Nathan Dragon

He always felt like he needed things to be told to him. Bed and drinking water were always good, though. Something like that, so his TV would easily be a good distraction and some rest.

People’s voices, anyways, were fine. He worried a lot. Daniel needed something that could help with that. Nothing too scandalous, though. Everything as it comes, as he could handle it or it could be handled.

One at a time, please, he’d say.

Why did he walk away? Cause he couldn’t handle it.

Missed the point.

Did it anyways instead of not doing anything.

To feel like he was doing something.

Mostly he wanted to have some expertise. He wanted to be an expert, didn’t matter in what.

Just one thing that was no mystery to him, inherent, that he could understand fully.

Daniel knew some people, as people tend to know a few. Sometimes these people that one person knows, also know each other. Daniel’s circle could only be described by the thought of it.

Daniel had a brother, too. His brother could speak more than one language and Daniel was jealous at that, of his brother. His brother always knew what to say, had something to say about everything. His brother had fantastic communication skills. Clear and concise people said.

Then, there was this guy that Daniel sort of knew but not a whole lot. The guy collected the toys and trinkets from vending machines at like the supermarket or take out restaurants.

The stickers. Figurines. All those things in the plastic bubbles. Cheap yo-yos and the metal jewelry. Whatever there was.

Collected whole sets of the sets of the things.

Sometimes the guy would go to the bank and get out a roll of quarters or two then spend em up til he had a complete set or until he was out of quarters. If he got a complete set of the trinkets before running out he’d go to another spot that had some vending machines.

The guy always said, Not bad, to himself. At least Daniel had heard it consistently enough for always.

The sticker and temporary tattoo vending machines with the silver lower jaw protruding from a little display. The slots for quarters you jam into the jaw contraption and when a spring pushes the jaw back out, the quarters are consumed and the sticker or the temporary tattoo comes out sandwiched in between thin sheets of coated cardboard from a little opening above the quarter slot jaw.

The guy had the best luck over at the Chinese takeout place with these types of machines. Daniel saw that the guy got a whole set in five pulls.

That guy could always take home a complete set from there in less than a roll but Daniel never could.

The ones for the toys and trinkets, the machines with the clear cube of the prizes. Daniel saw this kind mostly at the supermarket and you had to put the quarters in the little quarter cut out, so as to put the quarter in the circle or half circle sort of against a wall, then it’d set in place and you’d rotate a little rectangular knob clockwise so the quarter descends in a round motion like descending on a Ferris wheel.

The best prizes from these types of machines, the guy told Daniel, were in the machines at the cinema.

The guy even had his own failing business, a collectors’ and hobbyists’ store that’s been there forever. Had a machine in there himself.

He was an expert.

He gave Daniel some of his collection, only the duplicates and encouraged him to pick something up, like something to do.

Encouraged Daniel to use the trinket vending machine.

Daniel more interested in the fact that the guy was an expert.

Someone else Daniel knew was also a regular that he, Daniel, saw at the café restaurant that he went to regularly himself. Daniel wanted to be a regular, like the regular he always saw.

It didn’t seem like he was ever considered one even though he went in every day. No one called him Daniel; not like Marty, Wendy or Trish, the other regulars.

They only called him pal.

Once Daniel got a small coffee for free. He threw the money he was going to use for the coffee into the tip jar anyways. Wasn’t really sure how or why it was free at that point but he didn’t mind.

Or why they were giving it to him.

He couldn’t tell.

Usually he couldn’t tell.

He kept the exchange going as long as he could, though. Put one coin at a time into the jar. Total of $2.60.

Daniel always saw that one regular. 7AM or 1PM, didn’t matter. The regular was always there in his regular spot, regular table. Daniel at least got the same things to eat and drink every day, but he didn’t pull enough weight in his regularmanship to have his own spot.

And sometimes too, Daniel only got his drink and sometimes he got his food and his drink. His food was only a sandwich. Every time he got food it was that, that one sandwich. He was embarrassed to order it by its name, a pun.

And sometimes when he was there he looked through some books and he hoped people looked at him like he was really smart.

Capable.

Daniel had something living in his wall, or things. He kept hearing crawling and scratching when he was drinking water and if he was sleeping he’d wake up from it, eyes bouncing all over the room, trying to quicken the acclimation of his senses, trying to hear in the room where it was coming from.

Still or on the move.

Sometimes the sounds seemed right over him like in the ceiling or like something’s on the roof or across from him in the wall or to the side of him under the floor.

They’ve made a mansion, a castle or condo out of his home.

Wall floor ceiling.

They had more room than him.

He was half glad to have the squirrels or chipmunks or mice in his walls. Half afraid, sort of paranoid that he was under siege. That they’d take his home from him room by room because they finally had scratched through the wall.

That he’d have to retreat to his storage room and he’d have to close the door.

And when they started to break through into that room he’d have to go down the stairs in his floor to the basement and hope that the door to the unit next door is open and he can make a through the unit, his neighbor’s place, duplex style building, if it’s clear.

He had a brother somewhere. His brother would’ve known what to do. But Daniel was sick of not knowing what to do. He wanted to prove he understood, what to do, so he called animal control to have it taken care of and they gave him instructions for the meantime.

He’d sleep better.