Unstory. Or: a war between a narrator and a novel.

The grass rippled across the field like half-melted ice cream given a combover.

What? No. I'd never think that. I need a new narrator.

He thought, satirically, in a drug-induced post-ironic haze.

... I don't drink. Why would I do drugs? "If I speak aloud, will you listen?"

He said, and his voice was rough as wool, a hint of steelwool under it as the echoes of his flu rubbed against his throat.

"Wait, did what? What does that even mean? I'm just walking across a field to get home after a late shift at work. I'm not on drugs or – or seeing fields of ice cream. Are you on drugs?"

He said, to God, as if the myriad sunsets were not proof enough that the world had some small unique qualities still to offer in a land of vending machines and fast food. And it was all fast food: chickens could become sandwiches in under an hour, the cow strung up and mutilated into bacon and sausage, on a plate within hours.

"Really, he said. I know that, do I? Can I cite my sources? I'm almost home. You could have put down, 'he walked through the familiar field, a few beer cans glinting under the wanning sun to give the sameness a different cast.' That would be better than this ..."

He fell silent, staring at the beer cans to his left, the field a zen garden out of place, the feng shui of the world shifted slightly nayward at the discarded refuse amid the paean of nature's soft glories bringing a slight rapid blinking to his eyes.

"A slight rapid ... what? It's a field. I walked in dog turds crossing it. You know what, I give up?"

He said to the world at large, and exited the field, the fence post marking its boundaries at least devoid of an exit sign, the boundary between field and world not as clear a she believed, the air above him strung through with telephone wire as if the sky itself was being covered in silly string.

"Please shut up."