It was surely my due. I had turned as jaded as the Grinch. Perhaps greener, though the envy was so subcutaneous as to escape any social scrutiny. I was, afterall, quite nice, but... I was 29.

A precarious age, an idiotic one I would say. Old enough to have tasted some successes... To have felt the weight of “potential!” ...And too young to appreciate either. I was, in short, an ingrate. Others had achieved more, sooner, or on time... as if Life were linear! There was nothing to celebrate, in my mind. Winter was a particularly dark time.

By all accounts, I was doing fine. Like more than half of everybody else, I’d guess. I had no appreciable income, no stable job. The idea of a “career” was an abstract slogan for a pamphleteer. I had no children, aged 9 or 10, like so many of my so-called friends. The prospects of it, like marriage, indefinitely shelved. Holidays are a time for family folk to get together, and for the rest of us to get over as soon as possible, was what I subconsciously felt.

I suppose you’d say I needed to get over myself. The rim of my glasses had gotten too thick. I was dull. Tired. And sick. I had little perspective, and was losing even this. I nursed my perceived inadequacy, bit by bit, making everything in my life bland, like food for an invalid.

And so I layed me down to sleep Christmas Eve, with the contemptous outlook of another day “off.” Perhaps I was a little more pissed than usual. I had disagreed with myself with a larger dose of disgust. In anycase, I slept. The bored sleep well even when awake.

I got up, showered, got dressed in my usual drab secretarial best. I poured a tasteless breakfast blend, from the autodrip I had predictably pre-set, into my travel mug where it stays hot half the day. Coffee is a bandaid for many things besides physical fatigue. It also remedies conversational awkwardness and social debility. Like the out-of-vogue cigarette-break, it makes one look smart, and busy. I gathered my briefcase and office homework, my overcoat and matching umbrella, just in case. I had five- or ten-minutes to spare, but I hate to be late.

I walk to work, a thing which aggrevates, for embarassing lack of transport. But today was different. As I stepped through the door of my rental unit 9A, a chill swept my face. A pleasing thrill that tousled the hair of an innocent. A child who still believed in a better today stirred. Of course I was grown up, and was about to write it off as sniffling sentimentalism, but I felt... Taller. I realized I was holding my head up. It sounds so silly in retrospect.

I was holding my head up, like an infant babe, sticking out its neck. The world was a strange new place, with much less concrete... Glittery and picture postcard, even in the shadowy nooks. The path that I thought had been so streamlined, suddenly wasn’t as narrow. It sounds all too obvious, but in the moment I was shocked. And all the more appalled when my unwatched feet suddenly walked another way. The long way around. That scenic route, filled with family vingettes, wafting fireplace scents, fantasies and window displays.

“I will be to work late!” I told my former self... but then vestiges of pragmatism recalled that there were five - ten minutes to spare. You see how confused I was. Especially when I sensed something special in the air about me, like the ringing of a bell. Holding my head high, people said, “Hi” and smiled. They seemed shinier, and taking their time. Ornamented. I saw someone sipping a cup of steaming coffee, and remembered about mine. I took a sip automatically, just to clear the morning fog. And it was... delicious! Spectaluous. Devine. I can’t explain it. I was stupified. It was, like I’d said, just the same stupid coffee I buy out of habit all the time...

But in this moment, it was a little party in a mug. My face lightened ten years, maybe twenty. You see how attached I was to my numbers... I had been carrying on as if a middle-aged bodybag. I saw people of forty, fifty, perhaps even well-kept sixty, stepping sprightly along in their daily affairs... They were celebrating something, something in the now. They walked arm in arm, intimate. In pantomime they were wishing each other well. I couldn’t of course hear what they said. I took pleasure in their enjoyment. Damn it, I haven’t done that for a very, very long time.

I got to the office building feeling fine. I even liked my reflection in the big glass door of the skyrise. There was a colour rising in my newspaper cheeks. I took the stairs. I thought to myself, “There IS something to be said for exercise.” Seven flights and I was brightening all the while. It wasn’t just the tinsel in the hall. The security guard seemed a little disconcerted at my sight, but I gave such a pearly smile that it was as disarming as an extravagant tip.

I even (imagine this!) started humming a tune I’d heard from childhood. Snow and sleighbells. I’m sure I messed up the lyrics, but not the cheery message. And so elated, I arrived at the office door to find it thoroughly locked. Huh, just my luck!

I was dumbfounded for a moment more... till it hit me like an organ. The sign on the door, simplified as it was, written by my own hand: Closed for the Holidays.

This really was my day off.

12.22.2020

Happy Holidays Challenge @LexiCon

Challenge

Be Vulnerable

be as vulnerable as you can. write about dead parents or lost friendships. poetry or prose, no long stories. bonus points if you make me cry. $5 to the winner

7v7 in Poetry & Free Verse

• 21 reads

bifocals

I never knew you

how I wanted to

you’ll say that’s cause I

never knew me and

you’ll offer a cold

logical critique...

handshakes... so to speak

as you wave a palm

magnaminously

to the open door

with its double-hinge

...keeping the outside

out, the inside in

behind the newspaper

and the coffee rim

the war is brewing

as turmoil within

to better ourselves

and the sty beneath,

but just what is sin?

putting on our best

collective chagrin

one leg at a time

it’s hard to extract...

where we might have been

this is not a tear!

in our underwear

the fabric of our lies

is much stronger than

what has disappeared...

faith, trust, years, but enough

of this rolling down

with underbelly

spilling on the chin

I was meant to stand

tall against your wall

where I measured up

always below the

arch of your eyebrow

the spectacles of

the past have caught up

with me at long last

and I am ready

to level my self

here in the cave of

misunderstandings

out of which my breath

is fast escaping...

10.03.2020

Be Vulnerable challenge @spurtsofdark

Challenge

To remember dead loved ones...

I know it's very hard to write about it, but we must remember our dead loved...Write anything please! But try don't crying:)

7v7

• 19 reads

Goodnights Love Goodnights

To the Dead

and not forgotten

to the ones gone

still and

unforgiven!

To the Former

and the ladder

to the rungs

of heaven

over which

we hang

our hearts

unrequited

and clatter

our naked soles

over hellish coal

quenched with

blood gone cold!

this is the open letter

the penknife

that rips

my envelope

of Life

and bids me

hearken!

to lick the seal

with living tears

and remember,

remember dear!

09.21.2020

To remember loved ones challenge @7ERSUS

Challenge

Ask An Atheist Day Round Two

Hello everybody. Today is national Ask an Atheist Day. After last years successful turn out, I've decided to create the "Ask an Atheist" challenge. This is a chance to get to know us atheists and have an understanding from one another. Anyone is free to ask questions regarding faith and our lack of faith. Fellow atheists here on Prose are free to help answer questions and enter if they choose to. As a reminder, this is a friendly challenge, so let's be respectful to one another. Let's get started. I'm an atheist. Ask me anything.

7v7 in Religion

• 62 reads

What is the difference between an atheist and a theist...?

Two on a bus bench compared notes... They had some valuables. One had some coins; the other a metal cross. Neither had enough. The former decided to prostitute; the latter to pawn the pendant. They both took a loss, but satisfied that they did what they could, they both boarded the bus in good faith that at some point they would get off.

09.17.2020

Ask an Atheist Day Round Two challenge @Harry_Situation

• 25 reads

And Then

I wish I

were/ was

as vulnerable

just cus and

because

inside out

and on

the sleeve

slathered

emotionally

for all to see

I wish I

were/ was

naked or

I don’t know

what! but

whatever

just to feel

elemental

within the

social wheel

not racial

nor ethnic

nor politically

tri-colored

I wish I were/ was

stripped of this

and pray for Is

or more so for

my becoming

an open future

something

08.20.20

I wish I were/ was challenge @ColdRamen

Challenge

One Thing To Pass On

Write some important advice. Maybe it's something that you wish someone had told you, or something that someone told you but you didn't listen, or maybe it's just something important that you have learned. Whatever it is, write it here.

7v7

• 54 reads

Pour

You are not here, for you, It told me, as I drew in a long deep breath, and relinquished It. I understood. It was not mine, but in me, as well as in everybody else.

You are filled with the holy spirit, It said, as I saw myself, a vessel among vessels within the vessel of Life Itself.

Pour, Experience commanded, and I felt better, about myself and Existence Itself.

08.19.2020

One Thing To Pass On challenge @HelloWorld