Beach Sloth

                What do you call love on the internet? It is un-nameable. Moraldo knows this as the new place to meet singles in his area. That’s what the internet is for: making the far-away seem so close. And I enjoy Moraldo taking a Document’s bland template and transforming it into a way of sharing one’s heart. Multiple little narratives weave themselves around a general theme of sadness. Nothing is sadder than the death of a relationship. It hurts even more when one thinks they are in a relationship and the other doesn’t. I understand it. 

                Sobear cheers up with a coke. Bears love coke. They need to wake up. A whole season goes away while bears stay asleep. With the delicious tastes of Coca-Cola bears are refreshed. In case you are ever attacked by a bear throw a soda at them. However if it is ‘RC Cola’ the bear will be particularly irate and viciously tear you limb from limb. I can’t have that happen. You have important internet things to do. Reject the ‘getting mauled to death by a bear’ lifestyle. 

                Moraldo includes the bear for a specific purpose. Like the bear, his love is hibernating. The details of his love come to light. First there’s the whole puking out the window. One of my friends did that at a party and was called ‘totally unhip’ for it. Cleaning puke off of vinyl siding is rough. When you do that forget asking for the sunglasses you left there because it isn’t happening. Sunglasses help with hangovers. 

                Her friends are attractive, all of them. I remember the ‘cute friend’ lifestyle. Remember one particular ex-girlfriend’s friend who was really nice to me. Of course, being as quick as a sloth, I realized this fact roughly a decade later while eating Morningstar Farms bacon. Think I audibly said ‘Dammit I’m a total idiot’ before throwing some celery on top of my food. Honestly celery and fake bacon is delicious. I recommend this to everyone. 

                Ouch re: the ending. The ending is absolutely as honest as one could get. Moraldo wears his heart on his internet. Read the final page. It changes everything that happened before, particularly the guy feeding a girl a carrot. That picture, seemingly cute, takes on a deeper, darker meaning. In the picture we see what they looked like before the broke up. He was an ‘office jockey’ judging by the photo. She was an ‘office jockey’ judging by the photo. Both of them met while he was looking for non-expired cream for his foul work coffee. She said some innocuous thing like ‘Doesn’t that work coffee stink’ and he responded with ‘Baby, let’s grow old together’. 

                The ending does end on a happy note though. Moraldo enters into the rarefied sphere of the alt lit world with a story that truly says ‘Hey, I’m single’. And really that is all you need in alt lit: loneliness and availability.