“Did you finish your homework, Tommy?”

“Yeah, I’ll get it done later—just one more level.”

“Make sure you finish before going to sleep tonight, young man.”

“Mom, it’s the weekend. I have all day tomorrow to do it. It’ll get done. It always gets done eventually.”

“But if you do it now, you won’t have to worry about it all weekend. You’ll be free to do whatever you want today and tomorrow—and I hope some of that involves you turning off the game and going outside.”

“Just gotta finish this level. I’m almost at the tortoise—he breathes fire from his two heads. He’s the greatest boss in this game.”

“There are only a few more days of autumn and then winter will be here and you’ll be cooped up in the house. Did you see the pile of leaves that your dad raked up? I’m sure he’d be awfully disappointed if you didn’t jump in it. Remember how many times he had to rake the lawn last year. And you blamed it on poor Paws! Poor Paws. Let’s see you say that three times fast!”

“Boris told me the trick to beating the tortoise. You have to draw one head off to the side of the screen and then charge the other one when you trap the head in the corner with the holographic transmitter. I finally found the transmitter—you wouldn’t believe where they hid it. It was in the room with the four zombies that I thought you had to survive by running through it, but it turned out you had to kill all the zombies or the transmitter wouldn’t appear. It’s just a matter of time before I find the entrance to the tortoise’s cave.”

“Speaking of Paws, have you seen that retched dog? I guess it would be too much to ask for you to walk him today. I remember a time when you played all day with him. You’d go to the backyard and throw the Frisbee back and forth for hours, and Paws would get bored before you did.”

“Mom, it’s hard to concentrate with you standing there. Ah. There it is! I knew it. They hid the entrance behind the green slime. The trick to the slime is to use fire to move it. You can’t kill it with fire, and if you attack it with weapons it divides in half and the halves grow to full size in no time. But if you place the fire just right, the slime moves out of the path and a door appears.”

“Just don’t forget your homework. I’m going to find Paws and take him for a walk.”

“Is your homework finished?”

…

“I’m talking to you, young man. Do I have to turn off the television to get your attention?’

“Mom! It’s almost the end of the show. You know, where they fight the final battle and the story ends—they tell you what happens. I don’t bother you when you’re watching your TV shows. Why do you bother me? It’s hard to concentrate on what’s going on with you talking all the time. My teacher said that understanding the plot and characters of TV shows were important exercises in learning to do good writing. I’m doing that right now.”

“It’s a commercial now.”

“See. This is why I need a TV in my room. You have a TV in your room and you can close the door and watch it when you don’t want us to bother you. If I had a TV, I could lock the door when I’m doing important things, like watching the end of the show. I’ll even pay for the TV. You know I have the money now.”

“And since when do you have extra money, Tommy?”

“Since Grandma visited two days ago. Shush. It’s back on.”

“She spoils you. And don’t shush me! I told her to stop giving you money. You’ll never learn the value of money if she keeps throwing it at you every time she sees you. I’m going to have your dad talk to her when he gets home. How much did she give you?”

“It’s back on.”

“So? I asked you a question.”

“I’ll finish my homework later.”

“What’s for breakfast?”

“Oh, it’s breakfast time now? It’s past eleven. Where have you been all morning? Sleeping?”

“You’ve always told me that sleep is important. Just last night you were yelling at me for not going to sleep, and now you’re yelling at me for sleeping too much. Which one is it, mom? You’re confusing me—you’re confusing my simple, simple mind.”

“You’re a comedian now? Sit down and I’ll make you some pancakes. Did you finish your homework last night before going to bed?”

“Blueberry pancakes, please.”

“The homework, Tommy, did you finish it?”

“I told you yesterday. I have all day today to do it. I only have three assignments. It’ll be done in an hour, two at max. Can you drive me to the mall when we’re done? I’m supposed to meet Boris at noonish. We have to buy Blood, Guts, and/or Zombies, part II. Boris finished the first part last night. After the tortoise, there’s only two more levels, and if we buy it today, we won’t get stuck with nothing to play.”

“Don’t you have hundreds of other video games to play?”

“We’ve beaten them all. It’s no fun to play the game once we finish it. Even you should know that.”

“Getting back to your homework, is it done?”

“What did I just say?”

“Did Boris finish his homework?”

“I’ll ask him when I see him at the mall. Do you have syrup?”

“We’re going to watch the movies your father rented in fifteen minutes.”

“Great. I just have to finish my homework first.”

“Are you feeling alright?”

“Yeah. I was thinking about what you said before I went to the mall, and I didn’t want to spend the rest of the night worrying about whether I was going to finish my homework. See. Here’s my finished math homework. I just have to finish summarizing this stupid short story, and my English homework is finished. That just leaves social studies.”

“I don’t understand. What did you do at the mall? Were you drugged? Abducted and cloned by space aliens? Where’s my son?”

“Mom, stop being so dramatic. Sometimes, what you say really gets into me, you know? So what movies did dad rent?”

“Do I have to search your room for drugs? Is that it? Drugs? Should I expect a phone call from the police with an arrest warrant for you?”

“Sheesh. Can’t a kid do his homework without his mother accusing him of illegal activities? Maybe I’m just growing up. You know, becoming a better person. I mean, really, mom, I’m going into high school next year. Don’t you think I’ve matured at all?”

“Did you accidentally kill Paws? Just tell it to me straight. I won’t hold it against you. Is Paws dead? Oh, no. Is Boris dead? Was he a victim of your drug smuggling?”

“Get out and let me finish my homework!”

“I love you, Tommy.”

“I’ll remember you said that.”

“We’re going to start soon. Your dad went to make some popcorn. Are all your assignments finished?”

“Of course they are. Remember when you were interrupting me before, claiming that I was abducted or something. I finished it just like I said I would. Do you want to see it? I can go get it if you want.”

“No, no. I trust you. I wanted to see if you needed any help or if you needed me or dad to review any of your work.”

“It’s all good. Most of the assignments were pretty easy. I now have the rest of the evening free to do nothing but spend quality time with my parents. This is a great night.”

“Okay. Now I know something is wrong. Spill the beans.”

“What could be wrong? It’s a beautiful fall day. The moon is out. My father is cooking popcorn. The movie is humming in the DVD player. My homework is all finished—but the social studies was harder than I thought. It took me three loose-leaf sheets to finish.”

“You’re setting me up for something. I’m sure of it. What do you want? Do you want that video game that Boris bought today? Do you need money for that?”

“No, mother. I’m going to borrow Boris’s once he finishes it. He plays the games way more than I do, and way faster. He’ll just bring it to class when he’s done with it. Can’t I just be happy with no other reason than I’m happy?”

“I’m sorry, Tommy. I guess you just can never understand kids.”

“I’m not a kid anymore, mom. I’m growing up now and you’re going to have to start treating me more like an adult.”

“If you keep acting this way I’ll have no choice but to do that. I’m really proud of you.”

“Did you brush your teeth?”

“Yes, mom. I even flossed and washed my face.”

“You want me to leave this light on for you?”

“No, that’s okay.”

“And the closet door, you want me to shut it?”

“I don’t care.”

“Then I’ll shut it; leaving the closet door open freaks me out ever since I was young. Are you sure there’s nothing wrong today?”

“Will you stop that? I’m not an alien and I don’t want anything. Can’t you just accept that I learned something? What, do you want me to tell you that ‘you told me so,’ is that what you’re waiting for?”

“I’m sorry, Tommy. No, of course not. Go to sleep now. I love you.”

“I love you too, mom. Close the door. I like it dark.”

“Sleep tight, and don’t let the bed bugs bite.”

“Boris? Phase one is complete. It worked like a charm.

“No, she doesn’t have a clue what I’m doing. So gullible. It was just like the book said. And with you?

“That’s great to hear. I know this is going to be too funny. We’ll compare notes tomorrow.

“Yup.

“Got it.

“Cool. Bye.”

I’ll have to apologize for that story. I had no idea what it was about, and after finishing it, I still don’t. It was more just an exercise in dialogue. As you’ll see with some notes I jotted down when I was struggling to get started, I didn’t have many good ideas. I just wanted to write filler, and I think I accomplished that. It’s filler with lots of clichés and bad dialogue. Okay. That’s enough of making fun of my writing. I’m going to have to read crap like this for the next month, so I should get used to it. Here are some other random thoughts from before writing this story:

When I have nothing to write I write nothing. This is one of those days. I’m sure you were expecting another story. I was as well but so far I have nothing and I was getting sick of staring at the blank screen. I figured once I typed a few words, others might follow and I might be struck by an idea for a story or at least an outline or something.

I have concerns about the story I’m going to start writing on Monday. I’m not sure I like it enough to write it for an entire month. I’m not sure if there are any stories that I like enough to write for an entire month. I hate these types of days. I had almost nothing planned for the day except some errands and writing, and here I find myself, with all the time in the world, a hot cup of Mocha and an empty screen.

After writing the above two paragraphs, it took me much driving around aimlessly looking for a good coffee house, returning home and watching movies, and eventually just giving up and writing whatever popped into my head (after taking a nap, of course) to write the story.

I sprayed most of my windows today to kill off the spiders. Scott told me that if I waited any longer, come spring, the spiderlings (I didn’t realize that wasn’t a real word) would hatch and I’d have thousands of little spiders running around my garden and sneaking into my house. That freaked the shit out of me, and I started killing off all my window guests. I’m not happy about it, but I know it has to be done.

That’s a wrap. Word count: 2,089; writing time: less than an hour of real writing, many hours of driving, consternating, napping…err preparing; editing time: fifteen minutes; edited word count: 2,125.