I went to a store today.  I am poor.  Sometimes I don't even like to buy a big gulp at seven-eleven because I don't want to waste the dollar.  I like to pay in pennies when I go to seven-eleven.  This upsets the workers.  They are middle eastern.  I try to make the pennies stand in neat little stacks of ten.  I think maybe the workers would like small talk.  I have no idea what kind of small talk they prefer.  Maybe they have a dog.  I ask.  They do not have a dog.  Maybe they are lying.  I do not want to follow them home to find out.  I ask if they have been busy today.  They say, "No."  They do not waste any syllables when they say, "No."  I could take a lesson from them.  I am always using four or five more syllables than I should when I say, "No."  It is more like, "Um...Well...I think maybe...nah."  It is not even clear if I mean "No."  When people ask me if I am coming to their birthday and I don't want to go, but answer in the described manner then the person often thinks there is a good chance I am coming and a strong possibility that I will be bringing a big gift.  This makes me feel guilty.  I begin to feel bad that this person thinks I might be coming baring large gifts.  It is this guilt that ends up forcing me to go to this party I don't want to go to.  I bring a small gift.  They act happy and do not tell me they were expecting a big gift.

*
I was at a store.  The store was not seven-eleven.  It was a book store.  There was a poetry book by the guy who fixed my floor.  I picked it up.  It was 100 pages.  It cost $14.  I began reading it.  Some of the poems talked about stealing groceries.  I thought maybe the author wanted me to steal this book.  I wish he was still fixing my floor so I could ask him if I should steal this book.  Then again, I am not entirely sure the guy who fixed my floor wrote this book of poetry.  If he was still fixing my floor I would ask him.  He would either say, "No," or he would say, "Yes."  I used to think those were the only two options.  I do not know anymore.  Maybe he would say, "Yes," and give me a book.

*
The guy who fixed my floor came at 7am.  The landlord said he would not show up until 9am.  I was still sleeping.  He knocked on my door.  He said he was the floorman.  I did not ask for his credentials.  I believed him.  I think there was another time he fixed my floor. When he was finished I think he left a note.  If he did leave a note it said, "Your floor is fixed.  Sincerely, floorman."  These are his words.  He is a poet.  After he knocked on my door and reintroduced himself and I believed him we went into my room and looked at the erupting parque flooring.  It didn't seem like real parque.  It was brittle and I imagined it was from the clearance section of the flooring store.  I did not ask him to replace the broken parquet with organically grown parque.  The floorman was intimidating.  I was just glad he was willing to fix it.  I took one last look and then went in the living room and sat down on the couch.  I checked my internet.  This meant checking emails, blogs, messageboards, emails, blogs, messageboards, emails, etc...all day.  Sometimes what I saw inspired me and I wrote a sentence and then changed it and then deleted it because I didn't like the outcome.

*
When I went to the book store today I read the first two sections of the book and then left the store.  I thought a lot about whether stealing groceries translated into stealing the floorman's book.  I thought about this as I walked to my friend's office building.  They did not own the building. They just worked there.  When I went inside they weren't there.  I looked out the window and saw one of her overweight coworker's getting into their fiancé’s car.  I went out to dinner with them once. I did not want to talk to them.  I wanted to run home instead of talking to them.  My phone beeped.  There was a voicemail.  I do not remember it ever ringing.  I listened to my voice message from space.  I liked the idea of recordings of people saying my name floating around in outer space.  I do not think this is the way voicemail works.  It does not work this way because I did not invent it.  The message from space or from unanswered phone call prison said that I would have to go to the movie alone.  I knew this would be the message before I heard it.  I left my friend's office building.  I walked back to the book store.

*
The floorman did not finish my floor until 10pm.  I felt bad.  I think his head hurt from the glue fumes.  His poetry suffered.  I imagine him trying to write poetry after he got home and had eaten a vegan dinner.  The results made the world cry.  All he could do was touch his forehead to the keys of his keyboard.  He did not leave his room for 40 hours.  His boss called and left six messages in space.  All the parque flooring was coming up.  The whole city was suffering from tiny earthquakes. People feared their kitchens and bedrooms and even the occasional dance floor were being invaded by tunneling vermin.  One basketball team almost had to cancel their entire season as a result. Fear throughout the city grew. They worried these were the end of times, hell bubbling over.  Many people watched Ghostbusters and cried and committed suicide. The floorman no longer wondered if he existed.  He worried he existed in too many places.  The local news called him a growing problem.

*
I began reading part three of the floorman's book.  It did not seem like he was a growing problem.  My fingers were a little sticky.  I used the bathroom.  I did not want to ruin the floorman's book. My fingers were no longer dirty. I looked at my watch. I remembered looking at my watch when the floorman didn’t leave before 10pm. I do not own a watch. I draw on my wrist when I wake up. The movie started in fifteen minutes. I had to make a decision about the floorman’s book of poetry. I could finish it in the store, steal it, or buy it. I had no money. Time was running out. It was almost time to go to the movie alone. I did not even have money for this movie. I would tell them I was a great reviewer and had chosen to review the movie I wanted to see. This would help explain why I was going to the movie alone.

*

When I finished part three I did not know what to do next. I couldn’t remember if the floorman ever left my room. Maybe he is still working on the parquet flooring. I do not know. I should know. I slept in my bed last night. My bed is in my room. I should know who is in my room when I am sleeping in it. I sleep with a fan on because of the glue fumes. I regret not asking for organically grown parquet flooring.

*

I decided not to go to the movie alone. I stayed in the bookstore until it closed. I finished part four of the floorman’s book. I wished there was a part five. The employees in the store asked me to leave. The lights were turned off. I wondered if the alarms were off. It was too late to put the floorman’s book under my shirt. All the employees were watching me. The registers were turned off. I did not know what I should do. I wanted to run home. I wondered if the off-duty employees would chase me if I stole the book and ran home or if they would go to the bar and spend their wages and go home drunk and fall asleep on their flooring and not realize this flooring is trying to signal to them that the end is near.