Abuse and Hyperbole

From Meg Pokrass's site:

In this exercise, i would like to play again with varied sentence lengths. One sentence should be 55 words or greater. Many sentences can be tiny, just one word. Ask at least two questions in this piece. Sometimes a rhythm evolves, or a disjointed rhythm, and let that happen.

Create a narrator who sees things out of proportion. Have you narrator exaggerate and stretch the truth about something that happens. So: unreliable narrator.

Also: bring in an animal. A dog, a bug, a raccoon. Let that animal make a special guest star appearance with heft. That animal means something not obvious, changes something...

At 2:44 in the morning, I get up, stretch, ask myself why I'm awake, answer not forthcoming. I reflect upon the previous fourteen hours. There were a few men. Ten men, if I remember correctly; John (married with nipples), Ken (JCPenney), Rick (rakish mustache), Tom (pianist, Brit), Ben (long drive followed by poppers), Jake (precarious staircase), Bill (high school principal), Ryan (just a kid), Dan (forget his real name), and finally, Lee (his gray goatee could write allegories for the Great Books all on its own).

When I was fifteen, I named our dachshund Percy. A few weeks later, Percy went on a tear, roaming the neighborhood. I was forced to follow, wearing flip-flops. Racing across the lawns of our neighbors. Pissed. Scared. Was Percy trying to get away? For good? I chased him back to our garage, which was open. A big lit room onto the night. I beat that dog with an open hand, clenching him between my thighs. Bad dog.

Seth Gall has had work published in China, Canada, and the U.S.  His work has appeared in Word Riot, SmokeLong Quarterly, and Nanoism.  He is S.H. Gall in decomP Magazine, Nanoism, issues one and 27 of SmokeLong Quarterly, Five Star Literary Stories, and Fictionaut.