"We're going to write a story today!" she yelled at me.  She yelled so loud.  Like a megaphone inside my skull.

"No need to yell," I said.

"Get to it!" she snapped again, "Go get your computer and start typing!  I've just had a brilliant idea!"

I mosied over to my computer and sat, tapped my foot a few times.  I really had work I needed to get done.  Papers to file.  Clients to call.  Claims to sign.

"Well?" I said.

"Well what? Put your hands on the fucking keyboard!"

I layed my hands across the keyboard and instantly she started typing with my fingers.  It's always such a strange feeling when she takes over.  Like pins and needles in my fingernails.  Usually I don't even look at the screen, but her enthusiasm made me curious.  I peeked and the screen said:

"...Maybe I reach in to the paint can and try to grab it and it turns to brown and gets all squeezy, mushy in my hand..."

"What the hell are you writing?  Stop this crap, I have work to do."

"Shut up!" she yelled again and I felt her kick my brain a little.

I continued to watch the screen and I became very confused.  It was this really convoluted story about a guy who paints pictures on his wall or something.

In my nicest manner, I asked, "What's this all about?"

"Shut up or I'll make you dance again!"

Memories of ballet dancing in the street last winter wearing nothing but a tutu filled my head.  I kept my head down and my mouth shut until she finished, which happened about five minutes later when I suddenly felt no movement in my fingers. I looked at the screen, but she already saved and closed the story.  She keeps them all in some crazy hierarchy of files that I'll never find, nor do I intend to ever look for.

"Finished?" I asked.

"No!  Go buy some paint!"

Here we go, I thought.  She's in one of her zones.  I left my office, my files, my claims and walked down to the paint store.  I walked through some aisles of wall paint and I asked what color I should be looking for.  I didn't hear a response immediately so I started asking agai...

"ALL OF THEM!"  she screamed.  Holy cow.  It was like someone ripped out my ear drums, placed them in the middle of an indoor basketball court and blasted a hundred foghorns within inches of them. Holy cow.

"I said before you don't need to shout."

"Look, you better do as I say."

"Uh huh," I said, a little sarcastic.

So I went to talk to the store owner and he arranged to immediately deliver one pint size can of every color available in the store to my office.  They had just about every possible color discernable by the human eye.  Millions of cans of paint made their way down to my office by truckloads.  After they set them all up in rows near my desk, I thanked the delivery people.  Was I supposed to tip them?  I don't know.  Anyway, I didn't.

I quietly sat down at my desk and resumed filing when...

"HEY!"

"Okay, I've had about enough of this screaming.  If there is one person on this planet who shouldn't be screaming at me, it's the person that lives in my head.  You could whisper at the softest volume imaginable, softer than a bee landing on a daisy, and I would still be able to hear you."

Just then, as if she was pissed off, she took over my whole body.  At first, I thought, Oh my God, not the tutu, but instead she had me walk over to the cans of paint and she started ripping their lids off and chucking the paint onto the blank wall.  She had thrown about half of the paint on the wall when she started taking off all my clothes.

"What the hell are you..."

"SHUT UP!"

I was a jaybird.  I uncapped all the paint cans and I poured them all over my naked body and I ran over and hurled myself against the glistening wall.  It was a cacaphony of color.  A mesh of mooshiness.  I rolled on the floor and I lathered in it.  Frolicked.  Made body prints with my arms spread out, like snow angels.  It was like this: imagine that the clouds in the sky were made of rainbow paint, thick and gooey, and then you go outside in your pajamas to pick up the Sunday paper and WHAM! A flash flood pours over you and at first you get a little upset because you were looking forward to a certain article in the paper about that guy who just won a million dollars, but then you think, this is great and then you start rolling around in the painted grass; that's what it was like.  I was laughing hysterically.  I was living in a watercolor painting.  Upturned paint cans flooded the floor around my wall.  My glorious wall.  My fantasti...

"Hello?"  It was my boss.  He must have just walked in. "My God, Darby?"

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