The Morning News

Final imitation project for Short Story class. It might not make any sense unless you were to read the piece I'm imitating, but suffice to say that it's basically a surrealist work of fiction that plays on the themes of media desensitization and the over-stimulated American culture. It's not really something I'm planning on taking any further than this class, but I hope you enjoy it regardless.

"The Morning News"
by Cameron L. Maris
an imitation of “Reading the Paper” by Ron Carlson

All I want to do is watch the morning news, but right now, I’ve got a wolf to shoot. The damn thing killed my dog last week, and before that a domestic goat, as well as several guard dogs before that. The state has authorized us to kill the entire wolf pack, and killing wolves is not an easy or a pleasant thing to do. I’m a pretty decent shot, though, as my father took me hunting when I was a kid, so I don’t fret about it too much. The wolves are always coming around the yard, looking for squirrels and rabbits, so it’s easy to get a bead on him and take him out. Then Mollie’s alarm clock goes off, so I throw a bagel in the toaster and brew us a pot of coffee before work. She drinks two cups with me, and as her car pulls out of the driveway, before I can even pick up the remote to turn on the TV, I hear the squeal of tires and the gnashing of metal and glass. Some kid has been huffing Dust-Off like we used to do in the basement of the old house, and the kid’s so high that he can’t pay attention to the road, and he’s t-boned Mollie’s car and killed her. There are two cans of Dust-Off on the floor of his passenger seat, and one of them has his DNA all over the fucking thing. So, I’ve finally got the news on and I’m halfway through the leadoff story, and there’s a loud crash from the backyard. It’s so loud and so early that I know it’s got to be something big, and I’m right. It’s a huge branch that’s fallen off the tree in the backyard, the tree that’s being destroyed by the beetle epidemic from the news, the beetles that’ve been killing trees all over the Rocky Mountain region. The critters have been slowly migrating from Yellowstone to other parts of the state, and sure enough, here they are, in my backyard, tearing my tree apart, grain by grain. After surveying the damage, my bagel’s cold, so I pop it in the microwave and am about to sit down when I see Gabriel, my friend from Casper, walking up the sidewalk in his dark grey peacoat, so I pour another cup of coffee. Gabe’s cough seems to be getting worse. She started coughing about a year before the EPA started regulating emissions of greenhouse gases from cars and factories and whatnot. Our senators and congressmen have been working to prevent the legislation, bless their souls, or somebody might have done something sooner. But now, Gabe’s purchased a handkerchief to cover his mouth to catch the phlegm and spittle, so that makes it a little more tolerable. He says he heard about the wolf thing, and he asks “What color was that wolf, anyway?” I barely pay attention to him, because I see through the window two Muslim guys down the block, hanging out at the courthouse with bulges under their robes. If the explosion’s too big, it’s going to get debris all over my yard, which I just raked yesterday. The bombs go off, and most of the shrapnel lands in the street; that courthouse had such nice big white pillars out front. I turn back to Gabriel and the morning news, and I notice the coffee-ring stain on the kitchen table is still there. Gabe’s cough is worse than usual, a little deeper and wetter these days. God damn it, as much as I scrub and scrub this lousy stain, it never really seems to come out.