The ending to my story in Orlando flickers. I thought I knew how the story would end when I first set out to write this series. The scene would be framed at the Orlando International Airport...
If I like her and she likes me, we run the gauntlet: Wally’s, Lil Indies, Tako Cheena, and then a fifty percent chance of never seeing each other again...
At Lil Indies, a hipster bar, it doesn’t seem like many people are getting into the music. People pause conversation and look at the empty dance floor like someone left on the TV. So I decide to get wasted out of my mind until I believe in myself...
I’m too lazy to walk the 1.5 miles to Publix, so I hail a Lyft and sit on the apartment complex stairs with my chin in my palm, thinking about a Buddhist koan...
In Orlando, friends have streamed in and out of my life. Musicians, writers, sculptors, martial artists, undergrads, everyday people with big dreams of traveling the world. People who give me rides.
Iljeen Jo is a Contributing Editor for Burrow Press. He splits his time on couches in Orlando and Chicago where he spends his days working on a first novel. He is a former competitive figure skater, a returned Peace Corps volunteer, and an avid martial artist. He received an MFA in 2018 from the University of Central Florida as Provost Fellow.
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