Writing Experiment (Alone in the Ticket Booth)

As an experiment to keep my skills sharp, I am going to attempt to describe this crazy stapler that I just met.

He lives in the ticket booth in the Texas Tech University Student Union building.

He is multiethnic, I'd say half black, half latino, he also had some exposed metal bits, so either he is part robot or has had significant body reconstruction after a terrible accident.

He is very limber and can straighten himself into almost a 180 degree angle. He must have been a gymnast in high school.

He lives under a shelf with a scotch tape dispenser and a screwdriver, I like to pretend that he is secretly in love with the scotch tape dispenser, but feels he is not good enough for her because he doesn't have his GED. The screwdriver is just the dick who lives in their shelf-house but pays rent.

The front of his staple dispensing area is rusted and grimy. He is sensitive when asked about it, but I believe he secretly freebases crystal meth in an effort to distract himself from his crippling social and relational anxiety, as well as to forget about the shambles he has made of his once promising life and gymnastic career.

He knows there is no shame in honest hard labor, and dog gone it, things need to be stapled in this world. Still I think at night, when all the lights are off and the night manager is sleeping instead of doing his job, Mr. Stapler emerges from his shelf-house and gazes at the soft red glow of the exit sign (his only light in this dark place) and wonders what could have been.

Maybe he promises himself that one day he will prove himself worthy of Lady Tape Dispenser's serrated love, that the next morning he will get clean, go back to school, and tell her how he really feels.

But as sure as the fluorescent dawn will spark at 7 am the next morning, Mr. Stapler will wake up and be waterboarded by depression. As he struggles out of bed, his breath reeking of turpentine and WD-40, he will walk silently past Ms. Dispenser's room and quietly sigh and hang his head. Leaning against her door frame we will listen to the rythmic zip zip zip whirr of her breathing and wish that he was there to hold her whenever her spinny middle falls out and she feels useless.

These few minutes of fantasy ultimately are nothing in his monotonous and largely useless life and as the dizzy of reprieve gives way to the chill of cold tile and the feeling of old Corn Pops sticking to his base, the harsh realities of the world seem that much worse.

Now the sound of her breathing seems a cruel joke, of which he is always the punchline. Rather than smile at the thought of her breath on the nape of his neck, all it reminds him of are the chills and itches he gets when his stash of Meth is exhausted and he collapses on the floor wrapped in a threadbare blanket, weeping.

Suddenly exhausted, he turns from her door, wishing that he had never been brought into being, that the concept of the staple was nothing but the dream of a lunatic.

He plods to the shower, numb, turning the water to it's highest setting. He'd rather feel his plastic blister and bubble than feel nothing at all. As wave after wave of pain collapses on him, he weeps, the first of many crippling battles with himself, each inflicting wounds in his psyche deeper than any he could inflict on his body. (As hard as he might try).

He gets out of the shower and composes himself. He glances at his face in the mirror. His youthful features are obscured by the rust and scratches that come with hard living. It's just as well, he thinks, I don't deserve to have anyone love me.

He wanders to the kitchen and poors some cornflakes in a bowl, he reaches into the refrigerator for the milk and howls with rage. There is nothing but 2 drops left. He can't stand it. He throws the bowl across the kitchen, shattering it and sending a small battallion of roaches scattering. He collapses on the kitchen floor.

Mr. Stapler comes to two hours later. He curses himself for missing work and hopes that the foreman will show him a little mercy.

He is given a reprieve if he works for half pay for the day. It will mean no breakfast for a few days, but he needs the job.

Which brings me to my meeting with Mr. Stapler. He sees in me a new hope, someone who may understand his tale and befriend him, bringing him back from the precipice of destruction.












I avoid him, the man is an addict.