The Long and Winding Road
Sitting in the back of the bait shop, he grumbled to himself as he scooped out a handful of worms.
Sitting in the back of the bait shop, he grumbled to himself as he scooped out a handful of worms.
The tattered work gloves spoke of many hours of hard labour endured throughout life. He had some amazing news to share, but nobody to share it with, and the confines of the house had become his new normal. Paying no heed to warnings, had turned out surprisingly well. Behind the window, a reflection that only instilled melancholy.
The decision to live life by the big beats manifesto, and the fact that there’s a stairway to heaven and a highway to hell, explained life well. Everyone was busy, so it took him a while to realize that everything he decided not to change, he was actually changing.
He picked up trash in his spare time to dump in his neighbour’s yard. The efficiency he had at removing garbage made creating it more acceptable. “Sometimes you have to just give up and win by cheating”, he said. Not all people who wander are lost, and choosing to do nothing is still a choice, after all.
Living life by the motto, “Anything worth doing is worth doing poorly”, there should have been a time and a place. But this wasn’t it. Survival was possible if he kept the fire going and if he could hear thunder in the distance. Abstraction was only one floor above.
As the months passed, he had become more eccentric. He always wore his sunglasses at night, which was fortunate, because unknowingly, he had taken up sleepwalking as a nighttime hobby. “I wonder if she would appreciate my toenail collection” he thought, “After all, art doesn’t have to be intentional”. Having hidden a stash earlier underneath the floorboards in the back room of the house, the external scars told only part of the story.
Considering that now was the time to entertain the guests, he put heat on the wound to see what would grow. There should have been a time and a place, but this wasn’t it, and the irony of the situation wasn’t lost on anyone in the room. He kept telling himself that one day it would all somehow make sense.
The delicious aroma from the kitchen was ruined by cigarette smoke, as she looked into the mirror and saw another person. She sighed “I may struggle with geography, but I’m sure I’m somewhere around here”. Finding his complete dullness interesting, she had that tint of craziness in her soul that made her believe she could actually make a difference, and stepped gingerly onto the bridge, knowing that enchantment awaited on the other side.
In that instant, everything changed, and the memory they used to share was no longer coherent. Going from child, to childish, to childlike is only a matter of time, but it was getting dark, and they weren’t there yet. She wrote him a long letter, but he didn’t read it. He called out her name time and again but was met with nothing but silence. It must be five o’clock somewhere.
He was an introvert that extroverts seemed to love, sitting in a trash can with high street class. She had the gift of being able to paint songs, but at that moment he wasn’t listening to music, he was living an experience, and there was something beautiful in his hate. She did her best to help him, waiting and watching. It was all she had done for the past weeks.
He took a sip of the drink, not sure whether he liked it or not, but at this moment it didn’t matter. The secret code they had created made no sense, even to them, nevertheless, he had broken it. The noise of the shot was deafening, no one heeded it. He embraced the floor, but the blood spatter beat him to it.
What a waste, he liked her songs, but sometimes that’s just the way it has to be.
Her hair was windswept as she rode in the black convertible. She saw the brake lights, but not in time. The damage was minimal, and the other driver exchanged details, ignoring the casket in the rear. As the rental car rolled to a stop on the dark road, her fear increased by the moment.
Checking to make sure that he was still dead, she covered him in baby oil, wondering what his eyes were saying beneath his mirrored sunglasses. The secret ingredient to his wonderful life was crime, though, to be fair, he was good at eating pickles, and telling women about his emotional problems.
She took a while to decide what to do with him, these things can’t be rushed. Walking slowly down the slot canyon, she towed the gurney behind her, oblivious to the sound of thunder in the distance. The thick foliage and intertwined vines made the hike nearly impossible.
After three years, the coffin was still filled with Jello, and grape jelly was leaking out the hole in the casket. She was amazed by the large chunks of ice washing up on the beach, but he always wanted buried at sea, so it was the least she could do.
A new love, a new time to show the world she had more to give. They wandered into a strange Tiki bar on the edge of the small beach town. Two seats were vacant. He barked orders at the barman who just stared back with amusement.
There’s an art to getting attention, and spitting olive pits across the table isn’t it. But courage and stupidity were all he had. Having no hair made him look even hairier, and the body piercing didn’t go exactly as he’d expected.
Shortly, all his problems would be solved. “We have to be careful who we show these plans to” he said He was 100% into fasting with her, until he understood that meant he couldn’t eat. “It won’t hurt you to skip one meal” she grumbled. She didn’t like the food. She never did.
She made the usual complaints and started the tantrum he knew was coming. But this time was different. Instead of trying to placate her and her unreasonable demands, he just stared at her and watched her meltdown without saying a word. He only had a limited amount of time before all hell broke loose, but he stopped to admire the calmness.
Maybe it would be different this time, he thought, with the knowledge deep within that it wouldn’t. Sometimes that’s just the way it has to be. Sure, there were probably other options, but he didn’t let them enter his mind. It was done and that was that. It was just the way it had to be.
The explosion started in his waistband and stopped at the cracked and flaking ceiling. It took a week to clean the place up