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May ’16 Night-Time Only Cereal

Some creative writing I did for SUSAN HAMILTON’S TECHNOLOGY CONCERN, some months ago.

Let’s say you’re reading this at night. You’ve poured yourself into the warm folds of your old couch for a decidedly langorious night of Netflix binging Master of None.

Aziz is around for 5 minutes before –

β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”
β”‚ β”‚β–ˆ
β”‚ ━━━━━━━━00000━━━━━━━━━ β”‚β–ˆ
β”‚ ━━━━━━000000000━━━━━━━ β”‚β–ˆ
β”‚ ━━━━0000000000000━━━━━ β”‚β–ˆ
β”‚ ━━━000000000000000━━━━ β”‚β–ˆ BZZZZZZZZZRT!
β”‚ ━━━━0000000000000━━━━━ β”‚β–ˆ
β”‚ ━━━━━━000000000━━━━━━━ β”‚β–ˆ
β”‚ ━━━━━━━━00000━━━━━━━━━ β”‚β–ˆ
β”‚ β”‚β–ˆ
β”‚β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”β”Œβ”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”β”‚β–ˆ
β”‚β”‚ Talk β”‚β”‚Listenβ”‚β”‚ Open β”‚β”‚β–ˆ
β”‚β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜β”‚β–ˆ
β””β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”€β”˜β–ˆ
β–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆβ–ˆ

You lift yourself up to answer it. The effort is Herculean. You’ll tell your grandkids about it someday.

β€œHello?”

β€œHi, it’s UPS.”

β€œOkay.”

You hold the Open button for a moment, let go and turn back to –

BZZZZZZZZZRT!

β€œYeah?”

β€œActually, I need you to come down and sign for this.”

Hesistating over the talk button, you eventually reply, β€œOkay.”

You get dressed and slump downstairs, where you’re greeted by an anxious looking woman with little resemblance and no relation to Susan Hamilton.

  ,-==-.
.β–‘β–‘β–’β–’β–’β–’β–’\
"='"=\β–’β–’β–‘'
`0] 0'|β–’β–’β–‘)
) ` ' ),-`
\^_, \,
,(\,/ )`-.

β€œHi”, she sounds mousier than she did over the intercom. You notice the brown leather handbag over her shoulder, but no package.

β€œHi, You’ve got a package or something for me?”

β€œNope.”

Some time passes.

β€œWhat?”

β€œSorry, I lied to get you down here.”

β€œHuh?”

β€œI’m here to take you to Night-Time Only Cereal”

β€œHuh?”, you’re understandably confused and annoyed. β€œListen, I’m not really buying anything, so yeah… I’m… gonna go now. Cya.”

β€œJust a second!”, she exclaims as she grabs your hand. This is pretty awkward. β€œThis is my job so just go with it. I know it’s awkward, but stuff like this always is.”

β€œStuff like what?”, you move to pull your arm away, but you’re wrenched in place. Despite being in no way related to Susan Hamilton, she’s surprisingly strong.

β€œYour name is on my list.” She lets go of your hand. β€œSo I’d like you to come with me. By the way, do you know what the best thing about cereal is?”

β€œCereal? Like the breakfast food?” She nods. β€œI dunno, it tastes good? or something?” You need to wrap this up and get out of here.

With a smirk she replies, β€œEveryone says that, but no one thinks about the things that happen around you when you’re eating it. Cereal is innocence. Saturday morning cartoons, the breakfast table, getting ready for school, sunlight pouring in over your glass of OJ. Back then everything was okay. You were okay.”

β€œSure, I’m okay now thanks.”

”?”

” β€œ

β€œCome on.”, She turns, gently opens the front door and glides through it. Her heels click smartly with each step away from you. The door stays mostly open behind her.

Do you go with her?

      ┏━━━━━━━━━━┓
┃◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔┃
┃◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔┃
●_● ┃◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔┃ γ€€ΰΌΌβ€’β€’ΰΌ½
┃◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔┃
┃◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔┃
┃◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔◔┃
┗━━━━━━━━━━┛

Continued in part 2, or not.

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