“I don’t have an angle here,” Patriska whined. Every good fantasy needed an angle. Otherwise you’re just a navel-gazer. You need an angle.

“Do you need one?” Some good dialogue already in this scene. Plays off the narration. Good interplay. Already throws the reader into a bizarrely uncomfortable reading situation. It’s gonna be a winner.

“Yeah man.” Patriska sighed. “Sigh. Maybe we can try again tomorrow?”

They were driving through the canyons, enjoying a California Saturday and the windy moody roads that snaked through the territory like a mixed metaphor, but bummed out because their girlfriends didn’t want to accompany them, as usual. They didn’t have girlfriends but if they did they wouldn’t have wanted to come. They often imagined they had girlfriends. Too often, these girlfriends would say. Life was rough for Patriska and his friend. His friend was born with no name, and so never took one. They got caught up in frequent fantasies such as driving through the canyons. In reality they were sitting on the couch at home, sipping on their juiced bread which had long gone stale.

Patriska grabbed a biscuit and put it in his mouth, glanced to his left, then glanced further left. “I’m just not doing things right,” he whined. His whining and dining was getting out of control so in a sudden bright blast of personal clarity he became closed off and withdrawn, keeping both his clothes on and his hands on.

“Probably need some fresh air,” his friend remarked glancing to the left and then ennhejf1 hendjfolp3 ha8823df. They stood up and went to the door, seeking the handle and prying it off to add to their collection downstairs. They hadn’t been outside in three weeks.

The sun was a beacon in the sky. It flashed and burned like a lighthouse on fire. “You hear about the lighthouse yesterday?” asked Patriska’s friend, who was stalling for time and needed to fill the dead awkward air with something that wasn’t horrific silence.

“No,” replied Patriska, still looking for an angle to this whole thing.

“Burned down at the dock yesterday.”

“Huh.” Patriska was not listening but fooled himself and therefore you into believing that he was.

“Yeah, made the local news, put the local lighthouseman out of a job.” Patriska’s friend was really getting into this story. He wasn’t even a storyteller! He wanted to be, but always bailed at the last minute. “Anyway, I gotta bail.”

“K.” Patriska mimed waving goodbye to his friend. Finally some horrific SILENCE. He would have to work on conjuring friends who had names next time. That would be his angle.