For this one: You must get your friend to clear you from having shot a kid.
THE SOUND (any gender, mid twenties through late life)
If it's a prank, then It's gotta stop. You guys got me; okay? I'm scared. I said it: I'm really scared. Can you stop, now?
I don't know why you're picking on me. It's bad enough that I attract the mosquitos more than any of you guys. That's not my fault. And you guys don't help. Always sighing and shaking your heads when I slap at the things... what are you-- saints? Don't tell me you don't do the same...
You know when you feel that little brush of air and then that sting, that STING. And you know it's going to itch maybe even give you a disease. And the sound, that soft eeeeeeeeeeeeeee! You hear that sound long enough, you spend all night, all day not knowing if a mosquito's there or if it's just inside your head. Gotta stop the sound. Drives you crazy. Just like when those, those, those PEOPLE start yacking and getting in your face--
Any of you would have done what I did tonight, Jerry.
One of them comes flying at me. I can just make it out under the streetlight. Before it goes for me, I can hear it, hear it eeeeeee! And it wants to get right in my face, maybe stick me right in one of my eyes. And that sound EEEEEEEEEE! So I reach out with my hands and BAM! I smash that sucker right in mid air.
And nothing.
Quiet.
So quiet. So sweet.
But then you guys go into action... you get some woman to start screaming, get a cruiser to pick me up. Take all these pictures and photoshop the shit out of them so the mosquito has shoes on its feet
it's got a t-shirt on
it's got hands with five fingers
it's got the face of a kid... lying there, in all that blood-- Jesus.
And I never liked those kinds of people. You know I've always compared them to mosquitoes but I swear... I... so, you got me. I'm scared. So stop it, just stop it. Because I'm not a bad person. I'm NOT. I was just trying to get some quiet in my head.
Copyright 2016 by Matt Haynes. If you would like to use this piece, please credit: "Courtesy of Matt Haynes and The Pulp Stage"