DAILY ASSIGNATION: Preface/Day 1

Preface.  So there's this writer named Joyce Carol Oates. She's pretty good, for the most part. I mean, she's published 52, 53 novels in her long life/career so there have to be some really shitty ones in there somewhere. There's also an ungodly large back catalog of short stories, novellas, plays, and poems. Oates' got a lot of stuff out there is all Im sayin'. I've, thus far, only read (some of) her shorter works, which is the form I prefer her in -- just the description of her novels bore me. But I find her short stories and novellas to be interesting and entertaining, as an added bonus they're short.

Which brings us to this . . . thing. I have acquired a copy of Oates' collection The Assignation: a collection of mostly short-short stories or regular short stories that barely meet that description (the longest is 10 pages, you guys). So I've created this experiment/novel/short-story/diary/essay/critique thing: each day I will read only one of the stories and write some sort of response based around each story. Im writing this before hand so I have no idea what it is was will become. I do know that this Preface has little or nothing to do with the tone or general scheme I have in mind for the whole, it's simply here to explain things. It should be viewed as if some one completely different has written it. 

This story is not me. I've given my name to the character. But nonetheless, he is a character. 

To steal a phrase from Georges Simenon: "Everything is true but nothing is accurate."

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Day 1.  Found out today that my brother was talking about killing himself. Dont know the context. Dont know if it was a joke just talk hyperbole. Im freaking out. I cant lose him he cant go. O god o god god god . Im freaking out. I'll call him. Hold on. O god I fucked that. Shit. O god, I cant do these things. Shit. I'll see him soon, I will I will. I'll talk to him then and it'll be better, o god. Do over. Do over. Do over. Jesus. The story today was "One Flesh". It's like it wasnt even there. It wasnt even a page long -- a single paragraph too. It carried nothing. Not a punch not a whimper not a quiver of its lip not a flutter of its eyelids. Which sucks, a short-short-short story is always nice but this one was fucked. HP5 is on. Its just there. I keep glancing over. It's like watching an autopsy, like watching something being dissected, something old past gone, something lost or something not so long gone. I was thinking about a ghost today, then he appeared, walked by. We talked (sortof). Something about something. O yeah, we talked about DC's book (Wrong). I think the ghost may read it. I read three or four stories out of Wrong too. "He Cried" and the self-tilted out of that book. Cant get an image from that last one out of me: dead kid, George, watching some guy take a shit. The wind's howling outside, I can hear the gusts pressing up against the window. You're in the after-after-here and the first thing you do is watch someone take a shit? Did my brother listen? Did I do fucking anything? God, o god. I hope he's fine, I hope he's safe, I hope I helped I hope I hope I hope. Jesus. Still the movie's on -- the sound's off. Im watching something completely different. Everything's flashing flashing flashing. Im tired, confused, o god, confused confused confused. All these different images -- THE WIND, JESUS, LOUD HARD HARSH -- the movie is falling apart, like bloody chunks, not the actual movie how I see the movie how I perceive the movie how I post-structuralism the movie. It's falling bloody chunks -- god I hope -- bloody murder, bloody bloody murder stories books movies comics porn, all of it all all all of it, bloody bloody murder -- I cant even remember -- He'll be fine Im sure -- Will I meet the ghost again? I hope so -- I miss -- the movie is still playing -- why the wind, the wind the wind the wind -- I miss him, so much, I'll -- I cant even remember what went down in the short story (the Oates one) (what's it called. . . "One Flesh") -- The wind wont die, it just howls and howls and howls and -- bloody fucking howling howling howling, as it bleeds bleeds bleeds -- howls howls howls -- I watch the movie die slowly from excessive dissection. And it lies there, unmoving in its movements. Flashing endlessly like a cop's bright red blue purple red blue sirens before me, on my mind. Flashing flashing yet no sound, just flashing. I hope he'll be ok, I hope to see the ghost again. No call could reassure, arrange, conjure either. I'll just have to wait and see and see him soon. Soon. Jesus. I cant even really remember what the first story was about. I do remember that there was a resonance is its prose. Something about a couple? or just a single person? There were bugs for some reason, definitely bugs, but for only like a sentence. So, whatever. Goddamnit. It was so not there. I've written twice as much here, and about a  billion times more in that whatever that exists insdie outside below beyond behind text. O god, what a terrible way to start things off. . . .