beta

here's the longest sentence i've ever written. it was my entry for a contest in college. i had a week or so. i waited until 3 hours before it was due. it's fun:

She did it because she didnt really see why she should give him a chance at redemption considering he neglected to show a little bit of dirt-common decency after she went to such great lengths to please, and if she took the energy to span lengths she wouldnt normally consider stretching to, well, she thought that he should have been a little more grateful, but he wasnt (he didnt even pick up the phone, didnt even click compose on his email interface) as one might say, obliged, after all she had managed to do for him, after all she had managed to say to himall of the oh reallys and the my isnt that interestingsall that she had attempted to feel in him because by the end of the night she really thought she had plunged so deep into him that she could actually swim backstroke in a pool of his electric sugar, however, she was wrong damn itshe misjudged the man as she had misjudged all the other menwho nightly ruined her unfortunate dreams, despite the fact that every bedtime she would cinch her eyes shut, blacking the backdrop as she began to orchestrate, planning for only the best results as she conjured up the ideal frame and complexion, not too attractive and not too dull, but average, and the most complimentary demeanor, full of quaint jokes and intrigue, yes, a man who cared to know who she was, yes, and who cared to let her search down to the sea floor of his very soul, the woman letting the power of her twilight sleep place the two of them (she was always blonde) in some imagined rendition of a European bistro, (she had never been outside of Maryland, except if one wanted to count a brief trip to York Pennsylvania to drop off a man who somehow ended up on her front porch one morning, naked and confused and crying, asking to be taken home, and she, shocked and carrying a pink bathrobe, thought not to call the police, but instead told the man to step into her car and asked one question: where do you live?, the man responding with a simple answer: York, Pennsylvania, and with that clue she miraculously sniffed out a direct route to the town without ever having traveled north of say, Padonia road, the man sitting silent in a frilly, flowered wrap-around robe, shoeless and clueless until she stopped just inside of the York town limits, sat still and thought for a moment--the man looking over to see what the matter was--said get outabout a minute later he finally realized that he was to do just that, and he did and he closed the door of the car, wandering down the turnpike in a pink terrycloth frock while she had already spun out in a one-hundred-and-eighty-degree rubber cloud, speeding to get back to scenery she knew, hurrying to forget that she ever indulged in such hapless spontaneity), the bistro on the side of a sleepy street where men in tight jeans bicycled and women with small dogs sauntered, but somehow, despite her concerted efforts, the dream would always mutate from a casual, chic conversation-spotted and body language-dotted chiaroscuro to a fatally feminine fever of pressed lips and white satin sheets, hazed over by the smokescreen of cheesy romance, glowing and blurring brighter and lighter until she had once again edited her dream before any sort of climactic action took place, the scene now glowing pure white but not that sort of white, not the cleansing sort, because every night she could still feel the action, could feel it even though she would not allow herself to see it, the white reflecting so brightly against her eyelids, and the action feeling so real, that when the morning light came and replaced the light of the night he was goneshe could never quite remember how she got home and into her bed, and who exactly wined her, seduced her, and left the crater-like depression next to her waking body unless it was her cat in which case she could understand because her cat was fat and left a large imprint on whatever soft surface it sat on; but despite her history of amnesia mornings and mysterious crescent shaped prints on her NASA- inspired mattress topper she remembered this man, namely because he was a real man, definitely not dream materialshe remembered distinctly his face as he walked over to her on Sunday while she was reading the back of the crispy crunchy flaky crusted Hot Pockets box to see just how many she could eat for lunch without exceeding her Jenny Craig points system, yes, he had a face like a fish with large blue eyes and a very thin jaw that looked as if it were a vice grip that had his puckered lips in a bit of a squeeze, and eyebrows that looked like they might have crawled off of his face to spin cocoons from his floppy ears, which, she noticed, hadnt been cleaned for some time as tiny balls of what looked like lint gave the illusion of hovering just inside of his earlobes when really she knew that there were probably hairs where these lint particles came from, long black ear hairs that had never been threatened by the killer blades of a small pair of scissorscome to think of it, as she reminisced about the man, she really couldnt figure out what she ever saw in him as he really wasnt much to look at and she could honestly say that when she first met him she wanted to take a step back because his appearance was much more tolerable from a distance, (she never took a look past his face, never glanced downward, because if she did she would have automatically known the man was trouble, his clothes spelling disaster--he was wearing on the very afternoon she met him the tightest pair of black leather pants ever to slide on to any set of human buttocks) but she guessed she couldnt complain that a man wanted to take a step closer to her, but she didnt necessarily wish it would happen, though she secretly suspected that some day someone would break the iceshe had spent her whole life at a formal distance from the world, always an outstretched arms length away from any acquaintance, not because she necessarily wanted to spend her day to day chuckling and nodding her head at words that floated their way to her ears like migrating geese across rather cavernous conversational air (the nether-space between face and face), but because she simply never found herself standing any closer to anyone, perhaps she thought, because no one ever desired to get closer to her than politeness required, but she certainly couldnt remember ever having wanted to take a step inward herself, couldnt recall ever urging to reach a palm across the dead-air cavern and softly cup the shoulders belonging to any of the mouths that spurted how do you dos for her world consisted solely of ice-breakers and goodbyes and whatever interrupted broadcasts transmitted from mouth to mouth in betweenshe never quite had time to sit down to coffee, to grab a bite to eat, and nor did she wish she had, because talking to people took up neural space, used energy, was a waste of perfectly good life, a life that could otherwise be spent productivelytalking was static, a necessary connection that didnt necessarily fulfill some void because she really didnt have a void to fill with her cat and her two tetra fish being rather needy additions to her life, not the sort of animals that could go without attention, but, she didnt talk to them either and she never named the cat because she never felt a need to address it personally, to communicate with it, because it was a cat, and the fish, well, they needed no further explanationshe had assumed there was a chance it would happen sooner or later, that someone would approach her for no reason other than to introduce him or herself, because up until that very moment she had safely escaped all awkward first-meetings through the lingering architectural genius of that ancient somebody who divined corners for her to stand in, and she would spend better parts of hours in their geometric embrace, sipping complimentary tea and munching complimentary tarts at the required weekly office meetings (the office requiring attendance to flex its communal muscle, to reinforce its chain of snack-munching, soda-sipping work-lovers who it assumed felt themselves privileged to be part of the corporate family because cookies are thicker than water, and who, it hoped, would use this love-energy to type reports at a superhuman pace) not particularly wishing for but not exactly dreading the moment someone who had been introduced to her by someone else who had be introduced to her took the time to distinguish her from the floral wallpaper and to introduce her (at a formal distance, assuredly) to another in the abyss of neutral acquaintances, people she didnt care for or about but people who liked to think they cared for or about her either in the flesh or in principle and were showing it through a three-way introduction, a social charityso the odds were not in her favor, she had escaped the awkwardness of direct meetings for far too long she figured, but she never thought it would happen at that moment, in the frozen food isle, between the Red Baron Pizzas and the Pillsbury Toaster Strudels, right in front of the myriad Hot Pockets, but it did none the less and there was nothing she could do to stop it that would appear out of the realm of human normalcy (having already considered running away and feigning deafness) so she decided to speak back when he spat out a one-word hello within her general ear-shot, only knowing of one thing to say in response to such a curt introduction, well, at least what she imagined to be a curt introduction: hello, to which he abruptly threw out his arm and extended a palm, suspending his palm a few seconds until she realized that she was to extend hers as well, which she did with a sort of fumbled haste, dropping the Hot Pockets into her cart and her purse onto the floor, scooping up the purse with her left arm and jutting out her right, shaking with a half-grip the mans palm, and retracting her arm immediately, not quite knowing what to do next, whether she was to walk away or to stand there with a Mona Lisa smile, so she turned to the side, in complete profile, feigning an inspection of the freezer in front of her until he noticed that something better come next or else hed have to walk away as well, so he said I think I know ya from somewhere to which she replied I dont think so, to which he retorted yeah, you bowl at the Mallard down on Green Street, to which she responded no, I dont bowl and then he did not know what else to do, didnt know what else to say except for my names Mike, the woman looking at him with eyes unimpressed and disinterested, disenchanted with her first meeting ever, wondering how she might escape without having to tell him her name, responding hello Mike, waiting for him to go away, slowly shuffling backward, until he said it, he asked her her name, cracking some sort of freshly unwrapped mint gum between his molars, making a rhythmic and quite annoying noise that clashed terribly with her creative juices, rendering her incapable of lying, and so she said her name was Cynthia because it was damn it, it was, and when he heard her voice he perked up, his head cocking like a puppys, eyes widening a bit, face softening a bit, voice creaming thats a beautiful name, sugar he said and she felt her face light on fire, her mouth joining the revolt by smiling huge and gaping despite her brain telling it to just simmer down for a minute because sincerely the man was not attractive and he just called her sugar and what the hell sort of woman would even give such a deadbeat a chance, not to mention he was in bad need of a haircut and a floss, but she couldnt do anything to stop her mouth from talking back thank you, it said, it said that without her permission, and her hand also wantonly took the pen he extended and wrote down her phone number exactly as she remembered it to look, despite the fact that she was thinking about how she most definitely should not give her phone number to a man who extended a pen promoting J&Js Bail Bondswhen youre in the clink, we got the change, and when the atrocities were coming to a close her hand motioned one of those feminine, flowery waves, a wave that her muscles must have inherently known, a wave that she had never ever practiced before, a wave that she couldnt stop, as he walked away, spinning around like Joe Cool to shoot his double-fisted hand guns at her at her and to wink, leaving her shocked and aghast in the frozen food isle, her body warm and happyand days later while she was eating one of the Lean Cuisines she had picked up the very day that the grocery store had turned on her, had become a place where she was suddenly not alone anymore, a place where she now must keep one eye on the deli line and the other on the world, a place were men like Mike go to squeeze women the way the women squeeze the Hot House organic tomatoes (and she was now officially a member of that particular group of women who need to watch out for themselves because men like Mike are always on the prowl, Mike now being nothing more than a memory, a single not-quite-faceless man in a group of supermarket Casanovas which she had decided probably existed), the phone rang and she picked it up on the third ring making sure to clear her throat of remaining Herb Roasted Chicken before saying Hello, to which a raspy, grammatically incorrect voice responded with Hiyathis Cynthia?, causing her body to swoon, to sway back and forth, to warm from the inside out, to sweat from strange places, to shake at the extremitieshands and feet shaking, that isand to sputter strange utterances such as y-yes, Im herthis is shewhats up?, words such as
whats and up never having found themselves together in any of her greetings, and so a conversation ensued, sparse in dialogue, mainly consisting of how you doins and I-Im goodgreats and whatchu doin Fridays and Im free-wait, let me checkyes, Im availables, until it both culminated and ended in a well, I guess Ill pick ya up around 8ish, followed by an Ill be ready, the woman hanging up the phone and staring at the cat who was now bent over and lapping up her single-serving dinner, wondering what in the hell she had just done, knowing full well she had scheduled a date with a man she had only met once, the first date she had ever scheduled, and now she was going to bedtwo days later finding herself in her front room, dressed in her best two-piece outfit from Cold Water Creek and waiting, waiting for what? she thought to herself because obviously a date so strangely arranged could not and would not be carried outshe would, of course, find herself waking on her living room love seat four hours from now, having fallen asleep while waiting, still dressed in her outfit and not waiting anymore for the man who probably didnt exist, who was probably part of some sick delusion she had dreamed and never woken out of (she could only hope he was a nightmare because she was so nervous that she could not apply any make-up, having stabbed herself in the eye with a mascara wand due to shaking hands, the woman nauseous with pre-date jitters), the woman not even bothering to imagine where he might take her on their date because the date was not to happenuntil it did, because suddenly, while peering out of her front door (she told herself she was standing in front of an open doorway, staring at the naked night street due to sheer curiosity, because, well, Lord, she had been living in this neighborhood for almost five years and she didnt have the faintest idea what sort of things went on outside of her own home) she saw under the streetlamps a strange beast roll slowly toward her, intermittently visible in the beams of street-light orange that only partially illuminated the pavement, a geometric thing, not like the other species of car but sharp-nosed, low-crawling, with a tail that flared metallic and exact, and as it slithered to her door it made a noise like the sound of rats squealing, the sound of rotors eating break pads and break pads biting back at rotors with every revolution of the invisible tires, until it stopped, it stopped deadin front of her face, in front of her straining face, as she pressed her face against her front door, squinting to make out the shape of the grotesque steed upon which her supermarket knight rode in to her rescue, a delorean, christ, a delorean, but she had to smile because who in the world drove a delorean, and who in the hell other than herself knew what a delorean looked like to even become bashful about but she definitely knew that shape from years of reading antique auto magazines, specifically the July, 1977 Road and Track, and she had secretly always wanted to ride in one, to gracefully release the passenger side gull wing door so that it floated up and away from the door frame, rising lightly toward the sky like a mechanical prayer whilst other car doors lumbered from side to side, to slide into its slippery vinyl bucket seats that gripped her buttocks with friendly sensuality, to fiddle with the cold, hard gear shifter that sprung from the center console like a futuristic wonderstick, to submissively caress the narrow, streamlined steering wheel from her passive passenger-side position, to close the gull wing door with one fell swoop of the right arm and to sit in perfect silence with the spacious yet sporty interior engulfing her body in a shadow of cool luxurybut she realized that now she should focus on the issue at hand, that the strange man from the market did, indeed, turn out to be a tangible human being who was currently parking in front of her house, oh jesus, in front of her house, which meant he now knew where she lived and what color her clothing was and everything, and now she was supposed to act all nonchalant and subtly surprised by his presence on her front porch and if she slammed her front door shut at this exact moment it would be way to obvious and hed still knock, making the event even more realwhat in the hell she was to say to him and why he even wanted to meet with her she did not even considerso she decided to just wait in front of the screen door for him to arrive, poised with one hand on hip, the other twirling hair (her best attempt at casual), sweating through her socks and underwear, her body about to explode from candid frightbut he didnt comeinstead the car emitted a noise like a monolithic goose, the sound reverberating against brick homes, and when she didnt realize that the noise was summoning her the car honked again and again, in series of three nasal reports until her body overrode her brain and kicked itself into gear, spastically grabbing a purse and keys and locking itself out of its own home while her brain still sat around wondering how and why this all was happening when all she really wanted to do was finish the pillow sham she was quiltingand so she finally got to release the gull wing door of an antique delorean, the experience falling short of religious as she was forced to heave the weight of the door above her head, the raw metal hinges chewing themselves to shreds as she did so until there was enough room to bend down and insert her body into the bucket seat, realizing after she had done so that she had to let down a leg onto the ground so as to stable herself enough to pull with both hands the gull wing door until it reluctantly clicked back into place, and when she had done so the man cranked the knob on his dashboard until the space filled with synthesized sound and said hey baby, look great, lets ride and so they drove, the car peeling away from the curb with the sudden heat of a freshly struck matchstick, the woman not yet even buckled in, not yet even having detected with her probing fingers the nylon strap that was to save her life ifscratch thatwhen the sporadic beast of a machine went careening into a freshly laid wall of bricks, the man looking over his shoulder with a nonchalant grin, turning toward her, eyes completely engaged in the act of casual gazing upon his date instead of preventing a bloody death, to say theres no seatbelt, which, when realized by the woman, sent a surge of nerves shooting down into the throws of her stomach, churning up breakfast and lunch, which in turn welled up her asophogus in horrific surges while she thought to herself no seatbeltno seat-belt...no SEATBELT my god, my sweet god, where am I and who is this and he smiling at me and not letting me out of the car, and he should LET me out of here rapefireI am going to DIEI am not like thisI am not this kind of womanI am not supposed to be here.not hereat homeI am supposed to be taking care of the cat and fishI have already made myself dinner for tonightthe meatloaf is in the freezerand where am I going because I dont even know where I am goingoh christ, he is going to kill me and I have always had nightmares about being stabbed to death so I pretty much think I know what itll feel like except, oh my god, it will hurt worse that my imagination and it wont be a dream because I am going to diedie in the back of this carin the darknessafter he has torn my clothing off and muscled me into submission, taking away from me my body and soulleaving me screaming silently while paralyzed in the nightas she sat with her legs crossed tighter than the center of a pretzel, her arms folded like a twisted handkerchief about her middle, staring straight ahead in dead silence while Guns n Roses blared from his hi-fi dashboard stereo ringing a tinny rendition of Welcome to the Jungle, a song that only sounded vaguely familiar to her (she renounced listening to music after a near-death experience she had during the 1980s when, while driving in her Buick, she was forced to pull over to the side of the road when she was overtaken by asthmatic fits caused by a nearly unrecognizable cover of the Turtles hit I Think Were Alone Now by a squeaky voiced teenaged girl who dared overstep her boundaries and mingle synthesizer and electronic drums with lyrics too delicate for faux musicsince then she had not actively turned on her radio, still afraid that the world harbored such blasphemy), vaguely familiar in a bad way, the same way the cigarette smoke curling in the air was reminiscent of the first and last pool hall she entered at the age of eighteen, but the man didnt look familiar at all; she had never seen him before in her entire life because he wasnt the man at the supermarket, he just couldnt be because he was bathed in shadow and in thick black hair, hair all over his face and head, his whole face covered in darkness and darkness, a pair of sunglasses sitting atop his head like a growth, conforming to his skull shape as if they had always been there, as if he was born with sunglasses entangled in the mop on top of his head, his body shaking and shimming to the musicyes, he was insane and dangerous and she decided she must sit still and perhaps disappear against the dark black vinyl, and she thought perhaps she was successful because he did not speak at all to her as they drove down the towns main street, but when a pair of fluorescent yellow arches made their infinitesimal appearance along the far reaching suburban horizon, he squinted and made a noise, a sort of growl or grunt, and spoke out directly to the large (but small in the distance) golden letter M, and said something garbled along the lines of daddy needs a Big Mac, and she thought my god, hes got to eat before he tears me limb from limb watching the phosphorescent yellow M draw closer and closer still until not only did the gigantic capital letter exude a faux halo of light but also the entire building appeared to be aflame, ignited by neon tubing, beams of whiteness bursting from the large plate glass windows of the small otherwise brick building, making her eyes water (she only used natural lighting in her house), almost eating her alive with its dry glow, and while the car hummed and squealed and spun into a front row parking space, his hands and body thrust into circular symbiosis with the steering wheel, his fingers tapping the wheels outer edge to the beat of the hair-metal band playing on his dashboard speakers, she, for the first time that evening, perhaps for the first time ever, caught a glimpse of her face in the side view mirror and noted that for a woman of thirty-five she had absolutely fabulous skin, a milky, fair complexion, highly reflective in this light and complimentary to her stunning brown eyes, eyes not only brown but which, in this artificial lighting, appeared to exhibit subtle flecks of green, little teasing bits of alternative colormy god, she was a knockoutwhich coincidentally matched her olive green shirt (as well as matched her olive green pantsshe ordered her clothing from a particular catalogue that specialized in two piece ensembles, shirt and pant sets that the magazine claimed could be mixed and matched provided that the customer bought two sets, but she never bought more than one set at a time) and as she ruminated her hands spontaneously began to tease her hair, to stroke her cheeks, to arrange her eyebrows so that all of the petite hairs were swept up and outward, to perform a facial maintenanceand during her transcendent episode he looked over to her, with nothing else left to do (the radio was now turned off as well as ignition), with an appearance almost delicate, but not quite, his eyes flitting back and forth in a subtle storm of confusion, a little frightened to disturb her assumedly private ritual, until he realized that if he merely sat there staring he might die there staring because she showed no signs of ceasing, so he blurted you comin in or waitin here? to which she replied with a sudden bodily convulsion, the type that catch you by surprise when youre surprised, which snapped her back into the present and away from her timeless skin and eyes, back into a hypersensitive state in which she was all too aware now that her right hand was stroking her cheek, which she stopped doing immediately, suddenly jerking her head to her left, facing him, eye to eye, less than a rulers length away from his face, and noted that his eyes, though almost devoid of lashes, were a brilliant turquoise blue, and his mustache was befitting of his masculine square jaw, in fact, he was quite attractive, this analysis taking place in a fraction of a second as she thought quickly of something to say which was where are we to which he said what does it look like? McDonalds, his face smirking with disbelief, his head shaking left to right in his Joe Cool sort of fashion, in a chick, get with the program sort of way, to which she replied oh, lets go then, and they did, each of them reaching down to the bottom of the door frame and releasing the not-so swooping wings of doors so that they creaked high above the cars roof, walkers-by staring at the car as if it were a circus sideshow and chuckling behind cupped hands at the man, who, for the first time that evening stepped outside of the car, donning a tight, shiny, red leather jacket, a jacket that had been stabbed to death by a Bedazzled machine, silver-looking studs protruding from every seam of the small shell of a coat, a coat which was the cherry atop a tight acid washed pair of Wrangler jeans, jeans so tight that a zipper at the ankle of each leg was required to loosen the cotton-spandex blend enough to slide them down ones calf muscles, and the shoesoh dear god, the shoesneon orange slip on Vans with elastic ribbing that featured a black-and-white checkered pattern, the man who clearly had never stepped outside of the decade which seemed to have marked the apex of his earthly existence, a man who was clearly stuck in his own time-space continuum and perfectly happy there, and she finally got a good look at him thanks to McDonalds lighting and she wasnt afraid anymore, not to say she wasnt curious as to whether or not she survived the night, but she definitely felt some sort of connection to the man, an attraction to his distinct short and tin can-like shape and curious clothing choice, heavens, she felt almost a kin to the mans solitary stance against the blinding McDonalds backdropshe knew what it was like to stand alone and she suddenly desired to stand alone next to himso she did.

it's 5,107 words long.
its ending has nothing to do with its beginning because i ran out of time. it's half a story.