Garage Talk The short story is not done. The main event (or Initial Incident) has not begun. I am not as passionate for this story as I am for another that I am currently writing. Though, I would like to read the comments and criticism on this piece of work. Thank You “What!? Yeah right…” “Dude, I am serious.” “Come on, I understand the love for dogs but not that much.” “Okay, let us say that it is not truth, why would I just waste my time and tell you guys something that is also, when you think about it, a time waster.” “There could be many reasons… for instance,” Neil nonchalantly replied while setting his feet on top the light green painted wooden table, crossing them for more comfort, “you could just say something so unrealistic and incomprehensible that, when witnessing our surprised facial expressions and reactions, you’ll laugh at us in disbelief and start to talk about how gullible we are.” Tom stared at the person he knows so well, but does not quite understand. He leans his head back with a sense of exhaustion and speaks to the low ceiling above him. “Just stop playing around and believe me.” Barry stood up and paced the floor with shuffling sounds. He stared at the purple carpet that has not been vacuumed in about year; clouds of white scatter themselves along the ends of the oval. “Alright. It is possible after all; there are many crazy things in this world that we do not know about.” “That’s right, in India it is legal to marry a dog” Tom repeated “also, it is legal to marry a dead person in France”. “Necrophilia!” Barry spilled out without hesitation. As Barry laughed, Neil rolled his eyes and stared at Barry for ten seconds until he finally asked him to stop giggling to himself. Hearing but not listening, Barry decided to laugh louder and turned his face toward Neil’s right ear. Neil instinctively scrambles away but trips on a red object that seemed to roll away. “Must have been my toy firehouse truck” thought Tom without giving a single thought on his friend’s common performance. The secluded body that lied on the dirty carpet finally lifted itself up and crawled to the blue striped sofa. After sitting and finding a resting position, Neil grabs the abnormal shaped pillow residing to his left and throws it across the room – which hit Barry’s face with perfect aim. “I also realized something yesterday, when I was at Borders, I was just striding along without a main objective, reading the back of books for a short description, taking a quick five second glance at any cover of a book that catches my eye, then, I somehow ended up in the Romance section.” Tom mentioned after a “non-golden silence”. “So? What exactly did you realize?” asked Neil. Barry did not seem to listen to the conversation between his two friends as he leaned back on his rocking chair. He leaned too far and started to fall over until he caught himself by grabbing the built-in round table in front of him. Barry exhaled deeply, letting the others know that he is safe; the others did not respond. This act annoyed Barry. “Well, I scanned all the book covers of the three leveled Romance section and I only read the names of females. To make sure, I started to concentrate on every name on every book. All the books were written by females. Names like Ann Watt, Jane Jackson, Marianne, Amy, Hillary, Christie, Eliot, all these names projected as the conquer of females over Romance novels!” stated Tom, flailing his arms above his head to try to get his word across. “That is highly common Tom. Romance novels are usually attracted by women readers. Thus, women readers take in the romance novels, which, in this case, women writers give out. This is all logical. The men of our society are usually labeled as the “meaty” and “jockey” ones that enjoy other types of reading pieces.” Barry said. “Though, this does not mean all men do not read romance, I mean, are you sure that only women’s names were displayed? There had to be some Men’s Romantic novelists.” Tom, who pondered on whether he exaggerated his statement, said “Actually, there were a few male novelists that wrote Romance. About two or three… but still, the majority of the writers that publish romance are females. For some reason I felt like I was dominated by the women in terms of romance.” Neil and Barry burst with laughter. “Neil, he just realized the truth of love when it comes to relationships!” Barry choked. “Women always dominate the men when it comes to romance!” Neil explained. He chuckled loudly and quite oddly; he sounded like a hiccupping dog after drinking from its water bowl too fast. Frowning, Tom grabbed the pillow that was recently thrown at Barry and launched it at Neil’s tear covered front. The throw, similar to Neil’s, hit bulls-eye and Neil plopped back onto the sofa in complete surprise. Barry burst with laughter once again. He held himself in effort to not fall backwards. Tom, now pleased with his perfect hit, found himself joining in the laughter. The three friends galloped in their throats, sharing a bond between close companions. The moment was priceless and the three knew that they would cherish moments such as these throughout their lives. As fire is white hot and displays works of beauty filled with blue, yellow, orange, and red, incinerations, charred black symbols that float up in the air, contain small particles of darkness that can swallow almost anything whole: from the most intelligent species on earth to acres of tress in the woods. Giving off signals that can announce to anybody and anyone that there is trouble, there is danger, there is chaos, and there is destruction… Destruction of the lungs… or destruction of precious homes and artifacts. One might understand that there are many aspects of the world that say “Independence” or “Dependence upon others”, though, this point of view does not appeal to the three innocent friends that are laughing in Tom’s garage. There is no need for worry of penetration to the single moment of divine serenity that has been bestowed up them. There are only golden days ahead of them; these three understand this and they intend to take advantage of this knowledge. After minutes of pure and whole-hearted laughter, Barry finally found his sense of thought and gripped the smooth edges of the round table in front of him and shouted over the laughter of his friends. “Okay!” he bellowed “Is there anything else we want to contemplate on? Come on, let’s just get it over with, I know we all have something to say.” Tom and Neil faded their laughter until there was no more. “Alright, I’ll bring it up since were on the topic of names.” Neil muttered “There are many times when might try to understand the origins of certain names; the names could be based on certain loved one, a certain person in history who has had at least some impact in how one may view the world. A name can make a person important or even subjective to participation in almost any activity on “the outside”. Will we be able to understand the origins of all names? Names like Sitting-Bull that was influenced by the actions and morals of the famous chief, or even names that represent objects and commodities the “one who names” has a liking to: for instance “Candy” or “Flower”. Though, most names that we all see and hear of in society are the “common names”. But are these really common? Common in a sense that we have all gotten used to names like “David” and “Bella”… or even names like “Tom”. Neil pointed straight at Tom. His chubby index finger hovered in the air and sent a message through Tom’s central nervous system. “Hmm… you are probably correct about that, though, what about your name?” “What about my name?” “If you put my first name together with your last name, we will end up having the name “Tom Cruise”; so combined we become the scientologist actor who starred in many movies” Tom explained with a sly smirk. Neil stood with an eyebrow raised above his right eye. Shaking his head slightly, he sat back down on the couch and crossed his legs in a resting exposure. “Wow, now that you think about it, if you put Neil’s first name together with your last name, Tom, you will end up having the name of a famous singer “Neil Diamond”.” Barry, once again, began to chuckle without resistance “Put together, your guys are rather famous, huh?” Clouds of red covered Neil’s cheeks. “What about your full name, then?” “You have nothing on my name, so stop trying to get something back at me.” Neil started to laugh loudly with a patch of hysteria in his tone “Barry Black, what are you? The exact opposite of Barry White?” Taken aback, Barry flustered his words in a ragged mutter. “What was that?” asked Neil in a whisper. “I said ‘alright’…” Barry answered abruptly. Once again, there was silence.
Copyright © 2008 Cesar Merano |