Fred Aiken Writing

Morning, Good Morning

Daily writing prompt

What are your morning rituals? What does the first hour of your day look like?

The sun’s not out yet. Damn! The sun is not out yet!

But I’m up, and I can’t go back to sleep. The house is too hot. Steph says she’s cold, so we keep the heater going, even though the temperature outside starting rising weeks ago. But Steph’s always cold, even at the height of summer. I believe her because whenever her feet touch me when we’re in bed it feel like a popsicle hitting my leg and startles me awake, motionless, counting sheep or trying to concentrate on the Federal Reserve’s policy on modern monetary theory.

So I get up and perform the perfunctory hygienic rituals that make me acceptable to the rest of the world. The pre-dawn cleansing of my body that suggests I know what I’m doing because I woke up today and decided to be clean.

I decided to not listen to the voice in my head saying that it doesn’t matter.

I don’t think anyone is buying it.

I know I’m not.

Afterwards, I go to the kitchen and prepare breakfast. Black coffee and an english muffin that I hope hasn’t molded even though it’s been in the pantry 2 weeks past its sell-by date–a random date on the calendar that’s more likely a suggestion rather than a hard stop to when the english muffin can be consumed. I place a generous helping of raspberry jam on the english muffin after microwaving it because I think putting it in the toaster would be too much effort, even though it doesn’t take that much longer.

Before sitting down to eat and down caffeine molecules, I look at the digital clock on the over that’s notoriously inaccurate. It doesn’t tell real time, just whatever damn time it chooses to. Which I can respect. Despite how inconvenient it is at times. Even with the oven’s clock being off, it’s still too damn early. The solar clock still nestled comfortably in the crook of the horizon.

In these early hours, I think about what my day looks like, or at least what it should look like. I create a mental check list of what needs to get done, what I want to accomplish, and what I’ve put off for far too long. The list for what I put off keeps growing larger and larger day by day, so I try not to focus on it too much, or else the depressing thoughts start to filter in. Then I start down a mental road of how I haven’t really done anything productive with my life. I’m reminded of Mozart and all he accomplished in his teens. Then I’m reminded of Einstein and all he did before turning 25. But most of all, I think about Taylor Swift and the enormity of her accomplishments, and the fact that I’m 2 years older than she is. But that shouldn’t matter, because I don’t have a fraction of the talent of any of those people.

And so in the first hour of consciousness, when everyone else in the apartment complex is asleep, except maybe those getting home from their graveyard shift at their amzn warehouse jobs picking gallons upon gallons of butt paste that gets purchased at an alarming pace by countless Americans everyday, and I realize the list I made for myself and what I wanted to make of my day doesn’t matter, and sometimes all that’s important is just waking up and writing down the sentence, ‘I’m alive,’ which keeps me chuggin’ along.

April 1, 2025

it’s just a joke

a coworker told a joke today,
but when i didn't laugh
they told me to get a sense of humor,
to which i thought i had,
though admittedly i didn't know, for sure that is,
so i decided to make a conscientious effort to get a sense of humor
and laugh
and laugh
and laugh,
perhaps too much,
because now some other coworkers are complaining to hr,
and they're having a meeting about me on Monday

March 28, 2025

The Child that Eats Wind

Daily writing prompt

When you were five, what did you want to be when you grew up?

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I tell my 5 year old that when I was his age I wanted to be a baseball player. Probably because I might have been a part of the last generation of young fans of baseball. Not that I still am a fan–in fact, I honestly cannot stand the game and suspect that my interest in baseball was a byproduct of my dad trying to live vicariously through me, and I just didn’t know any better because why would I, I was 5. But I committed to not be like my dad in that regard (though there are plenty of things that I do try to emulate of my dad’s since other than the baseball thing he was a pretty good dad, all things considered), and I want my son to find his own passions and interests on his own.

By telling my son what I thought I wanted to be when I grew up, I thought I was sparking a conversation that would lead to us discussing his interests and hobbies. I suppose I was feeling a little guilty. I had not seen my son in a few weeks because of some issues his mom and I were working through–though I’d rather not hash all that out again. I just wanted to enjoy the time I had with my son.

But instead of telling me his interests, my son asks me, “What’s baseball?”

“A sport where you try and hit a small ball that’s being thrown at you at high speeds as hard and as far as you can.”

“Is it fun?”

“I suppose it can be. Did you want to watch a game?”

“Sure.”

So I find out when the next game is, and I buy tickets. That’s right, I’m not going to half-ass it in exposing my son to a sport by having him watch it on television. I buy him a team jersey, a foam finger, and take him to the stadium that’s moved two or three times around the city since I was a kid and looked nothing like the stadium of my childhood. But that’s okay. I’m not upset. This is about my son. I determined a long time ago to not become that guy that gets increasingly upset the older he gets because things change.

All I want to do is spend a nice weekend afternoon with my kid. Maybe get to know him a little better. Maybe he gets to know me. Maybe he goes back to his mom and puts in a good word that he had a nice time hanging out with his dad.

It’s a hot summer day, and the sun blares down on us. But I prepared. I applied a whole bunch of sunscreen to my son and myself. I made sure he wore a hat and sunglasses. I even got one of those portable electric fans (with extra batteries), so he doesn’t overheat.

As the game rolls on, I look over at my son and explain to him what’s going on and what all the rules to the game are–at least, the ones I can remember. Everything seemed to be going fine. My son and I were enjoying a classic American, father-son moment.

Then he looks up to be and says the most dreadful thing a child can tell a parent, “I’m bored.”

“Yeah, me too.” I had inadvertently nodded off to sleep a couple of times. I was having trouble keeping my eyes open. Between the sun, the smell of sunscreen, and the slow pace of the game, I could not find it in my to enjoy anything about baseball.

We collect our things. I buy a hot dog for my son to enjoy on the ride home. I think about getting him a souvenir to remember the day, but I figure it’s not worth it since neither of us enjoyed watching the game, and he would more than likely shove it into the corner of his closet to collect dust over a handful of years before my wife finds it some ten years or so later and just tosses it because it means nothing to her and it means nothing to my son.

On the ride home my son asks, “Why’d you ever wanna be a baseball player?”

“I dunno. I suppose when I was younger I thought it was a fun game.”

“It was not.”

“Yeah, I guess not. But sometimes when you’re young you don’t know any better.”

“I do. That was a boring game.”

“Yeah, I suppose you’re right. What do you wanna be when you grow up?”

“I like eating wind”

“Eating wind?” I think I misheard, or perhaps my son was mispronouncing a word he had heard.

But he doubles down. “I want to be a wind eater.” At which point my son opens his mouth as wide as his little jaw permits, takes in a big gulp, and clamps down as hard as he can muster–effectively eating the wind.

I honestly don’t know what to say to the child. I don’t know if I should be proud or tell him good luck with that and not say a word about how wind eating isn’t a real thing. I can’t bring myself to dash his dreams. So I say nothing. I give him a nod.

He asks if I can roll down the window. He spends the rest of the car ride home with his face stick out, chomping at the wind as we pick up speed.