The Legacy of Shrieking Woman and Cell Phone Man

Daily Writing Exercise: Guided Imagery
http://www.outbackonline.net/tram/activity2.htm
All Images Collected From The Internet
Date Completed: 02-24-06


These are little images, little sounds and smells and emotions that have worked their way into my writing. There is nothing profound here, just people being themselves and images that I catch and collect as I live my life.

I try to save them all and choose which ones to ‘keep’.

The reality is sometimes they choose to ‘keep’ you.



A few years ago a woman tried to kill herself by jumping off a bridge. The Authorities shut down the freeway so they could try to talk her down. That tied the traffic up and the conversations I heard that followed a few days later destroyed my faith in humanity.

Not only did I hear some of my co-workers echo these exact words; radio DJ’s said the same thing. “ Why didn’t she stay home and shoot herself or something? I was late for work because of her.”

During my lunch break the woman sitting next to me said, “ she inconvenienced a lot of people, how self centered can you get? No wonder she tried to kill herself she’s one of those ME people”

Those are real quotes, spoken by real people I know.


(This is where I work...if you were to stand at the black railing and look down you'd see the train tracks and my loading dock. This was taken after the eathquake we had a few years ago and that's why you see all the busted windows and damaged to the buidling itself)

The Railway tracks that run outside my warehouse are the ultimate story starter. Sometimes I go out there and just stare at them…and I’m sure they stare back.

One Spring a homeless man was sleeping by my loading dock and he was coughing so loud you could hear him up on the street. That street was full of buses and cars and at the time heavy machinery because the Earthquake had happened about three days before and we were starting reconstruction.

All you could hear was that painful coughing.

Now, up on the street and one building over is a very hoity – toity place called “ The Lofts”.

Basically you pay almost an astronomical amount of money to live in a brick building with an unobstructed view of a tavern frequented by the less fortunate members of society who live in the alleys and under the bridges here in Seattle.

So those are the Lofts and on the day a homeless guy was coughing his lungs up just outside the gate that separates my building from The Lofts a woman was over at the Lofts in the parking area with her son who was about four and she was shrieking…I couldn’t emphasize that enough shrieking “ LOOK AT THE TRAINS HONEY, AREN’T THOSE TRAINS PRETTY? LOOK AT THE TRAINS!” Everytime the homeless man started to cough.

I’ve seen people urinating on the walls; I’ve walked through vomit and seen some awful things on the street up by the Lofts

That woman minimizing human suffering and worse yet teaching her child to do the same was the lowest, most vile thing I’ve ever seen out there.

That image haunts me to this day, and I’ve used it in at least two forms in short stories at the Café.



About 5 years ago I saw a circus train outside my warehouse door on those railroad tracks. It had open beds and tied to the beds were big top rigging. There were empty cages for the animals and most mysterious of all were the private cars. I could see curtains in the windows but I never saw a living soul. No kidding. It was like that Circus Train was driving itself.

It stopped for about 10 minutes and then started back up again and was gone.

No I didn’t go near it.

I was afraid it might bite.



Last month I saw a drunken man, I couldn’t tell how old he was because his body was wasted and used up from his addiction wandering around in the middle of the street. The street was not empty. It was full of cars and buses and trucks.

Then he passed out.

I went out there and was able to pull him across the road to the sidewalk. It was easy because he couldn’t fight me and I’m use to moving deadweight from my previous job.

No one helped me; no one called the police or an ambulance. Though one guy did pull over, he was driving a silver sports car and he was on a cell phone. He pulled up and said, “ That was a waste of time”

Then he drove off.

I had to walk back to work to call for help.



Things like this happen around me every single day and there are other things I’d rather think about and remember and experience. Only then I’d be just like those people I wrote about. The Shrieking Woman and Cell Phone Man.

I’d only be seeing what I want to see.

What kind of writer could I be then?