Letter from my Roommate

Letter from my Roommate
November 21, 2003
On the Birth of His son

This is just
To say
I have drank
the beers
that were in
the refrigerator
and which
you were probably
planning on drinking
for breakfast
Forgive me.
They were
so good;
so sweet
and so cold

Kickball

My life has been full of embarrassment, but there was one event in my history that stands out as a tragic humiliation.
Flashback to early sixth grade, the sun is softly burning in the noon sky as a gentle breeze shakes the pines. I feel the mild pain of a stomachache, yet I decide the day is too beautiful to waste lingering inside. As we begin to play a game of kickball, I eagerly await my turn to pitch.
After an eternity, I step up to the mound. Joyfully flaunting my talents, I rear back and unleash a curve flying towards the plate. The ball is hit square
and it comes back at me with equal force. A sudden impact into my stomach jars something loose, for the next thing I know, the seat of my pants is full of dripping, rancid filth.
The filth incident was horrible, but there was insult added to injury. First, the nurse had to clean me up, then she was to call my parents. The trouble was, my parents were nowhere to be found. Because of that, I had to sit in the nurse’s station until my parents could be found, or four hours.
Ever since that day, I’ve been a different person. I attribute that incident to making me who I am today. Sure, I heard about that incident every day until I moved away, but my skin grew four inches thicker that day.

knew a man

I knew a man once. He was a man people could not understand. One day, while fishing, he caught a trout. This was not any trout. The trout that he caught talked to him in his sleep. He was my roommate at the hospital. People did not believe him. They said that he belonged in this hospital. I did not think that he belonged. I liked him. He was my friend.


All the doctors and nurses on the floor of the mental ward watch out for crazy Jamie. His long bout with alcoholism coupled with his schizophrenia made him a man that the orderlies tried to avoid. The medications were of sub-par effect, at least of what the doctors expected. They suspected that he was not taking them, even though the nurses were very watchful of the patients as they imbibed the cup of water to wash down the pills.
He was prone to violent fits of rage, which had broken many of the chairs in the recreation room. No one ever had any real idea what he was ever talking about in his conversations. He constantly carried on a conversation, regardless of whether or not there was anyone around to hear. If anyone was around, the only difference was that he made audible the discourse on whatever he was currently talking about. At the very least, we know that he was never lonely. He seemed to be talking to his old fishing friends most of the time, because somehow he always brought up the subject, even here in the dry Arizona climate. Jamie’s close friends seem to have been partial to trout fishing, as it is the most common subject heard on the floor.