Animals Eat Each Other

Here is a writing exercise I did while at the Tin House Writer's Conference. Ron Carlson was my workshop leader, and he told us to write a story using each letter of the alphabet to start the story. He also mandated that one sentence be exactly 100 words and one sentence be one word. This is what came out, and while it is an unedited first draft, I hope to turn it into something that looks more like a real story. In the meantime, here is what I have. It was fun to write, and I hope it is just as fun to read.

Animals Eat Each Other

Animals eat each other, which is really strange if you really think about it, and I do think about things like this, especially now that I have gone beyond basic cable and have every possible nature program available to man, like Animal Planet-which, you may be surprised to learn, Earth is not-more like the Bacteria Planet, but anyway-it's where you can watch shows depicting all manner of food chain carnage: the doomed bunny flying over the earth in the eagle's claws, not dead yet, but certainly taking its first and last flight, or the struggling zebra being eaten by lions.

Basically, the expanded cable menu has changed my life. Changing channels just isn't the same any more, and instead of zoning out to whatever's on, now I'm in control, and loving every minute of it. Deciding what to watch is the only problem now, and sometimes it takes me a good hour or so to finally choose my evening lineup. Eventually, though, I always return to those nature shows. Figuring that I'm never going to make it to Botswana or Costa Rica or Tierra del Fuego-I mean, come on, no one can afford that stuff, except rich assholes like my boss-and why would I want to go to places full of rich assholes?-I watch the shows and take couch safaris, remote in one hand and a freshly brewed latte in the other, courtesy of the sweet little espresso machine I ordered off the Home Shopping Network.

Grace sometimes comes over-she's the upstairs neighbor, and sometimes I think the surround sound noises of lions mauling wildebeests makes her feel lonely-and usually, I make her a latte, and we get close on the couch, watching animals either eat each other or have sex, which I have to admit can get pretty awkward at times. Having her here makes me feel good though, and always makes me happy that I upgraded my cable. I think she's coming over tonight, actually, since it's Shark Week on the Discovery Channel, which is one of television's all-time programming highlights-a whole week of sharks!-and when I told Grace about it earlier, she said maybe she'd come down, her little dangly earrings swaying as she spoke.

Just last week, though, something different happened between us, and instead of the usual light cuddling and kissing, we really got into it, or should I say, she really got into it, like I'd never seen before, and all I can think is since we were watching When Animals Attack that she got an idea or some inspiration, but whatever the reason, I was totally into it. Kind of intense, that girl, and I think she said she's a proofreader, so maybe it makes sense, all that pent up energy needing to go somewhere, but to tell you the truth, she got so into it she actually bit me, and I was like, whoa, that's intense, maybe you've been watching too much nature programming.

Later on, after she left, I went to the mirror to look at where she bit me, and I pulled the collar of my t-shirt away from my neck, and besides seeing that I desperately needed to shave, which my hotel call center job doesn't really require, but come on, you know when you've passed scruffy into grizzled, I also saw the arc of red imprints left by her little teeth, like a half circle of embroidery.

Man, did that give me a boner.

No girl had ever bit me hard enough to leave marks before, and I felt like this was progress, that Grace and I were going to finally have sex, and before I knew it, I was attacking my own animal, ha ha. Pretty soon after that, Grace invited me up to her apartment, a first, and I was actually really happy, and nervous, since her place was like the total opposite of mine, and all I could think of was how many times she'd seen my place and she was in a place like this, a nice place, with framed pictures, and a file cabinet, and a couch with coordinated pillows and a bookcase, and she never said anything about how shitty my place was, not once, which once I saw her place, I have to say I really appreciated.

Quietly, we stood there, and I could tell she was nervous, and I kept flipping the nickel that was in my pocket, because I was nervous too, until she finally asked me if I wanted to see her photo album, which surprisingly, I did. Red with gold-edged pages, her photo album balanced on both of our knees, light on mine at first and then heavier as she flipped pages, and we looked at a trip she had taken with her mother to Paris, and photos of her holding up various foreign foods in their places of origin: crumpets in London, and a croissant that she held up in front of the Eiffel Tower, framing it like the croissant was its foundation.

Shortly after that, we started kissing, right after seeing a photo she had taken of herself lying on the grass of some park in London, which was the best photo ever, somehow, and she looked really beautiful, and peaceful, and I told her that.

That was a week ago, and I haven't been able to stop thinking about Grace, and even my excitement about Shark Week has been partly due to me envisioning Grace on the couch with me while we watch sharks go crazy over blood in the water. Unbelievable.

Very soon, she'll be here, and so I think I'll straighten this place up a little, maybe make some espresso so we can stay up all night. Xavier, my buddy, says I'm getting whipped. You could call it that, I guess, but I just like this girl, this girl who bit me, who tried to eat me.

Zebras are on TV right now, and they're strange creatures, man-they never learn how to avoid getting eaten, but look at them, they never seem too worried about it.