OK, it’s time to stop worrying about ADHD and start worrying about ADHME, so catch me bursting into Wawa each morning like an aging Kool-Aid Man, huffing wind through a retired-pro-wrestler-with-barrel-chest-and-belly dad torso shoddily held aloft by a pair of skinny jeans as I mumble, “Oh yeah,” while ordering an iced coffee treat via touch-screen technology, and I love how Wawa has two entrances because if someone holds the first door open for you, you can immediately return the favor by utilizing the second entrance, thus bringing two strangers together as one unstoppable kindness unit capable of gradually dismantling this selfish, hateful system we are currently forced to co-exist in, so dear person blasting the 1996 Mark Morrison smash “Return of the Mack” in the Wawa parking lot at 9 AM, letting everyone know, please take me with, and sure, Olive Garden is for families, but Applebee’s is for broken homes, and since I’m a 40-something-year-old restaurant server, whenever I’m asked to describe my career goals I generally just say, “…gone wild,” and sure, education is cool and all, but the only thing I’ve ever majored in was disappointment, though I recently sent a table into hysterics when I overheard a woman ask her friends what “into the manosphere” was and I blurted, “It’s the new Spider-Man movie,” and now I have my own Hulu comedy special in the works, and the bartender at work thinks one of our cooks looks like David Harbour from Stranger Things, so in honor of Lily Allen, I’ve decided to start calling the cook “Pussy Palace,” which reminds me of a comedian named Chef Foxworthy who only tells “you might be a line cook” jokes that feature someone named Larry the Sauté guy, and if you can’t handle me at my dad jokes, then you simply don’t deserve me at my dad bod, so live to be annoyed another day, and instead of Saturday morning cartoons, I now wake up as an adult and start watching YouTube videos of conspiracy theory discourse, homemade pop-culture retrospectives and random people reviewing fast-food items as they sit in their car, and it only takes one classic Weezer or Smashing Pumpkins video for me to spiral into a dark, twisting ’90s YouTube rabbit hole of emotion that usually ends with a Blues Traveler song, so please picture a movie montage where, in bed, I’m daydreaming about having a life coach talk me out of ordering Burger King via the Uber Eats app on my Android phone as “Times Life These” by Foo Fighters plays, which reminds me: my upstairs neighbor loudly singing Sabrina Carpenter songs off-key while vacuuming is going to ruin everything for me… in fact, I once overheard this same upstairs neighbor say to themselves, “I’m super stupid,” and felt a connection, because as a man with no bed frame, I am admittedly silly and complicated and yes, super stupid… in fact, socially I am like a bad Wi-Fi connection, and is our connection even real if we’re not drunkenly talking in circles while staring into an anxiety-induced black hole over each other’s heads, because when you stare into the abyss, the abyss generates a better, AI-enhanced version of yourself, and I highly recommend ending a draining conversation by saying, “Okay, I’m getting out,” like you’re struggling to stay afloat in the deep end of a swimming pool and starting to prune, and tonight, an indecisive customer said, “Sorry, I keep going in circles,” and I said, “It’s OK, at least you’re not going in triangles,” which left us both confused, so I said, “Sorry, I don’t know why I said that,” and now my upcoming Hulu comedy special has been cancelled, and I thought things would be better this year, but things are only worse because of that thought, which means no more thinking, and as a person who jumps from one worst-case scenario to the next, I recommend crawling, which reminds me: quick shout-out to the homeless guy who got carried out on a stretcher in front of my job but then somehow turned up again later that night, stumbling around wasted and stretcher-free, arguing heatedly to no one like a one-man, live-action social media exchange, and usually the night is over after ending up on a stretcher, but not for this king, a real piece of out-of-work, so props, and if a picture is worth a thousand words, my 850-or-so-word story just got its stupid ass beat by a picture, but have you doom-sexted your crush today, and have you pinched out all the anger and pain in your heart like a slowly deflating whoopee cushion, the contents of which to be jarred up and then sold on the internet for top dollar, and are you in league with Satan and Wawa, and do you listen closely to the trash as you wheel it to the curb each week? Does it speak, or even sing to you like smelly, muffled voices from the dead? Do you ever lift the receptacle lid, just slightly, to scream back, and if not, seriously, how come?
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BRIAN ALAN ELLIS, owner and founder of House of Vlad Press and Vlad Mag, has published several books, including The Errors Tour. His writing has appeared at Juked, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Fanzine, Electric Literature, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, HAD, X-R-A-Y, Heavy Feather Review, BULL and Forever Magazine, among many other places. He lives in Florida.
Rejection Letters 