Short stories

A Day in the Life (5)…

We are monkeys at the end of the day. Oohing and aahing, competitive and looking over our shoulders, afraid of our own shadows and smiling nervously at the unknown.

He thought about this as he looked at the hair on his arms. Rubbing his fingers across his forearm back and forth he was lost in thought. He imagined the Serengeti a thousand years ago with a tuft of trees off in the distance. He imagined the silence, the danger, the excitement. But he knew it would have been exciting for his tree-bound ancestors. They probably didn’t experience excitement but only fear and anger: the same thing in difference guises.

He rubbed the hair on his forearms again and imagined himself in the Serengeti. It was different now. And although he had never been he knew it would be different now. Probably overrun with grimy-clad people and garbage. The jungles, he imagined, were gone now. Nature, he imagined, had been burned back for the sake of prostitution and progress. And still, and still were were only apes looking over our shoulders and nervously smiling, afraid of our own shadows.

He rubbed the hair on his forearms and thought about the cost of boredom.

A Day in the Life (4)…

The famous Socratic adage rang clear and true every day, every year. Deep down he had never changed. He had remained faithful to his love and devoted to his dreams and child-like joy for approaching the world with open eyes and open arms.

Unlike his child-like joy his wise adult self succumbed to the child’s surprise. It succumbed to the strangest things. Slavery instead of freedom, whispers of trapped prisoners in dark cells instead of the glorious screams fresh air, fields, and sunshine. He ran on a treadmill instead of country paths. But all the while he fed the small child in the gilded cage inside his mind.

He was older now, if not wiser he was more aware. He realized that courage did not come at a high cost. It required honestly and nothing else. Acceptance was the real expense and he had paid. Always knowing, he had paid. Even after the debt was freed from his shoulders he had paid. Even after…

But now he was loosening the chains from the gilded cage and freeing the small curious child that had waited patiently in the darkness for his freedom.

A Day in the Life (3)…

He had bought into the cheap stories and the tales of “how things are.” He had accepted the drug and watched his hand, as if he were a stranger, slide the needle into another stranger’s arm. He had bought the hype, the judgement, the promises, the normalcy, the consumer-ridden meat that he had been offered.

He had fought it in his own way throughout the years, enjoying the grimaces and frowns of disappointment from the courts of social righteousness but he had always conformed. He had twisted his dreams just enough to keep him in with the in-crowd. He had given in to the pressures of the expectations just enough to get a disapproving nod from strangers.

Looking back now he realized that he was ashamed. Had had been ashamed of who he was; of being creative, of being curious. He wanted to learn and wanted to see and understand intellectually. He wanted to know how. These were considered strengths in theory but truly he was ashamed that he pursued these things.

He had been ashamed of who he was and had instead bowed to the wants of strangers for nothing more than acceptance and even the occasional smirk. It had not been worth it but he didn’t know then what he knew now.

A Day in the Life (2)…

He really had no ideas how he had done it, how he’d pulled it off. Though the thought that all of it had been the result of hard work, persistence, talent and tenacity was inviting the truth of it was that it was circumstance, situation and luck. The experimentation of life had been a success although he didn’t understand how or why.

He was an experimenter of life, trying new things and making just enough money at them. He had fulfilled goals and even a few dreams but had had to fight the empty judging glare of society that was always out for an explanation. He owed it none and knew it but still it poked his brain, a rat in a cage.

At least until lately. The strange thing was that he looked at progress by reviewing the past. Living in the present, planning the future and measuring progress by the past was dizzying, leaving a stomach-churning felling that was a constant presence. He had always assumed that was ubiquitous, that everyone thought of life as an experiment in G-forces.

He had always believed that clarity would eek out of a crack in a slowly opening door, fighting rusty hinges. But he was wrong.