Author: Alex Perez

I’m the second Cuban-American born to the family here in Southern California. I avoided school, then embraced it, studying writing, art, and film, all for the love of storytelling, which led to the writing of shorts and feature film scripts. I’ve worked in the art department of a handful of TV shows, features, and independent films, sometimes as a graphic designer. I’ve also been a mural painter, a theater manager at a film festival, and digital arts teacher, but as far as writing goes - My feature script, The Wall, is where I’m spending most of my creative time lately.

Christmas Reality

Christmas again, with decorations in shop windows and stockings and song

but something didn’t feel right this time around.

He’d heard rumors from distant cousins and trusted friends, and it made perfect sense.

You see, in every home he visited on Christmas Eve, there wasn’t ever a child present. How long had he been bringing them gifts? How long had he believed they were asleep in bed? Truth is, he’d never actually seen one. Oh, there were children at the mall. He took pictures with them. But were they the real thing?

Maybe there was no such thing as children.

Phony Drivers

We know you’re on the phone. You’re hunched over and when the light’s green you don’t move. When it’s clear to turn you don’t turn and when the speed limit’s thirty, you’re going fifteen. Get off your damn phone, you moron. But shaming doesn’t work. The obvious solution is simple. If you’re on your phone while driving, it’s legal to ram your car.

Oh, you weren’t on your phone? Check the phone records, officer. Hey how about that, I guess we’re done here. Everybody would become very aware of their surroundings and the problem would vanish in a morning commute.

That Song

How many songs in a day? Then, that one. You know it as soon as you hear it the very first time and only twenty seconds in.

I must learn all of the words to this song.

And it kills you the first twenty times. You, trying to sing along to what might be the lyrics.

Siri, show me the lyrics. Aha.

Then, magically, one day it plays and it’s like you wrote the damned thing. You are loud now, confident that hey, guaranteed no one else here knows the words like I know the words to my song.

What’s That Song for you? Let me know in the comments.