The fourth is a sequel to my best-regarded work, and it has a title and a cover...
...this is Push.
- D
Monday, September 1, 2014
Push
-- Working on my fourth and fifth novels.
The fourth is a sequel to my best-regarded work, and it has a title and a cover...
...this is Push.
- D
The fourth is a sequel to my best-regarded work, and it has a title and a cover...
...this is Push.
- D
Tuesday, August 5, 2014
You Like Me; You Really Like Me?
-- So...
Yours truly has been nominated for best blog/blogger in the Southern Minnesota Scene publication.
I could just say, "Vote for me!" and smile and kiss a baby and move on. But I actually want to tell you why. Sincerely
I'm a writer. Crazy. I know. You never would've figured. But there wasn't a "Best Writer" category in the mix of categories. I'm a passionate author with three books under his belt (not in a dirty way), all released exactly within one year. So, even though there's less than a dozen entries here on my blog, I feel like I'm a good writer, and being recognized regardless would mean the universe to me.
It means that at least one more person would know my name, and that would help.
Enormously.
I care about humanity, and humor, and how funny and sad and dreadful and hopeful this world can be. I'm vulgar, but I care so much it hurts. I laugh and poke fun but I cry more than anyone else you know.
And my words wear the heart on my paper sleeves.
So, that's why you should vote for me, and ask your grandma to vote for me, too.
Also, free nachos and slushies in the cafeteria.
I promise.
Vote Here.
- D
Yours truly has been nominated for best blog/blogger in the Southern Minnesota Scene publication.
I could just say, "Vote for me!" and smile and kiss a baby and move on. But I actually want to tell you why. Sincerely
I'm a writer. Crazy. I know. You never would've figured. But there wasn't a "Best Writer" category in the mix of categories. I'm a passionate author with three books under his belt (not in a dirty way), all released exactly within one year. So, even though there's less than a dozen entries here on my blog, I feel like I'm a good writer, and being recognized regardless would mean the universe to me.
It means that at least one more person would know my name, and that would help.
Enormously.
I care about humanity, and humor, and how funny and sad and dreadful and hopeful this world can be. I'm vulgar, but I care so much it hurts. I laugh and poke fun but I cry more than anyone else you know.
And my words wear the heart on my paper sleeves.
So, that's why you should vote for me, and ask your grandma to vote for me, too.
Also, free nachos and slushies in the cafeteria.
I promise.
Vote Here.
- D
Friday, August 1, 2014
Good Books & Good Beer #1
-- So, my buddy Kody and I have been reading comic books and graphic novels for a long time. He for a couple of years; me since I was born. Or at least since I can remember. We discuss them, passionately, at length. I wished that we had more people to talk about them with.
I had an idea a few months ago to do a book club, but with a twist: we would only read graphic novels (which Kody and I have accumulated in abundance), and we would only drink good beer.
Thus, Good Beer & Good Books was formed.
I decided, for book club #1, on the Crooked Pint in Apple Valley for the beer, and the first volume of the newest version of Guardians of the Galaxy ("Cosmic Avengers"), by Bendis; to add to the appeal, I set the date on the release day of the film.
It was amazing.
The absolute reason was the people. The guys (and gals) who showed up were intelligent, insightful and willing to share. I wrote up a questionnaire of fifteen questions, some silly, some serious, (one that I answered for you) and we went to town with them while snacking on appetizers and drinking -- of course -- delicious brews (and ciders).
From left: Steve, Gabe, Nick, Dustin, Me & Kody
Highlights:
-- When I asked the question about having the worst one-night-stand, everyone's heads turned instinctively to Steve. Even the people who didn't know him.
-- The quality of conversation was astounding. Some of these guys I see every day; some of them I've only met a handful of times, or once. But everyone held their own, and contributed. This is the Avengers of book clubs.
-- I don't know what it is, but people who obsess, or at least care, about pop culture are so much freer and easier to express themselves, especially amongst peers. ...And they tend to be smarter about it, too.
-- I really hope I did a decent job as moderator. I knew what I wanted to do, and I feel like it was a balanced, very-often surprising conversation. But everyone was respectful, and everyone had their say. Though, if anyone else there was like me, they woke up this morning going, "Damn! I wish I would have said..." Or they were just plain-ass zombie-tired like I was.
Afterwords, we played some bocce on the outdoor court, in absolutely glorious weather.
My team ("The Blue Balls") did lose, but Steve and I put up a valiant, slightly intoxicated effort.
Steve literally threw a ball over the metal fencing. With my credit card on the line.
The Guardians would have approved.
After that, we headed over to the Burnsville Paragon theater (my absolute favorite) and bought out a row (and a half) to watch the film. The VIP seats, with their luxurious leather and ability to allow you to drink MORE beer DURING the film, are worth every damn penny.
Absolutely fantastic. I laughed, I cried -- seriously, a tree and a raccoon made me cry -- and it was just such a complete night. Chris Pratt naturally thrilled me; Dave Bautista impressed in a way I did not expect (he was one of the rare surprises of the cinematic summer). I can't wait to plan one again (and, no, it won't be a monthly thing -- it's just not as special that way).
Other fun stuff that happened:
-- I actually drew up an original print for all attendees. The elderly woman at FedEx Office accidentally made a TON (but only charged me for the amount I ordered), so I kinda, sorta scammed the theater to distribute them for me (just listen): I asked the kid who was taking tickets if he could give out my prints. I may or may not have told him that I work for Marvel. He said he needed manager approval. When the manager came out and was looking over my drawing (which does feature a raccoon with a large penis), I walked over, introduced myself as a man who works for a "faction of Marvel"... and he approved it. Drawings flew off the shelf, much smiling on our group's behalf commenced. That was just cool.
-- We sang Backstreet Boy's "I Want It That Way" on the patio of the theater, and being a group of entertainers, we kind of went all out. When we returned inside, the vibe had changed. Turns out, everyone inside was watching us. And they dug it. Like, a lot.
-- The film itself was phenomenal. Through the roof, feeling and fun. I felt like I was watching other, more pretty and talented people outside singing Backstreet Boy's "I Want It That Way".
-- Please share your thoughts on that super weird reveal at the end of the film. Spoilers be damned. That was just too crazy not to talk about.
All in all, a wonderful time. An absolute blast.
Stay tuned for Good Beer & Good Books... #2!
- D
Oh... and here are the questions if you want to play at home:
G O O D B E E R & G O O D B O O K S # 1
J U L Y 3 1 ST, 2 0 1 4
Welcome, true believers! (That’s a Stan Lee line; odds are, if you’re here, you know that shit.)
Here’s a little questionnaire to get the social juices flowing. Also, that’s what she said.
This will be fun, this will be serious, and hopefully someone sheds tears by the end of the day. (That will probably be me.)
‘Nuff said!
Q U E S T I O N S
1. What character do you relate to and why?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. On a scale from 1-10, 10 being the WORST, how terrible is Iron Man’s new costume? (I mean, is that a METAL MUSTACHE?!)
____________________________________________________________________________
3. Is this your first time reading a graphic novel? If so, what did you like and not like about the medium?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Peter Quill’s father is from Spartax; do you believe that there is life – intelligent life – in the universe besides Earth?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. J’Son, an alien king from another planet, has relations with Meredith, knocks her up and then literally leaves the planet. Have you had a worse one-night-stand?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“It’s not crap, mom. I’m reading. This is reading.”
6. Peter stands up for an immigrant girl on the playground, clearly demonstrating his humanity. Have you ever done something similar?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7. Do you think that Peter’s father made the right decision by leaving Peter, or is he an ass, as Peter believes?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
8. Do you think Peter’s father legitimately gives a shit about Peter and the Earth?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9. Krutak: GREAT or TERRIBLE swear word? (Also, do you roll the r’s? Because I do.)
____________________________________________________________________________
10. As innovation and technology evolve, do you find yourself relating more or less to the comic book and comic film industry?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
11. Iron Man / Tony Stark jets into literal space to escape, to get away from it all. Where is your “space”?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Shit gets real now.
“A cauldron of irresponsiblity.”
“A planet of madness.”
“…Given powers ranging from minor significance to intergalactic threat.”
“But you’re right. They’re all creatures. It would seem that is what holds them together. No one else will have them. There is poetry in that.”
12. Is J’Son right about Earth and its people? (And did anyone else notice that this is pretty much how all other wars start, whether fictional or very, very real? Blam.)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
13. If Rocket Raccoon doesn’t say, “Blam. Murdered you,” can we all consider the film a critical and commercial failure?
Yes.
14. Most of the Guardians have TERRIBLE parents. What do you think it says about nature and nurture, genetics and choice?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
15. Are you Groot?
____________________________________________________________________________
I had an idea a few months ago to do a book club, but with a twist: we would only read graphic novels (which Kody and I have accumulated in abundance), and we would only drink good beer.
Thus, Good Beer & Good Books was formed.
I decided, for book club #1, on the Crooked Pint in Apple Valley for the beer, and the first volume of the newest version of Guardians of the Galaxy ("Cosmic Avengers"), by Bendis; to add to the appeal, I set the date on the release day of the film.
It was amazing.
The absolute reason was the people. The guys (and gals) who showed up were intelligent, insightful and willing to share. I wrote up a questionnaire of fifteen questions, some silly, some serious, (one that I answered for you) and we went to town with them while snacking on appetizers and drinking -- of course -- delicious brews (and ciders).
From left: Steve, Gabe, Nick, Dustin, Me & Kody
Highlights:
-- When I asked the question about having the worst one-night-stand, everyone's heads turned instinctively to Steve. Even the people who didn't know him.
-- The quality of conversation was astounding. Some of these guys I see every day; some of them I've only met a handful of times, or once. But everyone held their own, and contributed. This is the Avengers of book clubs.
-- I don't know what it is, but people who obsess, or at least care, about pop culture are so much freer and easier to express themselves, especially amongst peers. ...And they tend to be smarter about it, too.
-- I really hope I did a decent job as moderator. I knew what I wanted to do, and I feel like it was a balanced, very-often surprising conversation. But everyone was respectful, and everyone had their say. Though, if anyone else there was like me, they woke up this morning going, "Damn! I wish I would have said..." Or they were just plain-ass zombie-tired like I was.
Afterwords, we played some bocce on the outdoor court, in absolutely glorious weather.
My team ("The Blue Balls") did lose, but Steve and I put up a valiant, slightly intoxicated effort.
Steve literally threw a ball over the metal fencing. With my credit card on the line.
The Guardians would have approved.
After that, we headed over to the Burnsville Paragon theater (my absolute favorite) and bought out a row (and a half) to watch the film. The VIP seats, with their luxurious leather and ability to allow you to drink MORE beer DURING the film, are worth every damn penny.
Absolutely fantastic. I laughed, I cried -- seriously, a tree and a raccoon made me cry -- and it was just such a complete night. Chris Pratt naturally thrilled me; Dave Bautista impressed in a way I did not expect (he was one of the rare surprises of the cinematic summer). I can't wait to plan one again (and, no, it won't be a monthly thing -- it's just not as special that way).
Other fun stuff that happened:
-- I actually drew up an original print for all attendees. The elderly woman at FedEx Office accidentally made a TON (but only charged me for the amount I ordered), so I kinda, sorta scammed the theater to distribute them for me (just listen): I asked the kid who was taking tickets if he could give out my prints. I may or may not have told him that I work for Marvel. He said he needed manager approval. When the manager came out and was looking over my drawing (which does feature a raccoon with a large penis), I walked over, introduced myself as a man who works for a "faction of Marvel"... and he approved it. Drawings flew off the shelf, much smiling on our group's behalf commenced. That was just cool.
-- We sang Backstreet Boy's "I Want It That Way" on the patio of the theater, and being a group of entertainers, we kind of went all out. When we returned inside, the vibe had changed. Turns out, everyone inside was watching us. And they dug it. Like, a lot.
-- The film itself was phenomenal. Through the roof, feeling and fun. I felt like I was watching other, more pretty and talented people outside singing Backstreet Boy's "I Want It That Way".
-- Please share your thoughts on that super weird reveal at the end of the film. Spoilers be damned. That was just too crazy not to talk about.
All in all, a wonderful time. An absolute blast.
Stay tuned for Good Beer & Good Books... #2!
- D
Oh... and here are the questions if you want to play at home:
G O O D B E E R & G O O D B O O K S # 1
J U L Y 3 1 ST, 2 0 1 4
Welcome, true believers! (That’s a Stan Lee line; odds are, if you’re here, you know that shit.)
Here’s a little questionnaire to get the social juices flowing. Also, that’s what she said.
This will be fun, this will be serious, and hopefully someone sheds tears by the end of the day. (That will probably be me.)
‘Nuff said!
Q U E S T I O N S
1. What character do you relate to and why?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
2. On a scale from 1-10, 10 being the WORST, how terrible is Iron Man’s new costume? (I mean, is that a METAL MUSTACHE?!)
____________________________________________________________________________
3. Is this your first time reading a graphic novel? If so, what did you like and not like about the medium?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
4. Peter Quill’s father is from Spartax; do you believe that there is life – intelligent life – in the universe besides Earth?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
5. J’Son, an alien king from another planet, has relations with Meredith, knocks her up and then literally leaves the planet. Have you had a worse one-night-stand?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
“It’s not crap, mom. I’m reading. This is reading.”
6. Peter stands up for an immigrant girl on the playground, clearly demonstrating his humanity. Have you ever done something similar?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
7. Do you think that Peter’s father made the right decision by leaving Peter, or is he an ass, as Peter believes?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
8. Do you think Peter’s father legitimately gives a shit about Peter and the Earth?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
9. Krutak: GREAT or TERRIBLE swear word? (Also, do you roll the r’s? Because I do.)
____________________________________________________________________________
10. As innovation and technology evolve, do you find yourself relating more or less to the comic book and comic film industry?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
11. Iron Man / Tony Stark jets into literal space to escape, to get away from it all. Where is your “space”?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Shit gets real now.
“A cauldron of irresponsiblity.”
“A planet of madness.”
“…Given powers ranging from minor significance to intergalactic threat.”
“But you’re right. They’re all creatures. It would seem that is what holds them together. No one else will have them. There is poetry in that.”
12. Is J’Son right about Earth and its people? (And did anyone else notice that this is pretty much how all other wars start, whether fictional or very, very real? Blam.)
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
13. If Rocket Raccoon doesn’t say, “Blam. Murdered you,” can we all consider the film a critical and commercial failure?
Yes.
14. Most of the Guardians have TERRIBLE parents. What do you think it says about nature and nurture, genetics and choice?
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
15. Are you Groot?
____________________________________________________________________________
Monday, July 7, 2014
What Are You Trying To Say?
-- Every
artist has his or her own themes or messages to deliver. They're trying
to say something. And even though every project they create and take on
can be drastically different, if you look closely, there are always
threads; through-lines into that person and their head and their soul.
Being the narcissist that I am, I looked at the books I've written to see if I could find a common thread. And I did. It's an ironic one, and if you actually know me as a human being in real life, it might be surprising. The biggest theme that I've seen carry though my stories so far is:
Positivity.
And never giving up.
Almost all of the characters in my stories face the worst things you could possibly face, but instead of giving up and curling into the fetal position like I feel like I would, they keep moving. They get stronger. They FIGHT. And I'm horribly jealous of them for that. But I'm glad that they exist, and I'm both surprised and not-at-all by this revelation.
And I think it's a useful tool for everyone to use. To look at their own lives and find the through-line; to rediscover what's important and what drives you.
Because I'm glad I did.
- D
Being the narcissist that I am, I looked at the books I've written to see if I could find a common thread. And I did. It's an ironic one, and if you actually know me as a human being in real life, it might be surprising. The biggest theme that I've seen carry though my stories so far is:
Positivity.
And never giving up.
Almost all of the characters in my stories face the worst things you could possibly face, but instead of giving up and curling into the fetal position like I feel like I would, they keep moving. They get stronger. They FIGHT. And I'm horribly jealous of them for that. But I'm glad that they exist, and I'm both surprised and not-at-all by this revelation.
And I think it's a useful tool for everyone to use. To look at their own lives and find the through-line; to rediscover what's important and what drives you.
Because I'm glad I did.
- D
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
My "Review"
-- This'll be kind of a long one, so feel free to skip it unless you think talking about writing stuff and competition stuff is interesting.
So, I didn't advance this round in the 2014 NYC Writing Contest, which is kind of a bummer (and a little sketchy: out of the five stories chosen to advance their writers, only one is available to read online, and it's only a decent read at best).
How the competition works is this: they give you a character, incident and genre and you have just a few days to create a short story with those elements. It's massively fun and challenging.
You can read my entry, "The Level", here:
http://dennisvogen.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-2014-nyc-short-story-submission.html
Anyway, I spent almost $50 to enter the contest, but for a good reason: they have professionals review your story and give you criticism, advice, etc. And I just received my "review," and it... well, it makes me kinda mad.
I want to share it and see what you think. This is the EXACT e-mail, verbatim, copy and pasted, that I received:
> ''The Level'' by Dennis Vogen 898 - WHAT THE JUDGE(S) LIKED ABOUT YOUR SCRIPT - .....................This concept is disturbing and unsettling, and once the opening section takes the plunge ("I didn't mean to kill her baby"), the chase is on, so to speak; there's an instant curiosity created in the reader's mind that propels him forward. What's also well done is the succinct rendering of the back story -- The Level, what it is, how people die.//The last section is taut and leaves the reader with a strong impression...............................I like the dual narrative here. ........................ WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK - .....................On a smaller note, these symbols: ))) and ((( -- seem to mark section breaks. Standard section break symbols, unless a magazine asks for specific ones, are *** or #. Just an FYI.//The section which begins "I went to the club by myself" -- is flashback, but because it's rendered in the past tense, like the rest of the story, it's difficult to know where we are in time. In general, if a story is penned in the past tense, then anything that happens before the time of the story -- such as flashback -- should be written in the pluperfect.//The opening feels a bit ungrounded -- who is "they?" And what type of world are we in? Post-apocalyptic. It eventually fleshes out, but at the beginning, it needs to be crystal clear where we are.........................…...A few too many 'info-dump' sentences. Needs cleaning up and a percentage of content sliced off it to tighten what remains...................... <
WHAT?
I got a tiny amount of criticism, especially since I didn't make the top five.
I paid FIFTY DOLLARS for that?!
On top of that, the review (and this has happened to me before...) is fundamentally wrong on most of its levels (pun intended). I can take criticism. Honestly, I can. Most of the time. But this is ridiculous.
So I sent them an e-mail back.
Here's mine:
> Thank you for the feedback.
Of course, I have to respond to one of the odder criticisms. :)
I was criticized for using "(((" and ")))" as breaks in the story, and also criticized for not making it clear which parts were in the past or in the closer present.
But that's what the ")))" symbols are. First, they're symbolic -- like sound, or sonar waves. Second, when you see the "(((" symbol, it means it's a flashback, and the ")))" brings you back to the present tense of the story.
I thought it was fairly apparent, or at least kind of cool, but it went unnoticed and became a criticism; if you could tell me how to make that mechanism more clear, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you so much for your time. This was a really fun experience.
D <
I thought sending that back would be enough to make me feel okay about it, but it doesn't.
So, am I absolutely crazy? To be upset that I got a tiny review with almost no criticisms, yet I didn't make it to the next round? And that I paid good money to get some kind of feedback?
Your free feedback is requested below.
- D
So, I didn't advance this round in the 2014 NYC Writing Contest, which is kind of a bummer (and a little sketchy: out of the five stories chosen to advance their writers, only one is available to read online, and it's only a decent read at best).
How the competition works is this: they give you a character, incident and genre and you have just a few days to create a short story with those elements. It's massively fun and challenging.
You can read my entry, "The Level", here:
http://dennisvogen.blogspot.com/2014/02/my-2014-nyc-short-story-submission.html
Anyway, I spent almost $50 to enter the contest, but for a good reason: they have professionals review your story and give you criticism, advice, etc. And I just received my "review," and it... well, it makes me kinda mad.
I want to share it and see what you think. This is the EXACT e-mail, verbatim, copy and pasted, that I received:
> ''The Level'' by Dennis Vogen 898 - WHAT THE JUDGE(S) LIKED ABOUT YOUR SCRIPT - .....................This concept is disturbing and unsettling, and once the opening section takes the plunge ("I didn't mean to kill her baby"), the chase is on, so to speak; there's an instant curiosity created in the reader's mind that propels him forward. What's also well done is the succinct rendering of the back story -- The Level, what it is, how people die.//The last section is taut and leaves the reader with a strong impression...............................I like the dual narrative here. ........................ WHAT THE JUDGES FEEL NEEDS WORK - .....................On a smaller note, these symbols: ))) and ((( -- seem to mark section breaks. Standard section break symbols, unless a magazine asks for specific ones, are *** or #. Just an FYI.//The section which begins "I went to the club by myself" -- is flashback, but because it's rendered in the past tense, like the rest of the story, it's difficult to know where we are in time. In general, if a story is penned in the past tense, then anything that happens before the time of the story -- such as flashback -- should be written in the pluperfect.//The opening feels a bit ungrounded -- who is "they?" And what type of world are we in? Post-apocalyptic. It eventually fleshes out, but at the beginning, it needs to be crystal clear where we are.........................…...A few too many 'info-dump' sentences. Needs cleaning up and a percentage of content sliced off it to tighten what remains...................... <
WHAT?
I got a tiny amount of criticism, especially since I didn't make the top five.
I paid FIFTY DOLLARS for that?!
On top of that, the review (and this has happened to me before...) is fundamentally wrong on most of its levels (pun intended). I can take criticism. Honestly, I can. Most of the time. But this is ridiculous.
So I sent them an e-mail back.
Here's mine:
> Thank you for the feedback.
Of course, I have to respond to one of the odder criticisms. :)
I was criticized for using "(((" and ")))" as breaks in the story, and also criticized for not making it clear which parts were in the past or in the closer present.
But that's what the ")))" symbols are. First, they're symbolic -- like sound, or sonar waves. Second, when you see the "(((" symbol, it means it's a flashback, and the ")))" brings you back to the present tense of the story.
I thought it was fairly apparent, or at least kind of cool, but it went unnoticed and became a criticism; if you could tell me how to make that mechanism more clear, I would greatly appreciate it.
Thank you so much for your time. This was a really fun experience.
D <
I thought sending that back would be enough to make me feel okay about it, but it doesn't.
So, am I absolutely crazy? To be upset that I got a tiny review with almost no criticisms, yet I didn't make it to the next round? And that I paid good money to get some kind of feedback?
Your free feedback is requested below.
- D
Saturday, March 8, 2014
My Everything
-- I'm a writer, and a bartender.
Someone at the bar today asked me what I "actually did" outside of work (which I "get" all of the time), and I told them that I'm a writer and I'm a dad. And they said, "Whoa. So you never do anything." And I thought about it. I haven't had a vacation since I was in high school; I've had a child since I was 21 years old. I don't get vacation time or any benefits or much above minimum wage, so it makes sense. I work. A lot. And hard. Even when I clock out, I don't go home and shut it off. I work some more. Make sure my kiddo is fed and well. Make sure my mind is, too. Write some inadequate words to describe the human experience. I mean, it's not much... except, it's kind of everything. It's why I get so frustrated with people who are late, or just don't care. I don't absolutely love everything that I do; but I have enough respect for others to aim to try.
So, in retrospect, the answer to that question is, "What I actually do is everything. And anyone who asks that question is probably doing nothing."
- D
Someone at the bar today asked me what I "actually did" outside of work (which I "get" all of the time), and I told them that I'm a writer and I'm a dad. And they said, "Whoa. So you never do anything." And I thought about it. I haven't had a vacation since I was in high school; I've had a child since I was 21 years old. I don't get vacation time or any benefits or much above minimum wage, so it makes sense. I work. A lot. And hard. Even when I clock out, I don't go home and shut it off. I work some more. Make sure my kiddo is fed and well. Make sure my mind is, too. Write some inadequate words to describe the human experience. I mean, it's not much... except, it's kind of everything. It's why I get so frustrated with people who are late, or just don't care. I don't absolutely love everything that I do; but I have enough respect for others to aim to try.
So, in retrospect, the answer to that question is, "What I actually do is everything. And anyone who asks that question is probably doing nothing."
- D
Friday, February 21, 2014
My Thank You
-- Okay. Alright. Wow.
Now that the dust is settling, I absolutely have to give you my sincere thank you letter. It's long-winded, like everything I do. Mercifully, Facebook will condense this so you don't have to read it if you don't want to. But I hope you do.
If you haven't heard, we raised enough money to release my next two books through Kickstarter, "Flip" and "Us", thanks entirely to you. You have no idea what this means to me. And I love you all.
And I keep saying that you have no idea what this means to me, and that I love you all, but you really have to understand why. So I'm going to tell you.
After I released "Them" and we raised the money to self-publish it, I felt good. There was and is still so much work to do, and so much more that I want to do, but I felt proud and felt that I was on the right track.
So, when I started my second fundraising event to make the second and final book, I thought it would be a slam-dunk. A natural progression. A next step.
And it flopped.
Hard.
I wasn't even close.
And I'm already an anxious and melancholy person, but it hit me pretty hard. This kind of stuff -- art -- is hard enough to do in groups, as a team. Alone, it's almost impossible. And having support and then losing it so quickly hurt. It honestly depressed me. Since I was a little kid with a stupid bowl cut, I've been using and misusing words with heartfelt passion and with a conviction that made me just know that this is what I wanted to do.
This is what I'm supposed to be.
So, after it failed, I didn't really know what to do. So I just stopped doing stuff and tried to figure out what to do next.
Nothing.
This part will be ironic to anyone who's read "Flip": yeah, I may have mixed feelings about religion and fate, but I do believe that things happen for a reason. And I had to fail then because something else was coming.
Still defeated, I went to bed on November 1st. Since I can remember, even as a little kid, I've always wanted to write a book about dreams but I could never break the story. I couldn't figure it out. But sometime in the middle of the night on November 2nd, I did. I broke it.
November just coincidentally happens to be National Novel Writing Month, where thousands of writers around the world try to write a whole story in just a month. So I decided to try, too.
If "Us" would have gotten the money it needed, I never would have tried this. I would have put all of my focus on it and "Flip" wouldn't exist. But, instead, it does exist.
And I thank the sky every day that it does.
It changed things. It took me out a box that I could have been packaged in. It stretched me, and it hurt me, and I wouldn't change it for anything.
And then people started saying nice things about it. People I don't know. People I know closely.
And I figured out that I wasn't ready to finish the first thing I started until I wrote this thing. And that's when the Kickstarter idea kicked in.
And now, with everyone rallying behind it and supporting it and really just kicking ass for it, it's done. The next stage can begin (and all the work's on me, so you can relax now). And it is all thanks to YOU.
Honestly. Seriously.
It is all thanks to you.
THANK YOU.
And I thank you from the bottom of a heart that I think is secretly big, but in all honesty you all probably know how big it is.
Because it's big enough for all of you nuts.
Special thanks to Kody Kile, Lora Mays and Matt Mays, Elizabeth Ferguson, Justin Schoeben and Magan Marie Schoeben, Cathy Lola Kleven, Lydia Siefken Fitzgerald, Stacy Scherer, Peter L. Vogen, Nicole Sublet, Jill Hanson, Nicole McDonald, Cat Havumaki, Poly Mendes, Blair Warnemunde, Bekah Fitz, Jackie Daugherty, Amy Kielmeyer, Krista R Baker, Wayne Zbytovsky, Eliana Hutchison and everyone else who supported me in this big, dumb dream.
Hopefully, someday, I can be the kind of person you can be proud to say, "I knew him when...!"
And if you want to donate any spare change until the last day, this Monday, February 24th, here's the address:
https://www.kickstarter.com/
- D
Now that the dust is settling, I absolutely have to give you my sincere thank you letter. It's long-winded, like everything I do. Mercifully, Facebook will condense this so you don't have to read it if you don't want to. But I hope you do.
If you haven't heard, we raised enough money to release my next two books through Kickstarter, "Flip" and "Us", thanks entirely to you. You have no idea what this means to me. And I love you all.
And I keep saying that you have no idea what this means to me, and that I love you all, but you really have to understand why. So I'm going to tell you.
After I released "Them" and we raised the money to self-publish it, I felt good. There was and is still so much work to do, and so much more that I want to do, but I felt proud and felt that I was on the right track.
So, when I started my second fundraising event to make the second and final book, I thought it would be a slam-dunk. A natural progression. A next step.
And it flopped.
Hard.
I wasn't even close.
And I'm already an anxious and melancholy person, but it hit me pretty hard. This kind of stuff -- art -- is hard enough to do in groups, as a team. Alone, it's almost impossible. And having support and then losing it so quickly hurt. It honestly depressed me. Since I was a little kid with a stupid bowl cut, I've been using and misusing words with heartfelt passion and with a conviction that made me just know that this is what I wanted to do.
This is what I'm supposed to be.
So, after it failed, I didn't really know what to do. So I just stopped doing stuff and tried to figure out what to do next.
Nothing.
This part will be ironic to anyone who's read "Flip": yeah, I may have mixed feelings about religion and fate, but I do believe that things happen for a reason. And I had to fail then because something else was coming.
Still defeated, I went to bed on November 1st. Since I can remember, even as a little kid, I've always wanted to write a book about dreams but I could never break the story. I couldn't figure it out. But sometime in the middle of the night on November 2nd, I did. I broke it.
November just coincidentally happens to be National Novel Writing Month, where thousands of writers around the world try to write a whole story in just a month. So I decided to try, too.
If "Us" would have gotten the money it needed, I never would have tried this. I would have put all of my focus on it and "Flip" wouldn't exist. But, instead, it does exist.
And I thank the sky every day that it does.
It changed things. It took me out a box that I could have been packaged in. It stretched me, and it hurt me, and I wouldn't change it for anything.
And then people started saying nice things about it. People I don't know. People I know closely.
And I figured out that I wasn't ready to finish the first thing I started until I wrote this thing. And that's when the Kickstarter idea kicked in.
And now, with everyone rallying behind it and supporting it and really just kicking ass for it, it's done. The next stage can begin (and all the work's on me, so you can relax now). And it is all thanks to YOU.
Honestly. Seriously.
It is all thanks to you.
THANK YOU.
And I thank you from the bottom of a heart that I think is secretly big, but in all honesty you all probably know how big it is.
Because it's big enough for all of you nuts.
Special thanks to Kody Kile, Lora Mays and Matt Mays, Elizabeth Ferguson, Justin Schoeben and Magan Marie Schoeben, Cathy Lola Kleven, Lydia Siefken Fitzgerald, Stacy Scherer, Peter L. Vogen, Nicole Sublet, Jill Hanson, Nicole McDonald, Cat Havumaki, Poly Mendes, Blair Warnemunde, Bekah Fitz, Jackie Daugherty, Amy Kielmeyer, Krista R Baker, Wayne Zbytovsky, Eliana Hutchison and everyone else who supported me in this big, dumb dream.
Hopefully, someday, I can be the kind of person you can be proud to say, "I knew him when...!"
And if you want to donate any spare change until the last day, this Monday, February 24th, here's the address:
https://www.kickstarter.com/
- D
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
My 2014 NYC Short Story Submission: Round One, "The Level"
-- Writer's note: My name is Dennis Vogen. I guess this is technically my first blog on this site. So, hi! I'm participating in the NYC Short Story Challenge 2014. This is my First Round Submission; I was given three specific things to include in my short story, which could not last more than 2,500 words (of which, I clocked in exactly 2,499). My Heat was 11; Genre: Horror. Event: An overdose. Character: A radio DJ.
- D
Oh. The title?
) ) )
They’re going to kill me.
I grabbed everything that is important to me, shoved it into my red backpack and ran to the mall as fast as I could, at three o’clock this morning; as soon as I found out that they were calling for our names. They were openly hunting us. Stalking us. Killing us. There was no one else here when I crept up towards the back door.
I took a set of metal clippers out of my bag and cut the chain behind the Dumpster. I pushed aside the chain fence and unlocked the door, falling inside the cool opening.
I stood up, turned around to shut the door behind me, and a pale, skinny hand slid through the opening and grabbed my wrist. It was a woman’s hand, and her talons dug into my skin, drawing color from my veins to match the color of her nail polish. Her head snuck through the doorway.
“YOU KILLED MY BABY!” I read her lips move from the other side as I shook with shock and shaking silence.
With absolutely no other option that I could see, I took a step back and then shoved the door back with as much force as I could and, being a healthy man in my mid-twenties, it was a fair amount of force. It first shattered her wrist, and she fell to her knees, refusing to pull her arm back. I pulled the door back and slammed it again, with even more force, and her hand split from her forearm, blood pooling on the floor beneath me. The fingers continued to twitch, reaching for something they didn’t understand.
I bolted the door, hard, so I could feel it lock. I walked through the maze-like hallways until I reached the maintenance room, knowing of its large amount of chains, and then wrapped the back door in metal, and whatever else I could find: a broken shopping cart and a large statue of Snoopy the dog, a relic built to honor an historic artist from Minnesota, where I’m from. I live much further south than he did. Drawing a fucking cartoon would get me nowhere here.
The exit now braced, I pulled out my phone and checked the news. Of course, my photo was on the main page. The headline?
“The Last Living DJ.”
I didn’t mean to kill her baby.
I swear.
I feel bad enough about what I do. A few years ago, an underground style of music called The Level started to become increasingly popular. It’s a heavy, thick, throbbing kind of music that completely fills you and then throws you and then crushes you as you’re gasping for breath. We didn’t know it was dangerous at first.
Until the first kid died.
And then a few more people. But, to be fair, most of the people who overdosed on The Level had just had too much. They listened to it over and over, awake or asleep, at work and at play and just all the time. Just too much. And too much of anything can turn you into nothing. The few other deaths were because their bodies couldn’t handle it the first time, and for those losses, I am completely sorry. It tears me apart. Honestly. But that’s art. You can’t foresee the consequences.
They first tried to shut down the handful of us DJs playing The Level. We refused, citing that besides the couple of unforeseeable deaths, almost everyone who died was just abusing The Level. When we refused, more people – mostly conservative, parental types – started to protest.
Until one day, when they just stopped.
That was a week ago. And then my phone started to vibrate relentlessly last night while I was in bed. When I finally looked at it, almost all of my best friends were dead.
I have a lot to feel guilty for. I feel completely devastated, my heart demolished to just bits and bytes. But I have an extra reason to feel bad. To feel like a hypocrite. To feel like the worst DJ in the world.
Because I’m deaf.
I sit against the hard door in the dark room and I think about her.
( ( (
I went to the club by myself. I had tried to convince some of my hearing friends to go, and even some of my deaf friends, but no one wanted to.
I didn’t care. I wanted to be there. To experience it.
I walked in, alone, and the lights were up and people were having drinks, conversing with one another. It didn’t look like a dangerous place.
I walked up to the bar and ordered a brandy-7. My voice is probably stupid-sounding, but I learned how to talk when I was little and it makes simple things easier. Every time I see some stupid fucking redneck say something like, “If them there Mexicans want to live in MY country, then them better learn MY fuckin’ language!”, I wonder why that redneck didn’t learn mine. Because I was born this way, and in this country. And then I realize his tiny, ignorant brain couldn’t handle learning any additional languages (especially since he can’t even grasp the one that he thinks he knows), much less my amazing, expressive one.
I got my brandy-7, turned my head and was struck.
The most beautiful girl I had ever seen was looking right at me. I felt rhythms within myself that I never had before.
So I did what any suave, handsome man would do.
I took a sip of my brandy-7, it went down the wrong tube and I threw up right there on the floor.
I looked back to her shocked face, but before I could do anything else, the house lights shut off and the show started.
Laser beams from every angle started to shoot and burst through every piece of matter in the building. The DJ walked out, like a famous magician. His name was DJ DJ Vogue. No kidding. But then the real magic started.
The music started.
And instead of hearing nothing, I felt everything. I felt every beat through my chest. I felt extraordinary. I felt alive.
I started to dance, which I had never done before, because I had never heard, much less experienced, music before. Sweat started to pour from me, and onto me from the crowd around me.
More drinks. More dancing.
And then her.
She found her way to me. She was blonde, but with a blue streak through her hair. We made eye contact for an infinite coda, and then she turned her back to me, and pressed everything that she was tightly against me. Her ass moved against me, up and down, faster and faster, to the exact, rapid beat in my chest and heart.
Someone else started to tap on my shoulder, and I shrugged them off.
I whispered into her ear, “What is your name?”
Another tap on my shoulder.
I turned to her soft, perfect lips and read:
“Day.”
Her name was Day.
Yet another tap on my shoulder, and I finally turned around. I was floored.
It was another young woman. Dark hair. Bangs. And her eyes were bleeding down her face. She collapsed upon me, her blood covering me like a blanket. I couldn’t breathe. Her mouth was contorting in ways I couldn’t understand, except for the last thing she said as she finally passed away, on top of me:
“Help.”
She was the first one to officially die from The Level. The house lights came up as soon as word spread, and we were all escorted to the exits. Day sat next to me, her arms around me, as I talked to the police. Everyone outside the club was talking about how “awesome” and “hardcore” that show was. I wasn’t as positive about what had happened as the rest of them, but I realized how important this music was. It could change – and end – lives. It brought me the only woman who I would ever fall in love with.
It brought me Day.
So that night, I became a DJ.
) ) )
I work at the mall, in the entertainment store, so I have every key, and I know where every exit is. There’s only four. I live in a small town, and our mall has less than a dozen stores.
With the back door secured, I ran to the other three ways in.
The front entrance: chained and blocked. The back entrance: chained and blocked. I was running to the last remaining entrance when I saw him drive his pickup truck into the parking lot. The Farmer.
I stopped for a second, gasping and then reaching for my breath.
The Farmer was your stereotypical southerner. Stubborn. Stuck in his way. Also, he was extremely racist, sexist and dumb. None of us even knew the old man’s name, but we knew he owned a farm, though, ironically, he wasn’t a farmer. It was an ironic moniker.
I thought he might park his truck in a spot, but my luck had run out. He instead pointed his hood ornament in my direction and then revved his engine.
He was coming in.
I started running again, and I reached the outside set of glass doors. I started to chain the outside doors as he began racing towards me.
I got the outside doors chained and jumped back inside, doing the same thing to the inside set. He was almost here, going at least forty miles per hours.
Stacked some more shopping carts against the doors.
Fifty.
Pushed a snowmobile displayed on tiny, plastic wheels behind the carts.
Sixty.
Turned around to find anything else to stop –
Boom.
( ( (
We started dating immediately. Day and I were in love. She was everything I had ever wanted in a girl. Smart. Sexy. Funny.
But she was wild. She wouldn’t listen to me. Even as she got older, she remained the youngest person I had ever known.
She made a lot of mistakes.
But I forgave her, and man, did I love her.
We dated for six months, and then we bought a place together. I had lived with my parents up to then, which wasn’t that strange in the world we were living in, but we were in love and we were adults and we wanted the world to know it.
I was a pretty good DJ. I felt every song before I played it, and my playlists were natural, emotive and I really did feel like an artist.
I felt like something.
Day couldn’t keep a job for more than a month. She was terrible at everything she was asked to do. Because she just didn’t want to do it.
But she was beautiful. And she was mine.
She was going out every night, sometimes with me, sometimes without me. Sometimes when I was DJing, I could see her with other people, but they were all friends. She said they were all just friends.
At the same time, worldwide, more people were dying. Like I said, most of the time it was because people wouldn’t – or couldn’t – stop. It was constant, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It was all about The Level.
And I was in control of The Level.
It was mine.
) ) )
I opened my eyes.
I was still standing. The truck had only made minor destruction.
The mall’s glass was bulletproof, and The Farmer hadn’t even broken a pane. But he was dead. His windshield had shattered, and a massive shard had gone through his weathered face.
Good, I thought to myself.
With all the doors shut, I ran to the stairs that led to the roof. I needed to see.
( ( (
Things with Day and I just kept getting worse, no matter how hard I tried. In fact, things got worse the harder I tried.
She was hanging out with a lot of new people.
To get my mind off of where she was, to keep my thoughts away from living within my loneliness, I turned to my music.
I bought a big speaker.
I placed it on a desk, across from my chest. So I could feel it.
And then I bought more big speakers. I put them in the basement of the entertainment store. So that, on my breaks, I could feel some more.
She stopped talking to me. And then she stopped even looking me in the eyes. One night, I found out later, she even brought someone home and fucked him in the other room, while I was asleep in our bedroom, blissfully unaware of the sound.
The fucking sound.
I was losing control.
) ) )
Dawn was breaking as I climbed atop the roof. People were starting to gather around the mall.
They knew I was here.
This was it.
I couldn’t fully read their lips from where I was, so I stepped back. I took a marker out of my backpack and wrote on a scrap piece of cardboard. I walked back to the edge of the building.
My sign read: “I WILL NOT GIVE UP.”
The sign shook above my head, and I realized that someone had just shot it with a gun. More and more people started to show up. They started to push on the doors. My control was going. Gone.
Almost.
I ran back downstairs to the mall. Ran back to my shop. Nearly broke the doors down running to the basement.
Once I was there, I started to pull them up to the roof, one by one.
The speakers.
They were coming with me.
( ( (
She left me. Obviously. How could someone like me keep someone like her?
I begged. I pleaded. My confidence waned in and out. Sometimes, I got it. Most of the time, I didn’t get it, and I was positive I could get her back.
But before I knew it, I didn’t even know her anymore.
But I’m still positive I could get her back.
) ) )
I squinted. One of the women far below said, “What is he doing with all of those speakers?”
I was happy to reply.
I plugged them into the roof’s outlet, and turned them all on, one by one.
And then I did it.
I started playing The Level. As loud and as hard as I could.
At first people, just covered their ears.
But then they started to collapse.
One by one.
And then they started to die.
The bodies started to pile up, before the city just quit and left me alone.
The last living DJ.
And as I enjoyed the silence that I was accustomed to, I opened my mouth and let my awkward voice echo over the hills of flesh.
“I win.”
- D
Oh. The title?
"T H E L E V E L"
Dennis Vogen
They’re going to kill me.
I grabbed everything that is important to me, shoved it into my red backpack and ran to the mall as fast as I could, at three o’clock this morning; as soon as I found out that they were calling for our names. They were openly hunting us. Stalking us. Killing us. There was no one else here when I crept up towards the back door.
I took a set of metal clippers out of my bag and cut the chain behind the Dumpster. I pushed aside the chain fence and unlocked the door, falling inside the cool opening.
I stood up, turned around to shut the door behind me, and a pale, skinny hand slid through the opening and grabbed my wrist. It was a woman’s hand, and her talons dug into my skin, drawing color from my veins to match the color of her nail polish. Her head snuck through the doorway.
“YOU KILLED MY BABY!” I read her lips move from the other side as I shook with shock and shaking silence.
With absolutely no other option that I could see, I took a step back and then shoved the door back with as much force as I could and, being a healthy man in my mid-twenties, it was a fair amount of force. It first shattered her wrist, and she fell to her knees, refusing to pull her arm back. I pulled the door back and slammed it again, with even more force, and her hand split from her forearm, blood pooling on the floor beneath me. The fingers continued to twitch, reaching for something they didn’t understand.
I bolted the door, hard, so I could feel it lock. I walked through the maze-like hallways until I reached the maintenance room, knowing of its large amount of chains, and then wrapped the back door in metal, and whatever else I could find: a broken shopping cart and a large statue of Snoopy the dog, a relic built to honor an historic artist from Minnesota, where I’m from. I live much further south than he did. Drawing a fucking cartoon would get me nowhere here.
The exit now braced, I pulled out my phone and checked the news. Of course, my photo was on the main page. The headline?
“The Last Living DJ.”
I didn’t mean to kill her baby.
I swear.
I feel bad enough about what I do. A few years ago, an underground style of music called The Level started to become increasingly popular. It’s a heavy, thick, throbbing kind of music that completely fills you and then throws you and then crushes you as you’re gasping for breath. We didn’t know it was dangerous at first.
Until the first kid died.
And then a few more people. But, to be fair, most of the people who overdosed on The Level had just had too much. They listened to it over and over, awake or asleep, at work and at play and just all the time. Just too much. And too much of anything can turn you into nothing. The few other deaths were because their bodies couldn’t handle it the first time, and for those losses, I am completely sorry. It tears me apart. Honestly. But that’s art. You can’t foresee the consequences.
They first tried to shut down the handful of us DJs playing The Level. We refused, citing that besides the couple of unforeseeable deaths, almost everyone who died was just abusing The Level. When we refused, more people – mostly conservative, parental types – started to protest.
Until one day, when they just stopped.
That was a week ago. And then my phone started to vibrate relentlessly last night while I was in bed. When I finally looked at it, almost all of my best friends were dead.
I have a lot to feel guilty for. I feel completely devastated, my heart demolished to just bits and bytes. But I have an extra reason to feel bad. To feel like a hypocrite. To feel like the worst DJ in the world.
Because I’m deaf.
I sit against the hard door in the dark room and I think about her.
( ( (
I went to the club by myself. I had tried to convince some of my hearing friends to go, and even some of my deaf friends, but no one wanted to.
I didn’t care. I wanted to be there. To experience it.
I walked in, alone, and the lights were up and people were having drinks, conversing with one another. It didn’t look like a dangerous place.
I walked up to the bar and ordered a brandy-7. My voice is probably stupid-sounding, but I learned how to talk when I was little and it makes simple things easier. Every time I see some stupid fucking redneck say something like, “If them there Mexicans want to live in MY country, then them better learn MY fuckin’ language!”, I wonder why that redneck didn’t learn mine. Because I was born this way, and in this country. And then I realize his tiny, ignorant brain couldn’t handle learning any additional languages (especially since he can’t even grasp the one that he thinks he knows), much less my amazing, expressive one.
I got my brandy-7, turned my head and was struck.
The most beautiful girl I had ever seen was looking right at me. I felt rhythms within myself that I never had before.
So I did what any suave, handsome man would do.
I took a sip of my brandy-7, it went down the wrong tube and I threw up right there on the floor.
I looked back to her shocked face, but before I could do anything else, the house lights shut off and the show started.
Laser beams from every angle started to shoot and burst through every piece of matter in the building. The DJ walked out, like a famous magician. His name was DJ DJ Vogue. No kidding. But then the real magic started.
The music started.
And instead of hearing nothing, I felt everything. I felt every beat through my chest. I felt extraordinary. I felt alive.
I started to dance, which I had never done before, because I had never heard, much less experienced, music before. Sweat started to pour from me, and onto me from the crowd around me.
More drinks. More dancing.
And then her.
She found her way to me. She was blonde, but with a blue streak through her hair. We made eye contact for an infinite coda, and then she turned her back to me, and pressed everything that she was tightly against me. Her ass moved against me, up and down, faster and faster, to the exact, rapid beat in my chest and heart.
Someone else started to tap on my shoulder, and I shrugged them off.
I whispered into her ear, “What is your name?”
Another tap on my shoulder.
I turned to her soft, perfect lips and read:
“Day.”
Her name was Day.
Yet another tap on my shoulder, and I finally turned around. I was floored.
It was another young woman. Dark hair. Bangs. And her eyes were bleeding down her face. She collapsed upon me, her blood covering me like a blanket. I couldn’t breathe. Her mouth was contorting in ways I couldn’t understand, except for the last thing she said as she finally passed away, on top of me:
“Help.”
She was the first one to officially die from The Level. The house lights came up as soon as word spread, and we were all escorted to the exits. Day sat next to me, her arms around me, as I talked to the police. Everyone outside the club was talking about how “awesome” and “hardcore” that show was. I wasn’t as positive about what had happened as the rest of them, but I realized how important this music was. It could change – and end – lives. It brought me the only woman who I would ever fall in love with.
It brought me Day.
So that night, I became a DJ.
) ) )
I work at the mall, in the entertainment store, so I have every key, and I know where every exit is. There’s only four. I live in a small town, and our mall has less than a dozen stores.
With the back door secured, I ran to the other three ways in.
The front entrance: chained and blocked. The back entrance: chained and blocked. I was running to the last remaining entrance when I saw him drive his pickup truck into the parking lot. The Farmer.
I stopped for a second, gasping and then reaching for my breath.
The Farmer was your stereotypical southerner. Stubborn. Stuck in his way. Also, he was extremely racist, sexist and dumb. None of us even knew the old man’s name, but we knew he owned a farm, though, ironically, he wasn’t a farmer. It was an ironic moniker.
I thought he might park his truck in a spot, but my luck had run out. He instead pointed his hood ornament in my direction and then revved his engine.
He was coming in.
I started running again, and I reached the outside set of glass doors. I started to chain the outside doors as he began racing towards me.
I got the outside doors chained and jumped back inside, doing the same thing to the inside set. He was almost here, going at least forty miles per hours.
Stacked some more shopping carts against the doors.
Fifty.
Pushed a snowmobile displayed on tiny, plastic wheels behind the carts.
Sixty.
Turned around to find anything else to stop –
Boom.
( ( (
We started dating immediately. Day and I were in love. She was everything I had ever wanted in a girl. Smart. Sexy. Funny.
But she was wild. She wouldn’t listen to me. Even as she got older, she remained the youngest person I had ever known.
She made a lot of mistakes.
But I forgave her, and man, did I love her.
We dated for six months, and then we bought a place together. I had lived with my parents up to then, which wasn’t that strange in the world we were living in, but we were in love and we were adults and we wanted the world to know it.
I was a pretty good DJ. I felt every song before I played it, and my playlists were natural, emotive and I really did feel like an artist.
I felt like something.
Day couldn’t keep a job for more than a month. She was terrible at everything she was asked to do. Because she just didn’t want to do it.
But she was beautiful. And she was mine.
She was going out every night, sometimes with me, sometimes without me. Sometimes when I was DJing, I could see her with other people, but they were all friends. She said they were all just friends.
At the same time, worldwide, more people were dying. Like I said, most of the time it was because people wouldn’t – or couldn’t – stop. It was constant, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It was all about The Level.
And I was in control of The Level.
It was mine.
) ) )
I opened my eyes.
I was still standing. The truck had only made minor destruction.
The mall’s glass was bulletproof, and The Farmer hadn’t even broken a pane. But he was dead. His windshield had shattered, and a massive shard had gone through his weathered face.
Good, I thought to myself.
With all the doors shut, I ran to the stairs that led to the roof. I needed to see.
( ( (
Things with Day and I just kept getting worse, no matter how hard I tried. In fact, things got worse the harder I tried.
She was hanging out with a lot of new people.
To get my mind off of where she was, to keep my thoughts away from living within my loneliness, I turned to my music.
I bought a big speaker.
I placed it on a desk, across from my chest. So I could feel it.
And then I bought more big speakers. I put them in the basement of the entertainment store. So that, on my breaks, I could feel some more.
She stopped talking to me. And then she stopped even looking me in the eyes. One night, I found out later, she even brought someone home and fucked him in the other room, while I was asleep in our bedroom, blissfully unaware of the sound.
The fucking sound.
I was losing control.
) ) )
Dawn was breaking as I climbed atop the roof. People were starting to gather around the mall.
They knew I was here.
This was it.
I couldn’t fully read their lips from where I was, so I stepped back. I took a marker out of my backpack and wrote on a scrap piece of cardboard. I walked back to the edge of the building.
My sign read: “I WILL NOT GIVE UP.”
The sign shook above my head, and I realized that someone had just shot it with a gun. More and more people started to show up. They started to push on the doors. My control was going. Gone.
Almost.
I ran back downstairs to the mall. Ran back to my shop. Nearly broke the doors down running to the basement.
Once I was there, I started to pull them up to the roof, one by one.
The speakers.
They were coming with me.
( ( (
She left me. Obviously. How could someone like me keep someone like her?
I begged. I pleaded. My confidence waned in and out. Sometimes, I got it. Most of the time, I didn’t get it, and I was positive I could get her back.
But before I knew it, I didn’t even know her anymore.
But I’m still positive I could get her back.
) ) )
I squinted. One of the women far below said, “What is he doing with all of those speakers?”
I was happy to reply.
I plugged them into the roof’s outlet, and turned them all on, one by one.
And then I did it.
I started playing The Level. As loud and as hard as I could.
At first people, just covered their ears.
But then they started to collapse.
One by one.
And then they started to die.
The bodies started to pile up, before the city just quit and left me alone.
The last living DJ.
And as I enjoyed the silence that I was accustomed to, I opened my mouth and let my awkward voice echo over the hills of flesh.
“I win.”
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