Thursday, December 2, 2004

Somewhere Out There, cont.

XII

His stomach’s widening, expanding, growing, augmenting. He’s come out of college, and the years stream by, a river with a one-way current. His job is to sit in a desk all day, every day, and type away at a computer. Fill out forms. Look serenely out his window. Knick his pencils against his desk. It’s suitable, he’d tell you, with a fake-as-plastic-smile. He’s happy with his life, he’ll tell you, with a I-don’t-really-believe-what-I’m-saying tone.

On his desk, a picture of him and his wife. She’s smiling a wicked smile of hers, her arms clasped around his chest, his around hers. He’s smiling too, the pearly white teeth showing.

Another picture, next to it. His wife’s face is all red, holding a newborn in her arms. The baby’s face is strained in a cry.

He used to run everyday. He used to keep in shape. But now, he works ten hour workdays, then gets the weekends off. During what leisure time he has, he spends with his son. When he’s not spending time with his son, he is relaxing – sitting in his chair, newspaper spread open wide, eyes pouring over empty words. The TV blaring, his eyes shuttling to it every now and then. Each day, it seems, his gut grows wider, fatter and fatter.

There is always an inner voice within his head, a distant convergence of noise. A voice going on and on. But the voice has long since lost precedence. He has turned from it.

The truth is, he would like to quit his job. He would like to not have to care about his son, worry about him. The truth is, out there, someone’s dying. Breaths leaving. Eyes not seeing. Hands not wrestling and fighting and gripping. Feet not stomping and walking.

Truth is, there is so much to get from life. Even if it is pointless. And he feels shelled up, sheltered in, tamed down. Broken in, caught in a tight corner.

The truth is, he would like to live again.

XIII

The possibilities are infinite. There’s roads helter-skelter, all over, squeezing around, pushing all over the place, overlapping and overtaking each other. Zig-zagging, scuttling, crushing clamoring.

Some roads are pavement. Some roads are steel. Some are yellow brick roads. Others are gray cold stone roads. Some are dirt that makes a storm of dust when you run on it. Some slippery, cracking ice, that melts with too much heat.

One road winds and twists like a serpent. Another has the sharpest turns, real gut-turners. Some linear – so straight it is boring.

It comes to a time where you stand abroad and see all these roads. Overloaded with all the roads overtaking and wild and rampant, like a forest with wicked gnarled trees competing for sunlight, you may stand there for the longest time. Or, if you are impatient, spontaneous, you may stand for the shortest time. However it is gone about, there is a choice to make. There is a singular road here to choose.

And each one is a mistake waiting to happen, a wrong twist and turn waiting to lead you astray. Each is a path with lies. Seeping, crawling lies that get in your head and unbalance. That make you fall over in ununderstanding, in an undeterminable walking sickness. Confusion will surmount, blear all over you, frustration crush your skull to heading pain, pointlessness prance insistently. And how you react determines the knit and grit of who you are.

Will you lay prostrate upon the chosen path, close those eyes, wish they were torn socket from socket till only black nothing holes lay on your face? Will you continue walking, curious about what the confusion, the frustration, the pointlessness, will culminate? Will you run blindly off-path, kicking up your feet, pumping your calves, locking your neck tightly, until you fall over, tired and breathless? Will you speak to these onrushing feelings, have thoughts with them over a dinner consisting of tried words and in rusted sitting chairs? What will you do, how will you do it, when, why?

If you follow the path you choose, navigate it and don’t err, there is nothing waiting for you. Do you want some truth to spank you across the rear? To redden you? Do you want some undeniable reality to set in and enter your mind? It won’t happen.

Each path only leads to a swift and sudden termination which could happen at any time. It only leads to more disillusionment, more confusion, more pointlessness, more frustration. As the time wears on, they are abated and numbed, but the feelings still shodden over you.

For making your odyssey, you get nothing. Is it worthy of your efforts? Is it what you would choose?

Or would you supercede the rules, the paths, the turns and twists, the linear steps, the gray cold stone? Would you go beyond and do something truly profound?

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