Tuesday, March 29, 2011

...he was happy

            Soon he was to leave the apartment. There was nothing for him there. He leaned against the bare white wall and felt the textured paint gently scratch his back.
            Why is it they always feel the need to make these walls so complicated? A wall should just keep two things separate. I heard once that it was something like a “liminal” object. The wall doesn’t really belong to either room but just exists between both spaces. I don’t agree with the Japanese though. If you want your wall to separate things then don’t make it out of paper. Paper walls would be good for writing but not for separating. I’m just trying to be honest.
            The air conditioner blew colder for some reason. He took it as his cue to leave. He kicked off the plain wall with his right foot to give himself an extra boost as he started walking. His limbs flailed about as if he didn’t care where they ended up. His footsteps were especially noticeable. The whole weight of his leg and really his whole body as well, would slam down in a thunder clap against the hardwood floor.     He took his long stride outdoors  . The night air was quite a bit warmer than his apartment. Although in the southwest that is expected. He didn’t know why he felt the way he did. He just didn’t want to feel that way anymore. He felt that feeling was overrated anyway. He didn’t feel bad about it either.
            I think when Van Gogh painted “Crows Over Cornfield” he must have had some idea that it would be the location of his death. I mean, I don’t like the vegans. Who could give one flying frog about animal rights? They don’t care about their own rights, so why should we? So yeah, they might have some sort of spirit and all but I think everything does, to an extent. So that cornfield had a spirit. Maybe that’s why Vincent was drawn there. Maybe that’s why he painted that particular path. Oh, and I hate when people do that by the way. You don’t know them. Use their full name.
            His steps echoed in the alley way that led towards the main street. The yellowed street lamps guided his uncontrolled steps. The nearby dumpsters gave off a horrible odor that he thought he could mask if he tucked his nose into the collar of his shirt. He started imitating Mortal Kombat characters as he made it out of the alley and on to the side walk. His favorite was Scorpion but his shirt wasn’t yellow, so it didn’t work. There weren’t many people out. There were plenty of luxury SUVs on the road. Some even slowed down to watch him as he finished up his “circle of the tiger” form. Someone yelled something out as they passed by in the Lexus RX 330, but he was too busy performing a roundhouse elbow to the head and transitioning into the big upward knee finale. He bowed to nothing in particular then diverged from the sidewalk and made his way to the right lane of westbound traffic.
            At least in western literature, or any kind of storytelling, people tend to identify with one character in the story, the so-called good guy. You got the protagonist and the antagonist, and all that stuff.  We all love that guy, Protaggy I call him, anyway. What makes him so dandy? Aren’t we all the good guys? Not that he always does good things. We just identify with him. We tend to think we’re always good. I guess we identify with ourselves. Not everyone, but generally people believe that they are good and that anyone who is doing things they don’t like, or maybe they just don’t agree, they are bad. I don’t think that’s right. If we all are the good guys of the story, who’s left to be the bad? And maybe we’re all the ugly.
            He waited for the car to get close enough, and then at the last second he would jump back on to the safety of the sidewalk. His newly purchased black turtleneck helped out a lot. They swore and honked as they passed. He responded by proudly raising his hands above his head with his middle fingers extended in gesture to the white SUV. He was making good time. His steps must have been longer than usual. He noticed that his socks appeared bluer than the rest of his clothing. He picked up an orange in the grass near the sidewalk and quickly threw it as hard as he could and hit the Buick in the parking lot across the street. He then resumed his position in the street just as all the street lights went black. All the lights were gone. Behind him two beams moved quickly towards him, but he just stared into the brightness of the tiny little patterns of light above him. As his eyes adjusted he could see more and more stars.
Am I dreaming? I really hate dreaming. I feel something odd. Is it hungry I feel? No, I just ate tacos.  I’m not happy.
The beams of light grew closer. It wouldn’t be very long now. The driver did what she could, but it was inevitable. He was happy.

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