Another Would-Be Writer Goes to Los Angeles by Ryan Quinn Flanagan

Another Would-Be Writer Goes to Los Angeles

Go for broke. Going out of business. Everything up to 70% off. You’ve seen the signs, this is not simple clairvoyance. Romania is a real country even though it sounds more like a popular salad dressing. And I follow the jet stream when I am a passenger on planes and other cars when I am in traffic. The lanes backed up choking bowling league trophies out of a perfect game. All that idle exhaust pumping out like a gasoline heart. If the star people were so smart they would stop falling from the sky like Bowery drunks. Puking into the gutter and wiping crusty hoody sleeves across the mouth. And what are repressed memories if not a personal archeology? The shovel that can never seem to get started because of what the dig means. And never wanting to find out, we embrace the fantasy. Another would-be writer goes to Los Angeles. Takes the bus out, sitting by the window. Far enough away from the driver to avoid suspicion, and far enough away from the crapper to avoid the smell. Even though they have been warned. You are not Bandini, you are the dust. Camilla will hate you if you find her at all. She is strong and brown and busy. Still, they take their chances. Like migrating birds one after the other. And you never hear of them again. The city swallows them up like that Goya grotesque of Saturn devouring his son. But this is not art, this is real life. Los Angeles is where writers go to die. That is not from my lips, that is first hand gospel. Jesus of the ninety-proof breath. And back in the day you could land a screenwriter’s gig. Even those have dried up. No one wants to hear from anyone else, which explains this communal silence. Old missile silos converted into vertical shoe closets so the human foot has something to look forward to. The same movie made again and again under a different name until all the juice is squeezed out of the grape. There is a reason I sleep in late when I can. Pull white hairs from my ears wondering where all the youth has gone.

Ryan Quinn FlanaganRyan Quinn Flanagan is a Canadian born author presently residing in Elliot Lake, Ontario Canada. His work has been published both in print and online in such places as The New York Quarterly, Windsor Review, Vallum, The Antigonish Review, CV2, Horror Sleaze Trash, Evergreen Review, Your One Phone Call and In Between Hangovers.

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