He moved the bottle of wine from the tabletop to the floor beside him. A spill could be catastrophic.
He ranted about money in his own head. How is it that it cost him just a hundred dollars less than he worked for to get to work to work for the money that he's paying for having worked? Is this a sick joke?
Distinct possibility.
Someone once said, "If you have money problems, you have no problems." He was either half-retarded or had no money problems.
The wine began to have an effect. So he took another swig. He regrettably had no glass available.
Another swig.
He discovered that the wine glass is an overrated accessory.
There are so many questions that I'd love an answer to. The limitations of my own mind are of unlimited interest to me; just to understand whether I've the remotest chance of receiving a reasonable reply to my incessant inquiries would satisfy me.
Maybe.
He stood in the attic, blowing smoke upwards towards the grate above the garage, constantly reminding himself that he'd been much more careless last time he was caught. The last thing he needed was his mother's animosity as he prepared to leave tomorrow. He'd seen so little of his family despite his best efforts.
There is no name for the feeling. It's not exactly anxiety. It's not paranoia. It's not curiosity, or restlessness. It's not fear. He struggled to put a word to it; as he struggled, I found an answer. But it was not one he'd accept. It was not an answer which held anything of substance.
More a passing thought than anything substantial, I realized the following: all of human emotion is based on vagueness. It is the uncertainty that breeds all the words we have for emotions. But it is never one alone that we feel.
We are always on the borders of them all. It is like some sick ven-diagram, wherein all these things overlap and we are stuck dancing like scared animals around and around the borders, slaves to our own rationality.
I'd be better off as a dog.
Cigarette. Swig of wine. Sleep.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Monday, January 7, 2008
Chapter 2
He stared up at the ceiling fan. I half expected someone to walk into the room and ask him what he was looking at; I assume he'd tell the truth: "a ceiling fan". But nobody entered, and he lay, oblivious to the world around him.
He began to mumble, and each thought took him in that direction as far as it could before the next thought consumed him. He was consumed; over and over he was consumed. I guess he had a lot on his mind.
He heard soft whispers that slowly brought him back. And slowly he did return, and forget, the thoughts that had only a minute ago consumed him. But not before he was consumed.
He drove, carefully avoiding potholes or anything that looked like a pothole including shadows and small bumps. Hitting potholes made a bang he felt in his spine. The sound made him itch.
Home: soup, television, phone calls, internet, music, bed. None of it satisfied him. And as he struggled to figure out why, staying awake until he hadn't the strength left in his face to keep his eyelids up, I was the one who answered the question:
He wasn't even there; he didn't realize it, and of course I'm speaking figuratively. He was there physically. (Why the physical and the figurative seem like opposites is beyond me; it seems to me the physical shouldn't be confused for the literal, which is the opposite of the figurative, but they are anyway I suppose.) Anyway, he was there physically, but he'd been consumed, and so regretfully was not a potentially satiated entity.
Because he wasn't even there.
Where was he? Here's my guess:
He was in the belly of a great beast. The lives and loves of many greater men than he had been consumed by it; and now he joined the ranks of the best and the worst, and the in-between.
On second thought, nobody's here, or there, or anywhere; They're all in there. Welcome to the belly of the greatest beast ever to have existed. Welcome to humanity. Have a happy life.
When the world is ending, and everything they know is coming down around them, will they stop to ask for directions to the gates of heaven?
He began to mumble, and each thought took him in that direction as far as it could before the next thought consumed him. He was consumed; over and over he was consumed. I guess he had a lot on his mind.
He heard soft whispers that slowly brought him back. And slowly he did return, and forget, the thoughts that had only a minute ago consumed him. But not before he was consumed.
He drove, carefully avoiding potholes or anything that looked like a pothole including shadows and small bumps. Hitting potholes made a bang he felt in his spine. The sound made him itch.
Home: soup, television, phone calls, internet, music, bed. None of it satisfied him. And as he struggled to figure out why, staying awake until he hadn't the strength left in his face to keep his eyelids up, I was the one who answered the question:
He wasn't even there; he didn't realize it, and of course I'm speaking figuratively. He was there physically. (Why the physical and the figurative seem like opposites is beyond me; it seems to me the physical shouldn't be confused for the literal, which is the opposite of the figurative, but they are anyway I suppose.) Anyway, he was there physically, but he'd been consumed, and so regretfully was not a potentially satiated entity.
Because he wasn't even there.
Where was he? Here's my guess:
He was in the belly of a great beast. The lives and loves of many greater men than he had been consumed by it; and now he joined the ranks of the best and the worst, and the in-between.
On second thought, nobody's here, or there, or anywhere; They're all in there. Welcome to the belly of the greatest beast ever to have existed. Welcome to humanity. Have a happy life.
When the world is ending, and everything they know is coming down around them, will they stop to ask for directions to the gates of heaven?
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