I used to play Solitaire a lot as a kid. It made me feel mature to sit at my parents desk and use their computer just as I had seen them do each day. I wasn't very good at first, but over time I started to better grasp the rules of the game and I improved. 

     I can still clearly remember how I felt the day I found out that not every game of Solitaire is winnable. I spent hours trying to puzzle it out, unable to understand how such an injustice could be true. I wasn't able to understand how you could play every game, following a carefully thought out strategy, making no mistakes, and yet, still lose. 

     As I grew older I began to realize that the injusticeness was not just contained to Solitaire. I began to realize that each and everybody's lives are just like a game of Solitaire, that some, despite every effort, are doomed to fail. And just like Solitaire, there's no way of knowing whether your game is winnable, till it's over. There's no way of knowing if your lucky break is just around the corner, or if you will never get one. There's no sure way to know which cards will lead you down the right path. There's no way to know whether you've already chosen the wrong cards, thinking they were the right ones. There's no way to know whether you are throwing yourself against an unbreakable wall, or whether your next blow will know it down. 

      There is no formula to follow that guarantees your success. Some people are dealt easy cards and some people are dealt impossible ones. There's no way to control the outcome. All we can do is choose to do the best with the cards that we were dealt. 

     Growing up, my father taught me many important lessons that have helped me throughout my whole life. The last lesson that my father ever taught me, and perhaps even the most important, is to give up hope. Now I understand that most people believe the opposite. I also used to believe that hope was something we should hold on to, sheltering it from doubts. But I know now that you and I have both been mistaken.

       My father has always been very important to my brother, my sister and I, and we have always been important to him. His dedication as a father started even before I was born. 

      The story goes that when my Father and Mother were dating, she nervously came to him one afternoon to tell him that she was pregnant. He reacted by taking her in his arms, spinning her around a few times, and setting her back down with a kiss on her forehead. He then told her he would be right back, and left for what my father says was about an hour, but my mother claims must have been closer to five.

My mother was left with a mixture of many emotions. Happiness at his initial excitement, turned into confusion at his sudden departure and then ending with anger that she had received no explanation to his whereabouts. And that is how she stayed, stewing angrily on the couch while watching the door.

      At the sound of his arriving truck, my mother sat up a little straighter, running her hands through her hair. She was ready to deliver the lecture that she had been developing in her head while she waited. After a few minutes had passed without my father opening the door, my mother angrily walked over and opened it herself to find my father walking back from his workshop in the garage. She stood in the doorway, hands on her hips. My father always said her stance resembled that of peter pan. He rushed right over to her, smiling real big, grabbing her hands in his own and told her, "Come with me, I want to show you something." She faltered a little, caught of guard by his excitement. She had spent so much time perfecting his scolding, and she didn't want all that time spent festering to go to waste. But she let him lead her to the garage, her curiosity growing with every step.

      My father covered my mothers eyes with his hands as they walked through the door, and when he lifted them, she saw everything.

      It was just wood. Lots and lots of wood. Long pieces, short pieces, thin pieces and thick pieces. Stacked all along two of the walls.

"Isn't it great!" He said excitedly to my my mother. His eyes were lit up with excitement.

"Are you going insane?" she said, turning to him, her hands returning to their previous position on her hips "Did you even hear what I told you in there. I'm pregnant!"

My father grabbed her waist and turned my mother back around, till she was facing the wood. Pointing to one pile along the closest wall, he told her "That cherry wood over there is a hard sturdy wood. It has a beautiful grain to it and darkens to a rich reddish brown with age. It's just right for a crib."

     His hands still on her waist, he turned her slightly till she was facing the other wall with more wood stacked against it. "That wood is black walnut" he told her "It's for the bassinet, cause I'm sure you'll insist on the little bugger sleeping right next to you in the bedroom for the first few months. It has a beautiful color to it and doesn't even need to be stained. With some oil and clear finish it will practically glow. It will have solid brass hinges, to easily rock the baby to sleep, and a stop pin, if you want to lock it in place. Those pieces next to it are basswood, to whittle figures for the mobile. I was also thinking i'd make...."

"And then she spun around and kissed me" my father would say, proudly smiling. "Well, it was the only way I could get him to stop talking" my mother would add, giving him a coy look.

     The crib was just as beautiful as he had imagined it. Each one of us slept in the warm embrace of my fathers crib, with a mobile of little wooden tools that he had whittled hanging above us. From that very first day that he heard he was going to be a father he became devoted to us. He not only taught us about patience, hard work, and selflessness but he demonstrated them to us every day in his actions. He taught us all the most important lessons in life and guided us gently through each awkward milestone. He was better than any father in the world and I, nor my sister or brother, would be the people we are today if it wasn't for him. When we married, he took on the same role for each of our spouses. And when we went on to have kids of our own he went from being not only the quintessential father but also the quintessential grandfather.

     We've had regular family dinners for decades. All the grandchildren run straight from their car to my fathers workshop where he leaves a bin of his scrap wood for them to nail together and attempt to make their own creations. My father would work the grill, talk and joke with everyone while we ate, and then chase the grandkids around when dinner was done. It was a routine that nobody tired of.

     Then everything started to change. There was no scrap wood for the kids to play with, because my father no longer stepped foot in his workshop. Instead of working the grill, he sat in his armchair quietly watching game shows. At first he would join us at the table when the food was ready but after a while he started eating on a dinner tray in front of the tv. He no longer chased the kids after dinner. He no longer left his chair at all, when he did it was to say goodnight and head to bed, before we had even left.

     This change didn't happen over night. It was a slow change that took place as he entered into his senior years and encountered a few health problems. Ha had had a mild stroke, due to high blood pressure, and was experiencing some hearing loss and arthritis. It was a sad sight for all of us. It was strange to see my father without the usual light in his eyes and it made us all uneasy. 

     One night we all met up to talk about what should be done and it was decided that we would approach my father after the next family dinner. An intervention of sorts. And so we did. We talked to him about not giving up. About trying different medications. About fighting off the depression. He didn't say much. He told us he appreciated our concern. He said he wasn't aware we had been worrying about him so much, and he was sorry to have caused us any stress. He gave us each a kiss on the forehead before we left. Later that night, we all mentioned how we thought we saw the light going back into his eyes and we all felt a little better.

     When we came came for the next family dinner, I walked to my fathers armchair to greet him, but there was nothing except his impression there. I went to the kitchen to ask my mother about him, worried that he might already be in bed. My mother smiled when I asked her. "He's in his workshop" She said. "He had some wood delivered last week. I don't know what he's working on but he's been in there almost every day."

     My father sat at the table with us that night during dinner. We all left feeling relieved to see that he was doing better. For the next few dinners that we came for, he'd come out of his workshop, wash his hands, and sit at the table for dinner with the whole family.

     One night I got a call from my mother that made my heart drop. After hanging up the phone I grabbed my coat and rushed straight over. I don't even remember the drive there, I was in such a state of shock. The door to his workshop was open. I ran straight in. My mother sat on the floor, staring at her feet. My father sat in a chair in the middle of all his tools. It almost looked like he had fallen asleep while taking a quick break. Except for the mask on his face. A plastic tube led from the mask down to a small tank at his side that was labeled Hydrogen.

     Along the same wall, where the wood for my crib once sat, was a casket. It was a beautiful casket, made out of mahogany. It still smelled like fresh cut wood. Resting inside of it was a note.

I love you.

I'm sorry to disappoint you. I know you thought I was getting better. I saw the way you'd look at me as I left my workshop. With a sappy hopeful look on your faces. And that's where you went wrong, holding on to hope. Hope for what? Ten more years of being an old man on the couch? Hoping for things to be better won't help me sleep, it won't help me be able to hear again, it won't make the arthritis in my hands go away,it won't get rid of my waves of confusion or lower my blood pressure. Sure, it would be great if all those things could happen, I'd like to be able to run around with my grand kids again, but I'd be a dumb ass to hope for it. Hope is good in it's own place, but not stupid hope. Not hope in the improbable. Not when it gets in the way of accepting and moving on. People stay in horrible marriages in the hopes that one day it will get better. People waste years on awful jobs in the hopes that they might get noticed and promoted. And if I had pushed on, in the name of hope, I would have costed all of you years of worry and thousands in medical bills. If I couldn't accept that my life was at an end, I wouldn't have been able to plan for it.

So here's my parting wisdom. Don't hold on to hope that things will change. Either take action to change it yourself, and if that can't be done, accept your circumstances and move on.

This isn't sorrowful for me. I've had a good life. I loved every second with you kids. I loved watching you grow up and become parents of your own. You all make me proud. It's because of you and your mother that I'll die a happy man.

Goodbye.

I love you.

I put the note back in it's place and joined my mother on the ground, staring at my own feet.

"He left a note for me also." She said, not breaking eye contact with her feet. "Casket's can cost near to five-thousand dollars. He used the money we saved to pay for a trip through Europe for me. He says he's sorry that due to his health we haven't been able to travel like I'd always wanted."

     My sister came running into the workshop much the same way that I had, a few minutes prior. She stared at our father, read the note, and joined our mother and I on the ground. Five minutes later my brother did the same. There we all sat, on the floor of the workshop, staring at our feet.

Expectantly, I held my pencil. 

Aggressively probed my barren mind. 

Desperately tried to grasp anything. 

Ultimately surrendered to my impotency.

Snapped the pencil, grabbed remote. 

The t.v. puts out expectations of how I'm supposed to look. What my social life is supposed to be like. It tries to tell me how I'm supposed to be, and I can't always fight it off. The t.v., and the radio, and magazines and billboards, they all send out little messages that infiltrate into my head and try to swallow up my soul.

I spend a lot of time being fake. I don't quite know why. I try and figure out what I'm supposed to be. Like I'm some character in a story. I try and figure out what I'm supposed to say to be the type of character that I want to be. I try and figure out what I'm supposed to say to make people like me. I don't ever think about what I want to say. I don't know what I want to say anymore. I want to be true to myself but I don't know how to do that anymore. I don't know myself anymore.

If you spend all your time being fake, does the fake you become the real you? After years of being fake I'm starting to wonder if there's any going back. The real me didn't get to grow up. I spent all my developing years trying to shove the real me down. And at some point when I wasn't paying attention, the real me stopped trying to get back up.

And now I can't find me anymore. Do I still exist.

Sometimes, I see glimpses of myself. I'll be talking to someone and think, this feels right. I like what I'm saying, I'm not thinking about what I'm saying it's just coming out, and it feels right. Do some people feel like this all the time. It's such a rare thing for me.

Years of trying to figure out what I'm supposed to say. What I'm supposed to look like. How I'm supposed to feel. And now I don't feel at all.

Is there a way to bring myself back to life. Or am I gone forever, replaced by my own warped Frankenstein version of myself.

If you didn't know her very well, you'd think that she was very put together.

      She had one of those houses that was almost so clean and perfect that you didn’t feel comfortable. Her floors were always so clean and shiny, you almost felt like you shouldn’t walk on them. The kitchen counters were always crumb-less, and every object had its own jar or bowl to live in. The table had a wrinkle-less table cloth with a bowl of shiny fruit placed exactly in the middle. There was a basket of rolled up blankets next to the couch, which had all if it’s cushions plump and in place. A plant sat neatly next to the fireplace, each one of its leaves the same shiny green. Everything had a place and was put in its place. On the outside.

      If you dug a little deeper, if you grabbed the shiny handle to open the clean cabinet doors, you would find something completely different on the inside. The hidden shelves were dusty and had random objects piled dangerously high. A jump rope tangled around a grocery bag full of dirty wadded up clothes was underneath a book covered in coffee stains, which had a tangled ball of yarn sitting on top of it, next to a half-melted candle. All this and more was shoved in the cabinet with markers and pens sprinkled over the pile. Inside the kitchen cabinets, bowls that could have easily been stacked were thrown in at random. In the pantry, only few cans stood upright while the rest lay on their sides, rocking a little if you shut the freshly wiped door too hard.

      Very few people had seen inside her room, she always kept the door shut. If by some chance, she had left it open, which scarcely ever happened, they might assume she was in the process of packing or unpacking, or maybe rearranging her room. A laundry basket of unfolded clothes and random items sat on the floor against the wall next to two broken lamps. There were multiple cups on multiple surfaces. Only half the dresser drawers were properly shut. The ends of random object poked out from under her unmade bed which had a blanket crumbled up in the middle of a dirty fitted sheet that only clung to three corners. Shoes were sprinkled around the whole room, sometimes accompanied by a wadded piece of clothing. The blinds hung at an angle across the window, one side drooping all the way to the window sill, while it's opposite end stayed proudly holding its position in the middle.

      Her social life was strikingly similar. People knew her as someone who was organized and motivated. She worked long shifts as a nurse while still attending medical classes to further her degree. Her boyfriend of three years was a surgeon. They had a standing date night every Thursday night and she stayed at his house every other weekend. No one had ever seen them argue and there was a rumor that someone had seen him looking at rings in a jewelry store.

      What people didn’t know was that when she wasn’t at class or work or with her boyfriend, she spent most her time snorting coke and fucking guys whose names she didn’t know.

      She worked so hard at hiding her loneliness and insecurities, at hiding her brokenness. She tried so hard to feel like she wished she felt. She wasn’t quite sure which one was the real her. In fact, she assumed neither were. She faked her smile no matter which of her lives she was living, wondering why she even bothered living at all.

It's like I'm in the middle of a horribly hot fire. And it's burning me bad, the pain is awful.

And I'm standing in this fire writhing in pain. Wishing with everything I had that it would stop. And it's pathetic. It's pathetic cause there's two bridges leading right out of this damn fire.

But one has poor support and might not be able to hold me. I could fall and it could hurt. I don't know how far the drop would be, I don't know what's underneath it. I'm too scared to take that bridge.

There's the other bridge but waiting on the that bridge is a pack of hungry ferocious dogs. So I'm too scared to take this bridge as well, because they might attack me. I don't know if I would be able to fight them off. I don't know if I would be able to make it past them. So I don't take that bridge either.

I think, if only I could know those dogs wouldn't be able to kill me, if I knew I'd be able to make it past, even at a drastic cost, I'd find the will to cross that bridge. But I just don't know.

If only I could be guaranteed that the other bridge would support me. If I knew I could run across it fast enough, I'd be able to do it. But I'm not sure if I could, so I don't try.

I'm too scared to try and escape, in case there's something out there worse than this. What if I try and fail?

I take comfort in the fact that this pain is consistent and predictable. So here I stand, consumed with pain and misery.

        I'm the last one in the lab. Several bots had been sent out to uncategorized planets, returning with samples containing rock, dirt, and even some plant life, that had all been analyzed and documented. All but one returned and I volunteered to be the one to stay and wait for it. This was my first time working on a deployed ship. I hate being away from my family, but when a new galaxy was discovered and the Head of Exploration recruited me to help analyze and document each planet, I didn't feel right refusing. Also, it's a hell of a pay raise. So here I am, collecting samples, studying them, and filing reports. Wash rinse and repeat. Most my associates are in no rush to get done, but I try and move things along as quick as possible so I can get home to my wife and kids. Hence the volunteering to wait hours for this last Bot to arrive. I may as well get comfy. Maybe even sleep a little.

            The beeping sound of the Bot returning to it's loading station wakes me up. About time. I walk over and activate the monitor to read the findings. Not too bad, about time I catch a break. It's liquid matter, the easiest to analyze. All you have to do is test a small sample of it and run the rest through a strainer. And it's very rare for anything solid to show up in liquid samples.

            Let's see, mostly chloride, sodium, sulfate. Some magnesium and calcium and potassium. This is some rather salty stuff. I get the tests done fairly fast and I walk towards the bot with a little spring in my step, excited to be nearly done for the day, and type in the code that orders it to run the rest of its contents through the strainer. I file my findings and clean up my work space when all the sudden I hear a large thud. Spinning around fast, I find myself face to face with some kind of creature.

             It doesn't look anything like me or any animal I've ever seen. It's about as high as my waist, and looks soft and weak with some kind of bright garment around its waist and legs. We're staring in each others eyes, both of us shocked, and while I'm wondering how such a scrawny thing can even support its own weight it starts to emit a high pitched frequency and darts to the corner of the room, cowering.

            I ignore the adrenaline that's beginning to course through my veins and slowly put on a pair of sanitary gloves. I'm a little scared to touch the thing, even though it looks harmless, so I grab it quickly and, holding it as far away as I can from myself, walk it across the room and put it in the largest specimen container that we have. It barely weighs anything, and doesn't seem to have sharp teeth or claws, but it starts up it's shrieking noise again, which makes it really hard to stay calm. Luckily the noise quiets down substantially when I seal the lid onto the container.

          Now that it's contained I start to let the gravity of the situation hit me. I walk to the monitor, watching the creature from the corner of my eyes, and page the Head of the ship. I'm a little nervous to wake him up at this hour, even though it's justifiable under the circumstances. I explain the situation to him and, after inquiring multiple times about the strength of the specimen container, he orders me to stay put and make no further action till he arrives.

             Upon arriving to the lab, he stares at the creature for a long while before calling the Head of Exploration. I'm amused to notice he seems a little nervous waking them up at this hour as well. I try and eaves drop as much as I can but he's gone to pace up and down the opposite side of the lab, so it's hard to hear much. He finally finishes up his call and re positions himself in front of the specimen jar, staring at the creature.

"What are we going to do with it?" I finally ask

"We're not quite sure yet. They have ordered us to run some tests on it and to study it's behavior. Depending on our finding we will either dissect it and preserve the remains or..." he stopped mid sentence and waited so long to finish that I almost thought he had forgotten he was talking. "....Or possibly send bots to collect more for breeding purposes, so we can study it's behavior more extensively."

The room was silent while we both stared at the creature, who was now curled up, whimpering at the bottom of the specimen container.

"Are you sure the container is secure?" He asks me for the fifth time.

"I"m sure"

"Clean up the liquid that it left behind. Sanitize the floors and tables. Then you are excused to your bunk."

He left without another word.

         I robotically finish my tasks. The reality of all of this not really sinking in. I'm still not sure if I'm dreaming or not. I walk past the creature to the exit doors, but then turn around and walk back to the container one last time. I reach out and poke the glass, hard, a few times. I don't really know why I'm doing it. The creature looks up and stares into my face. It looks so strange, with a tiny fleshy face and body. It's ears and nose protrudes from it's face in the funniest inconvenient angles. It has only two arms and hands, with only five thin fingers at the end of each one. How strange. It makes me appreciate my dark thick green skin and four strong arms. I put my hand to my face to feel my wide jaw and ivory tusks on either side of my mouth, I feel the rest of my face wondering what it would feel like if I had a nose sticking out of my face or ears from either side of my head. Why, it's jaw looked so small and weak I doubt it even has two rows of teeth. I run my tongues over my many rows of sharp teeth and feel proud. I smile at how handsome I feel, and the creature shudders and hides its head at the sight of my smile. That's weird. Maybe if thinks I'm the ugly one. The thought makes me chuckle. I shake my head and run my hand through the tentacles on top of my head as I walk out of the lab doors. What a crazy night.

She could see it all. Little threads that were a part of everything. Connecting everything. Forming everything. Layers and layers of threads on top of threads. Thousands of strands that joined everything and everyone. It was beautiful. The only time she had ever seen something that was not a part of this giant throbbing unified world, was when she looked into a mirror. She hung in a world of interconnected webs, without being able to touch a single strand. She was able to see the beauty, but not able to be a part of it.