From short story STEVE

The first time I met Steve, an airplane crashed into the world trade center. That was weird. He was walking down the street and so was I and we bumped and that was that. Well I mean, I tried to keep on walking and stuff, but then he was like, hey man wait up you forgot your scarf, and I was like, it's September, why would I be wearing a scarf? And he was was like, well, either way, you dropped it when you bumped into me. And I was like, oh, that's a bandana (dummy). Then we heard this sound and looked up. We didn't see anything, but later there was lots of dust and junk.

The second time I met Steve was at this party. Don't ask me how or why he was there. He didn't know anybody there, at least as far as I could tell, but what did I know, I didn't really know anybody there either. I was just with my roommate and she told me there'd be hot girls there so I was like, yeah I'm there. But then there weren't really any hot girls there, but there was this one guy that was rather strange looking and pretty familiar too. He came up to me sort of out of nowhere and said, hey my name is Steve. Which was the first time I ever knew his name, although I think it woulda been much better for everyone if I hadn't ever learned his name, if you know what I mean, and I think you do.

I didn't really know what to say, so I didn't say much of anything. He told me he picked up my scarf, and then I told him, wasn't that the day the twin towers got crashed into? And he said, yeah it was. Then I didn't know what to say, so I was like, you know, if you hadn't picked up my bandana that day, we wouldn't even be talking right now. And that's when he said that if he hadn't picked up my scarf that day, he wouldn't be much of anything. Well, I thought that was a pretty funny thing to say. Then I looked down and my leg was on fire. It was pretty big on fire and I panicked and spilled my drink on it which didn't make it any better and then before I knew it Steve was gone and I was in the hospital with a bit of a burnt up leg. That's when I found out I had some weird disease. Kinda lame, if you ask me, to get your leg burnt up and then think finally my leg is done being burnt up, then the doctor comes in and tells you you've got some weird disease. But it's not any big deal. I mean, I've just got to do some certain things is all, otherwise it's like I don't have any weird diseases at all.

The third time I met Steve was yesterday. Earlier in the day, I'd been walking down the street, I forget what street, but there was this really ugly dog walking down the street with this really ugly lady on the leash. Her name was Fanny, and she was one of those dogs that looks like a bulldog but isn't. I forget what they're called. And she was ugly but cute. So I went down to pet her, but I dropped my keys. I don't really know how, but to make a long story short they ended up on the ground and Fanny ate them. Don't ask me why she ate my keys, but she took them up in her mouth and I didn't really know what to do because it was so weird. I just stood there and the ugly lady on the end of the leash looked at me and I said, Fanny just ate my keys. And she said she was real sorry, and she'd keep an eye out in Fanny's poop and all. And I said, how does that help me? Because these days I don't have a roommate anymore, and those are the only set. But I didn't really have time to worry about it because I just then realized that I was pretty late to stuff and all.

After my stuff and all, I was walking through some park, I think it had trees in it and stuff, and guess who I run into? So I walk up to him, and go, hey Steve, some dog ate my keys. Then he was like, oh that's too bad, and I was thinking, yeah too bad my ass, you don't even care. But just then a dog came up to Steve's leg and started coughing. It's funny to see dogs cough because they look so pathetic that it's pretty cute and stuff. It was a little dog, like one of those shit soos. My aunt has this dog that's called a shit poo, which is hilarious because shit and poo are the same thing, at least I thought it was but then nobody else did when I kept shouting out shit poo.

And this shit soo started coughing and his little body shivered and it almost looked like he was going to die or something. Then a key popped out of his mouth. I looked at it suspiciously. I wondered, you know, this is awful coincidental. Maybe there's some sort of mad dogs disease going around that makes dogs eat keys. But Steve just said, I bet this key has to do with the key you lost earlier. And I said, no you think? No crap it does. A freaking dog coughed it up. No way that's a coincidence. Then Steve told me to try to open my door with it, and before I could tell him no crap, that's what I'm going to do, he was gone. Like, he didn't disappear, obviously, but I couldn't find him anywhere. It was weird.

I got home and the key worked. Which was strange because I was sure it wouldn't. And then what was even stranger was when I walked into my apartment. There was a giant cat sleeping on my couch. And I don't mean like, a mountain lion or a tiger or some junk, I mean a giant cat. He wasn't just really fat either. He was a cat the size of a Great Dane. And he wouldn't wake up, either. I was wondering to myself, how did he even fit through the door? But then I got bored and plus he wasn't going anywhere anyway, so I just went to sleep. Which brings me to today.

Today I woke up and there was a giant cat sleeping next to me. Don't ask me how he got from the couch to the bed, but he did. And without waking me up, either.

When I woke up, I felt a lot like I'd been hit by a car and fell into a coma and three months later I miraculously recovered (randomly) only to find that my wife had been remarried to my brother. Except the problem was I didn't have a wife or a brother, which made me remember the giant cat.

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*This excerpt is used with the permission of author & is from a much larger & unpublished short story.