Editing advise

[Axanderdeath]

Editing advise:

I have an old story here that I want to have a little more. I want to know if you think I should leave it like it was, or leave with the change, or change it even more and make the main charictor save the world in his own way-meaning save the girl. Or is there a better aveonew I could of taken this? Please if you have time I will take any advise, I will put the two versions underneath the change is only a paragragh or two and is between the second last set of X’s… Thanks….


Roaches In The City



Alone in the city Dave was killing his roaches. A box like room, screams and yells down the hall-it was all the colour of a movie from the 60’s-70’s. The roaches came in the room from the sink. He did not tell the landlady. He did not want her coming in his house. The rent was low, and really he expected it to have rats and roaches. He was greeted each morning by the rats jumping off his bed. It was something he thought he would never get use to, but did. It had been years in his box -like surroundings on the 3rd block. Before Dave was on 3rd it was another small box room on 6th. He batted the roaches with a hungry smile, maniacal, and sweat running down his face.
The roaches were running up and around the sink. They went in to spots he could not whack on the wall of the sink. His radio blurred on and on, the roaches ran around, and around, the girl upstairs being beat on the ground-his ceiling, and they were fucking next door, well it was 4.12 PM. He had just gotten home himself from his work which was what ever they (the temp. agency) placed him at that day. Falling back on to his bed he stared at the chips falling on the floor. Upstairs she was still being beat that made four days in a row. Dave had asked if she was alright one day in the hall, but she said nothing. Fuck her then Dave had thought.
Dave pulled from his pocket a pill, white and his salvation. He took it with water:
Walls vibrated, screaming out a symphony of joy. Marching up and down the sink the roaches singing a tone, “Dave, Dave, be more brave” they sang, but this only soothed Dave. Out the window was a bird. Dave laughed. What a funny bird! He thought, and mumbled, “what a bird, what a bird.” Like an old storeowner does looking for his keys. A knock came on the door. The pill was surging in to his mind just below a solid note. Thousands of rushes in a second, and not continuos power. Dave got up and went to the door.
“Who is it”
“Nick” Dave wondered, again like an old storekeeper, “nick, no how do I know a Nick?” He opened the door. A midget stood there. Dave smiled a toothless smile.
“Do I know you?”
“You got roaches?”
“Yes.”
“Yha buddy I am here to get rid of them, I got to get-em in your room. See they got em down stairs. So you got to get every floor.” The midget said. Dave thought his miniature mannerisms were hilarious. It was hard to contain him self.
“Come in. Are you going to be spraying any thing…? Oh so that I can’t be here?”
“No, shit!” The midget said looking at the roaches. “That is one of the worse cases I have ever seen. How can you live like that?”
“What…”
“Nevermind. It is not poisonous, but you may want to leave for a hour or so.”
“Sure.” Dave put on his coat. “I’ll leave you to it Nick.” Dave said firmly. Nick looked at him sensing that Dave was laughing at his size, Dave was.
XXX XXX XXX
In to the rain. It had just started up-as Dave closed the door to the midget-with thunder. This made Dave smile. He lived above a pub. The pub looked like a good place to sit. Dave drank a couple beers. Bill the bartender was drunk, but he owned the place, and that was the kind of place he ran. Dave sometimes was the only guy who would take the bartender’s feeble attempts at being wise and knowledgeable. * Today there was about three people at the bar nodding their heads. Dave stayed back. He did not want to go up until a good layer of drunkenness shielded him from Bills stupidity. He found a nice both in the corner of the room. He liked the booth drinking compared to at the bar like any one else.
In the green padded booth Dave saw a roach. He thought nothing of it. Then he whipped his nose. Looked at his finger after and there was a nice big roach. This startled Dave a bit. He thought he better tell Bill. As much as he did not want to talk to the guy it had to be done.
“Bill, hi, I thought I would let you know that I just found a couple roaches over at that table.”
“Oh yes, that is where I am keeping them.” Bill waved his arm-limp at the wrist.
“Bill one was crawling around on me. Bill, listen. That could be bad for bussniss.”
“We can’t go killing everything now Dave.” It was no use telling Bill in that condition, but some one got up and left as Dave and Bill were talking. When Dave sat back down another big roach was crawling around. He went back up to the bar, and endured with a whiskey.
“I say that it is a shame what’s going on in Iraq. Just bomb those fuckers.” Bill said. Dave did not say a word there was no point, no point.
“It is our freedom,” Another old working man said. Dave cringed. The word Freedom was being used way too much. Everywhere freedom this, security-freedom, blah blah blah. The moron president was using these words that mean too much to people. Fuck him and his PIG FUCK talk, Dave thought. The smile never left his lips. He enjoyed his beer.
XXX XXX XXX
Nick, Dave’s midget exterminator came in. Dave was listening to one of Bills long-winded stories. It was a story about sex, and how Bill, who was never seen with a member of the opposite sex, had a beautiful red head Named Sandy. Nick walked in unnoticed as he usually was and sat in the very booth that Dave had about 45 minutes before. Of course, it being his profession, and really needing a beer when up to the bar, and as soon as he spoke, saying “I’d like a draft, and you seem to have a bug problem."” He was noticed, by Dave and the others, I silent laughter ran through the bar. Nick got angry, being a surly midget from years of SHIT from the “bigs.”
“You think I’m stupid?” Nick said. It was not an intentional movement of his body to do a kind of a midget jig, but he did. This type of an unintentional jig happened to Nick quite a bit. Dave noticed the midget’s miniature mannerisms the smile on his lips ended.
“Are you done up there?” Dave said.
“ What…” Nick said in surliness, “ Yha, I would not go up there yet.” This left the ‘HARD WORKING MEN” in hysterics making some kind of sexual connection between the midget and the strange kid that lived up stairs. Bill attempted to hit the unspoken laughter on the head.
“Davie here has already told us about the roaches.”
“You’re the roaches!” Said Nick with the conviction. Laughter went out around the bar. What is this Dave thought, that pill must be working well by this point. He looked down at his beer on the bar, the situations was getting too ridiculous for him. His head started to hurt.
“Did you get the roaches?” Dave said. Nick looked at him in mid-insulting the ‘red necks’ at the bar.
“Yha kid. You might want to vacuum up there.”
“What did you do?”
“I killed them bugs, you’re a slob! This guys fucking room!” Nick said with his thumb in Dave’s face. “This guy must fucking masturbate and drink 24-7-by the looks of his room, ha, and face.” The midget was now getting laughs. What Nick considered the good kind. Dave went back up to his room. He hoped he never see the Midget again.
XXX XXX XXX
It rained the next few weeks. Dave was in to the Labour board the following mornings. Dave felt as though he had no other direction to take in life. Dave’s temperament had always prohibited from any meaningful discussions with any one. He was alone with the exception of crucial conversing. Conversations were as deep as asking to use the wash room-or ordering food at a restaurant, even then they hardly saw him. Not until the end of the day, and his salvation could Dave be true to his hart and do nothing. But the roaches did not sing to him-no! -the midget took them. Sundays were the only days Dave took off. He would go down to the bar. It was the third week of rain.
Nick was in the corner booth-the green one three weeks before that Dave found the roach on his nose. Dave nodded in the customary acknowledgement he reserved for people he hated. The bar was empty, bill was watching CNN. The blond was on whom Bill liked. He liked those ‘smart chicks,’ (as Bill referred to them) but Dave was sure she was an idiot. Israel was bombed by suicide bombers Palestine was then bombed by Israeli freedom fighters, as the pretty lady who exuded intelligence to the rotted brains of the masses-Bill always had liked this particular women’s concerned look, Dave knew this was practised each morning in her dressing room after the producer got his morning blow job.
“Dave whats up. Haven’t seen you around a bit.” Bill said, he had a hang over.
“Working.” Is all Dave said.
“Oh yha…what will it be?” Bill was actually using real bartender phrases.
“One of those big beers ?? Bill, you know. And a couple white ones.” Bill smiled and opened the bar out and pulled out a steal box and pulled a bag of white pills-looked at Dave enquiring how many. Nick hopped up in to the next seat as Dave slipped the baggy of pills in his pocket.
“How’s the exterminating biz” Asked Bill. Nick sullenly mumbled. The mumble was answered by a Big beer. Then Dave sensed a weird feeling in his stomach. Bill looked very serious all of a sudden. It was not CNN that shit as old news. No Dave thought that Bill looked hurt almost. Dave sipped his big beer.
“Harold Stilsiwinger has shocked a press-conference bursting out in tears. This comes after a string of and I quote ‘hurtful and distasteful’ jabs at Stilsiwinger about his background in action films.” Dave looked up at the television. The huge man sobbing, his wife beside him, shocked, concerned, and strangely turned on.
“What a fucking joke” said Nick in a scoff. Dave rose his beer, and bill jumped in. The rain came down increasingly harder on the onnings like it was the end of the world. The CNN of course tried their best concerned looks after the clip, but failed disgracefully.
“What the hell is that.” Dave said.
“That’s money.” Nobody had to say.
XXX XXX XXX
The course of time went on in it’s nightmarish and unrelenting way. The roaches never died, and the exterminator always came back.











A story by:
Geoffrey Alexander Parsons



Or


Roaches In The City



Alone in the city Dave was killing his roaches. A box like room screams and yells down the hall-it was all the color of a movie from the 60’s-70. The roaches came in the room from the sink. He did not tell the landlady. He did not want her coming in his home. The rent was low, and really he expected it to have rats and roaches. He was greeted each morning by the rats jumping off his bed. It was something he thought he would never get use to, but did. It had been years in his box-like surroundings on the 3rd block. Before Dave was on 3rd it was another small box room on 6th. He batted the roaches with a hungry smile, maniacal, and sweat running down his face.

The roaches were running up and around the sink. They went in to spots he could not whack on the wall of the sink. His radio blurred on and on, the roaches ran around, and around, the girl upstairs being beat on the ground-his ceiling, and they were fucking next door, well it was 4.12 PM. He had just gotten home himself from his work which was what ever they (the temp. agency) placed him at that day. Falling back on to his bed he stared at the chips falling on the floor. Upstairs she was still being beat that made four days in a row. Dave had asked if she was alright one day in the hall, but she said nothing. Fuck her then Dave had thought.

Dave pulled from his pocket a pill, white and his salvation. He took it with water:
Walls vibrated, screaming out a symphony of joy. Marching up and down the sink the roaches singing a tone, “Dave, Dave, be more brave” they sang, but this only soothed Dave. Out the window was a bird. Dave laughed. What a funny bird! He thought, and mumbled, “what a bird, what a bird.” Like an old storeowner does looking for his keys. A knock came on the door. The pill was surging in to his mind just below a solid note. Thousands of rushes in a second and not continuous power. Dave got up and went to the door.

“Who is it”

“Nick” Dave wondered, again like an old storekeeper, “Nick, no how do I know a Nick?” He opened the door. A midget stood there. Dave smiled a toothless smile.

“Do I know you?”

“You got roaches?”

“Yes.”

“Yha buddy I am here to get rid of them. I got to get-em in your room. See they got em down stairs…” The midget paused for something that never came. “So you got to get every floor.” The midget said. Dave thought his miniature mannerisms were hilarious. It was hard to contain him self.
“Come in. Are you going to be spraying any thing…? Oh, so that I can’t be here?”

“No shit!” The midget said looking at the roaches. “That is one of the worse cases I have ever seen. How can you live like that?”

“What…”

“Never mind. It is not poisonous, but you may want to leave for an hour or so.”
“Sure.” Dave put on his coat. “I’ll leave you to it Nick.” Dave said firmly. Nick looked at him sensing that Dave was laughing at his size, Dave was.

XXX XXX XXX

In to the rain. It had just started up-as Dave closed the door to the midget-with thunder. This made Dave smile. He lived above a pub. The pub looked like a good place to sit. Dave drank a couple beers. Bill the bartender was drunk, but he owned the place, and that was the kind of place he ran. Dave sometimes was the only guy who would take the bartender’s feeble attempts at being wise and knowledgeable. Today there was about three people at the bar nodding their heads. Dave stayed back. He did not want to go up until a good layer of drunkenness shielded him from Bills stupidity. He found a nice both in the corner of the room. He liked the booth drinking compared to at the bar like any one else.

In the green padded booth Dave saw a roach. He thought nothing of it. Then he whipped his nose. Looked at his finger after and there was a nice big roach. This startled Dave a bit. He thought he better tell Bill. As much as he did not want to talk to the guy it had to be done.

“Bill, hi, I thought I would let you know that I just found a couple roaches over at that table.”

“Oh yes, that is where I am keeping them.” Bill waved his arm-limp at the wrist.

“Bill one was crawling around on me. Bill, listen. That could be bad for business.”

“We can’t go killing everything now Dave.” It was no use telling Bill in that condition, but some one got up and left as Dave and Bill were talking. When Dave sat back down another big roach was crawling around. He went back up to the bar, and endured with a whiskey.

“I say that it is a shame what’s going on in Iraq. Just bomb those fuckers.” Bill said. Dave did not say a word there was no point, no point.

“It is our freedom,” Another old working man said. Dave cringed. The word Freedom was being used way too much. Everywhere freedom this, security-freedom, blah blah blah. The moron president was using these words that mean too much to people. Fuck him and his PIG FUCK talk, Dave thought. The smile never left his lips. He enjoyed his beer.

XXX XXX XXX

Nick, Dave’s midget exterminator came in. Dave was listening to one of Bills long-winded stories. It was a story about sex, and how Bill, who was never seen with a member of the opposite sex, had a beautiful red head Named Sandy. Nick walked in unnoticed as he usually was and sat in the very booth that Dave had about 45 minutes before. Of course, it being his profession, and really needing a beer when up to the bar, and as soon as he spoke, saying “I’d like a draft, and you seem to have a bug problem."” He was noticed, by Dave and the others, I silent laughter ran through the bar. Nick got angry, being a surly midget from years of SHIT from the “bigs.”

“You think I’m stupid?” Nick said. It was not an intentional movement of his body to do a kind of a midget jig, but he did. This type of an unintentional jig happened to Nick quite a bit. Dave noticed the midget’s miniature mannerisms the smile on his lips ended.

“Are you done up there?” Dave said.

“ What…” Nick said in surliness, “ Yha, I would not go up there yet.” This left the ‘HARD WORKING MEN” in hysterics making some kind of sexual connection between the midget and the strange kid that lived up stairs. Bill attempted to hit the unspoken laughter on the head.

“Davie here has already told us about the roaches.”

“You’re the roaches!” Said Nick with the conviction. Laughter went out around the bar. What is this Dave thought, that pill must be working well by this point. He looked down at his beer on the bar, the situations was getting too ridiculous for him. His head started to hurt.

“Did you get the roaches?” Dave said. Nick looked at him in mid-insulting the ‘red necks’ at the bar.

“Yha kid. You might want to vacuum up there.”

“What did you do?”

“I killed them bugs, an you’re a slob! This guys fucking room!” Nick said with his thumb in Dave’s face. “This guy must fucking masturbate and drink 24-7-by the looks of his room, ha, and face.” The midget was now getting laughs. What Nick considered the good kind. Dave went back up to his room. He hoped he never would see the Midget again.

XXX XXX XXX

The blurred visions of that dingy apartment. The plaster falling in from the head board next door at 4:12 the ceiling crashing in. Dave would see the forlorn girl with black eyes and bruised arms and shake his head. What was going on with the world why was everyone sticking their heads in the sand or just not thinking at all. Dave could not do much and that was the overwhelming feeling in his heart and his soul that he was not sure he had.

Dave had started to go to the dinner across the street for breakfast in the morning. It was a dank place like Bill’s bar run by a couple in their 60’s. It had booths and Dave like booths. It had pictures of Elvis and James Dean and Marylyn Monroe on the walls. Two eggs and toast, two sticks of bacon and hash browns-no McDonalds crap.

Dave was thinking about what? He did not know, and who was sitting next to him but “forlorn sue” as Dave had started to refer to her in his own mind seeing as though he did not speak to people really at all, but she was with the Midget from the day before. They looked odd together-midget charm.

“Why do you put up with it Sue?” Dave imaged the midget was saying. Sue was crying and the midget was looking around nervous and holding her hand.

“It is just so hard.” She most of been sobbing out. In this grey old place. There should have been smoke stacks all around-it should have been in the middle of a industrial park. Exust of the world the waste.

Dave was in a daze a murk watching and they got up and left the Dinner, Nick the midget looking a Dave with suspicion.

XXX XXX

It rained the next few weeks. Dave was in to the Labour board the following mornings. Dave felt as though he had no other direction to take in life. Dave’s temperament had always prohibited from any meaningful discussions with any one. He was alone with the exception of crucial conversing. Conversations were as deep as asking to use the wash room-or ordering food at a restaurant, even then they hardly saw him. Not until the end of the day, and his salvation could Dave be true to his hart and do nothing. But the roaches did not sing to him-no! -the midget took them. Sundays were the only days Dave took off. He would go down to the bar. It was the third week of rain.

Nick was in the corner booth-the green one three weeks before that Dave found the roach on his nose. He and sue most have something going on. Dave nodded in the customary acknowledgement he reserved for people he hated. The bar was empty, bill was watching CNN. The blond was on whom Bill liked. He liked those ‘smart chicks,’ (as Bill referred to them) but Dave was sure she was an idiot. Israel was bombed by suicide bombers Palestine was then bombed by Israeli freedom fighters, as the pretty lady who exuded intelligence to the rotted brains of the masses-Bill always had liked this particular women’s concerned look, Dave knew this was practised each morning in her dressing room after the producer got his morning blow job.

“Dave whats up. Haven’t seen you around a bit.” Bill said, he had a hang over.

“Working.” Is all Dave said.

“Oh yha…what will it be?” Bill was actually using real bartender phrases.

“One of those big beers ?? Bill, you know. And a couple white ones.” Bill smiled and opened the bar out and pulled out a steal box and pulled a bag of white pills-looked at Dave enquiring how many. Nick hopped up in to the next seat as Dave slipped the baggy of pills in his pocket.

“How’s the exterminating biz” Asked Bill. Nick sullenly mumbled. The mumble was answered by a Big beer. Then Dave sensed a weird feeling in his stomach. Bill looked very serious all of a sudden. It was not CNN that shit as old news. No Dave thought that Bill looked hurt almost. Dave sipped his big beer.

“Harold Stilsiwinger has shocked a press-conference bursting out in tears. This comes after a string of and I quote ‘hurtful and distasteful’ jabs at Stilsiwinger about his background in action films.” Dave looked up at the television. The huge man sobbing, his wife beside him, shocked, concerned, and strangely turned on.

“What a fucking joke” said Nick in a scoff. Dave rose his beer, and bill jumped in. The rain came down increasingly harder on the onnings like it was the end of the world. The CNN of course tried their best concerned looks after the clip, but failed disgracefully.

“What the hell is that.” Dave said.

“That’s money.” Nobody had to say.

XXX XXX XXX

The course of time went on in it’s nightmarish and unrelenting way. The roaches never died, and the exterminator always came back.








A story by:
Geoffrey Alexander Parsons