Monday, October 26, 2015

Here's Tommy!

One day a young boy was born.

And then a number of days passed. 

Now that boy, who became a man along the way, writes. 

Some refer to him as Tommy Paley, while many others whisper strange and mostly true rumours about him behind his back, mostly because he is sleeping at the time and because his back seems to always be facing them sort of like how the moon rotates around the Earth.

Tommy types words that he finds in dictionaries and encyclopedias and on sides of 2 litre milk cartons after his daily 2 litre milk shower. Yes, he takes those words and magically spins them together, as well as spinning himself around on a computer chair just to see how the words feel. The stories that pop out are practically begging to be read. How do these stories beg? We aren't sure, but, we have to admit, it is a really good trick.

Tommy comes from a long line of averagely-sized people who wish they were just a little bit taller without giving up any of their "small person charm". There have been actors and artists and fashion designers that have come before him, and he always just wants to fit in and not be embarrassed at family gatherings at holiday times when everyone else comes across as "worldly" and "creative" and "huggable". 

So one day it hit him - with "it" being his own hand - that he should put his thoughts on paper or on a screen and that, if he did finally select paper, for the paper to come from one of those value packs found at the dollar store as the incredible cost per sheet just can't be beat! One fateful day, he rose, ate breakfast, went for a walk and then finished a number of other chores or things on his To-Do list and then he sat and started to type. This story would have been a great idea for a movie, if it wasn't so incredibly boring.

At first the ideas spilled out of his brain and someone had to constantly be on mop duty. Those early ideas were quite rudimentary, even by Tommy's standards, and were mostly comprised of solely conjunctions and punctuation. He was nervous. Tommy often is at first. But then, as he gained confidence, and the gears were properly greased - Tommy naively thought he could use cod liver oil which both didn't work and made the place smell like a cannery - and it was only then, on his hands and knees at midnight trying to desperately sop up the oil with a day-old baguette, that he released that it was merely an expression. 

Angrily and more full of passion then ever before, except the infamous "Minestrone Soup" ordeal, he attacked his writing and started to include adverbs and their born-out-of-wedlock-something-always-seems-a-bit-off-about-them-cousins, the adjectives. His writing almost (but not quite) came alive and he treated himself to a shave as the sorry excuse for a beard that he was absent-mindedly growing was pleading to be released.

When you read Tommy's writing, you are really reading him as if he was a screen with words on it that you could scroll through quickly and claim that you "loved" as it is just too hard to give honest feedback to someone who seems so desperate of praise. When you read his writing you are seeing what makes him "tick" and occasionally "tock", although the new meds are supposed to help with that. His brain and heart and the blood currently coursing through his veins and possibly his arteries are on display for the world to see and judge and analyze and embrace if you happen to be wearing a hazmat suit.

Finally, Tommy is attempting for his writing to be "approachable" and "biodegradable" and the kind of writing you could cuddle with on a chair by the fire on a cold, winter's night. He is aiming for his work to be all things to all people or at least some things to some people, with the hope that those people appreciate his writing the same way he appreciates a plate of cooked salmon, which is a lot.


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