The Diary of Mitch R. Singer

In a house. Somewhere.
The tranquil domestic scene. A lawn with a gnome out front, judging the passersby as they pass by. An automatic sprinkler system to keep said lawn verdant and youthful. I never knew how much I desired an artificially beautified lawn. One-hundred pounds of nitrogen fertilizer are dumped on my yard a year. They say that the excess nitrogen gets into the water system, that it kills ecosystems and poisons our world. What is our world but the microcosm that we live in? All I know is this yard and the pristine house resting behind it. If you ventured down my street, you would have trouble distinguishing my house from any other. I'll give you a hint: it's the one with the well-cared for yard. The yard that was manicured by a god.

At a basketball game.
The children run the court in their oversized jerseys, awkwardly fumbling the ball, their limbs slender like sticks collected for kindling. One of those children out there is mine; I cannot tell you which, not right now. Every so often I lose myself in the blur of surroundings, in the ever-present excess of detail. I'm like a toddler wandering the main strip of Las Vegas; everything is bright and flashing and moving. Sometimes I remember different lives lived by a stranger, though that stranger seems familiar, always familiar. He probably has my disease is what I figure. My wife suddenly grabs me and says that Billy has scored a goal. Great job, Billy. Let us pray that whatever I have is not genetic.

Date night. Stranded on a hillside, with the moon lurking like a spotlight in the sky.
My wife puts her arms around me. We stare at the city down below, twinkling like the stars hidden by its light pollution. It seems like I am an everyman always perched on the corner of a cultural zeitgeist. Though I wear the trappings of a plebeian, I always transcend my origins, somehow. It will go wrong, you know. It always does. Someone gets tossed into the drunk tank, and they look at his hands and find them covered in blood. She asks me if I love her. I say "yes," like I'm answering a game show question. In the background, I hear the buzzer.