the end of the world.
There are no more stories left. That's what I'm thinking as I walk down the empty streets. Current time: 4:57 AM. Will to keep fighting: 21%.
Here's the thing: all the times this has happened before, I've always had something to hold onto. A good meal, my best friend's laughter, the possibility of falling in love again. Endless summer days and swims in the lake near my house and the bite of cold night air in my lungs.
But those things just aren't enough for me anymore, and I don't know why, but it's probably the most tragic thing in the world. Sometimes I feel like I'm the most tragic thing in the world.
There are no more stories left, and that's all there is. Stories saved me, you know, once upon a time. They made me look into my future, think of all the exciting people I'd meet, of all the new experiences I'd have. But man, now that I've actually gotten there, the future is actually just as bleak as the past. Go figure.
And now there are no more stories left. Well, no more stories that will save me. Well, no more of my story.
It's a long walk, but I'll get there eventually.
I've got the rest of my life, after all.
Lila
...
It’s funny, really.
How we stare from our balconies at the ants scurrying below. How we pass them on the streets—the wanting eyes, the starving mouths, the empty hands. Hair stiff as wire, clothing an amalgam of layered coats and scarves, mismatched socks, worn-out sandals.
We pass them, and we think.
That could never be me.
Look at here. Look at now. In this moment, I’m all set. We get so acclimated to small comforts that our minds can’t even meet them halfway down. We can’t see ourselves in their shoes. Our imaginations just aren’t that big.
I used to think like that. Before the divorce and the alimony, before the recession, before the unemployment and fire and the insurance company refusing to compensate because I didn’t insure every blade of grass in my yard or knick-knack in my study.
I downsized to a trailer. But welfare cut my benefits again five months ago, and just like that I was another ghost at the panhandle. It all happened so slow. It all happened so fast.
And time don’t wait. They say it moves quicker as you get older. All I know is, as a starry-eyed grad student, I never pictured it would end up like this. I never pictured myself as a middle-aged loner sleeping with the rats under blankets of corrugated tin. This isn’t the life I went three-hundred-grand in the hole to build.
But where did I go wrong?
One minute, everything was falling into place. The next it was falling to pieces, and as hard as I tried to preserve it, the decay was just too persistent. It spread too fast, and overtook my future.
Everything’s decayed now.
Even my memories are starting to rust.
There’s a lady out here I used to pass by on my way to work, every day. I used to avert my gaze, never locking with her hungry, pothole eyes. Her chessboard teeth. Her gnarled, swollen hands and yellowed, untrimmed nails. They would reach. And I would walk. And she would call. And I would walk. And she would say “God bless you” anyway. And smile.
And I would walk.
Silent. Distracted. Too consumed by dizzying fantasies of the trophy wife who left me. Our future children that we never had. A bigger house, twice the size of the meager three-bedroom apartment we shared. I always wanted bigger, I guess. Now I have nothing. Now I’d settle for what we wanted to leave behind in a heartbeat.
I met that lady again just the other day. Apparently she’d found a shelter uptown a few months back and they’d helped her get her life in order. She got on as a dishwasher at this little diner. She looked a lot cleaner. Not fancy, by far. But she looked...ever-so-slightly like I used to. It was a sobering reversal, watching her hands.
They reached. And I couldn’t walk anymore. And she called, and from my teary eyes I could make out that her hands were no longer empty. They didn’t ask; they offered.
At the end of the day, I never had the heart to take her money.
But I learned her name.
It was Lila. Lila McPherson.
She had a name.
They all did.
Oh, and one more little bit of information I left out. The last doctor visit I could afford didn’t go so good. Not that it mattered. At this point I’d give anything just to get out.
Another year at most I’ve got to rot in this place.
I could look for the shelter that rehabilitated Lila. But why? I’d be getting polished up just to die. Anything from hereon out is an exercise in futility.
So now all I can do is find my reflection in passing. Wait for a bus window or puddle or mirror. Find myself, and try to recognize. Find myself, and try to remember. Still, it seems every newest version of myself I find, he’s so far removed from the man I knew. And there’s no strength left to change him.
All I can do is remind him, reassure him.
He has a name too.
#fiction, #prose, #challenge, #homeless, #depression
Control Freak
She was a control freak.
Just... not in the way you’d expect.
She wasn’t itching to fix a flaw in her plan.
The truth was, she was fine with the mess.
As a matter of fact, she often caused it.
What she controlled...
Manifested red black and blue.
Thin lines on his arms.
A bruise shown anew.
Impulsive, yet calculated.
He was her masterpiece.
His world to her liking.
She led the dance,
I think that’s why he forgave her...
Because deep down, he knew
She was lost
And I think so was he.
The control that we saw entrap him
Made him feel free.
Sixtyfourth Year
They were both young when they married. Both loved each other instantly. There was so much passion and love in their getting to know each other. He was a passionate man in everything he did, and in her soft spoken manner, she understood.
Children followed, and the singleminded passion branched off into family, home, career, and building futures. Through their goals, they stuck together. What one lacked, the other made up in plenty. They went through ups and downs with equanimity.
She was frailer in health than him, although her mental strength was exemplary. They supported each one with tenderness and understanding. She was ever patient, and often she tempered his impatient dynamism, turning it into an adult thing even though both of them were youthful.
To her, the family came first, and to him she was first. They loved each other for who they were, and not what they should be. They gave each other room to grow, although they were knit together.
Sixtyfour years, they saw their family extend, with children, grand, and great grand too. They were cosmopolitan in embracing a world culture, while their children fretted about choices. Their home was an umbrella against the pouring rain, and the two birds lived in eternal love.
He watched her health grow frail each passing year. He was there to monitor her blood glucose, her blood pressure, providing comforts as best as he could. He argued with the doctor over the dosage, for he had written her readings meticulously. The doctor had to admit his error, for his dosage was not something that worked on this patient.
Such was the man’s dedication, he even knew how her body responded.
The time came when she was critically ill. The children gathered around him, lending him the support he needed.
She was hospitalized in ICU, and everyone had given up hope. But, he wanted a ventilator attached to her. “She said she would be back, and she will be,” he said. No one had the heart to say otherwise.
The doctor mentioned that it was a final choice, and once the ventilator was on, they could not take it out, despite the condition she would be in. “What if she were to be in coma?” Would he like her to be in a vegetative state? It was a chance that had a heavy burden. He decided to take the chance despite advice not to.
The next couple of days, they took the ventilator out, and the first thing she said when she saw him was, “I love you my darling.”
Pick.
I know very well that when one admires a flower, one should not pick it. One should not pick it. I know very well that when one loves another, one should not want it. One should not want it. To let you go and grow and blossom on as you're predestined to. To let you root and sprout where you feel grounded. To let you advance every leaf, every petal and every sepal on your body until you are fully grown. To let you be in all your essence, moving along with the wind, reaching up to the sunrays and handle as you do all the passing weather. To let you be - one should not pick it. Yet I can not help but want to pick you so badly. Pick you so badly, and keep you with me alone. One should not pick it.
