February 4th, 2023
The books tower around the halls, most collecting dust the few being read sit close if not directly in hand via an app on his phone. He tells those around him, he’s read at least half but the number is slowly shrinking to less and less as he acquires more every week at the used book store; Books Again. It’s a solace where he finds regard to his vice, a last one he holds onto so dear as the world around him crumbles away and he can’t help but not adapt.
The green smoke he once reveled in, by a code name: devil’s weed, he has found lost its effect, and taste and the smell makes him woozy with frustrations as he giggles at how stupid and irreprehensible he’s been to regard it a friend. As most do, as so many cradles their bottles, pipes, and joints to aid the weary head while they numb the senses years ago was lit asunder. He used to metaphorically spit at those beside and around him that would take to the spoils of such and mocked the choices left by them…thirteen years later and he’s finally waking up. A timequake one may call it, Kilgore Trout would certainly state it was a matter of losing of what we all hold dear; our free will. The books are losing their dust, the job is being scraped and his blood is starting to feel warm again, and yet, there’s a wakefulness that makes him see the world anew. There’s still an idea he has, a burning within that tells him, 38 years left, Memento Mori echoes on repeat in a whisper again and again and the neglected NTI that he once lived by screams at him like a banshee in the night. He often wakes in a sweat with the middle of the night haunting him and the shadows nearing his soul ever closer, ever more haunting with fangs and jagged blades digging into what he made himself.
The computer, this very computer calls to him in the night, yells at him to stretch out the days and stop neglecting the self within that can reach many but you refuse…why?
Is it fear? Is it a juxtaposition in regard to what was and what is? He’s a father, a dear and focused man wanting to give all to the nonverbal little one, a husband that wants to give all he can to the one he hurt so furiously through years of confusion and lack of faith still, she hangs on…still she smiles with apprehension and love, and what does he do? He buys another book, calls off work disregarding the knowing that he can only move mountains with money…but is it that difficult to make amends? Is it so?
Or can he, can the man pounding on the soft keys pull in a breath and type out his heart to reflect the ideas that he holds dear? Can he manifest a hope to what we all can become in regard to what is written and what will be written, can words still take such an effect on humanity that we start regarding one another as separate entities all deserving that reflection we each see in ourselves? May I say…Love? Is this something still important as the man writing he feels that it is, he feels that the manifestation of what he sees and feels through media, through news, through loss in his family, reconciliations in friendships, and the regaining in momentum can not only bring a flourishing but a growth to what will make him whole and those he touches closer to themselves as well as the world? Is that naive? Is it utter stupidity to have a hope so loud that he’s let this ideology reflect in his writing for school and the discussions within the classes when he takes the time to pay attention?
I feel that I’ve been sleeping the last decade, that I’ve let my life coast on without regard to what I am and how I can move my world around to make matters better not just for myself but for everyone I meet, this may not be a truth, it may be the only truth. What I do know is that I need to do more than wallow and grieve, what I can muster is the energy enough to write and put my efforts into what I see and what I know and that is that relationships are rough, assumptions can be deadly and that the heart is not only a fickle thing but a muscle that needs more than just the body to keep it in line. We each need a team, a party, and perhaps a village to aid in the endeavours we find in life that can not only help fuel us but stoke the motivations that become us.
From the start I cannot state that I’m a great man, nor can I mention that I’ve been a stately father at all times, but I can say I’ve made the effort and the reconciliation within myself and those I love beyond myself to make matters known that my heart is here and isn’t going to leave. May I write within this time and space to reflect the vision I see and the dream I hope we can all fulfill. Truth is that we are all dying and no one lives forever. I’ve got 38 years and a matter of six months left for my life. My biggest hope is that I not leave a memoir for my children, but a lesson in the manifestation in that idea of the self and how we can create what we want to see with the issuing of virtue and love to those around us.
This last year has been hell and I’ve let it disrupt so much of my life and take it to a direction that lessened who I am and how I see myself, this disregard, however, it did help me become a sober adult who no longer takes to flame and grass in hopes I numb my fears and ignore the trivial things that I know can be done but choose to shove it all under the sopping rug. As I take my days forward I try to laugh at the stupidity and shy away from the thought that it’d hello in any way knowing it’ll just make me slower and less of a hand to what I want to achieve in success for my family and our future together. 38 years and this is all I can do, or better yet, this is how I can take that first step in making me a better peer to those I call family and friends and the one I know is the only love I’ll ever want in my life. Life is too precious to waste it, life is too damn important to let the idea of money drive me ass as I have the tools that can drive me to my destination. Do I need the security of a place that disregards my being who I am MS and all, or do I see the benefit of what my wife offers and my son shows as the tools that can help me strive toward success for the better of the latter of success I know I can reach?
Side note:DON’T LOOK AT THE WORD COUNT, JUST WRITE.
One thing I wish anyone told me, though I’m sure it was stated, I wish it was engraved where scars rest and slowly lighten to take away the memories of a darkness I wish and hope I’ll quickly forget and move past. Don’t count those eggs, nor the baskets they’re put in, just do it. Just write, just create, just make and make and make and take accountability for the failures you partake in.
Take accountability because no one else is going to and the more the world sees you shy away from what it is you’ve done or didn’t do the less they’ll want to aid in your betterment seeing only selfishness and a disregard for those around you or I.
M. R. Vega
Nosce Te Ipsum
DreamDarkStories 