"Seriously, dude. I didn't even notice it until you said something."When I was in fourth grade I attended Immaculate Conception School in Columbia, Illinois. Sometime during the year, my class was forced to put on a talent show, where each student had to display some kind of feat that made him or her unique. I can remember three or four girls prepping their singing voices, my friend Alex was going to do yo-yo tricks, another kid had brought a magic set to school (I myself owned a magic set, but after an unfortunate incident involving the wand and the words, "See how far in it can go!" it was quickly taken away from me). It seemed like I was the only kid without a single talent to display. At night I would toss and turn under my covers, unable to sleep, energized by the prodigious dread of having to be singled out by humiliating circumstances. There was nothing I was good at. There was nothing I excelled in. There was nothing that made me stand out from others. The only thing I truly enjoyed doing at age 10 was eating and reading. Being a big fan of scary stories at the time, I decided that maybe I should try to write one. So that is what I did. When the day of the talent show arrived, I read a 10 page, handwritten, story that I had written involving a demonic teacher and a heroic young student. It got a good response from the class, and since that day I have had the egomaniacal need to impress people with my imagination. Now, let's jump forward a decade (ten [10] years). The year is 2005, and I am an average 20-year-old college sophomore. My college experience has been mediocre at best, and I am basically just drifting from one day to the next waiting for school to let out. But then, something very strange happened-I met a girl...who was interested in me. It seems that a slick brown pair of Adidas sneakers that I wore caught the eye of the impressionable young Stephanie, and after months of using the same study hall in our dorm, the lass became quite enamored with me, Fatal Attraction style. As the two of us got to know each other, I opened up about how I liked to write and even won some awards in high school for some short stories (Jesus Christ, Eric! Let it go already!) I had entered into a contest. Stephanie became putty (puddy?) in my hands and said she would love to read something of mine sometime. My heart leapt at the romantic notion of seducing Stephanie with my wonderful prose (but as it turns out I didn't need wonderful prose to seduce her, just a bottle of Admiral Nelson). My happy reverie was short-lived however, because I became suddenly aware that I had nothing to show her. There were a few stories that I was working on here and there, but nothing that I felt confident enough about to surrender to my new flame. Like a girl asked to set up a chess board, I was stumped. But then it dawned on me-I would write something completely original just for her! Of course! Just as Byron or Shelley used their poetry to inveigle busty chambermaids into their beds, so too would I use my narrative skills to coax this girl out of them panties. School let out for the summer and Steph and I were temporarily sent in opposite directions, but we made plans to visit each other often during the summer months. At home in Treynor, I quickly set to work on coming up with a story that would be suitable to give to Steph. Something that would appropriately display my talents, while at the same time subtly suggesting my feelings for her. For inspiration I went through some books that I had. Now, I'm something of an amateur bibliophile (n. someone who has sex with books), and have a good collection of reading material. I scanned some titles before stopping on a story collection by H.P. Lovecraft. At this point in my life I was a huge Lovecraft fan, and had gotten into the habit of mimicking his grandiose writing style. For those ignorant pieces of shit who don't know him, H.P. Lovecraft is perhaps the most influential horror writer of the twentieth (20th) century. He took what Edgar Allan Poe made famous, and sent it into a whole nother stratosphere. Without H.P. Lovecraft there would be no Stephen King, Clive Barker, John Saul, Dean Koontz...you get the idea. Anyway, Lovecraft is known for writing very surreal, horrific magniloquent stories. Now, if you don't know what the word magniloquent means, I'll give you a hint: using the word magniloquent in a sentence is the perfect example of being magniloquent. So, I knew how wanted to write the story. I wanted it to be a long, internal narrative, no dialog, told in the third-person. But what would it be about? I thought for days and days until finally an idea formed in my brain. Do you know what an embryonic twin is? It's when one twin absorbs the other twin into his or her body while still in the womb, and can actually result in a baby being born with a fetus (the unlucky twin) in its stomach. That idea was the basis for my story. It sounds like I might be ripping off Stephen King's novel The Dark Half, but just wait...I'm not done yet. OK, this was the plot of my story to Stephanie: A baby is born with disfigured genitals, as a result of the baby trying to absorb a dead twin while in his mother's womb. The doctor tells the mother that the baby is a boy, but because of the disfiguration he will need an operation. During the operation the doctor uses pieces of the deceased twin to fashion the living baby a new penis. The baby grows up, not knowing that his dick is actually his dead twin brother. Through a series of events that I do not have time to explain or justify here, the man manages to swallow a bit of his own semen. Upon doing this, he realizes that he can hear a voice...the voice of his dead twin brother, which is now his penis. The dead twin is a prophet, and the man realizes that by masturbating and swallowing his own come, the voice of his dead twin will tell him future events. Eventually, the man is driven insane by all of his dick's/brother's predictions, and ends up ripping off his penis in a fit of rage and then bleeding to death. That's it. That was my gift to Stephanie. Now, I know there were a lot of plot holes (if the dick was the dead brother, wouldn't the dick have decayed?), and it was probably plagued with anacoluthia (magniloquence!), but it was my ode to H.P. Lovecraft, and I thought if she doesn't call me a sick fuck and demand that I lose her number after reading this, then maybe we have a shot. Some guys sings songs to impress their lady. Others write poetry or buy them flowers. I wrote my love a story about a guy who drinks his own sperm to know the future. At least now she doesn't think my collection of Batman comics is weird.
The Moore You Know: I have not accomplished anything in life. Seriously, I'm 25, and I have nothing to show for myself. The last time I was successful at anything was when I was the first sperm to get to my mom's egg. It's been all downhill from there. At least if she would have gotten an abortion I could have gone out while still on top, like Barry Sanders.
© Eric Moore - 2010
Epic. I would like to read this story.
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