​Two Shotguns
 
“It is incredibly important to tell love stories
that take place in train bathrooms,
if not for the absolute impossibility
of their romance alone.”
 
            As the train slowed, after hours of complete darkness, into the Klamath Falls stop, the lowly lit amber streetlights pardoned his eyes like candlelit kites passing too quickly to count. All he knew of Klamath Falls was it was one of the only two “fresh air” breaks in which he would be allowed to step off the train and smoke. He figured with ten hours left in the ride and his hunger and boredom waxing, at the very least the marijuana would help the poor selection of microwaveable dinners available in the cafe car seem more appetizing.
            The dying bulbs lit the snow grey and unassuming as he stepped off the train and into the smoking section of the platform. As far he could tell, there were two kinds of train smokers: the boisterous social ones that smoked like they just itched off three plums in a row on a lottery scratcher at a convenience store and won a peasant’s fortune, and the ones that had to have the cigarette all to themselves. He chose the strong silent types, they smoked alone, even though it seemed as if any one of them could be on the lam from the law.
            “That’s not tobacco,” she said, commenting on the large plumes of vapor coming out of his mouth.
            It was a fine introduction, no doubt, he later surmised.
            “It’s mostly breath, I think, honestly, I’m sure. It’s so cold out here; I have absolutely no idea how big of a hit I’m actually getting. Do you want to try?”
            He handed her the pen-sized pot-laced vaporizing e-cigarette.
            “You’re right,” She took two generous hits after a first and finished her statement with, “we're either three feet deep or we’re reinventing the shovel.”
            He agreed, and when she handed him back the electric pipe, he said, “Thanks,” and headed back onto the train.
….
            Hours after that stop a curve somewhere along the line teethed the train’s rails to scream. It was not a long screech; it was sharp. It woke him to find sobriety, a full bladder, and a taunting neck cramp-so he headed downstairs to solve it.
            She’s pretty, he thought, when they bumped into each other in line for the bathroom.
            She asked him, “Are you really pissing or trying to sneak something?”
            He knew then that she must have been able to spot the pipe hiding in his fist and jacket cuff, he smiled, like she was worth way too much.
            “If I were you, I’d blow it straight down the sink with the water running, or in the vacuum of the toilet right after you flush it.” She told him.
            “Honestly?” Half asleep, he said, “I was going to blow it really slowly into a pad of toilet paper.”
            Here they were, in the bottom of the last car, the coach class of an Amtrak, debating how to hide the vapor from his electric pipe.
            Hours earlier they had no clue how much steam was vapor, and how easily they could embellish their lungs from the warmth of their throats.
            Now at the front of the bathroom line, once a stall opened up, she welcomed him in.
            With the door held open and her eyes locked on him she said, “If we shotgun the hit the smoke doesn’t stand a chance.”
            He followed her into a tiny warm place after meeting her in a vast cold place.
            He hit the pipe and then blew it into her lips. He tried not to kiss her. He fought the train’s vibrations, the curves in the tracks; he wanted to keep it professional. She pulled the smoke from him and fought a smile, and then she fought her curiosity and her ambivalence.
            They were well disciplined, just two shotguns, somewhere along the Sierra Nevada, in a bathroom, on a train, hiding smoke.

    It is very interesting to me, to be able to convince a complete stranger to read one hundred and seventy-five pages of your thoughts. However, I don’t find it strange as a reader. I’m currently reading What is Not Yours is Not Yours, by Helen Oyeyemi and though I find myself lost at times I know, I know a thousand times over she is having exceptional amounts of fun with language and mind and imagination. So when I lose her, I think of people that can’t get words out of their mouths because they are laughing so hard; I think of that kind of joy.​

    I was having a rough night and I thought reading some of my book reviews would cheer me up, when they only confused the hell out of me.

    “An original read. His style reminds me of Nabokov and I found myself re-reading certain sentences just for the pleasure of their phrasing. I was surprised and delighted by this sparkling collection.”
    And.
    “I guess these stories are kind of like poetry. Some made sense, most did not. I think the whole meaning was out of my ability to appreciate people who write stuff like this. Not making much sense.”

    Some nights I can totally love the first review, but I love it like a child loves Superman. I love it’s limitless nature.
    Most nights I swear my entire life is the second review. I guess if I hit myself on the head and forgot I wrote the book and then reviewed the book I waver half my days writing the first review, and the other half the second.
    What does that say about me, to waver as such, am I adapting and evolving between optimism and reality, swinging back and forth like a pendulum? Am I depleting brain chemicals, one surplus, one well, and then the next?
    They both read the whole book though, complete strangers, owed me nothing, cared nothing for me, but word after word they read it all. Who knows, one hundred maybe two hundred maybe just twenty wrong words in a row and they could have thrown it out, never bothered. It’s so strange to me.

    I thought I had a new job, a third craft beer bartending job at a third bar, for exactly a week it was guaranteed. It fell through and I had no way of seeing it coming but boy did I invest in something that wasn’t certain and that’s foolish.

    I’m fairly certain someone else is having some fun at my expense, to which I suppose I also find entertaining, though I am not sure why they would bother it still marks me as foolish

    And their I am again, wavering, between hope and intelligence, I am both someone who convinces strangers to read one hundred and seventy-five pages of my thoughts alone and someone who falls foolishly into traps set a foot by other peoples thoughts.

    To be honest the novel is on an indefinite hiatus, the person that it was dedicated to and inspired a large amount of it is no longer in my life.
    I did go to Portland and wrote two new short short stories which are in the editing phase and I think last I read them I was still in love with them.
    I will be attempting to publish them and as soon as they are rejected I will post them here.
    I love them because I do not fool them and they do not fool me, we are parties of mutual entertainment. We are parties with a relationship so well defined it is spelled out, and that kind of communication is, I think, mutually admired.