“Tonya Bologna”

Tonya Bologna was having a nightmare. She was walking around the top floor of what she thought was a fraternity house. For a second she thought it could’ve been a sorority house, but then she got distracted…

She saw a full length mirror. She stopped and looked into it. To her surprise, instead of a reflection she saw two tall buildings scraping the sky, standing proud, almost mocking. She then saw two commercial airplanes headed towards them. The first one bounced right off, did a back flip, and then a quick one hundred and eighty degrees before flying away leaving a glorious trail of rainbow behind.

The second plane missed the buildings and flew straight up like a dolphin taking a five second vacation into its version of outer space. Man’s metal bird then came down like a dolphin reentering its atmosphere, but then went right back up again. This time Orville and Wilbur’s invention did two loop de loops before making a killer bee line towards Tonya Bologna. The plane nose shattered the mirror and protruded, but that is all that would cross over. Upon furthur inspection Tonya could see the pilot inside the cockpit (not slang for a flesh flower) was a dog. Tonya could see the mutt mouthing inaudible woofs.

Tonya whipped her blonde, black, brunette and red purse in a violent turn away from the mirror, but in effect smacking the nose and pushing it back to the other side. She then looked into the cracked mirror and could only see her reflection this time. Problem was, she had no eyes in the reflection. She scratched her head at this paradox of seeing herself with no eyes, shrugged it off and this time turned away in pacifistic manner.

The smell reminded her of where she was. Not the typical half-finished red Solo cups of yeast urine left over from beer pong with some being converted into Viking funerals for Joe Camel and The Marlboro Man’s closest friends, but another smell. A worse smell. The worst smell. Okay, it wasn’t that bad, but Tonya did smell some freshman sorostitute’s V-Card being lost.

Just as Tonya began to think, “Not this dream again!” her alarm clock showed its teeth again and not backing down began to bark-bark-bark, bark-bark-bark. She wanted to snooze, but she knew she would be late for her Creative Writing: Fiction class.

On her commute to school she heard from somewhere behind her eyes, “Damn repression/Damn wish-fulfillment/Damn Freud/Damn damn/Darn!”

Her professor was the kind of professor not really worried about realism at all. Angels could come down, take the protagonist, empty him dry and place him back at the bar where he could get sotted again. He was more interested in the drama, the suspense. He also had a wonk neck.

He had once told the class: “The name of the game is manipulation of the reader.”

Tonya arrived at class running low on oxygen from the run from the park by Alexandria Library where all the commuters can get two free hours of parking a day. She thought to herself, “I’ve got to start smoking cigarettes.”

It was her day to read the story she had come down with. She was nervous and red faced and incommunicable to most of her classmates in their own worlds while she sputtered. To help her she reverted to fetallica and resorted to the classic ‘picture everybody naked’ treat or trick that helps her ease her mind. She was surprised the professor had nipple and armpit rings. This made her smile and she could finish.

The story was over and the cohorts hated it. They made faces of disgust, confusion, and bemusement. Then, collective conscious was proven true as the entire class frowned and showed Tonya Bologna where the ceiling was by pointing to it with their middled fingers. A smile at the recognition that they all just bonded in their mutual hatred for Tonya Bologna and her uncreative fiction ran free.

Professor Ozdyed shot up out of his seat, scratched both of his armpits, and screamed at the class to, “Settle up! Settle up ev’ry bodhi, settle up!” They rebelled, settled down and stagnated.

Now that the class was silent, Professor O walked over to Tonya Bologna and used his snake tongue to whisper a message past Tonya’s ear bongos. He hissed:

“Duplication of reality is not the same as representing reality.”