Grumble Grumble: American Creative Writing

The Person That's Different

- A short story by any recently graduated American MFA Creative Writing student

John lived in a small town in a forgotten corner of a forgotten county close to where the author was born. In the winter the snow was heavy and white, as if the photograph of a duvet had been torn to shreds and tossed upon the landscape. In the summer it was sunny and the sun was large and violent, as if the corpse of a large dog had been painted yellow and thrown viciously into the air by a passing road sweeper.

John was quiet and took a quiet job in a quiet deli at the edge of the town. The deli was owned by a foreign man who was trying to come to terms with cultural displacement, like an expensive yogurt that has been shaken from the fridge's upper shelves and must now come to learn what it means to live in the salad draw.

John doesn't have a girlfriend or any other friends for that matter but every so often in an attempt to show that he is as 'hip' as any other kid of his age, he shares moments of dialogue that go something like,

"Yo dude, don't be a douche. You're awesome and one day some girl will fucking want to marry you."

Some people will reel in horror from these verbal hiccups, some will even say that the dialogue is childish and poorly written. But the author will strike back at his critics and will explain how well observed it is. If you know anything about young people, as the writer does, you will know that this is how they speak.

Later, John sits outside and shares a beer with the owner of the deli. The beer is warm, like water that has been left in the sun for too long or the sound of static. John recognises that this is somehow a metaphor for his life. The deli owner tells john that he is from Iraq. John is surprised at first but then wonders if there is anything significant in the foreignness of the man and the foreignness that he feels toward women. Later, there are two possible endings to the story. In one, John tosses his beer bottle onto the grass and goes back to work. The next day he will see a group of ants trying to lift the bottle, which still contains a little of the warm beer, to carry it back to their nest. He he will wonder if this is somehow a metaphor for his life. In the second, aliens arrive unexpectedly and kill both John and the owner of the deli. Had John not been killed he would have said "Dude, I totally didn't see that one coming."

About the Author
Unknown Author has an MFA in Creative Writing from the New School, he has just finished his first collection of short stories and is currently working on a novel.

Further Reading
The L Magazine Fiction Issue