I look outside the window and can feel the wind slap me across the face like a scorned lover. The blood raises to the skin, giving the pallid flesh the illusion of color and life. I could be out there, trying to establish some sort of machismo image by braving the elements, but to what worth? There are no witnesses, and that small mound where used to be a tree could be decomposing hookers as far as the neighbors were concerned. As for the misbegotten parental units, their ire is as limp as a quadraplegic eel. My actions are inert as long as their social image remains unblemished. So, I sit and stare at the cold, imagining invisible gremlins running around and smacking people in the face, blowing infernal gusts as they shuffle their papers. A voice whispers in the wind "aren't you cold?"
No, I am not cold. The warmth has been seeping out of me for almost two decades. Damn, has it really been that long since I trusted more than five people? Shit, that number is prolly three or four at the moment anyways. Heck, you can only find one in a 300 mile radius. It has definitely been that long since I trusted anyone with the same last name. So here I stand, an emotionless edifice, a weak golem, staring at a grey winter sky. I turn back towards the glowing monitor. It used to be a swivel, and oh, how did I ever relish the swivel.
The swivel itself was not the most important thing, but the other amenities which followed. The motion of the swivel is a characteristic found only in some chairs. If we take chairs and apply a Darwinian evolution to them, the swivel is about as new as not having wisdom teeth. (For those of you still born with wisdom teeth, I am sorry, maybe your children or grandchildren will be as advanced) Growing up, I had parents that were fans of conducting all house business in your standard, fixed chair. While certainly better than standing, this is like having parents proud to have a TV instead of a radio when you're asking for a flat panel LCD. Now the major drawback to your fixed chairs is the primarily lack of proper cushioning (overstuffed chairs are a definite exemption). While the American diet and the human preponderance toward laziness have provided most people with a fair amount of self-cushioning, even those can find that sitting in a padding-deficient chair causes pain to the rear after a certain amount of time. Thouroughly unsuitable for today's modern computer gamer for example. Though chairs that swivel are often upholstered with a leatherish material and padded with just enough give, so you can sit there for hours without a sore derrière. This, however, was some rattan piece of crap that had been in the house for twenty years and was so uncomfortable even the cat wouldn't give it the time of day. This chair was a metaphor for my current situation. Livable, yes, bearable, yes, but uncomfortable, unnatural, and something that made me despise every moment I lived with it.
So I turned to face the computer, making sure my knee did not hit the table, or there would be a definite influx of agonizing pain with the accompanying string of swear words barely contained behind my lips. I stare, hoping for some sort of creative dribble to come out, but nothing. Then I sense it, the impending doom which is to be unleashed towards me. I don't know how long you have spent around flourescent lights, but there is a certain sound that it makes in between the flick of the switch and the bombardment of light rays. Now if we take this comparison a little further, imagine if you have been living in complete darkness for the past decade, and you heard that sound. There would be a brief moment of sheer terror where you realized the agoniIng pain you would be put through right before it happens. This is what was going through my mind.
The tirade began, I wish I could go into more details, but I was far too bored to actually pay attention for most of it. I know that it shifted to socks to coke cans to whatever boring shit the rest of my family was doing, the fact that I was completely disinterested was not lost on the speaker, it was if the entire diatribe was bad tuna casserole and it just kept coming up. Aside frome various states of inebriation, I've always tried to have a short economy of words, and to be bombarded by this wretch just for the sake of them being able to talk, innerved me to no end. It put me in such a rage, that I tried doing my "Scanners" death stare, but the head would not explode.
Apparently I had become of such little value that my acknowledgement of the conversation was not even needed. The unending torrent of words built upon me like water into a sinking ship, and I was indeed drowning. I drew my gaze once more to the window, the tiradeur getting so wrapped up in their conversation, I doubt they would notice. The outside was bleak and dead. And that is what exactly what this town was to me, dead. It had started on the course of its own demise long before I knew the shores of this country, much less the avenues of this city. Time and time again I had tried to draw life from it, much like a vampire to his victim. Yet this time I withdrew not to find blood, but dust. At moments, it was a beacon, yet I knew it was a pharos that ran on a rare fuel, one that could not be procured in abunbance enough to make it last. And so it burned weaker until it died, my hands sifting through the ashes. I stand, knowing it is time to leave, but need something to give me that edge so I can leave it all behind. Regrets are for those that live in reality, but illusions are the only things that keep us alive.
I was at : 4308 NW 76 Terrace, Gainesville, FL 32606,
