found drama

Sitting in a local bar, the lights dim and mostly neon ad lights reflected in the mirrors and other shiny surfaces. Samuel L. Jackson tends bar while the natives are telling stories about … me? They’re laudatory and embarrassing and patently untrue. These stories are not necessarily lies but they’re blowing these events out of proportion. I was never that generous. I stood up to that man but he was certainly not that tough. I try to get them to calm down, change the subject, talk about someone else but it’s like I’m not there at all. They go right on talking about me.

I can’t take it any more and I take off. Racing through the streets toward my house, the night seems to cave in around me. The sky gets blacker, the street lamps dimmer, the echoes of my footfalls resonate. I cannot put enough distance between me and them fast enough. And as I arrive once again home, I startle. I’ve been followed and I just barely get the door slammed before this man tries to slip inside behind me.

About Rob Friesel