Artwork Interaction Draft 1

Artwork Interaction

“Hi, welcome to Kroger. What can I help you with?”

“Ah yes, I was wondering if you could help me find a specific lunch meat for my children at school.”

“Sure thing. What lunch meat can I help you find?”

“Ants.”

“Ants?”

“Yes… ants.”

“Um, sorry, sir, we don’t carry ants here.”

“Then what does that guy have in his hands?”

The customer pointed to the corner of the store. The employee turned his head to see a small anteater humanoid, wearing a Kroger uniform, crouched on the floor while it whispered to itself, its whole body twitching without rhythm.

“What the hell is that?!”

“I don’t know, but he’s holding a fur bowl filled with ants.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to try any other lunch meat?”

“I already said that I wanted ants.”

“But, sir –“

“Don’t ‘but, sir,’ me. I want ants and I’m getting ants.”

The cashier, aggravated, just ignored the customer and gestured to have another customer

come to the checkout line.

            “Um, excuse me! I am still here. I am not just gonna sit here while you ignore me. You cannot just decline service to me. There has to be a law or something that protects me from discourteous people like you. You know what? I’ll just call your boss, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll get you fired. Then, we’ll see what happens from there.”

            “Keep it moving, buddy!” One customer shouted from the end of the line.

            The infuriating customer was testing the cashier’s patience. His anger saturated his peace but he knew he couldn’t explode. He had two strikes and adding one more would mean he lost his job. So, he held in his vexation and tried to get rid of the customer. “No need to freak out. You want ants? I’ll get you some ants. C’mon, let’s go get you some ants.”

            “Thank you. That wasn’t hard, right?”

            The cashier ignored him while the two began approaching the odd anteater humanoid. The closer the two got to the anteater, the louder it started to hiss. The customer accidentally knocked down a hand-sanitizer bottle that was sitting on one of the cashier’s counter and the anteater looked directly into the eyes of him.

            “Th-This guy works here, right?”

            “Oh, are you scared now? I thought you wanted ants. If you don’t want any ants, no problem. We have a wide variety of other – “

             “No, no, no, I want ants.”

            The cashier approached the anteater, which began to growl and claw the air. The anteater changed its position from crouching to looking like it was going to pounce. When the cashier was about a foot away, the anteater opened its mouth, foaming with saliva, and clutched the fur cup even closer to its body. The cashier reached out to grab the cup and proceeded to talk to the creature as if it was a dog.

            “Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy? You are! Who wants to give me their – “

            “Are you seriously talking to it like it’s a dog?”

            The cashier turned his head to reply to the customer and when he did, the creature lunged forward onto the cashier’s face, spilling the ants everywhere on the floor.

            “The ants!” The customer screamed as he dropped to the ground to try to gather them.

            The cashier struggled to get the anteater off of his face. The anteater used its long snout to bite in the cashier’s ears and eyes until the cashier finally threw it off of him. The cashier looked at the creature on the ground and noticed something off about the creature. There was a tag sticking out of its butt and its fur felt manufactured. The cashier thrusted his hands on the anteater’s face and pulled it off.

            It was his boss.

            “Gerald, what the hell are you doing?!” The cashier screamed as he hopped back from his boss.

            “See, you’re on Undercover Boss. I wanted to see how you would react if we sent in a difficult customer. This was two see if you had learned from your first two strikes.”

            “Why didn’t you just send in a customer who had expired coupons or something?”

            “Oh, that would’ve actually been pretty good. I didn’t think of that. Anyways, you performed well. At least better than I thought you would have. I can’t believe you fought an anteater for a customer!’

            “Well, I didn’t want to get fired.”

            “I could see, Steve.”

            “Sooo.”

            “So, what?”

            “How did I do?”

            “Let’s just say you won’t be getting your third strike today.”

Changing Narrative Perspective Final

Changing Narrative Perspective

I can’t believe I’m stuck alone on the island with this lunatic. One day you’re sitting in your cage eating cheese and then the next you’re getting a needle stabbed into your butt cheek every other day. Wait, do I even have a butt cheek? Anyways, I guess it could be worse. Hell, Steve bit the dust after being injected with too much serum. But now I’m completely alone. He removed all the other rats from my lab room. I’m just afraid he thinks these tests are working.

I’ve been locked in this cage and although it’s only holding me, I’m beginning to feel cramped in here with all my thoughts.

What will he do when he’s done with the tests?

What happens if he’s not satisfied with the results?

I guess the only thing I can do is wait and see but I really want to get out of here. The world outside of these walls must be magnificent. I imagine mountains of aggiano and flowing rivers of nacho cheese. Instead, I’m stuck with this powdery substance that tastes like if cheese had a distant cousin from the hot and humid state of Louisiana who went fishing all day and never bathed. I’m sick of being treated like this.

            I’m finally being let free. And by let free, I mean he’s finally letting me out of my cage. I mean, it’s a start. Maybe he’s just seeing if I could hold my own. Even if he’s not, I think he thinks the treatments are working. I think playing into his aspirations would be in my best interests. He keeps guiding me to go to his library but I don’t know why. It’s not like this guy taught me English or anything. I’m assuming he wants to see if I know how to read so I guess I’ll just flip through a few pages or something so he thinks I’m doing something.

            I escaped! While he wasn’t looking, I ran across the room, grabbed his keys, climbed up a water pipe, and hopped on out the window as I threw his keys into the well outside the lab. The outside world is so amazing. Not exactly the thing I was expecting. Sadly, there aren’t warm pools of cheese scattered around the landscape but there are so many cool things to do. There are these huge poles of wood with grass growing off of them and there’s this endless amount of tan cat litter that wraps around the whole place, which is surrounded a vast amount of water. Sadly, I’ve found out that jumping into the water is a bad idea because there are these huge gray things with razor sharp teeth in there that will chase you onto the land. It is great to be out here though, alone.

            Why is this dummy coming out of the lab with rope? Does he really think he can get those keys? If he tries to lower himself into that well, those extra slices of pizza he ate aren’t going to be working in his favor. This should be entertaining. Watch him go down, down, down. I can hear his rope breaking. I don’t know if I should make him aware of this though. Might as well, I guess. I’ll just start making noise by the tearing.

            Yes, I am here. You see me jumping next to the tear. Do you see the tear? There you go, start coming up, good job. You’d think a scientist wouldn’t need so much time to understand that his life is in danger, but whatever. Time to go explore again!

            It’s been a while since I’ve eaten or drunken anything. The big pool tastes horrible. It’s so salty. None of these plants can stop my hunger either. I did find these delicious little chocolate balls that were scattered on the ground. They were kind of warm, but, hey, chocolate is chocolate.

            I can feel myself growing weaker and weaker. All I can do is lie here as the sun passes by day by day. Thoughts of cheese and water fill my mind, nothing else. Sleeping is the only thing I do to pass the time. I know I should go scavenge for food, but laying here is so comfortable. Why not just close my eyes one last time?

Changing Narrative Perspective Draft 2

I can’t believe I’m stuck alone on the island with this lunatic. One day you’re sitting in your cage eating cheese and then the next you’re getting a needle stabbed into your butt cheek every other day. Wait, do I even have a butt cheek? Anyways, I guess it could be worse. Hell, Steve bit the dust after being injected with too much serum. But now I’m completely alone. He removed all the other rats from my lab room. I’m just afraid he thinks these tests are working.

I’ve been locked in this cage and although it’s only holding me, I’m beginning to feel cramped in here with all my thoughts.

What will he do when he’s done with the tests?

What happens if he’s not satisfied with the results?

I guess the only thing I can do is wait and see but I really want to get out of here. The world outside of these walls must be magnificent. I imagine mountains of aggiano and flowing rivers of nacho cheese. Instead, I’m stuck with this powdery substance that tastes like if cheese had a distant cousin from the hot and humid state of Louisiana who went fishing all day and never bathed. I’m sick of being treated like this.

            I’m finally being let free. And by let free, I mean he’s finally letting me out of my cage. I mean, it’s a start. Maybe he’s just seeing if I could hold my own. Even if he’s not, I think he thinks the treatments are working. I think playing into his aspirations would be in my best interests. He keeps guiding me to go to his library but I don’t know why. It’s not like this guy taught me English or anything. I’m assuming he wants to see if I know how to read so I guess I’ll just flip through a few pages or something so he thinks I’m doing something.

            I escaped! While he wasn’t looking, I ran across the room, climbed up a water pipe, and hopped on out the window. The outside world is so amazing. Not exactly the thing I was expecting. Sadly, there aren’t warm pools of cheese scattered around the landscape but there are so many cool things to do. There are these huge poles of wood with grass growing off of them and there’s this endless amount of tan cat litter that wraps around the whole place, which is surrounded a vast amount of water. Sadly, I’ve found out that jumping into the water is a bad idea because there are these huge gray things in there that will chase you onto the land.

Unfinished...

My Voice - Final

My Voice

            My voice is an easily distracted puppy. He is small, nimble, and pretty fast. At least he thinks he’s fast. He is full of energy. It’s like someone gave him six shots of espresso, a handful of candy, and a Redbull. I’m sure no one would want to be around for the mess he makes that comes after ingesting all of that.

He can spend hours on end running around the backyard in circles all day long like the earth orbiting the sun until he can’t do it anymore because all he sees is swirls of his own tail. Afterwards, he comes inside and drinks way too much water and ends up throwing up all over the floor. He feels bad but he knows how to play your emotions. You want to get mad, but he just gives you those eyes and you can’t do anything but smile and pet him.

He runs into walls when he’s running into the house because he turned his head for a split second while running full speed because the chirping of a bird caught his attention.  He’ll just lay there like he’s dead until you run up to him to see if he’s okay and right when you do, he’ll spring up and begin running again.

Even though he is very energetic, he is clumsy. Sure, if you tell him to fetch a stick from a football field’s length away, he’ll run as fast as he can, but he will most likely trip multiple times onto his face. He is determined though and doesn’t mind falling down a couple times in order to get his stick. He thinks getting to that stick is the only thing he can do to satisfy his you. He sees the stick as the end-all be-all of life at that particular point in time.

            His clumsiness is overshadowed by how lovable he is. He loves to snuggle up with you in the bed. He will sit at the foot of your bed and whine and give you those gosh darned puppy eyes until you feel like you need to put him in bed with you in order to show your affection for him. He knows that his persistence is the key to getting what he wants. He knows his cuteness will overcome your refusal to let him up. You’ll end up waking up in the middle of the night because he’s taking up way too much of the bed and you’re hanging on the edge.

            His most prominent trait is that he is loud and sometimes annoying. Someone at the door? “Bark, bark, bark.” Someone talking outside? “Bark, bark, bark.” Someone closes their car door? “Bark, bark, bark.” He just won’t shut up sometimes. He just keeps barking and barking and no matter how many times you tell him to be quiet, he just keeps doing it. He wants to make sure everyone knows he is the protector of the house, even though you could shut him up with a small treat.

            At the end of the day, my voice is characterized by many things. Some of them may be negative, some of them may be annoying, but he is still young and has many years to learn some new tricks. For now, I can just start with “sit”.