Author's Note: I'm still brainstorming and writing for Comunity, Identity, Stability but I was away for a while this summer. Here's just a short chapter I wrote one day which may or may not be a full piece. Who knows? It would be much appreciated if you could review. Now, to the story!

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I hate attention. It’s bad enough that I’m crippled, in a wheelchair, totally dependant. Well, fuck that. I can hold for my own. My headphones—the kind that are huge and stuffy in the summer—blast out loud music. What can I say? They’re long lasting and look cool, unlike those crappy iPod headphones that break all the time. CD players all the way! It’s still 1999 for me. People give me weird looks, but it’s not that whole death metal shit: it’s mellow rock music I like. Oasis. Yeah. Champagne supernova all the way, man.

The train people are doing their job. Slowly. Well, I can’t blame em. Do the least amount of work for your crappy minimum wage. I have to go on one of those shitty handicapped people things, where there’s a ramp for me to go into, and they close the thing in so I’m in a box with the top off. It’s like I’m sitting down to pee, but I’m mobile at the same time! But I didn’t drink anything, and my legs are shit now, ever since that bastard driver drove head-on into me.

Head-on, apply directly to the forehead.

Head-on, apply directly to the forehead.

Head-on, apply directly to the forehead…

Shit. It’s stuck in my head again. Well, that sort of stuff works, right? The commercial, not the actual product.

Ding!

The elevator bell goes on, and I whisper a quick, ‘Thanks’ before I get off the thing and into the elevator to the outside world.

Unlike those wheelchair victims with their spouses carrying them, I don’t have a wife. I’m one of those cool bachelor dudes, y’know? I don’t need somebody to hold the bars in the back. My arms do the work, and they’ve gotten quite strong. It’s just my legs that lie lazily on the steps, like worthless pawns sitting until the player decides to use em.

The only thing is, I can’t use em. Still, I’m going to the bar as the sun sets. I need a drink.

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My headphones are around my neck, and my gloves are ripped at the edge of my ring finger, after getting caught in the wheel. My eyes are drooping even as I move, and even as loud hip hop music blasts from the TV speakers. I get a spot near the end of the bar. Luckily, I’m tall enough sitting down to peer up at the brown-haired bartender, with hard blue eyes and hands twiddling around like some bad habit.

“A scotch straight up,” I ask, croaking at the last word for having laryngitis yesterday.

“ID?” The bartender asks, impatient, while she taps her foot to the music.

“Here,” I say in an irritated tone. Jesus, does it LOOK like I’m underage?

“A scotch, straight up, for the short 22-year-old.” She says, laughing.

“I’m crippled,” I say, designating my body from under the table.

“Oh.”

An awkward silence ensues while she gives me my drink. I say thanks, and I wheel to a table, moving a chair aside. A few gulps, and I take the drink down. Hard. I have to admit, it makes me a bit woozy. It doesn’t help that I’m tired.

And, somehow, I’m used to loud music. I’m sleeping to loud teenagers with fake IDs, big guys laughing about sports, and loud women with their ‘girlfriends’ on trips to the bathroom. Who would disturb a handicapped man?

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“Hey, dude, wake up,” A voice whispers in silence and a hand brushes against my shoulder. As an instinct, I reach out and move a bit, feeling a soft hand with cut fingernails.

My eyes slowly open, and the bartender stares at me. She smiles and I give her a grimace back, as I wave my arms in a stretch and a yawn.

“Hey,” she says, softly and smiling. “You fell asleep and the bar’s closing.”

“Shit.” 2 AM already?

“Yeah. You slept for a while, eh?”

“I’ve taken sleeping pills a lot lately…it just caught on, I guess,” I said.

“Oh. Well, where do you live?” She asked, just out of curiosity.

“About three blocks from here,” I say, still rolling toward the exit.

“Oh. I live in the apartment right near the park,” She says without any real emotion.

“Really now? Huh,” I say, wanting to leave and get to my house.

“Yeah…well, I’ll catch you later?” She smiles and messes her hair up.

“Um…sure,” I’m still looking at the girl when I meet the stairs to the basement rather than the exit.

Head-on, apply directly to the forehead.

Head-on, apply directly to the forehead.

Head-on, apply directly to the forehead

Head-on, your forehead’s dripping blood.