I lost my grip on the wheel.
It was a dark night, yet the sky was completely clear. It was a tired night, yet there had been man cups of coffee. It was a restless night, though everyone was laying down. It was a night full of oddities.
I sat forward in the seat, trying hard to hold onto the wheel as the car began to skid around on the road. The longer I tried, the harder it became. I slowly began to lose my grasp, and I realized how all the events that had happened that night led to...
I have no beef with people over the age of 25, but this week, if you're a "youngin'," just watch the hell out because you're dealing with The 34-Year Old Curmudgeon. I will lay out a buffet of whup-ass on you so hard that you'll wish your skinny jeans had extra padding in the seat area.
I'll show you places on your body you never would have dreamed an iPad would fit (with a little jimmying and perhaps some Crisco). I'll shake my imaginary cane at you and scream at you to get the hell off of my theoretical lawn,...
What does it mean to go the distance? Does it mean to beat everyone else or to beat yourself? When you grow up, parents, teachers, and coaches tell you to "do your best". But we all know thats bullshit in the capitalist society we live in America. Its dog eat dog. Kill or be killed and everyone is in it for themselves. Maybe you can trust your family and a couple friends but thats it. "Go the distance" cliched. Easier said than done. What does it really mean? Beat everyone else. Be better. No one cares what you're doing unless...
It was the fall that surprised me the most.
The winter, she was fine. Spring, slowly getting sick, Summer, even sicker.
In fall, she fully recovered from stage 3 liver cancer. There was someone to thank. God or someone.
It could have been the praying, or just hoping we didn't lose her. She was only 7. 7-year-olds aren't supposed to just die from liver cancer. Ella's better now, though. It's easy to believe in something when a dying child makes a full recovery from something so evil as that.
So God, or someone, thank you. It was God or someone...
I'd had so many plans, just before I went back. I was prepared to an insane degree. I'd spent days camping in the wilderness, gathering enough iron to create a goddamned magnet. I'd memorized the fundamentals of aviation, chemistry, nuclear physics. I knew all there was to know about rebuilding civilization.
And it had all slipped away, one memory after another, fading into a blur, after I'd fallen through the time vortex.
So here I am, trying to explain to some neolithic ignoramus how to make gunpowder. The most I can remember is that it requires a mixture of sulfur,...
I took a ball, and threw it against the brick wall, to have it bounce back. I threw it again and again, to have it come back, back into my hands. I thought about my decisions, about how I threw away my future, and my life. He told me to do it. I know he did. I blame myself, not him. I threw the ball again, and heard the loud crack of it bouncing of the wall. When I hurled it the next time, I threw it as hard as I could, and rocketed back to me, through my legs,...
She told me never to open my mouth, never to talk. She said I am nothing, no one, and not even a mere object. But I did, I gave my self an excuse to talk, as I bulleted down Quincy Lane, and ran into the cemetery on North Boulevard. I walked over to the tombstone that represented what ever life I had. What ever excuse I had to be a happy person. For the next hour, my teardrops fell on the stone. And quietly, under my breath, I read the words engraved in the stone.
IN REMEMBRANCE OF TOM E....
Chopin and nature. Like a French-pressed cup of coffee and Swiss chocolate.
But was it nature that inspired this feast for the eyes? How did Chopin filter out the noise to create his masterpiece? Must I do the same?
I switch to Vivaldi, an upbeat piece known for it's nature qualities. The Four Seasons. Ahh...that's perfect. I sink into the hammock, the soft southern breeze cooling my hair as I rock gently back and forth. Lulled to sleep by a dead guy...
I wake up. This is all wrong. This can't be right. I'm missing something...
The song is over,...
Pristine. Vacant. Blankly inspired I suppose.
I stood there stiff at the edge, the reservoir grasped my echoes of desperation, but regurgitated full truths. I was to die.
Only my faulty pretences did I end up here, it was only by my willingness to give up on all that was once so attainable. This rock here is the last tangible relic of my hope, but in my full awareness I know it is.
Where did this all start my thoughts of unforgiving failures? It started at that dream, that heart-wrenching dream. In my old home that creeked with emptiness and...
He set the plate before her. It steamed, smells of carmelized meat and cinnamon wafted up to her nose. "This is my lust."
He still spoke with inflection, they had not dined upon his theatricality, his sense of timing, his desire to surprise. There was an order to these things, and while he still had that order, he would continue. The assembled guests mumbled their appreciation, though Dowager Harriet was still chewing through the last bites of his shame.
When the Boddhisatva-to-be had announced this meal, the good and great had tittered that he had finally lost his mind. Spent...