The Driver's Guide to Hitting Pedestrians by Andersen Prunty Read Free Book Online Page B

life is still fiction? It’s still a story. But it has no imagination. That’s what you people have done. You’ve murdered imagination.”
    He pulled a handkerchief from his breast pocket, blew his hairy nose and farted, most probably involuntarily.
    “ This is life,” he said. “And it’s not what you want at all.”
    “ I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what else I could say.
    “ You want to help?”
    “ I can’t let you stay here. I would love to but I can’t afford it and I’ll have to go back to work soon.”
    “ I don’t mean that,” Manko said. “There is no help for me here. Look ...” He reached into the inside pocket of his blazer and pulled out a wad of bright, exotic-looking foreign money. “Take me somewhere and buy me a wheelchair. I’d prefer one of the motorized kinds, if I have enough here, and then take me to the center of the city and drop me off. Just, please, don’t take me back to the bookstore. That’s where my dreams died.”
    I folded his lumpy hand back over the money.
    “ Hang onto that,” I said. “You might need it. I’ll get the chair. I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
    He wiped away another tear and tried to force a smile.
    The next morning I took him into the city square, full of pigeons and benches and people and statues and lights and noise. I settled him into his wheelchair and watched him burr into the thick of things. Selfishly, as I watched him, I wondered if he would find another story out there or if the imagination, once killed, remains dead for life.

Alone in a Room Thinking About All the People Who Have Died
     
    A man walks upstairs. It takes him years. Many of the stairs are broken. Some are missing altogether. He reaches the attic. It’s filled with boxes of memories in the form of manufactured debris. Why do people call these memories? They make him mad. He needs room to think. He shoves open the attic window and throws the first box out. It bursts into flame on its way down and lands on the ground with a small explosion, smoke blooming like a demon. The man likes this. In turn, he throws each box—every little thing he can get his hands on—out the window. They all burst into flame. Eventually there is a sizable fire beneath the window, threatening the house. The man sits down in the middle of the attic floor and thinks about everyone he’s known who has died. The number is substantial. The memories of these people are horrendous and devastatingly sad. He closes his eyes and curses himself for ever getting close to these dead people.
    The fire roars. It’s closer now. The man is pretty sure the house is on fire.
    He opens his eyes. While in his reverie, darkness has fallen. The fire paints the attic with orange and yellow air. Snowflakes flutter outside in the darkness and blow into the attic. The man wonders if the fire will cause them to melt before they reach him. He opens his mouth and sticks out his tongue. The first snowflake hits it and tastes like a tear. After that, they stream in. The man lets them assault his tongue.
    The fire enshrouds the house, blackening it, curling it inward from the edges.
    The man, with the taste of tears on his tongue, closes his eyes while the heat of his memories consumes him.
     

The Tailors
     
    My pants make me depressed. They make me feel sad and fat. I stop in the middle of the room and summon Rugby, my bodyguard. I sling an arm over his shoulder, my legs weak. I beg him to call the tailor to come and alter my pants. Rugby goes outside and constructs a mammoth fire in the front yard. I collapse to the floor, staring down at my pants. The tailors arrive by bus. A whole fleet of tailors run from the bus and invade the house. They say the carpenter has the worst looking house on the block and the same could be said for the tailors’ clothes. They are all ill-fitting. Binding. Too loose. Voluminous, in some cases. And their selection is poor. Logo t-shirts and jeans. Out of date clothes