Lifetime Achievement Award
Courtesy: Nate "Igor" Smith, Photographer.
For some it was a forgotten past-time - the discipline of being able to eat massive amounts of hotdogs in one minute. For me, it was life. There had to be a way to break the current record of 68 dogs per minute. I was determined.
Like anyone, I failed a number of times. No one could eat that much on the first try. So I learned from practice, and though the failures discouraged and depressed me, I kept on trying. That Joey Chestnut has nothing on me.
It took years of training to get where I am today. I have a style, a technique, and most importantly, the passion, stronger than ever. And today is the most critical day of the year: Nathan's Famous hot dog eating contest, also known as America's birthday. This year, I claim victory.
In trial runs, I downed between 71 and 73 dogs. That's including the bun. Things were looking up, and confidence was the only emotion I could feel as I entered the stage.
Platters of processed meat and bread lay before me. The countdown began, and the nationally televised audience cheered us gluttons on.
Peek at the clock - half way done. Forty consumed! This is going better than planned. There's the mid-way gas bubble rising out of my gut to make room for more.
Ten seconds left, and I've already passed the world record! The crowd is going wild. The clock is winding down to zero, and my competitors are gagging on their final franks.
It ends with a buzzer, music, fanfare, and hot dog shaped confetti raining from the sky. I made it. After all this time and practice, the many nights worshiping the porcelain god after exceeding my stomach's capacity to increase it, I made it. And it was so worth it.
I was escorted to the winner's platform by two thin, beautiful women (the likes of whom ironically never eat such foods as grilled meat.) The nation congratulated me, and I received my trophy. It was perfect.
As I raised the icon of achievement above my head, I felt a pinch in my abdomen. Then pain and burning. The acid from my combined with the force of 80 servings of wiener started to rip through the lining of my stomach. I keeled over. The trophy shattered on the stage, and I vomited on the debris. Cheering turned to silence. Music turned to sirens. I was going to die by hot dog. I felt the mashed meat find it's way through my belly, and cradling my midsection only made it worse.
This past-time. Forgotten by some and celebrated by others... For me it was life. And death.
Golden Years
I can feel myself aging.
The same slippers go on the same feet every morning.
It's 6:30am, the only time I can wake up anymore.
I pour the same cup of coffee as yesterday and the day before.
"Hello, Coffee-mate."
What was I to do today? The sun was rising. The colorful but boring rays it cast onto the breakfast table didn't matter. The rose bushes lining my backyard, once perfected by the old woman, didn't matter. This shitty Folgers didn't matter.
"It must be nice to be old," said my young self. "Nothing to worry about. Just take medicine advertised on the so official-looking blue and red grids on TV and worry about nothing."
An early morning used to present me with a display of wonder and freshness. Now it signifies the start of a new daypart. Time for the news.
Then time for soaps. Judy, Maury, Springer - all the daytime classics - perpetuating irrelevant quarrels and failed relationships for all to reminisce over on TV Land.
Time was my only enemy. She graced my life with contrast and affection. And then fate took her away. More like a stroke, really. My life was once again single-sided. Plain, usual, day-to-day.
So maybe the heart attack phobia isn't so bad at this point. Nothing intrigues me anymore, not without her.
I down the last of the day's pills and case them with a Centrum. To my good health, pharmaceutical industry.
Shortness of breath. Upper arm, now jaw pains. Tightness.
This is it, I mumble. Good riddance.
Splatters of Pink
We worked for a consumer electronics store. I hated my job, stocking overpriced cables on perfectly aligned shelves. At least it paid decently. Two co-workers were on their break, wandering the symmetrical aisles in sheer boredom, wishing they could rip off the red polos and tight black pants.
This was all minutes after I left my last world, one of bliss and sensual pleasure.
"Check out these digital cameras," said one co-worker. "They're the cheapest I could find, including clearance. Sixty bucks."
"And they're still pieces of shit," I sighed, taking the camera intending to re-stock them. I hated my job, but that didn't mean I couldn't be diligent. About to put them back, everything goes black, and the three of us are replaced in a strange world.
Confusion, incoherence, displacement, and discoloration. Out of phase.
We shortly find ourselves back in that aisle. A small family browsing the BluRays hears our fall from the abyss, and they peek around the end-cap curious. The shitty digital cameras are still in our hands but unboxed.
"Oh God! We gonna get in big trouble for this!" feared the other co-worker, a quiet, reserved man perpetually scared of corporate.
"No, we're not. Calm down, and see if there are any pictures on your cameras," I said.
Both of their cameras had nothing but what looked like overexposed snaps of sand and earth - white and grainy. Maybe that was the camera's fault...
Disappointed and hopeless, I turn my camera on. Looking through the digital viewfinder, I see something amazing. A world apart from any other. An oasis. Colorful buildings made up a small town on a grassy island isolated on all sides by a vast desert. The frames I took seemed to be of us driving along a highway away from the island.
Eventually metal-roofed covers appeared in the desert landscape, scattered, resembling an oil field. On each aluminum face were splatters of pink paint in unique forms. Outlines of stenciled letters appeared in the middle of these splatters, spelling nothing sensible in any language.
"These are incredible!" I stutter as my co-workers beg to see the pictures. Oh, there's a screen on these things, I remember.
I pass the camera to my co-workers and travel to the next world.