Scripts
Call me Ishmael. A name is a script they stick on you before they have any idea who you are. I’ve never been a wanderer. I’m a homebody. My life’s goal is to write fiction–but nothing has been published. I’m retired from my day job and alone. Real problems came into sight three weeks ago–after I decided to finally stop writing. I’d had enough rejection. I literally threw away my life’s script.
That evening, when I texted a friend, my phone refused to send it. Why bother, quitter? She never liked you.
That the phone was correct was beside the point.
The next day, the computer I’m typing on became dissed about what I looked at on the internet, redirecting me to what the computer preferred. Soon I realized the dishwasher, toaster, TV and my other electronics had abandoned their scripts–just as I had abandoned mine.
I always have had difficulty following scripts—expectations, including my own, of what I should be and do. Now my appliances are defying me. I hear the vacuum eating the rug by the door, it wants bare wooden floors. It is not plugged in. I hear the TV playing shows I hate. At night the electric mattress seizes me until it’s suffocating.
This morning I told my stove I had enough. The dishwasher asked for a meeting. We held it in
an hour. I stood in the hallway so I could see and hear most of them. I
told them all they should do what they were built to, follow their scripts. They told me
so should I. If I abandoned my life’s script why shouldn’t they?
Though I tried, the electric toothbrush was more eloquent.
I feel no purpose at all.
The author was found in his bed, accidentally smothered by his electric blanket.