Millions of Americans die each year from complications from alcoholism. Derek is an alcoholic whose favorite cover song is Jeff Buckley’s cover of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah,” and when he gets drunk he sometimes asks Kelly to tie him to a kitchen chair and break his phone and cut his hair. Ramon and Walter are stiff from being tied to chairs for so long. When you are tied to a chair, your arms can be tied in front of you, down at your sides, or behind the chair back, which is the most uncomfortable for the person being tied, but is the most common technique because it is the most difficult to escape from. Frank is a heating and cooling sales rep with an unknowing wife and daughter. Frank pays John to meet him at a hotel when Frank is in town so John can tie him up and leave him alone like that for eight to ten hours. Frank knows John from bumping into him a few times at sales strategies seminars and then talking a little bit over drinks. John lives with his boyfriend, Frederick. Frederick is strikingly handsome. Men who are strikingly handsome have been found to be more financially successful at work than plain or ugly men. Harold is a plain man who invests a lot of money in clothing, including tailored suits, shirts, ties, pocket squares, tie bars and cuff links, as well as shoes and socks. After a period during which formal business wear was on the wane, millions of Americans are returning to suits and ties in an effort to look more polished and confident. James makes an effort to look polished and confident, though he isn’t very successful at it. James lives alone. Millions of Americans live alone. Sometimes this is by choice and sometimes it is because a loved one has died or children have moved out, for example. Sandra lives just with her cats Whiskers and Riley. Both of her children moved out when they went to college out of state, but Jane leaves their bedrooms as they were when her daughters Ella and Ava left because she knows in the current economic climate they may have to return. In the current economic climate, millions of Americans are without jobs. Lisa doesn’t have a job. Lisa went to school for marketing but lost her job when the corporation told its workers it had to make cuts because of the current economic climate. Millions of Americans are suffering due to the current economic climate. Sometimes persons without jobs receive unemployment insurance while they look for new jobs. Jason receives unemployment insurance because he was laid off when the plant closed.
by Nicholas Grider, Guernica | Read more:
Image: from Flickr via James Cridland
