I Forget- A Somewhat Short Story Dedication

This is a short story I had to write for English Class in the Stream of Consciousness method used in Catcher in the Rye. Entitled I Forget, a short story using several Forbidden Woods members in references among the story and characters, enjoy.

I Forget

You all know what an average day of your life goes like, normally you’ll wake up at a half decent time somewhere in the vicinity of ‘tomorrow’ then sit around in half a daze until you return to your bed exhausted from all that God awful work. Taking into account you’re a lazy bum being given a free education and that bed you sleep in was free, there aren’t many things to add to that list. Now my days follow around that same guideline, a few bumps in the road here and there, nothing too serious and nothing too boring to risk putting myself into a comatose state. Like all good things, good being not enough to provide serious injury like death, they come to an end sometime and you spend forever trying to bait it back with promises you have no intension on keeping. That’s what that Tuesday was like.

I woke up to a thin beam of sunlight burning it’s way with pure malevolence to my partially open eye, a splendid blindness to work around trying to find my way downstairs. Now, I have sixteen steps in that little narrow hallway, going down at an angle so sharp if your toes were half an inch longer the pull of gravity would be enough to send you breaking your neck down them. Expecting to smell some sort of breakfast I wasn’t exactly heartbroken to just smell the dank air of the lower floor, no harm done, you understand that sort of feeling, the little moments in between moods.

Half kicking, half pushing the door to a crashing stop by the wall my day began exactly right there, moving out of the darkness. Before I forget, my name’s David Gibler, eldest son to Caleb and Anne Gibler of some country I also forget, I’m good at that, one of the few things I am, forgetting. Two younger brat sisters run around the place, Aries and Danielle, there are times that if I could pawn one or both, preferably the both option, I’d get a brother or something, someone to maybe knock around or accidentally hit in the head with a baseball and not have him start bawling his eyes out. I think I’d name him Kameron, or William or Punching Bag, one of those, yeah.

Anyway, the clock flashed 12:00, then stupidly moving away from the TV I found the real time shooting out from me by my mother halfway across the house. I’d slept until 2PM, no big deal, if that goddamn sunbeam hadn’t felt like ruining my sleep it would have been later, like always. It was the first week for summer break and I sure wasn’t feeling an empty hole in my heart for school being done and gone. You wouldn’t know it though, I like to put on a fake show, mope around the house and get all teary-eyed at the mention of any of my friends or the bus whizzing by my house while I laugh at all the suckers on it, I mean, all the beautiful souls…

That Tuesday was really getting on my nerves, the sunlight, the mouthing, the walking, the breathing; I was already getting a headache from the sheer noise of the microwave. So I half dragged myself to the living room in attempts for communication with my dad, only to remember he had a job and he would be there for God knows how long, it sort of bugged me in a non-guilty way, that I was still mooching off my parents and had no job. But really, if you think about, if you have people willing to pay most of your expenses and keep a roof over your head for free, why would you really want to go out and about getting all stressed out and coming home to nothing of any importance? Exactly my point, that’s always how I make myself feel better, think about something way off in the array of options and make little twists to it making some kind of good point.

“Weren’t you going somewhere today with that Cantu guy?” Aries came running into the room with her arms out to both sides pretending to be, we’ll just say Superman for time’s sake. “Ben called about an hour ago saying that you and him were going to the movies with his brother and his girlfriend to see that spy movie.”

“That’s not until later tonight you dipstick.” I rolled my eyes and flopped onto the couch, cuddling the little throw pillow thing for some odd reason, I guess I needed to find something to make the frilly thing have something else to do then sit around collecting dust. “That brother of his will probably scam us or something too, makes us buy him gas or buy him a life, we all know he needs one.” I laughed to the sound of just myself as the goblin ran back from where she came making sure to trample on my day.

“Oh, they decided to go to a matinee instead, at three o’clock. I didn’t bother waking you up though, you looked too out of it.” Off she went giggling like a little banshee, normally I’d chase her down but the fact of the matter is that you don’t go running when your stammer and stumbling can be mistaken for having a hangover. No sir, you definitely don’t want that idea running through your parents’ heads. Either way, I still got up to at least attempt getting ready, it wouldn’t really matter if I missed them due to either shaving time or an explosive urge to maybe clean my room at the last minute or something like that.

Anyway, after managing to duke it out with myself to half-heartedly go see the spy movie, getting half decent clothes on and eating half a sandwich half, I jumped into action to reach the outside door. Taking little consideration, I said bye to my mom who merely gave me that look, you know the look, the one that you just really wish it was legal to strangle the person giving it to you into submission kind of look. Ben was waiting outside in the car that I knew I had to get into despite the musty air and the dusty seats, I hesitated and held my breath, if I had giant lungs I probably would have kept in that wondrous oxygen and wouldn’t bother breathing all the way there, you really have to see his car though.

Walking down the path I began to think for a moment, why was it that Ben’s older brother was out of college, engaged and probably the smartest son-of-a-bitch you’d ever meet and he didn’t have a car? You should have seen that fat woodpecker on the cedar tree that day, I’ve never seen the bugger since though; he’d give any bug a run for its money to be sure. So diving down into the leather backseat and ignoring the two lovebirds in the front I thought about starting idle chat, but I hate idle chat, especially with Ben. See, he always gets into these rants about how he defends himself for picking his ears in the middle of a presentation, apparently they get itchy or some crap like that. Before I forget, he also likes to talk about pants.

The drive down was certainly eventful, I saw about thirty cows, a couple hundred trees, a house on fire, and my friend Jake punching his hedge for some damn reason that I took notice to ask him the day after. Andrew, the older brother guy, was swooning a lot, it was sick, hearing all those sweet words and not being able to escape; it almost makes a case for justifiable homicide, and don’t you feed me any bull about never just wanting to pop someone in the nose who’s acting like a girly psychotic. The movie theatre was a drab little place, three screens and four cashiers who all the time seem like they have an I.Q. of seven; spilling Coke all over the floor and knocking their heads on the steaming popcorn popper in attempts to find a contact lens or something, it’s really funny to watch. Blazing in a false glory was the movie poster for what we were going to see, The Jeremiah Tracey Chronicles: The Black Sunset, I had to laugh at the guy on the front just for the part he was playing. Who in their right mind names a superspy with the last name Tracey?

Here comes the point where everything starts just getting boring, yes, you can believe it got even more boring at a blockbuster film. I snagged myself some popcorn, and wheedled out some cash from Ben by betting him I could make one of the cashiers think an axe murderer was behind them, true story, really. So, to wrap up the movie, the guy named Jeremiah was on duty pretending to be an English teacher going by the gutsy name of Phyllis or Butch, I forget. Anyhow, the best part had to be when that kid fell asleep in class, the one that hated poetry and dreamt the Canadian advanced forces had crashed into their cafeteria looking for a bomb, it was priceless.

There were guns, there were girls, cars, explosions, savvy comebacks, really stupid villains, explosions, minions acting as gun fodder, and more explosions to top it all off. I’m a big fan of helicopters, every time I see one spinning around in the air I always want to hit it with a rock or a “Jello” packet, they’re just that interesting to try and hit, not like cars, I always hit those. Once the movie was over I got to experience partial blindness from a sunbeam again. Staggering to the car I got the sudden urge to maybe return and grab my expensive jacket from the sticky seat that might have just adhered to it.

For the most part it went without a hitch; I ran in and grabbed my coat, knocking down a guy with a broom who merely looked up at the ceiling as if the Hand of God had swept him down to the gum ridden floor. There it was, right up at the very top of more steep steps, the red beacon called down to me and asked me what the hell was I doing to try and get a jacket I picked up on the road with such vigour? Stuffing my arms back to where they belonged, I passed the guy still gazing up at the sprinklers to rain holy water or the screen to show a satellite feed of the Almighty himself wishing to give him his blessings.

The sun blinded me again, and the moment I adjusted, three minutes or something, you know how it is, the searing pain of it all, I was off to the black car. Running down the long path to the waiting car I could only watch in horror as a jet plane came crashing down in a fiery inferno. Oh wait, that was still the movie, sorry. Where was I? I could only watch in horror as Andrew dropped my cell phone down the sewage drain while texting to his mom or something, pansy. By now you probably realized I’ve said just about nothing physically in this story, suck it up, I’m not one to engage in conversation with Ben, I mean, it’s Ben Clark, if you knew him you wouldn’t want to even be seen with him. But, I’m just so nice a guy that I hang out with him and his dunce brother, it’s true, really.

We were driving down one of those streets in the city, the ones where you can’t spit out a loogie without it hitting a brick wall, a person or another car, I was pretty damn bored. I remembered I hadn’t washed my hair that morning as I rubbed my head against the window in a daze, leaving those attractive streaks. No one would care though, you’d never see past the dirt on the outside, the car was really white, that’s how dirty it was.

“We have to stop off at the bank for a second and get out some extra cash.” Andrew tugged the wheel to the left, knocking off his side mirror on the edge of another parked car. For another five minutes he tried to get himself parked right, I could almost have just imagined that look on his face, the ‘I deserve to be strangled look’, then I’d have a reason, or I hoped so. Off he went into the ‘bank without a name since I don’t feel like being sued for some odd reason that would come if I did say it’s name’, that’s another thing I hate, why have a bank named after another province here in New Brunswick? Blasphemy!

I was thanking God that Ben hadn’t spoken to me the entirety of the three minutes his brother was gone. Looking in earnest for the pasty fool to come out, I had the sudden urge to belch, it would have been awesome too if I had. What? It’s fun. Now, seriously I would have just to be rude, but my attention was drawn to the bank, where, to my horror, the mass population of the bank was caught in the middle of a mafia gang fight right behind the desks. Wait, that was the movie again…I think I perhaps needed to lay down or something. A blazing oil tanker came screaming out of control from the other street and was headed straight- alright I’m done.

Anyway, where was I? What happened to cause that day to be so much different than ever before, it happened right after Andrew sat himself back into his crappy car. Creeping forward listening to the muffler explode in agony, we were off home. There was the smouldering house from before, the thirty cows, the Jake now punching a tricycle; everything was just like it was before, weird.

“Thanks for letting me tag along for the movie guys.” I was almost in tears, the happiness coming from being able to leave their presence. Before they could give any word back I slammed the door and went on my way not bothering to go back. For some reason I stopped and gazed up into the sky, I’m not sure why I actually did or not, the day is a bit blurry. You wouldn’t believe what I saw, my eyes were probably like saucers too, yes sir, it was that amazing, and normally I can never tell if I even have my eyes open. Anyhow…It was amazing, like, if Bill Murray broke into your house and Ghostbusted himself a ghost while picking his nose, you wouldn’t be as surprised or speechless as I was then.

Up there in the sky, commanding all my attention there in the yard, was…wait a minute, I have to excuse myself to the bathroom for a minute. It truly is fun to break out in the middle of a soliloquy when you have a climax coming up in the story, I mean, who in their right mind does that? Just making a note that that was my favourite line from that kid about his dream, it really kept with me that Adam guy and his best friend Matt what’s-his-name. I may be a short movie hater, but really, give a guy that good of lines and you’ve got something I’ll probably laugh forever over.

Before I get too distracted, I do that a lot, think about a whole bunch of things at once and forget what I’m talking about, it really is annoying. Now, what was I talking about?

Fin