IR Short Stories

  I sleep on the bed and wake up on the floor. It’s been happening for a month now. I wonder if it’s a symptom of some sort because, what in the world is this? How does a 34-year-old roll to the point of falling off the bed like this? It’s 3:32 am, and I don’t imagine I’ll fall asleep again, so I write, at least I try. Another day of beating against an empty gong and dancing to my own sound that nobody else seems to hear. I throw my notebook across the room. This room. I had high hopes for it. I used all the money I made from waitressing to purchase every piece of tech necessary to produce great sounds here. Yet here I am, putting off the call I need to make if I want to stay in this apartment. How did I get here? I go back to bed and place pillow barricades on the side I usually wake from and fall asleep. Thud. Damn it! What is going on? It’s 4:43 am. I’ve only slept for less than ten minutes. It’s as if the moment I fall asleep, I enter another reality. I never remember my ...

  I have this sick feeling in my stomach that I am leading her astray. Or am I paranoid, living under the shadow of my own failure? I was supposed to have it all figured out. My life was supposed to look a certain way, but I failed. What was I to do in this economy? God, I am doing my best. Nobody told me I’d have to fight for every little thing. My daughter came unexpectedly, and now I feel obligated to give her better. Yet here I am, dropping her off at school, subjecting her to the same process that got me here. I am giving her to the same system that ruined me. What am I doing? There are twenty-five children in her class, all writing the same homework, the same presentations, dressed in identical uniforms like little prisoners. The uniform suits my daughter too well, like she was born for it. Such a tragedy. Every day she walks through those doors is another inch deeper the system penetrates her little mind. Hoooonk. Oh shoot. Drive. In my rearview mirror are lines of ...