Diamond Travels
From Ben's Writing
A speculative memoir, by Ben Burnett
It seems to be all the rage these days, not only to refer to our time as these days, but to write memoirs about oneself (redundancy included to drive the point home). Some are really great. I’ve read quite a number of them. But I’ve also read a few really bad ones. And, yes, all the way through: I bought them, so I needed to get my money’s worth before I hocked it for the price of a good cup of coffee, which I drank while thinking about writing a good one myself. A memoir all about me, that is. Maybe I can stop being so redundant now—well, we’ll see what happens, I may, or may not be redundant in future paragraphs.
The trouble I found while contemplating memoir about my life, was that I really did have one (until I got married, that is; no I’m living, I think. Maybe a new house, car and boat will get the process started. Even though I’d rather a string of odd, quirky incidents to happen, so you, my reader [so far], would enjoy). Much like the one I had just read about. So, it occurred to me that writing a fake one would be a good idea. It worked for the guy on Oprah—he apparently sold more after it was found out to be partly made up. Can you imagine how much he would have made if it was all made up. Yeah, wow, huh?—that’s what I thought. So I started making one up. But writing about a fake past was boring. So I started writing about a fake future me. A speculative memoir or sorts, but still about me—well, actually I hope none of the events happen, but it would be pretty funny to watch. In that sad funny way, where you can only laugh uncomfortably because you don’t know how else to react to such a situation.
The story is about me, many years from now. By then my family and wife have left me, and I’ve gained over 800lbs and grown rather fond of KFC. Well, fond does not quite describe my new found affection for the food. Fans of Seinfeld will recall Kramer becoming hooked on the bird, so to speak. This, only but gives you a small inkling of what I'm referring too. If that doesn't help, imagine the attraction of kids to candy and exponetiate it by a factor of, say... a billion. That’s lots, for those are counting; oh, and you can stop now too; otherwise, you'll never get past the first paragraph.
My new addiction gets so bad that I stop even bothering to bathed or even wash my, what have then become paws, between meal, so my entire house slowly becomes coated with a thin coating of grease and honey mustard meddle. Leaving it in some parts slick and gummy in others to the touch, sweet to the taste, scrumptuously fried food'sh to the smell, and and a rather distastefully off brown to the sight. Not that this matters much, as my sence of asthetics and style has declined inversley proprtinal to my weight gain and increased exposure to trash TV. Which is to say, I became American. Oh, how insulting that is, but if I were as skinny as a model, I might have said I was African (which I know to be not a country but a continent; but remember, I am, after all, an American).
One day, torn about the state of my life, I draw back the shades—which had been closed for years, hidding my shame fomr the world—to let the day in. What a mistake. The build-up of grease on the window serves as a magnifying glass to focus the light in to a point on a place across the room, which first smokes, flares a little and finally bursts into flames. The years of grease build-up, what should have killed me from the in-side out, and silently in the night, or while walking up some stairs, or while getting excited watching some large breasted woman run across the breach was now killing me from the out-side in. I was burning alive. I did manage to shout in pain, a few times, but it was all in vain: even if anyone could have heard me, no one could have moved me—
Years ago, if I hadn’t mentioned it already, my bed and I had be become part of each other. Not really sure how or when it happened, but one day we just found that we could no longer separate— literally, we were fused together. I had someone come look at the problem. They suggested an operation, but my fear or needles and that I would presumably never walk again (my legs had all bu disapeared into the mattres). I figured it wasn’t changing much of what I had, so I just stayed attached to the bed.
Anyway, so I’m burning alive—
My wife left me—
My family left me—
It’s probably not all the bad then is it? I could get therapy or take drugs for most of those. Unfortunaly, the burning part left me dead. So my options we somewhat limmited. So as far a people go, this is about as bad as it can get. I also lost all my stuff, which, well, probably isn’t such a bug deal, since, well, I’m dead and all. But hey, it’s still kind of an important thing, you know, if I weren’t dead, so I thought I’d still mention it, for sympathy points. I say that as if anyone cared. I doubt very much that I or my fire would have been missed, had my burning appartment not been attached to jewlry store. It seems that in this day in age, bling, as some call it, is more important than self-involved, obese and depresed old men are. Who knew. And who cares. The point is that while my home burnt to the ground, the jewlry store was miraculously saved from a great deal of harm. I think the owner's son is a Fireman, but I can't be sure, we didn't speak much, him being black and me being fat, white- it's probably that I never went in there, nor had any money for such frivalities.
Can industrial diamonds be mistaken for real ones:
Of course, if you were to ask, Jacobs and Son's of Michigan, if this were in fact possible, they would tell you it is in fact not. That this is a total fabrication and that anyone telling you otherwise is trying to pull a fast one on you, or some such funny business. But, for our plot to advance any further we will have make this small concession in our story. That this could be the case, then it would be the case: the diamond would appear to be a real diamond, to a sufficiently intoxicated or otherwise moronic or incompetent eye.
This is how we find ourselves here, in New York, in a posh downtown jewelry store about to be involved in a very interesting transaction.
