lolpaper again
Wrote about Vegas, another one I don't feel great about, so come to my aid cuties ok <3
Flash piece, which I'm assuming you're all probably familiar with, but 500-1k words is the key here, since I'm at like 980-something. Cutting is not a terrible thing at this point.
“Hey, dude! Why you lookin’ down, dude? This is Vegas, be happy!”
Almost unconsciously I feel my head snap up to look for the source of the voice. I look up to see a fellow tourist, clad in a festive Hawaiian shirt, who seemed to be around my age (yet at least a couple years older than me, over that brick wall of twenty one). Catching his eyes, I see a look of fleeting concern as he passes by. I force stiff lips to flash a weak smile, fake a feeble laugh, and for a few seconds I keep my gaze level with the suffocating clouds of smoke seeping out of casinos that meld together as I pass them. I feel my eyes glaze back over.
Well, buddy, my uncles are enjoying cold drinks together at the bar, my mother and her sisters are together burning their stimulus checks in slot machines faster than they burn the Thanksgiving turkey, and my father is off testing his honed loan shark guile in a poker tournament. And while all these people I’m “with” do these exciting things, I walk the strip alone, in the dry Vegas heat, barred from these exciting activities until another birthday.
Even walking the strip is a bit of a struggle. Three years ago I spent some time in Vegas, too. And I’d felt just as disconnected then as I feel now, spending most of my time staring down longingly at the torrid flow of people below me from the window of my hotel room. I rarely ventured out, underage and alone, knowing that next time things would be different. Next time I’d have an entourage with me. Next time I’d be over the town’s unofficial age limit. Next time I wouldn’t feel so alone. Next time, next time.
Now was next time, and while none of these issues had been resolved, I’m not going to let them stop me. This time, I wandered the strip within the crowd. This time…
“Don’t leave the girls lonely! Take a bookmark!”
Shocked out of my daze again, I look to the curb to endure the sound of a member of a swarm of Mexican men peddling cards for a prostitution service that was boldly advertised on their t-shirts. In spite of not being much of a churchgoer, I feel an indignation rising up within me, jolting my veins with an electric irritation. I fire his comment a smirk that spares a sneer. Looking down to the sidewalk below us, my eye catches a wave in the sea of scattered “bookmarks” that drown out the cement passing below.
Lonely? Maybe. The woman on the card, while voluptuous, while seductive, doesn’t seem to be getting much more out of her Vegas experience than I am (although at least she seemed to be getting laid). I see a certain sadness about her that seems a hint to her defeated look. She lays there, exposed on a card that seems to be Vegas’ version of Magic: The Gathering. Exposed in a way I could hardly imagine, but even in her crumpled visage I feel a familiarity in her distant, lonesome eyes.
Continuing on passed the Flamingo, a casino once owned by the mob, a place I suspect many of the women pictured on those cards call home, I take a moment to gaze inside the casinos. Couples hold hands waltzing passed tables topped with emerald felt where friends lose stacks of chips together against a savvy dealer’s blackjack. Drunken men at the video poker machines haphazardly mash buttons on their machines, eyes lost on a woman delivering drinks dressed a mother’s nightmare. Tourists snap pictures like security could remove them at any moment (which they don’t, anymore).
Between these jovial visions I see reflections. Couples arm in arm together, yet with gazes that never quite seem to meet. Clumps of fellow college students look in opposing directions. Bar patrons stare into waning martini glasses and beer bottles, dazed at isolated stools. A woman gazing vacantly into a flashing slot machine, her zero payout mirroring the amount of people around her.
Looking around at the lost squirrels around me, the amount of rings in my tree trunk was clearly not the only reason I’m alone in an ocean of tourists. Even if we aren’t alone in our loneliness. We’ve all come to Vegas expecting to have fun in the crowds, a place where someone can be anyone. Yet here were are, sitting on the sidelines like a pep band whose team is getting blown out.
Bzzt! Bzzt! Plastic vibrates in my pocket, snapping me out of my thoughts a third time. Hastily, I remove my blackberry while being wary for any potential pickpockets.
A simple “Hey, how you doing? What’re you up to?”. This was hardly titillating. But I still feel a sense of excitement, and start firing fingers across keys, absorbed in my technology miles and miles from home. I wince in annoyance at myself for being so representative of my generation and tinkering with my gadget in such an exciting locale.
The locale didn’t really seem to be what excited people around me, however, so much as who they were with. The people who were happy were happy with their friends, with their family, regardless of what they were actually doing in town.
I kept firing messages across the country and felt my weariness melting away in the hot sun. While I’m alone in the town, I feel a sense of togetherness with my companion, miles away. Walking in the general direction of my family, I figure even if I can’t do what they’re doing, it’ll be more fun to be with familiar people. After all, I’d found someone to be with already, not from within the desert of unfamiliar around me, but from an oasis of familiar within me. Or at least within my pocket.
Any feedback is appreciated, but the main things I am worried about
* In general I suspect the technical stuff is pretty ok this time but I never write in present and most of this is, so I suspect I messed that up a few times. The only time it doesn't need to be is the part about 3 years ago.
** Scenebuilding in general, I feel like I have a pretty weak thesis here so it's important to at least paint a pretty picture if I'm not giving much substance
*** Thesis is a funny worry since this doesn't really have one. The theme is definitely loneliness, but thesis is harder to find - I suppose it is about overcoming that loneliness and how the solution is a people and not a place thing. I could probably work that in more.
**** In general I feel like this is a narrative, like it needs to be, but not so much a flash piece. It doesn't have the right feel. This might not be fixable.
***** I'm worried it's a little too much of a pity party - it's kind of hard to avoid given the topic, but I don't want it to be overwhelming.
Thanks again.
Flash piece, which I'm assuming you're all probably familiar with, but 500-1k words is the key here, since I'm at like 980-something. Cutting is not a terrible thing at this point.
“Hey, dude! Why you lookin’ down, dude? This is Vegas, be happy!”
Almost unconsciously I feel my head snap up to look for the source of the voice. I look up to see a fellow tourist, clad in a festive Hawaiian shirt, who seemed to be around my age (yet at least a couple years older than me, over that brick wall of twenty one). Catching his eyes, I see a look of fleeting concern as he passes by. I force stiff lips to flash a weak smile, fake a feeble laugh, and for a few seconds I keep my gaze level with the suffocating clouds of smoke seeping out of casinos that meld together as I pass them. I feel my eyes glaze back over.
Well, buddy, my uncles are enjoying cold drinks together at the bar, my mother and her sisters are together burning their stimulus checks in slot machines faster than they burn the Thanksgiving turkey, and my father is off testing his honed loan shark guile in a poker tournament. And while all these people I’m “with” do these exciting things, I walk the strip alone, in the dry Vegas heat, barred from these exciting activities until another birthday.
Even walking the strip is a bit of a struggle. Three years ago I spent some time in Vegas, too. And I’d felt just as disconnected then as I feel now, spending most of my time staring down longingly at the torrid flow of people below me from the window of my hotel room. I rarely ventured out, underage and alone, knowing that next time things would be different. Next time I’d have an entourage with me. Next time I’d be over the town’s unofficial age limit. Next time I wouldn’t feel so alone. Next time, next time.
Now was next time, and while none of these issues had been resolved, I’m not going to let them stop me. This time, I wandered the strip within the crowd. This time…
“Don’t leave the girls lonely! Take a bookmark!”
Shocked out of my daze again, I look to the curb to endure the sound of a member of a swarm of Mexican men peddling cards for a prostitution service that was boldly advertised on their t-shirts. In spite of not being much of a churchgoer, I feel an indignation rising up within me, jolting my veins with an electric irritation. I fire his comment a smirk that spares a sneer. Looking down to the sidewalk below us, my eye catches a wave in the sea of scattered “bookmarks” that drown out the cement passing below.
Lonely? Maybe. The woman on the card, while voluptuous, while seductive, doesn’t seem to be getting much more out of her Vegas experience than I am (although at least she seemed to be getting laid). I see a certain sadness about her that seems a hint to her defeated look. She lays there, exposed on a card that seems to be Vegas’ version of Magic: The Gathering. Exposed in a way I could hardly imagine, but even in her crumpled visage I feel a familiarity in her distant, lonesome eyes.
Continuing on passed the Flamingo, a casino once owned by the mob, a place I suspect many of the women pictured on those cards call home, I take a moment to gaze inside the casinos. Couples hold hands waltzing passed tables topped with emerald felt where friends lose stacks of chips together against a savvy dealer’s blackjack. Drunken men at the video poker machines haphazardly mash buttons on their machines, eyes lost on a woman delivering drinks dressed a mother’s nightmare. Tourists snap pictures like security could remove them at any moment (which they don’t, anymore).
Between these jovial visions I see reflections. Couples arm in arm together, yet with gazes that never quite seem to meet. Clumps of fellow college students look in opposing directions. Bar patrons stare into waning martini glasses and beer bottles, dazed at isolated stools. A woman gazing vacantly into a flashing slot machine, her zero payout mirroring the amount of people around her.
Looking around at the lost squirrels around me, the amount of rings in my tree trunk was clearly not the only reason I’m alone in an ocean of tourists. Even if we aren’t alone in our loneliness. We’ve all come to Vegas expecting to have fun in the crowds, a place where someone can be anyone. Yet here were are, sitting on the sidelines like a pep band whose team is getting blown out.
Bzzt! Bzzt! Plastic vibrates in my pocket, snapping me out of my thoughts a third time. Hastily, I remove my blackberry while being wary for any potential pickpockets.
A simple “Hey, how you doing? What’re you up to?”. This was hardly titillating. But I still feel a sense of excitement, and start firing fingers across keys, absorbed in my technology miles and miles from home. I wince in annoyance at myself for being so representative of my generation and tinkering with my gadget in such an exciting locale.
The locale didn’t really seem to be what excited people around me, however, so much as who they were with. The people who were happy were happy with their friends, with their family, regardless of what they were actually doing in town.
I kept firing messages across the country and felt my weariness melting away in the hot sun. While I’m alone in the town, I feel a sense of togetherness with my companion, miles away. Walking in the general direction of my family, I figure even if I can’t do what they’re doing, it’ll be more fun to be with familiar people. After all, I’d found someone to be with already, not from within the desert of unfamiliar around me, but from an oasis of familiar within me. Or at least within my pocket.
Any feedback is appreciated, but the main things I am worried about
* In general I suspect the technical stuff is pretty ok this time but I never write in present and most of this is, so I suspect I messed that up a few times. The only time it doesn't need to be is the part about 3 years ago.
** Scenebuilding in general, I feel like I have a pretty weak thesis here so it's important to at least paint a pretty picture if I'm not giving much substance
*** Thesis is a funny worry since this doesn't really have one. The theme is definitely loneliness, but thesis is harder to find - I suppose it is about overcoming that loneliness and how the solution is a people and not a place thing. I could probably work that in more.
**** In general I feel like this is a narrative, like it needs to be, but not so much a flash piece. It doesn't have the right feel. This might not be fixable.
***** I'm worried it's a little too much of a pity party - it's kind of hard to avoid given the topic, but I don't want it to be overwhelming.
Thanks again.