PENDLETON

I take photographs from the internet and then write short stories about them!

By Paul Pakler (Actor, Writer)

(Photograph from the Wilds of Pinterest)

 

        Pendleton was a rebel. Whenever people took his photograph, he always looked off-to-the-side. Whenever acquaintances (Pendleton had no friends) asked him to play in mud puddles, he always wore a sensible dress. And whenever Pendleton found himself confronting two roads diverged in a wood, he always took the road more traveled because, “I’m not some cliched, self-congratulatory motherfucker.”

        Pendleton was always looking for a reason to punch you in the face. He rode around on a tricycle, which he referred to as “my motherfucking bicycle.” He did this in the hopes that someone would dare to correct his mathematical accuracy. It happened once. Poor Billy Trundle…

        Pendleton loved dipping his French fries in a Wendy’s Frosty®. That really has nothing to do with the rest of the story, but it’s gross, and I thought you should know.

        On the afternoon of February 23, Pendleton sat up from his meditation session. (In another stunning example of iconoclasm, Pendleton was more keen than most to the mental-health benefits of daily meditation.) As Pendleton slowly drifted back into the prison that is “self,” he realized that the pettiness and egoism of day-to-day life would forever bar humanity from any hope of achieving egalitarian utopia. This greatly angered Pendleton, so he decided to steal some hubcabs from “the rich motherfuckers up the hill.”

        As Pendleton rode his bi/tricycle up the hill, out of the corner of his eye, he noticed a Gazania - growing all by itself in the middle of a field. Pendleton rode over to talk with it.

        “Hey,” huffed Pendleton, slightly out of breath.

        The Gazania stood there.

        “Yeah, this motherfucking weather. 78 degrees in February,” Pendleton commiserated.

        The Gazania stood there.

        “Aw, hell, I better get movin’. Thanks for the talk.”

        The Gazania stood there.

        Suddenly, Pendleton turned into three koala bears.They took turns eating the Gazania and then clambered up a nearby tree and took naps.

 

The end.

 

What, did you want some Joseph-Campbell-Hero’s-Journey crap, you lacking-in-imagination motherfucker?

PAUL PAKLER is an actor and writer living in New York City.
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