"Forgoe the parable" - Bon Iver

Character: Lewis Baker.
17 yr. Old white male from somewhere it snows. Lives with grandparents. Grandma is a chain smoker. Gramps is an old rock band drummer who played for the likes of Elvis and eventually The Who for a little while. Lewis has a fascination with Japanese TV (even though he can't understand it), biking everywhere (because he doesn't have a car), sushi (even though he hates it) and the local library (because he thinks the girl who works there is hot). He likes his English class content, but despises his teacher for making him write this assignment. He also has an overactive imagination.

Plot points: Lewis leaves secret admirer notes for library girl, who is quite intrigued. English teacher gives Lewis a C in the class. Lewis is constantly imagining “what if” situations, mostly involving his death.

Setting: Lewis is sitting at his tiny desk in his tiny room with a huge window with those nasty plastic blinds that make the whole room striped with sunlight. He's trying to write his English assignment.

Beginning lines:

I’m staring at a blank page.

There, it’s not so blank anymore.

They tell me to write what I know, but what do I know?

I know I watch Japanese TV online every day from 2 – 4 PM. There’s something about the way the sunshine peeps in through the slits of the blinds that reminds me of the swallowing effect of my room. I’m pretty sure those two facts have nothing to do with each other but nevertheless, they coexist. Also, “Nihongo ga wakede ma sien.”

I know that yesterday this blonde girl in the library asked me if my pants were spandex or jeans. I told her they were a hybrid. From the future.

I know that after the library I went straight to the grocery store on my grandma’s bike listening to For Emma by Bon Iver. My legs turned to the beat. Saw death on a sunny snow, what a line. I saw that too, once. A bird flew right into our garage door, which is opaque? Go figure. Bloody mess all over the snowy sidewalk. I bought her another pack of Marlboro cigs, one of those blue squeeze pops of goo, an apple for after I finished, and some celery for Gram’s stew tonight. Should be delicious. Not.

I know my sad attempts at being Rush’s next drummer are futile, but I still bang on Gramp’s old drum set at about 4:10 PM every day. It usually lasts till 4:15 PM because I suck. But boy those Japanese beats really get me going sometimes.

I know that I will never be a writer because this is hard. What was Mrs. Finkle thinking. Why couldn’t she have asked me to write about the greatest rocks bands of the 80s or better yet, zombies? I know, a love story about two zombies who hunt humans together and play in the radioactive fields of ooze. She-thing would say, “Goodnight freak” and He –thing would say, “Your inner beauty is like a magnet for my soul.” Because let’s face it, She-thing is ugly.

Ending lines:
I laid there, staring at the ceiling imagining what it would be like if it caved in right now. The dry wall, the metal pipes, the dust mites, the asbestos, on display, right now, with me under it. Would I be crushed or suffocate to death or be trapped? Oh well. I turned over, opened the blinds. The dust made me cough. I fell asleep with the orange light in my face.