Hi. Welcome to the mind of the author on the other side of the screen you're staring at.
I was convinced I could go for the first time ever or something like that and announce there's an alternate opening paragraph in this one and how it's gonna be triumphant but no matter what I said I liked the first one better so I scratched it.
You know how people post pictures of flowers and they're all, Look!
If it's a dude doing it I play out this reenactment where he and like three or four of his buddies are walking to the bar and they're all single, salivating out their fresh shaved faces to buy the first hot chick they see a drink and they're just a few steps away when a car full of bad.ass chicks rolls up in sexy dresses and pumps with matching hair and nails and shiny sun kissed skin steps out the Uber one glistening thigh at a time and dude's all, YOOO!
Stops.
{ Arms out }
(Holding his buddies back)
Check out these flowers!
And then Derrick goes, don't lose sight of what we came here for tonight, bro's.
Or, ladies night, Las Vegas, alluring little mini skirts so mini some parts of the world deem them unlawful but not Las Vegas, they don't call it Sin City for nothing. This time tomorrow, Lisa's off the market.
Red carpet service up and down the strip, lines are for everyone else, not a bachelorette party. Limousine, chauffeur, Olympic Gardens, Cîroc sent from a mystery table in VIP and then Ailene's all, I'm out! Catch you tomorrow, I'm gonna go take pictures of flowers.
I wanted to know what they see in these things so I went to a place where they grow.
Flowers.
To see what they see, know what I mean? A flower viewed through the eye of a camera lens. Every day someone does it. Can't imagine a group of fellas on lunch break talking about the game when Simon says: CHECK OUT THIS JEWELWEED!
I found a purple one. That's a good starting point, I thought, to see what they see because I like purple things that are not dead. Not sure I've told you that but it's true, you saw it on the internet.
This one checks all the boxes.
Flower. Purple. Not dead. Praying mantis in military fatigues.
Alright, so I probably would've missed it had it not been for the flower, whatever. It was a fluke.
Or not!
Ants and bees, about two different kinds of bees, a wasp, a ladybug, some spiders and spider food and spider webs, whatever else. All on the same branch. Even Atlas was all..
Then they attacked me!
Serious. This is a true story. Those flying things flew with vengeance, they were out for blood.
Coming at me from all sides, a million of them. Or, at least two. They were hitting each side of my head at the same time; pow - pow - pow - pow - pow - pow. Right ear, left eye, right ear again, neck, eyebrow and they're buzzing, too. Zzzzzzzz.
It's the buzzing sound that freaks me out.
Didn't matter how quickly I back pedaled, they charged straight ahead faster, buzzing and head butting me like a machine gun firing Mike Tyson bullets.
I'm wearing a hoodie. Had to drop the leash so I could pull up my hood, frantically, damn thing won't cover my whole face! Atlas doesn't know Wtf's going on so she ran a couple laps around me, now the leash is tangled in my feet. Glasses flew off—can't see shit. Reaching, scrambling, finally found them, put'em in my pocket.
Zipping and pulling, zipping faster, exposing my whole back to these motherfuckers looking like I'm in the crosshairs of an elite force of invisible ninjas on an ice skating rink with one hand on my glasses so they don't go flying again. They're buzzing louder and louder, coming straight at me.
Pow - pow - pow - pow
Mayday!
Everyone for their self!
C'mon Atlas! Abort mission! Abort mission!!!
Turned back the way I came, cranked up my gimp speed to as fast as it'll go and Keyser Söze'd the hell outta there never looking back until I could see the car again and the buzzing stopped. Fuck those flowers.
