I wrote a novel in fifth grade. I did it to avoid people. “I’m at work! I’m at work!” I said, although only to myself, on the bus with my head bowed into my notebook. Girls, usually bad ones—smokers—sometimes ventured into my space to see what I was doing. They left quickly. I was being anti-social in the wrong way. I wasn’t drawing swastikas, anarchy symbols, and tattoo ideas. I would never have a future in Guns n Roses or The Ramones. No no. I was writing about scientists. About experiments gone awry. I named characters after US Presidents and comic strip characters, except each of my names was a bizarre amalgamation of the originals. Washlingan. Garsnoopbailey.

That was twenty years ago. And now I write this. There are no names from the newspapers or the founding fathers. Just mine and sometimes yours. But rarely yours.

I write like myself. But sometimes like Barry Hannah. Okay. Just once like Barry Hannah. For two pages. 

I ate ox-tail soup tonight. I’m almost out of Weet-Bix. My teeth feel like they no longer fit together. Like I’m growing an overbite or something. I don’t know what I’m doing in the month of May. Literally. On my desk right now there is: an empty Mountain Dew can (still spelled Mountain Dew here), my digital camera, a black ball-point pen, exactly $4.00 SGD in change, two half-eaten dried figs that were too dry to be edible, a used teabag, and a Coca-Cola branded mug with about .5 cm of green tea at the bottom. That is my life at the moment. A littered desk and an uncertain future. 

I’m writing this to avoid.