Captain's Log: Day 7 Post-BotBall
Today was more interesting, but not in the way I had meant and not in a way that has me feeling chipper. Let's cut the fluff and just recount the morning.
I woke up to the smell of burning food and banging of something in the kitchen. My assumption, and presumably yours as well, was proven unfortunately true as rubbing my eyes I walked out to a smokey haze and a certain critter sitting in my recliner nibbling on charred toast clutched in those deceptively endearing hands of his.
“I see you are back”
“Huh?”
“Yesterday, I figured you had finally up and left.”
“You are talking crazy man, but then again you were acting crazy. How many times does a man need to double check the mini ravioli with and without meatballs is separated yet also as a whole kept far away from the pasta shells?”
I could have sworn he wasn't here at all yesterday but he hit the nail on the head with what I was doing.
“Man, I could have sworn you weren't here at all yesterday but you did hit the nail on the head with what I was doing.”
“Well, you only spent like 3 hours on it so it was hard to miss.”
“Yeah it must have been... so um, burnt toast?”
“Uhhh obviously, I'm not gonna eat plain bread I'm not an animal”
Certainly debatable but I figured I should just let that slide
“Okay fair point, but BURNT toast?”
I think I still pushed some buttons because he got mighty indignant.
“Look buddy, I am a goddamn Raccoon, you expect me to know how to use a toaster?”
“Also a fair point. Just be more careful next time”
“Yeah, we both know that's not gonna happen.”
I couldn't do anything but let out a massive sigh and appreciate the honesty.
“Yet again, fair point. Alright well I am gonna get to work so just, uh, try to not burn the place dow.”
“Yup.”
At this point I realized he was on my kindle fire messing around with god knows what, maybe this would explain why I had to factory reset it the other week if he has been using it. Honestly though, as long as it keeps him placated for a while I see nothing wrong with letting him browse the web before I get him hauled away.
Mumbling the serenity prayer to myself, I went over to my drawers and looked for a project of passion that had been secretly toiling away at on and off over the summer that I had plans to start up again, however to my dismay it was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps it was just misplaced I thought, but I opened all of the various compartments it could possibly be in, double and triple checking as I grew more panicked until I had no other option but to take a shot in the dark and ask.
“So, uh, have you by any chance seen my booklet of… drawings?”
“You have a shit load of those so you are gonna have to be more specific.”
I am one to do abstract doodles so this was actually a reasonable, albeit rudely voiced reply.
“Alright, so, not the books of random shapes and lines, this was like a book book.”
“Like a book or actually a book?”
I had no choice but to let my secret project be known.
“Okay promise not to laugh, it said ‘Boardwalk Umpires’ on the front, it was, I dunno, I guess a fan fiction of sorts. I mean, you know what, it was a Manga I took it upon myself to write after a flash of inspiration. I want to finish it and send it around to publishers.”
“Oh is that what that was? I thought it was trash so I threw it out”
Hearing that was as if a hot knife was thrust into my soul.
“What?! Why?! I had it carefully filed away, how could you mistake it for garbage!”
“No, I mean it fucking sucked so I put it in the dumpster where it belonged.”
I think we can all agree that was harsh. I don't know WHY, but I tried to justify myself to the Racoon even if it would likely go over his head and he wouldn't appreciate the rich complexities even if spoon-fed to him.
“It was a first draft, of course it had issues!”
“The first and most important one being that it even existed”
“I just needed to work out a few kinks, it had potential...”
“To make me claw my own eyes out, face it dude that was bad, real bad, sacrilegiously so, I did you a favor.”
The worst part is that his words felt sincere. How could I be anything but defensive at that point.
“It was NOT that bad!”
“You think not? First off who the hell is Joe West, why is he wearing a cowboy hat with his name on it, and why does he live in a dystopian Atlantic City where he, and I quote from the synopsis on the back cover you HAND WROTE IN COMIC SANS, "Runs an underground baseball league with Pete Rose after Rob Manfred, in an tragic bout of roid rage mixed with an amphetamine fueled psychosis, shut down the entire sport of baseball and via pulling strings and calling in favors within the seedy underbelly of the shadow government managed to make so much as playing the Great American Passtime punishable by death"?”
“It was a social commentary!”
“On what, how awful you are at coming up with story concepts and characters and how your drawings are straight up ass?”
“It was shakey, I will give you that, but I was going to do some revisions on it today and now all my hardwork is gone!”
“If you are so bent out of shape next time maybe, you know, do it on a computer like an adult and make backups.”
I was impressed by his knowledge of responsible file redundancy to avoid the problems that can arise from file loss and data corruption yet that did little to quell my anger.
“I was going for a raw, visceral art style that you can't get from a digital medium!”
“Blah blah blah, shut up hipster, the only good part was in the speak easy when Pete Rose in a bowler hat kneecapped the double agent with a corked bat after telling him to "never bet against your own team", that got a hearty chuckle out of me but other than that it was a solid D minus.”
“I am glad you liked the reference but I fail to see why you pitched the whole thing and didn't just give me feedback...”
“Reference? I just like the violence, was that alluding to something?”
“Never mind, just never mind, I am going to go cry now.”
“Alright sounds good, if you need me please don't.”
The unsympathetic Raccoon went back to eating his breakfast and watching what I think was Guardians of the Galaxy with German subtitles on. I would be lying if that didn't pique my curiosity but at the same time I just wanted to curl up in a ball, having lost what could have been my breakout work of literature.
Moral of the story? I have no clue whatsoever, if I had to come up with something it would be to the effect of "If you are living with a Racoon hide your toaster and keep your Manga in progress behind lock and key", but admittedly I doubt that is a relatable message.
That's all for now, I suppose I should get to the rebuilding process, it is going to take a while to redraw everything. Hopefully I have some of the original rough sketches tucked away still, I think the concept as a whole has promise.