Madness and Women
Stories
Poetry
the service station
the teacher in his sixth grade science class assigned a research project.
the reports were to be titled what is a person’s imagination.
he was interested in this topic.
he wanted to know why he saw and heard people no one else did.
he held conversations with animals and plants and objects.
he visited and talked with God and his angels and liked to travel through time.
he kept all that to himself as best as possible for obvious reasons.
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the class researched their information online and in the library.
he conducted an interview to find out his facts.
he knew the place where they installed people’s imaginations into their souls.
it was called a service station.
the original type was started in 1905 and from then on they were common.
people drove in and the attendants filled up their cars with gasoline.
this particular one was different and closed to the general public.
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he arrived at the address and entered the garage.
a man in a mechanic’s jumpsuit worked under a car on the lift and asked what he wanted.
“i’m here to interview the person who gives people their imaginations.”
the man put the wrench down and wiped his hands with a cloth.
a cigarette dangled from his mouth.
“and who might you be?”
“i’m from miss thompson’s science class.”
the man stared at him.
he said "miss thompson eh?"
he granted the interview but there were to be no pictures taken.
_____
the mechanic explained how it worked.
a driver stops in with a truckload of souls stored in individual containers.
he said “as a matter of fact here comes one now.”
a horse and buggy entered the station hauling the cylinders.
the mechanic filled each one with their own unique imagination from the pump.
some of them overflowed when he wasn’t paying attention.
he asked the mechanic what happend if he filled a soul with too much imagination.
the man smiled and said “well now you already know the answer to that one my boy.”
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the teacher gave him a gave him a zero on his paper.
she embarrassed him in front of the class.
"where on earth did you come up with such a ridiculous idea like this in the first place?”
he went back to see the mechanic and said his teacher didn’t believe him.
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the mechanic handed him his business card and offered his teacher a free refill if she changed his grade.