could be out there. It’s like some sort of cosmic emotional highway robbery. I can hear and see other places on earth, and if I wanted to, I could go there. The stars though, they look like I could reach out and touch them, but I’ll never be able to get any closer than I already am.
I know by the time the light reaches my eyes, it is already thousands of years old. For me, the stars are like old friends from an earlier time period. Wise and knowing, they watch down at the earth at everything that happens. When history repeats itself with another needless war or a new dictator looking to exert power over others and control their lives, the stars observe this and sigh prophetically.
Finally taking a break from the sky and getting in my car, I pull away from the house. I take the on-ramp and begin my trip back home. Driving along the freeway, there is synthetic light everywhere, so much that I am getting a headache from it. It bathes the road in yellow and blocks out the night sky turning it pitch black. Against the simulated black sky, these lights dot the air over the freeway in an attempt to reproduce it, but this light is man-made. This light is new and unfamiliar. Overhead, these streaks of light pass by indifferently as my car sprints swiftly across the pavement. Moving through these points of light is like moving through a crowded room full of strangers.
After exiting the expressway, I slowly cruise the side-streets toward my plain, brick apartment complex. The old trees arch over the road like a tunnel guiding me back home. I arrive at the parking lot and pull into my assigned space. I open the large, glass door with my key and head down the hall. The walls of the hallway are bare white and meet the floor with forest-green carpet. Both the walls and the carpet are dirty and stained from all of the traffic over the years. Unlocking the door to my room, I step through to more bare white walls, but this time with stained, blue carpet.
I switch on the cheap lamp I bought from IKEA. It’s a white plastic bowl that sits atop a brushed metal stem and base. The lamp dimly lights the sparsely-furnished studio. It’s the only real living areas besides a small kitchen and a bathroom that’s like a gym locker. The room is very simple. In front of the 19” television there is an old couch that was found at the local goodwill store. Next to the couch there is a rack of four wooden snack-tables, but two are missing. One missing snack table is currently holding up the television and will do so indefinitely until I find a decent, cheap stand. The other table is on the opposite side of the couch, holding up a plain, crème-colored touchtone telephone. There is a generic-looking white clock on the wall above the television, the kind of clock you’d see in a high school classroom. The only other piece of furniture is a small liquor cabinet with several varieties of hard liquor and a few highball glasses. The cabinet is cherry-colored wood with glass windows on the front doors.
My head is still pounding. After making a mix of rum and coke, I sit down in front of the television. Images of snack foods, affluent teenagers, reality shows, and girls gone wild flash by, making my head hurt even more. I switch off the television. My vision is slightly blurred, but I haven’t even finished half the glass off. I just want to escape reality, but it comes calling on the phone in the form of Gary.
“Hello,” I answer wearily.
“Izzy, what’s happening, dude?” he asks. He knows I don’t like to be called that. “The bar is jumping and there’s karaoke. This one chick is totally checking me out; she’s digging my vocal skills. I sang Somebody to Love. I think I might try to hook-up with her.”
“Awesome,” I’m trying to sound enthusiastic for him, “I’m just trying to relax, I’ve got an incredible pain in my head.”
“Did you drink too much,” he inquires, “you’re sort of running your words together.”
I, too, noticed my speech was slurring as I talked to him. “I’m fine; I just need some fresh air. I’ll talk to you later.”
“Later, dude.”
I set down my drink and walk over to the glass sliding door. I slide it open and step out to my ground-floor patio. My headache is worse than ever. I lay down to rest in the grass. On my back, eyes skyward, I notice a particularly bright star. It’s glorious, somewhat blurred, but it takes my mind off of the pain. I am feeling peaceful now.
The star is getting closer now. It is growing in size and brightness. Slowly, it approaches me. Its path is fixed directly towards me from the sky. It gets brighter and brighter, until I’m completely surrounded by a blinding white light. I close my eyes for a moment to shield them from the light. When I open them, the light is beginning to fade slowly. When the light finally fades, I am in outer space. I am surrounded by stars. I am looking down on all of existence. Finally, finally, I take my place among them.
do you have any more on that one or have you got any others?
quite the faucet for voice and opinions.
pretty good, although not quite my favorite tone.
pretty good, although not quite my favorite tone.
"quite the faucet for voice and opinions."
not sure how to take that. the only part i could see as being somewhat heavy-handed is the part about needless war/dictators. and i was trying to use both to balance each other out. mostly it was just a device to characterize.
i don't really have any others, yet. since the class is so large, each student only gets two major stories critiqued. i do have some short writing exercises, but they're on the computer in my office at school.
not sure how to take that. the only part i could see as being somewhat heavy-handed is the part about needless war/dictators. and i was trying to use both to balance each other out. mostly it was just a device to characterize.
i don't really have any others, yet. since the class is so large, each student only gets two major stories critiqued. i do have some short writing exercises, but they're on the computer in my office at school.