Writing Like A Novelist (An Experiment)

One thirty am is a bad time to be alone. In the back of your mind, slightly beyond the reaches of your consciousness, but ever present, is the knowledge that everyone around you is asleep; or in a state of fortified frivolity rousing and carousing, illuminating the night with their own exuberant glow.

I sat in the kitchen alone, my yellow highlighter to my right, marking passages by Dr. Thompson that struck me, ruminating on my isolation.

I had felt unusual since driving home, four wheels on the pavement, engine softly humming. Not a spaceship, noiseless and ethereal, but like a slightly precocious ghost, never revealing himself except for the slight bump and rattle that added a discordant beat to the music softly drifting from the speakers.

When I say, "I felt unusual," I don't mean in the sense that I was feeling different than many other late nights at home, I mean that my brain felt disconnected from my body, wandering on its own solitary plane.

I put down my book and retrieved my hookah from the cabinet. It had been purchased online, touted as being "handmade in Egypt" a fancy way of saying that it was a serviceable product, but nothing that would last much longer than a year. I carefully assembled it, enjoying the ritual. A quick rinse, the chink chink of ice on glass, and the graceful connection of metal tubing. I filled the bowl with mint tobacco, covered it in tinfoil, and used a fork to make sixteen square holes for heat to travel through.

As the coal lay nestled in the tongs, I sparked it with my lighter. It was a purple lighter. I always buy purple lighters. Purple is the favorite color of a girl I thought I loved in high school, my own personal remembrance of a story that everyone shares. This girl led me through my first period of real self-doubt. Not any lasting doubt of course, not the kind faced by any forty year old man looking back on what he's accomplished. No, this was emotion that birthed musicians, writers, and artists, when they first realize that maybe they are better off expressing themselves to the anonymous masses, rather than the one they care about. This was the emotion that leads foolhardy teenagers down paths of self destruction and rebirth.

I never had the nerve to be self destructive. I think I'm too smart to be, or possibly to stupid. Most people with the word brilliant littering their obituaries have gone through periods of self induced personal hell. It was never my bag.

I puffed. The creamy white smoke slowly filling the empty space between the water and the rubber seal, listlessly floating, unable to escape, except into my lungs.

I decided to draw a bath.

I set down the stopper and turned the handle, warm water crashed onto porcelain.

I debated whether it was intelligent to have a hot coal within striking distance of my nuptials, but in the end assumed that with all the water around, I would probably be safe.

Carefully, I carried the pipe into the bathroom, setting it on the tile and congratulating myself on not burning the house down.

I looked at the open bathroom door, there wasn't a soul around, no one to see me as God intended. My housemates were spread across the state, probably asleep somewhere in West Texas. In the end, I decided to close it, I wanted an ambiance, I wanted the tiny room to fill with smoke.

I relaxed into the water. A towel rested on the edge of the tub to dry my hands, and my book beside it, in case I tired of suffocating myself.

Short, slow bursts of noise came from both my feet and my face. The faucet emptying steamy water that mingled and contrasted with the cool mint in my lungs. It was entirely pleasant.

As the tub filled, I turned off the faucet. I turned it off earlier than usual, I had recently showered after a haircut and straight strands of brown were still in the pipes, giving the drain fits. The only sound now was the gentle bubble of ice and water as I breathed in every few seconds, relaxing.

I spit in the water, the white flecks floated between my knees for a while before they dissipated or married themselves to a bit of hair that had not yet gone on to brutalize the drain.

The bathtub of two collegiate men is not the most sterile place. I watched as bits of sand from days playing volleyball with friends, shaving cream islands, and assorted bits of soapy detritus floated around my ankles.

I didn't mind, my only concern was turning the faucet between my toes whenever the water cooled too much for my liking.

Smoke doesn't like being underwater. It escapes to the top as quickly as it can, and spreads like fog on some Irish peat bog. I blew bubbles like I did as a child in Houston, remembering swimming with my parents in our neighborhood pool. It was a community made of young parents, all of them enjoying the sun and teaching their toddlers not to fear the water. Pool staff would hand out dixie straws so that we could blow bubbles without having to get water in our noses, for no other reason than the pure childlike delight that comes with the pop and splash of making harmless noise. I remembered my dad holding me around my chest as i paddled in the water, my tiny arms stroking back and forth like a fetus, never moving anywhere, just learning to enjoy being outside. And whenever I tired miming a freestyle, I would sit on my dad's knee with my straw and blow happy bubbles.

I was blowing happy bubbles again, without the luxury of a straw, and without that crutch I once again felt the sting of water rushing into my nostrils. Snorting and sneezing like a donkey, I sat up and blew smoke and water out my nose. My left nostril was clogged, so a lazy stream shot out my right.

"I should stop doing this," I thought to myself, but in sitting up, the blood returned to my brain and with it, the pleasant buzz of tobacco. My concerns about my health were temporarily sidetracked and I reflected on the evening. In truth, there was not much to reflect on, so I decided to imagine the next day, Memorial Day. Memorial Day would be busy. I had to wake up sometime in the morning and call my mother, telling her that I wanted to eat lunch with the family rather than dinner, as I have a graduation party to attend in the evening. I thought about what might happen after the party, wondering if I would be able to get coffee with the girl who inspired all of my lighter purchases. Wondering about what we would say, knowing what we would say, me making funny quips and dissing her music, as she smiled and treated me not unlike a petulant child. I knew there would be the inevitable awkward moment, where I would mention my previous affection and her ever shortening patience for such remarks would shine through. Then I resolved to stop smoking hookah so much.

The water was cold and I was too lazy and afraid of burns to move the coal and get more smoke. I resolved to get out of the tub and have a shave. Inspecting my patch of hair, plotted haphazardly across my neck and chin, I decided to shave down to a goatee. Shaving is one of my favorite things. Whenever I shave, I pretend that I am Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, slicking back my hair and lathering up with Barbasol, I slide the razor over my cheeks. It sounds like paper shredding. I dry off, get dressed and hang up the towels. I always use three towels, I wrap one around my waist, drape one across my shoulders, and pin the third to my chest. It drives my mother crazy, she doesn't like to wash towels. I just don't bother.






(I just wrote over 1000 words about a bath, TAKE THAT FAULKNER YOU ARROGANT BASTARD)