{"id":2099,"date":"2024-04-21T15:00:16","date_gmt":"2024-04-21T19:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/?p=2099"},"modified":"2026-10-07T19:29:14","modified_gmt":"2026-10-07T23:29:14","slug":"2099","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/21\/2099\/","title":{"rendered":"Normal"},"content":{"rendered":"

The word normal is overused.\u00a0 And, by the way, \u2018normal,\u2019 should in no way cause anyone a sense of well-being or security.\u00a0 In today\u2019s world, normal means, \u2018I have you in my clutches.\u2019<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Laugh, I don\u2019t care.\u00a0\u00a0 I just want a cup of coffee and I\u2019m on my way.\u00a0 Yeah, look there, a young mom gathering up her kiddos because I\u2019m talking too loud.\u00a0 That\u2019s okay too.\u00a0 Keep them safe, mom.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

No, I have money.\u00a0 Here it is.\u00a0 I work for a living.\u00a0 I\u2019m not a vagrant.\u00a0 Look, my clothes are clean, outside of walking through this city, and I managed to bathe this morning.\u00a0 Okay, I\u2019m going.\u00a0 I\u2019m going but remember\u2013normal is deceit.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

You following me?\u00a0 Well, don\u2019t I\u2019m not crazy.\u00a0 I will not do something awful.\u00a0 You cops are the ones that give me the most trouble.\u00a0 I\u2019m not in a crowd of thugs, so I\u2019m easy to subdue.\u00a0 If there were five of me, you\u2019d just let me rant on and on, maybe even burn down a building.\u00a0\u00a0 That\u2019s normal.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Listen, I don\u2019t care, seriously.\u00a0 It\u2019s that mom who just left with her kids\u2013and it\u2019s too bad it looks like she could use a cup of coffee-that I feel bad for.\u00a0 But listen, I gotta go. My lunch hour is almost up.\u00a0 I know I talk too loud.\u00a0 But I\u2019m not a bum on the street.\u00a0 Besides, too many bums are on the street.\u00a0 Seriously, where does all the shit go?\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Who am I?\u00a0 Just a person, just a weirdo person, but a viable human being.\u00a0 My parents?\u00a0 Do I look too young to be on my own?\u00a0 My parents are dead.\u00a0 They were pretty sharp, my parents, and they got along.\u00a0 I was a shock to them.\u00a0 Seriously, I think they could read each other\u2019s minds, so when they gotta around to making love, I just don\u2019t think they thought of the consequences.\u00a0 I\u2019m surprised really, I survived the womb portion of my life. They grew things, you see, so they probably thought the entire process worthy of exploration.\u00a0 If I had conversed\u2013not talk mind you\u2013conversed with them at three months, I might have held their attention but that didn\u2019t happen.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

How did they die?\u00a0 I didn\u2019t kill them, not sure who did.\u00a0 I was away at school, so they couldn\u2019t blame me.\u00a0\u00a0 Later, I read the police reports. I\u2019m sorry I did because there were photographs.\u00a0 It wasn\u2019t quick.\u00a0 I mean, there was no love lost between my parents and me, but I was sorry they suffered like that.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What did they do?\u00a0 They grew things; I told you.\u00a0 Grew lots of things.\u00a0 I had a close call with one.\u00a0 True, I shouldn\u2019t have been in their laboratory put for Pete\u2019s sake, I was their son and… curious.\u00a0 Normal?\u00a0 Hell, no, it wasn\u2019t normal.\u00a0 The plant was like their damn guard dog. I\u2019d have been strangled where I stood if I didn\u2019t have sense enough to have a pocket knife.\u00a0\u00a0 The thing was around my neck before I knew what was happening.\u00a0 And do you know what they said?\u00a0 They said that if the thing had bound my hands first, it would have succeeded.\u00a0 They seemed disappointed, not that I had survived, mind you, but their growth hadn\u2019t the sense to bind, then kill.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Oh well.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The plants?\u00a0 No idea I was at school.\u00a0\u00a0 I got their money and their house up on Long Island.\u00a0 I had that place demolished and go up there every once in a while, just to have a look around, make sure all the vegetation is burned to the ground.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t look normal at all, thank God.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The word normal is overused.\u00a0 And, by the way, \u2018normal,\u2019 should in no way cause anyone a sense of well-being or security.\u00a0 In today\u2019s world, normal means, \u2018I have you in my clutches.\u2019\u00a0 Laugh, I don\u2019t care.\u00a0\u00a0 I just want a cup of coffee and I\u2019m on my way.\u00a0 Yeah, …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2186,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,2,43,3],"tags":[13,14,21,23],"class_list":["post-2099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-short-story","category-flash-fiction","category-horror","category-short-fiction","tag-flashfic","tag-horror","tag-shortstory","tag-writing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lydiaink.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/Normal2.png?fit=1536%2C1024&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2099"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2101,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2099\/revisions\/2101"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lydiaink.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}