"It's the 10th of November 2003 and I just checked my e-mail. And yes this is me living in the past. Not being able to move on. The past is all in your head. Everything was as dramatic. As edge-of-the-seat. As life or death. As beautifully tragic as you want it to be. Don't worry, nobody else who was ever there will ever call you on how much you are blowing everything out of proportions. How much you're exaggerating. How much it's all a lie. Your past. Your beautiful tragedy to sulk in for the rest of your life. Your life, the lie. Nobody cares though. Everybody else is just as busy constructing their past out of the worst memories. Events. Deaths. Relationships. Funny how you only remember the negative shit isn't it? I guess it is much more interesting. Who really likes happy endings anyways? I wasn't expecting to hear from Suzy again. Suzy with her three moods, "bloodthirsty, lusty and suicidal." Suzy with her nicely packaged explanations for why nothing ever works out. Suzy with her drug problem. Suzy who's so incredibly sorry for everything. In the e-mail Suzy says I should 'grow up.'� Suzy says I'm not the center of the fucking universe. Suzy says I should stop trying to be so tragic and sad all the time. Suzy says if I did I might stop being so unhappy and sad. Suzy thinks the fucking sarcasm and bitterness is getting old. Suzy, my beautiful tragedy.

Some days are so good there's nowhere to go but down. Some days your life feels like a 24 hour Kodak picture spot. All smiling. All singing. All dancing. Some days you just can't relate to the rest of mankind. Humanity. The world. Because you just can't understand their attitude. Their pessimistic approach to this beautiful life. Some days you could die happy. And looking back, it's too bad you didn't. It's too bad I didn't. The setting is Atlanta, Georgia. To be more specific, 'Little Five Points.'� Lighting, sound, and direction is by Everything Fucking Perfect Productions. And this is the plot. This is the pitch. This is me on vacation. This is me knowing exactly what I'm going to do. This is me realizing that perfect moments are made not given. This is me sitting outside a gas station with Suzy smoking cigarettes and drinking iced tea. She goes in to buy drinks and I stay outside smoking. I stay outside inscribing a book I just bought for her. This is me keeping it simple. I write her name. I write 'Suzy.'� I write 'I love you.'� And I sign my name. I give it to her when she returns and this is just the best day ever. I talk some bullshit about how I'm putting her in charge of my happiness. This is me finally doing something. Walking back to her truck I consider every passing wall, storefront, and alleyway. This is something happening. I grab her in front of a theater and push her up against the building. This is me taking action. This is me holding Suzy up against the wall with a crazed smile on my face. This is another in a series of mistakes I build my life around. I ask Suzy if she wants to get married and she smiles. She smiles and I just start kissing her. Up against the building she doesn't have to worry about how to respond with my tongue in her mouth. We kiss for awhile and then we resume walking back to her truck. I think she's a little shocked. Me, I'm walking on air. I did it. I actually asked. And for the second time with a big smile on her face. Looking flushed. Looking happy. She says, 'You're fucking crazy.'�

'Fucking crazy,'� that's what she called me when I asked. She didn't answer right away. The speed freak. The meth addict. Suzy didn't answer right away. Didn't answer right away when I kissed her up against a brick wall. Didn't answer right away as to whether or not she'd marry me. I know what you're thinking it was a stupid idea, but like any stupid idea it made sense at the time. She said yes the following night and my future started to come together in my head. This was all while I spent a week with her in Georgia. While I thought I had everything figured out. While everything was perfect. It was a bad idea from the beginning. It was all a bad-fucking-idea from the beginning. Every fucking moment was a mistake. Working together. Staying in touch. The park bench. The kissing. The hand in her pants. The concert. The motel room. The speed. The kissing. The making out. The everything but fucking. Breaking up with Libby. Going out with Suzy. Going to georgia. The whole week of fucking bliss. That other concert. Getting lost in atlanta. Finding ourselves in her bedroom. The constant fucking. The drinking. The smoking. Little five points. The brick wall. The proposal. The kissing. The thinking that everything was going to work out. Possibly feeling like the person I dumped Libby for had to be more than an affair. Possibly being two people who didn't believe in happiness. Wanting to believe in something. Anything. Each other. All the pictures. The airports. The bedrooms. The families. The bedrooms. The sex. The constant e-mails. The phone-calls. The phone sex. The postcards. The letters. The rings. Our trip to savannah. Our trip to the ocean. Our trip together. Losing my glasses out the passenger side window. Vomiting all over her car and myself. We listen to Richard Hell on repeat and she asks me if I'm ok. Covered in vomit I tell her that I'm having the best day of my life. And I love her. And she loves me. And it was all a fucking mistake.

Have you been paying attention? Are you finding a lot that interests you? That you can relate to. Do you see a lot of yourself in me? Or were you sleeping this whole time while life was happening?. While my life was passing you by. Were you going to work while all the interesting events occurred? Going to school. Watching television. Going to movies. Is this not interesting enough for you? This won't make you rich. This won't improve your social standing. How god views you when he's not too busy watching BYU football. Just give me one more chance. A couple of days. A few weeks. A year or two. Give me some time to become interesting enough for you. I'm trying really hard. Just don't complain that this isn't going anywhere. That it doesn't make any sense. That it offers nothing, but asks for so much. You really should have grown accustomed to that far before came here. This overly dramatized portrayal. This never ending illogical bullshit. This me. Me on the phone. The beginning of something else ending. It's late and Suzy missed her plane. And we are talking on the phone. And then I'm walking up to meet her. It's a little awkward. It's a lot of talking. No worrying. It's so fucking cute. She seems happy. I seem completely out of sorts. I hang out at her old house for awhile. Where she was living I met her. This is much later. We still don't know each other, but of course we're in love. The world can go to hell. An easy attitude to have, but try telling that to the world. You know what it will say? No difference. Same thing. The next day I'm still acting weird, almost as if my life is falling apart around me. And we both go up there to hang out with Suzy. Keep her company. Just a little friendly conversation. Libby and I go up there and I hit the bottle. I talk in code. I act 'fucking crazy.'� And with Libby only one wall away I kiss Suzy goodbye. On the flight home she writes, "I needed to get him alone for just one second...He leaned over and kissed me....I looked at him...stunned ..."You are fucking crazy"'� On her flight home I'm still in reality. Things fall apart. We begin talking on the phone all the time. E-mailing all the time. We love talking to each other. Our voices are so comforting. When we are feeling down we are always around. This is the beginning of phase 3 of my life having anything at all to do with Suzy. Phase 1 was meeting her. Initiation. Seeds planted. Phase 2 was putting my hand down her pants in her rented car. Kissing a girl I really shouldn't be kissing. Seeds beginning to sprout. And here's phase 3. Love long distance style. This is after the meth induced attempt at sex. This is after the 'I love you'�s are exchanged. This is the seed growing into a beautiful plant. In phase 5 it will be revealed that this beautiful plant is a weed. So don't be too surprised when it kills everything. This is as good a place to end as any."

The above writings are segments from my autobiographical "Center of the Universe" that i read at the 2005 Dark Arts festival in salt lake city, ut.

Want to comment on this Short Stories? Sign up to Edit Red and you will be able to comment on Short Stories and get access to: Upload your own stories and poems, get readers and their feedback, promote your work...