My brother writes crazy stories in his magic notebook. The words are drawn in, and they drift up the pages, all around the borders, and some people speak upside down. I wrote a story for his book and it required I adopt his style.
(a difficult task, because I cannot write on paper. My hands know so well how the letters are configured through the computer that they’ve forgotten the way pens work.)

It was super fun. The whole exercise allowed me to press up against the edges of civility, and mash together all those things that growl just behind the sensible story. Here are my favorite sentences:

“She knew people the salamander had only heard of. Zoo people. Which rhymes with knew people, so you know it’s true (people.)”

“The jacket was left on her couch after a spontaneous party that erupted from the salamander’s cell phone a few months ago, when it attended on the back of a cologne soaked friend of a friend.”

“There is a spice rack in her kitchen, the only spice is nutmeg, and the twelve bottles are always filled. It was a gift from her grandmother, but any spices she brings into the kitchen turn to nutmeg, and she wonders occasionally if her grandmother had meant to curse her.”

“She sucked them through a straw and tried to ignore the distinct taste of an N.”

“The walking dead girl looked up at the letters hovering overhead, and watched the misplaced comma drift down the paragraph, pinging against p’s and q’s and dropping right though the page to stab Salvatore in the heart.”

They are simple sentences, but I enjoy them. They were successful, too. He said I had written his Mad World better than he had (which is kind, and a lie), and I am very pleased. I look forward to seeing how the words react with his magic notebook.