Thread replies: 10
Thread images: 1
Thread images: 1
File: TaoLinIPhone.jpg (515KB, 1950x2775px) Image search:
[Google]
515KB, 1950x2775px
TAO LIN CHARGES HIS iPHONE
a short story by Anon Anonoevsky
>1/2
Tao’s phone is dead. His coffee is going cold but not so cold it makes him frown when he sips it quite yet. He’s got ten minutes on that. His MacBook sits on a little round table in front, the table is too small and the corners of his computer hang off. On his MacBook screen is a folder. In the folder are eight documents with various one word titles, and five of them are blank .docs. The sixth contains five instances of bad poetry all separated by three line breaks with a single hyphen in the middle. Tao’s stomach growls. He squints past the vase in the center of his table to where there’s a chalkboard on the counter that prices out the daily kale variety product. Tao opens one of the blank files. He stares at it for a minute. Tao decides he still likes the title even if it doesn't mean anything yet.
“I can’t do this.” the Gmail tab at the top of Tao’s screen is flashing
‘Willia—‘
“Apparently you can make muffins with kale.” Tao says.
“We’re shit.”
There is no outlet at the wall near his table, but he can see one near a girl to his left.
“Is it weird for me to ask some random girl if I can charge my phone at the outlet under her legs? That’s weird isn’t it?” Tao says.
“Democracy is a sham.” William says. “I love the idea that this isn’t what happens when you have a Democracy”
“I’m going to ask her.”
“You know what happens when you have a free market?”
“Hang on”
“People use money to make it not a free market because free markets are bad for profit.”
“She nodded but didn’t look up.”
“I am lying on the floor.” William says.
“How’s your book?” Tao asks.
“It’s shit. We’re shit.”
“Did anyone retweet your link?” Tao asks.
>>
>>7671041
TAO LIN CHARGES HIS iPHONE
a short story by Anon Anonoevsky
>2/2
“My mother, my ex-girlfriend, and this woman who writes a column for some nobody blog but she didn’t read it, she jut retweeted it because I retweet her links when she posts them because we’re both prostitutes.”
“How many followers does she have, is it that Shannon woman?”
“Over a thousand.”
“From the genre blog?” Tao asks.
“Oh shit” Tao says.
“Yeah that was cool.”
“Did you hear back?
“Rejected”
“She didn’t look up and didn’t see me holding the charger, and didn’t know it was under her feet”
“Form rejected.” William says.
“So I had to just sort of start moving in toward the area, slow enough to give her a chance to figure the whole situation out”
“I sat on my fire escape last night in the snow until I couldn’t feel my hands”
“And eventually she realized what was happening and flinched away from the outlet so I got there.”
“Are you serious?” William says.
“Who does that”
There’s a thing on the table next to the vase and Tao picks it up. He turns it over. He can’t write a poem about it, so it puts it back down.
“I was at a gallery last night.” William is saying. Tao orders a kale product. “It was filled with hookers who smelled like starbucks and critical acclaim.”
“What was there?” Tao says.
“Some Russian idiot wearing lipstick and a blazer with no shirt on.”
“Hah”
“You were allowed to smoke in the gallery, and he was collecting cigarette butts and hot-gluing them onto blank canvases and then hanging them on the walls.”
“Did that actually happen?” Tao says. The girl is packing up her things.
“Yeah, that actually happened.”
“Have you written it into your book yet?”
"Wouldn't that be a trite insertion?"
"Trite is old." Tao says. "Now it's honesty."
“That’s why I’m lying on the floor.” William says.
She leaves. Tao puts his hands on his laptop screen like he’s making to shut it but stops.
“I can’t even afford to buy her a drink.” He says.
“Who?”
“The charger girl.”
“I can’t do this.” William is saying again.
“We're Americans, aren't we?” Tao says.
“We’re shit.”
“We’re doing things.”
“We’re shit”
“We’re shit.”
“We’re shit.”
“We’re the now.”
“Shit”
“Shit”
“We write like shit”
“We’re shit.”
“But that’s what makes us honest.”
“You don’t think anyone will buy that?”
“Of course they will, they’re shit.”
>>
It was alright until the end. It's facile and overdone.
>>
>>7671041
you should have written it in his style. he wouldn't use dialogue tags after questions. i don't think he's ever used present-tense, either. too many adverbs.
>>
>>7671041
fix'd
The battery for Tao’s iphone was depleted. His coffee was going cold. His MacBook was sitting on a small, round table. In a folder on his macbook were eight documents with various one word titles, five of which were blank .docs. The sixth contained five poems separated by three line breaks with a single hyphen in the middle. Tao’s stomach made a noise. He squinted beyond the vase at the center of the table to where a chalkboard on the counter priced out the daily kale variety product. Tao opened one of the blank files. He stared at it for a minute. Tao decided he still liked the title even if it didn’t mean anything yet.
>>
>>7671107
He definitely uses dialogue tags, just infrequently
>>
Tao Lin on a tricycle was better.
>>
>>7671132
“Is it weird for me to ask some random girl if I can charge my phone at the outlet under her legs? That’s weird isn’t it?” Tao says.
“How’s your book?” Tao asks.
“Did anyone retweet your link?” Tao asks.
that's shit writing. it's pretty embarrassing when someone tries to parody an author but has no idea why they disliked the style
>>
>>7671041
What were the other two documents?
>>
>There’s a thing on the table next to the vase and Tao picks it up. He turns it over. He can’t write a poem about it, so it puts it back down.
this made me laugh
Thread posts: 10
Thread images: 1
Thread images: 1