Alexander Hamilton’s Emoji

  Sunrays splintered his vision like a flower of needles. Ever since he leased his new apartment with the tall, practically lancet sized windows, the wee morning hours reminded him of waking up in sunny Nagasaki. As the sun always does, great and mighty Helios had gone to bed and roused with a vengeance in the manner typical of deities and high functioning alcoholics. Over the dome shaped apartment building, a yellow warbler flew overhead, entirely ignorant of the current scientific literature which suggested it would not migrate up to upstate New York for at least a few months. This feathery freak had embarrassingly read neither the current literature on its own movement nor the outdated gobbledygook any respectable ornithologist wouldn’t be caught dead with. The scientific aberration would sing its tune not out of defiance but out of an unadulterated and incorruptible need to enjoy its own song whenever and wherever it would like. Meanwhile, a snoozing scientist, resident to the area, would briefly take notice, shrug, and returns to dreams of fairies and unicorns.

David stared out his window and briefly contemplated the world from his bed before letting out a fart which didn’t seem to interrupt the stoic and solemn tone of the room. He felt the buzzing rattle of an incoming text but didn’t feel like looking.

I have to do something different

I should make pancakes

That’s not really different

I should get a selfie stick

Why?

So I have a covert weapon to beat up selfie stick owners

He could see bird shit on the window. He opened the text from his (choose one: romantic interest/burgeoning girlfriend/just friend/or all of the above) to see a single emoji.

Like I get I’m a millennial but honestly what the Hell is this?

I get that every generation has its fads but once upon a time, shooting people in the face for honor was a thing and now it’s gone the way of pogs and snuggies

Alexander Hamilton died by being shot in the face with an emoji

The annoying waspy buzz of another text paralyzed his thoughts. David rolled up the giant wizard sleeves of his Green Bay Packers snuggie to unlock his phone which read, “Hey r u okay?”

Thank God, it’s in English now

I need a Kardashian option on Google Translate

David rose from his down reinforced womb to put on a pot of tea. He picked up his phone and smashed the keys much more indignantly than he intended.

“Why would you think I’m not okay? I’m feeling better than usual”

A few minutes passed.

“U were just sayin lots of things about bank robberies and prisons and stuff and I just wanted to make sure u were Ok since u usually talk about pogs and selfie sticks. Just struck me as weird”

It was true. David had spoken about bank robberies the other night with Alice at considerable length; usually a length only reserved for midlife crisis Dads about their craft beer and autistic savants about trains. He could feel the missing beat of social cues in the way he could hear a song that was off tempo but it didn’t matter. Every word made him more excited. It was barely an idea he had harbored for a few days; more an inkling of a suspicion of a notion. It was the kind of thing mulled over in the head with flashes of vignettes in place of words, the cryptocurrency of thought one used to evade morals or the subconscious, Catholic trademark belief in an all knowing God. He had talked about D.B. Cooper who extorted $200,000 from the FBI by pretending to hold a plane ransom and then disappeared into thin air. He had talked about all the people who tried to repeat the stunt in the years after and were caught, sometimes easily and sometimes not so easily. He talked about how the government spends more on the prison population per person each year than families do for their precious adults at Ivy League institutions. He concluded that you either wind up taking care of yourself or letting the government do it.

The tea began to whistle and play its song as a knock came rapping on the door.

I guess that’s supposed to be opportunity.

The door opened to two Jehovah’s Witnesses.

Hi my name is Joseph and I am in your neighborhood discussing the bible with you and your neighbors. With all the horrible events happening in the world today, many wonder if god really exists or cares what happens to the human race. What do you think about this?”

“Oh he exists and that’s the problem,” David replied.

Before they could respond, David, with much ado, ceremoniously whipped his snuggie around and closed the door.