The Right Thing
sometimes he would say to himself "You damned fool! you coulda had it all! The cars, the girl. Those ones you really wanted! The only thing holdin' yerself back was your goddamned sense of security residin' over yer sense of responsibility to reckless rebellion! "
After he was done speaking to himself he would fumble through some aged books. His mark was written all over them. Not dissimilar at all to the marks all over his uncleaned floor. Hairs and dirt covered the majority of it. Burned out roaches mined their way into the ashtrays, covering themselves by the mound of fresh ashes from the expired cigarettes. He never really managed to pull himself out of the routines he had built for himself during the period of time in his life where he needed them most. When he needed them to help him forget that he had feelings. That he was human and not a machine that could be programmed to anyone's particular wishes. The type of tribal animal that puts on the different shades of face paint required to enter dominion into the various ceremonies and duties of any given tribe.
To do that took a lot. Somewhere in his subconscious (the only consciousness that was still fully intact) he heard a voice tell him that it had indeed taken a lot.
He fumbled for the remote. In the process he knocked his cane over, spilling a half full bottle of day old pop. "The rats will get it..." he mumbled to himself.
He turned on the T.V. and lit a cigarette with a strike-anywhere match.
On the T.V. was a bomb being dropped on a foreign nation. It reminded him of a faint memory of a dream he had had as a child. He thought about the green fields that seemed to go on forever. And the grass stained pants. He almost laughed. Instead, he sort of coughed up something and swallowed it again.
The hardest thing to swallow was the fact that he somehow had had it all. But now, he only had his aged tomes, his cane and his cigarettes. He'd tried to quit a few times but never really could manage to follow through. He thought about all of the people in his life that never smoked. He thought of a girl who had died of cancer in his class when he was thirteen. She never smoked. "Right. I'm safe... I'm good. I've done the right things."
After he was done speaking to himself he would fumble through some aged books. His mark was written all over them. Not dissimilar at all to the marks all over his uncleaned floor. Hairs and dirt covered the majority of it. Burned out roaches mined their way into the ashtrays, covering themselves by the mound of fresh ashes from the expired cigarettes. He never really managed to pull himself out of the routines he had built for himself during the period of time in his life where he needed them most. When he needed them to help him forget that he had feelings. That he was human and not a machine that could be programmed to anyone's particular wishes. The type of tribal animal that puts on the different shades of face paint required to enter dominion into the various ceremonies and duties of any given tribe.
To do that took a lot. Somewhere in his subconscious (the only consciousness that was still fully intact) he heard a voice tell him that it had indeed taken a lot.
He fumbled for the remote. In the process he knocked his cane over, spilling a half full bottle of day old pop. "The rats will get it..." he mumbled to himself.
He turned on the T.V. and lit a cigarette with a strike-anywhere match.
On the T.V. was a bomb being dropped on a foreign nation. It reminded him of a faint memory of a dream he had had as a child. He thought about the green fields that seemed to go on forever. And the grass stained pants. He almost laughed. Instead, he sort of coughed up something and swallowed it again.
The hardest thing to swallow was the fact that he somehow had had it all. But now, he only had his aged tomes, his cane and his cigarettes. He'd tried to quit a few times but never really could manage to follow through. He thought about all of the people in his life that never smoked. He thought of a girl who had died of cancer in his class when he was thirteen. She never smoked. "Right. I'm safe... I'm good. I've done the right things."