Bathroom Monologue: F13 & V13 (Re-post for Six Sentences Week)

A power outage on Friday the 13th is ominous. Especially when you live in the woods. Especially when it hits an hour before the show time of that new Jason movie you were going to see, but capriciously chose against this morning.

So I went, disregarding that the Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer” was the first song on the radio, had a good time with two-hundred teenagers, and returned home to find the lights on and no one lurking behind the doors I’d left ajar. It reminded me that Friday the 13th wasn’t a holiday of massacre, but one of bad luck. Or maybe it wasn’t one of bad luck either, but like every day, merely a collection of hours with whatever meaning I let it have, which was an amiable lesson, as Valentine’s Day was tomorrow.

Bathroom Monologue: At Last, Atlas

He did not shrug. He watched their rockets ascend, laughed when they sent a monkey first, and gaped when they touched down on the moon. When the first man played golf on the moon, he dropped the sky. It fell with a thud none heard and everyone has been feeling ever since. It is not the weight of the world, but the weight of literally everything else. Retired, Atlas now teaches putting on Pluto with his wife and two hundred-handed sons.

Bathroom Monologue: One Man’s Ceiling

Roy’s apartment palpitated every night with the music from the next floor. They partied, danced and got that loud kind of drunk he simply couldn’t stand, all to an almost ethereal rock vibe to shook his couch. He could smell the booze from his dry and pious living room.

Like most people he didn’t go up and confront them, but kept a glaring eye out in the lobby, though he never ran into them. Sometimes he banged on the ceiling or turned up his own music, but that drew complaints from the people beneath him.

His superintendent was nonplussed when he finally called, saying after a long pause, “But Mr. Stander, you live on the top floor.”

Bathroom Monologue: Hunting Dreams

Papa hunts nightmares, but forbids his sons from following suit. In his youth he lost too many brothers to the shadowy figures spawned from Horror films watched before bed. Until they mature the young Folgians have been warned to stalk nothing bigger than a teen realizing she’s come to class naked. They move quietly, shoot soundlessly, harvest and cure the untainted meat, and mount the heads of the most fearsome game on their walls. The oldest boy has six heads of drunken fathers lining the space above his cot. Above all, they grant restful dreams, particularly to exhausted souls that have a meeting tomorrow morning.

Bathroom Monologue: Oh, Baby, OR, Heard a country song

Now they said not to throw it away with the bathwater, but Roseanne couldn't help noticing, as the baths went by, that there was little bathwater that didn’t require disposal out of smelling distance from the house that wasn't baby-related.

Its favorite time of day was 3:20 AM, which it christened with a song of shrieks. Its favorite games included getting its head stuck in the bars of its crib, pulling valuable things off of shelves and watching them fall to the ground, and looking innocent when strangers were in earshot. Friends said it was just hungry, but its bizarre insistence on testing its father’s tit lost its humor quickly.

To be fair, they built it a little house in a fenced in area, every bit as good as the one they'd made for the dog, and then stuck it out there to learn manners. Roseanne was progressive and declared that when the baby learned to wee on the newspaper, it wouldn't have to eat out of a bowl anymore.

Bathroom Monologue: Tectonic Psychology

Africa woke up first. It attacked Asia with a vigor that left them nostalgic for Toho monster films. French existentialists postulated its motivation, before their existences were ended by several tons of Morocco.

The continent searched the seven seas, and when depressed Cape Town dragged, and dug seven more. It followed the shadow of the sun for several time zone hours until pausing, sighing a million-year sigh and cuddling up against the American east coastline.

“There you are,” it murmured, before returning to sleep.

Six Sentence Week

Out of curiosity I’ve been doing six-sentence bathroom monologues for the community, Six Sentences. The one I actually submitted to their editorial board was rejected, but they’ve all received pretty warm comments from their reader community. This week all six of the ones I’ve come up with will go up, one a day until Saturday. Let me know how you think of what I’m doing with the length, and if you like any of the stories that emerged out of babbling for six sentences. Also, please vote for your favorite in the poll.

Crap, that was five sentences.

Bathroom Monologue: Sleeping Butterface

“My favorite story as a kid was Sleeping Beauty. Great movie by Disney, cool songs, gnarly dwarves, and the guy gets the girl at the end. It was my favorite story all the way until I tried it at home. Turns out? You kiss a princess and she wakes up, her guards beat you until your kidneys fail. It’s much better to kiss the princess without her waking up. I’ve tried it a couple of times and the beatings are much more tolerable. I’m not sure what fetish this road will lead me towards, but hi ho, hi ho.” -Anonymous