Nineteen Things That Happened

By JP Lorence

Short stories collected from my various journal publications, spoken word, and storytelling performances. The author also curates a Youtube channel archivng these events in Vancouver, Canada.
 

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: JP Lorence
• Release date: Apr 12, 2024
• ISBN: 9798224009565

Book preview

The Shadow

Once, several years back, I had a breakup with my shadow. It went something like this-

I would leave the house and go walking around mid morning, as was my habit. Trailing not far behind me was him, as always. He never kept as much distance as I would have liked him to.

I would go about my daily routine, running errands and dealing with people, and he would slither along and parody me behind the other person’s back, mimicking me with a gross display of overacting. Other days, he would follow me into my room, just glaring at me from the wall. We would sit there hours on end, me looking at him, him looking back, until I couldn’t stand the sight of him. I’d put out an extra lamp to chase him out, and he’d jump down to the floor and hug my feet, just barely visible next to the sides of my shoes. But there

was no losing him.

Eventually it got worse. I would take him to parties, and he would pull his usual wallflower routine, just glaring at me from the corner. After obnoxiously mimicking my actions for half the evening he would gradually break the ice with the other shadows in the room, obviously

gossiping and spreading rumours over furtive glances and buffoonish gesturing. It was obvious the bad influence he brought to every gathering, mulling about with obvious shallowness.

After a particularly bad episode one night at the bar, I knew something had to be done. I went home to lock myself in my room and consider my options. Of course, he followed.

I sat there with my head in my hands. He lay there, spread halfway between the wall and the ceiling, looking down mockingly.

Well, are you happy now? I yelled at him.

Not yet. He answered. I hadn’t expected this.

I appraised the situation for a moment, and acquired further. So what is it you’re after?"

He bore down on me with that same flat expression he always had. I’m tired of this shallow existence. I want to be in your shoes for awhile. I think we should trade places.

Now this was intriguing.

We continued to talk well into the night. We shared ideas, criticisms, and concerns at length, and eventually came up with a plan. The two of us set to work, and by morning the task was accomplished. By means of a highly dangerous and experimental technique, which will not be revealed in this episode, my shadow and I traded places. When the light of dawn broke through the window, it was a completely new world for me. Before, the sun had only warmed my face. Now it gave me one.

There he stood, looking as dumbfounded as one could imagine, unable to grasp what had happened. To my great amusement, the first thing he seemed to realize was that his feet were touching the floor, and that he could step on it. He reached out and grasped at various objects in the room, never having picked anything up before. He still looked grey and empty, but I knew the world would see him as me.

We set out to face the morning this way, and it turned out to be a day like no other. He got to play his mime routine in the real world for the first time, and I got to parody him parodying myself.

By the days end, both of us determined we liked our new parts, and that we would make it a permanent arrangement. So it has remained.

Yet I can’t help but think, as time wears on, that if I spend the rest of my life standing in my own shadow, I really have no ground left to stand on.

The Son of God

The Son of God was born in a lower class suburb of Richfield, Ohio in 1971.

He attended grade school like everyone else, scored a little higher grades than most and got in a fight almost every week.

His father was a truck mechanic who never had the time or the inclination to teach him anything important about life, not that he knew it himself.

His mother was a mother by trade and never really saw being anything else.

He reached adolescence under these conditions and learned to hate the world deeply before he learned to do long division.

The Son of God attended high school in an even worse neighbourhood than the one where his father had purchased a house and continued to get into fights while learning very little from those assigned to teach him. But he had a saving grace, a rampant curiosity that kept him reading as much as possible. By the time he graduated from the charnel house the state had sent him to, he was actually a very well informed young man, although he had little idea of what to do with this knowledge.

He saved a little money and moved to Des Moines for no particular reason. There, he got a job at the Pamida warehouse and met a girl that introduced him to the Unitarian Church. He went out with her for awhile and with the church group for awhile longer. But their idea of God stuck with him.

Sometimes the Son of God would sit around reflecting in his tiny rented room about why these things happened, and he liked to converse with this imaginary person in explaining it to himself. He never thought of it as more than this, either.

Eventually he started a computer assembly and repair business and made a reasonable success of it. He met a woman a year older and a little bigger than himself, and married her because she seemed to look at him with soft eyes and said she didn't want kids. But she was pregnant within a few months anyway. He asked God about that one, but God had no comment on the matter.

Eventually, the business took off. The kid grew up, the wife grew old, and the Son of God asked himself why he did all this. After all, every one of these computers would stop working eventually, and even his kid would pass away. It all seemed to be for nothing as far as he could see. Yet, he couldn't stop going through the motions.

At some point the Son of God and his wife had an argument that they never resolved. The result was her getting everything but his business, including his daughter. She did nothing productive with her winnings or the with the teenager, and the kid ended up on the street addicted to something, although neither parent ever found out what. He asked his imaginary friend what it was all for, and you know what God said? He said, "Who said it was for anything?"

The business became less profitable and he sold it. His next line of work was emptying bottles into his stomach. He wanted to ask God questions then too, but by now all the two of them did was stare at each other across the table. Neither really had anything left to say.

Not long afterwards, the Son of God purchased ten feet of rope and a bottle of scotch. He checked into a hotel room after ensuring that it was equipped with a hanging lamp. As he sat there finishing the end of the bottle, he raised his glass and said, Here's to you, Dad!

The Son of God got back to his father's house before curfew.

Messiah

Now just the other day I'm hanging' out at Denny's, working my way through a grand slam / eggs and ham / thank you ma'am, and the two kids on the stools next to me are telling each other about their latest brand of distraction from real life. In the middle of it all a cheerleader in a Denny's employee wrapper reaches between them to clear two spent coffee mugs. These two ask her if she's into their particular hobby, and all she can say, even if a bit coyly, is, No thanks, I'm high on Jesus.

I guess that bit about judgment and book covers holds good here.

Now I pick myself up off the floor and climb back onto the stool I just fell out of. I don't even try to explain myself 'cuz I know there's no way she'd ever understand. see, that name Jesus that's one I haven't heard in a spell.

Yeah, me and Jesus had our thing. the story goes back to middle school for me, I think that's when most of us got into it. One day one of the motor heads shows up end of second period, eyes red as stoplights, sporting a wind tunnel hairdo, and all he can say is: Last night I found Jesus!

Before long, we all tuned into the programming. And back then, when it was us guys behind the baseball diamond with a half pack of cigarettes between us, it really was the gospel.

But when you're thirteen, 'The way and the truth and the light' are only as consistent as your attention span allows. After a few weeks, even salvation is just another homework assignment.

See, the trouble all started when Timmy Connor's little brother got a visit from a couple of uniforms. He just loved nothing more than to call up everyone in town and rant and rave about all the religious programming he'd been watching. we told him to cool it, but you know how that goes.

Then, not long after, Dave shows up at the local emergency with a couple grilled spots on his hands. seems he was into freebasing Jesus on the alternate Sunday afternoon, even if it was news to us.

Before long, the parentals caught on, and the word was out, Jesus is in