Sunday October 5th, 2014

The exercise:

Write about: congestion.

About two weeks ago I had an idea of where I wanted to go with my installment in October's edition of Vancouver Irrealis. At the moment, I couldn't possibly tell you what it was. I'm blaming it on this cold, if that's okay with you guys.

Anyway. I'm delaying this month's visit to our yearlong prompt until later in the week. At which point, hopefully, I'll be thinking a little more clearly.

Mine:

"Jeez," I muttered to my best/only friend in high school, "the hallways keep getting more and more congested."

"No doubt," Fitzgerald replied. "Say, you know what it reminds me of?"

Now, Fitzgerald was not a particularly nice guy. I'd overheard one of the teachers saying that he thought he was "a bit of a prick" and... well, I'd say that was pretty generous. I guess you have to be at least a little mean if you want to survive being named Fitzgerald.

But he was a good friend to me. Always there when I needed him, or just about. More than anyone else in our stupid little town anyway.

Either way, all I'm trying to say is this: whatever he was about to say was not going to be very complimentary to the denizens of Saint Jacob's High School.

"What?" I asked, keeping my voice low in a vain attempt to get him to do the same.

"My nose when I had that cold last week. A never ending supply of slimy gunk that I wish would be vaporized by a robot before I ever had to look at it."

Well. You can't say I didn't warn you.