David Gilmour—“On An Island”
MoTW—“200 Motels”
As I pedalled home with the boxed monkey wedged under my left armpit, I
tried to figure out what to tell my mother about why I wasn’t at work. I
dismissed the “store burnt down and they sent everyone home” story since
she sometimes shopped there and would eventually figure out I had lied.
I decided to go the sick route and made a quick stop at a friend’s house
where I downed a couple Tom Collins laced with cigarette ashes, axle
grease, raw eggs and sour milk and soon after I developed a sour
stomach, shakes, sweats and a pasty complexion.
I thanked my friend and continued my journey home, but this time I had
to contend with not only a monkey in a box but a gurgling stomach and
vomit climbing up my throat wanting to be forcefully expelled from my
mouth in a muti-hued arc that only someone like Sally the Throw Up Girl
could love and appreciate.
When I got home and opened the garage, I found that my mother wasn’t
even there since her car was gone. This made me happy since I could hold
off on my lie and could also take the monkey to my room without fear of
discovery yet it also made me sad since I had to hold down the chum-like
stuff in my stomach since vomiting in front of her would validate my
claim of sickness that much more.
Inside, I headed to my room and received a scare as I passed the family
room and saw my brother on the couch watching a Godzilla movie
while cleaning one of his pellet rifles. Luckily he didn’t notice me and
I soon found myself in the safety of my room.
After removing everything from the closet floor, I threw the boxed
monkey against the wall a couple times to make sure it was stunned and
then took its limp body from the box and placed it on an old blanket in
the back of the closet along with a bowl of water and a couple bananas.
Still fighting the gurgling stomach I tried to continue writing my first
book about a girl and her talking pony that was dying from some unknown
disease but couldn’t completely concentrate knowing that I had a monkey
to be trained in my closet. But trained to do what? This I couldn’t
figure as I wrote about the pony’s eyeballs being eaten from within by
something sinister while it dispensed worldly wisdom to the distraught
girl.
Soon I found myself daydreaming and soon my mother was home and soon
after that I was telling her that I was feeling really sick and soon
after that I was in bed with some ginger ale after I was finally able to
vomit up the concoction from earlier in the day.
I slept well that night. I also slept very soundly since I didn’t hear
the monkey rise up from its stunned state and I also didn’t hear my
mother come into my room to wake me up the next morning until she
started hollering.
COMING NEXT: The pony dies?
