the path to all good things

here's the scene.

You're driving, your hands moist against the leather of the steering wheel. You can feel the engine's vibrations cursing through your fingertips, the roaring traveling up your leg from where your foot is gently pressing ever more downward on the gas.

Around you is only darkness and light. There is no in between. You can vaguely make out shapes to either side of you. The right, those must be mountains, but they are only an obscure black outline to you. The left, the woods, but you cannot make out individual trees; it is all one shadow.

You are traveling down a road that cuts between these two black shapes. Ahead of you, you can see a few other cars speeding along the road as well. Red lights occasionally lighting up and blinking back out. Ahead of you even further, beyond the end of where your eyes can see the road, is the ultimate darkness. A vast spread of black that is littered with specks of glowing light. The stars. They are beautiful.

Your eyes trace the path of a car, much like your own, racing along the path ahead of you. It speeds around a corner as it climbs around the side of the mountain, and disappears into the air, becoming one of the stars that litter the night sky.

Your heart beat intensifies. You can feel it pressing against your ribcage. You will soon be in the heavens. Finally, you will be in the heavens.

As you begin your curve around the edge of the mountain the lights of a city fill your view. The road does not continue it's upward ascent but instead dips downward into a bowl shaped valley. At the center there is light. Hundreds of glowing, blinking and moving lights.

These are the stars that could not make it to the sky. These are the stars that gave up on the path to all good things and instead fell. They sit there in their bowl of light, thinking that they followed the path and merely ended up here instead. You ease your foot off the gas.

Pulling over to the side of the road, you get out of your car. There is a mountain in front of you, but at the top of the mountain there is only darkness, and there is only light.

You begin your climb.

just like my father

Break time.

"What can I get for you?"

"I'll just have a large iced caramel coffee, a grilled ranch snack wrap and a small fry please."

"You want your discount?"

"Yes please."

"Hey Sue! Can you come give Jack a discount?"

"Actually, can you punch this for a free meal for me?"

"Sure"

"And you forgot to punch it yesterday, could you punch it twice?"

I got a free meal card. It's good for seven free meals. I raised the most money for the Ronald mcDonald house or whatever. I guess that's cool.

I ate my food in the back. I ate my food in silence.

Throwing out my food, I walked out of the store.

Four quarters. I had four quarters. Good thing I got that free meal card. I walked to the grocery store. The scratch card machine didn't take coins here.

"Could I get a dollar for four quarters?"

"I'm sorry, I can't make change here. You can go to customer services though."

"Could I get a dollar for four quarters?"

"Ya. Here you go."

I rubbed the creases out of the dollar against my pant-leg. There was a man in front of me buying a scratch card. Lucky sevens. My mom always said seven was a lucky number. I thought loose change would be more appropriate though. I slid my dollar in after the man ahead of me had moved aside. Loose change.

You need the change in 6 spots to add up to over a dollar and you win the prize shown.

I didn't have any more coins to scratch with though. I used my fingernails, the gray dust gathering under my fingernail. Fifty cents. Good start.

But it wasn't good enough. Ninety-two cents.

Fuck that.

Is it narcissistic of me to think I deserve a break?

trees

Me and my friend decided to go for a walk in the woods. As we neared the trees we studied the darkness that fell beneath them. We walked onwards, into the darkness, slowing our pace to a comfortable stroll. When we were completely hidden in shadows from those who still existed in the light outside of the trees, we brought some of our own light into the darkness. It sparked, and then there was glowing red.

As my friend and I continued to walk, I began to look around. The tree to my right had a face. I looked at him. You are in my woods. I could see the wind rustling the leaves of all the trees, yet it seemed to me that this one was rustling on its own. "Is it okay for me to be here?" I said this out loud. My friend glanced at me, but he was not paying that much attention to my utterances.

That is fine, my child, these are your woods too. I didn't understand. How could these woods, the trees, the moss, the leaves on the ground and the smell of flowering plants in the air be my woods too? Surely a tree, permanently rooted to a spot amongst the woods would have more claim to the land than one who is only a visitor. "These are my woods?"

"This is a park dude. This is public property, not yours." My friend responded to my question meant for the faced tree in front of me. The tree swayed his approval of my friends response.
"Public property. These are my woods."

My friend laughed, "Dude. You are so high."

taxodermy

Sorry if this writing seems sporadic, pointless, unnecessary, illogical, stupid or brilliant. Especially if you find it brilliant, because there must be something wrong with you. This is an insight into the workings of a delirious mind.

~~~

I was heading to my camp. I don't know if I'm still supposed to call it that. It was my camp when I was growing up as a child, but recently my dad moved in there and now it is his house. Should I be calling it my dad's house? Am I entitled now to call it my house?

Anyway, my sister was driving, and I was in the passenger seat. We were about two-thirds of the way there, when I saw the first of three unrelated (and yet oh-so-related) curiosities. There, on the side of the road was a deer. It was dead, crumpled into a shapeless ball on the side of the road. Yet, it seemed only to be taking a nap. We drove past it with out saying anything.

Around the next bend, there was a building. It was off the road a bit, with a few trees in front of it. On the side of the road in front of the building there was a sign. Tom's Taxodermy. The building was falling apart, to the point where it itself looked dead. I wondered what could be used to stuff it to make it look alive with marble eyes.

One more bend later and there was a billboard. Bud Light. Sure sign of a good time. I laughed, but it was sad laugh.

comfort

sorry I've been gone for a while, for anybody who actually cares. Actually, I take back my apology. You all smell funny anyway.

---

Comfort is a strange sensation.
telling you everything is ok.
you should be happy with what you've got,
there is no need
to look at the man behind the curtain
and wonder
well,
why does he get to pull the drawstrings?

the end of the world

Earlier today I gave my brother a ride to some appointment in downtown. He needed to go meet with somebody to discuss getting some extra financial aid to buy art supplies or something. I don't really know, I was just giving him a ride.

I dropped him off and parked further down the road. No sense in driving all the way home if I was going to have to go pick him up in an hour or half an hour. I stole some change from the cup holder and paid the parking meter. Thirty eight minutes for eighty cents.

I decided I would walk around the streets of the city for a bit, take in the scenery. I walked around the block to a Dunkin Donuts. I bought a large caramel iced coffee. It was pretty good.

As a left, I was approached by a man. He was not quite elderly, but past middle-aged. His hair was gray and wispy. Strapped over him, was a sign. On the front it had a picture of two roads intersecting in the shape of a cross, consumed by flame. In big letters, white as innocence, it read "Heaven or Hell?"

He tried to hand me a pamphlet. "No thanks." I took a sip of my iced coffee and kept strolling, my flip-flops slapping the concrete with every step.

"You can never be too certain you know!"

I turned around, but kept walking away from him. "I'm pretty sure on this one, thanks."

"So you think."

I'll admit, my curiosity was sparked. How could he believe that the world was coming to an end? Especially if you could never be too certain. I decided to ask.

"Are you so certain that the world will end, that you are willing to stand on the corner wearing a sign handing out pamphlets?"

"Well, I'm not," he said with a grin, "but if the world does end, and we are judged before God, I am glad to have repented."

"And if I have not sinned?"

"Well then, you have nothing to worry about, but nobody lives a pure life."

I smiled, and walked away.

a good deed

"Hey dad."

I hadn't seen my dad in a while. He didn't live that far away, but we didn't have that much money, so getting there was still tough. It was about a forty minute drive.

"Hey Jack!"

We went for a walk along the canal. Idle chitchat mostly, pointing out any interesting animal I saw, discussing how he's been doing. He works at a cable factory, doing payroll or something. He was asked recently to put up a bunch of old cables that they stop making now on eBay to be sold. Instead, he decided to buy the cables all at once for himself so he could sell them for a profit later. I don't think he'll actually make any money doing this.

"See that girl?" he said to me. A plump woman just walked by us, with a fluffy white dog trotting ahead of her.

"Yea? what about her?"

"I saved her. But now she doesn't even say hello when I walk by."

"You saved her?"

"Well, her got locked out of her car up ahead over here a couple weeks ago. She asked me if I could help her, so I walked home and got a coat hanger and helped her jimmy her door open."

"That was nice of you."

"Yea, but she still doesn't say hello. She was nice when she needed something, but not now. Now I'm just some old guy who happens to walk on the same path as her. I'm nobody. It's like what I did doesn't even matter."

"But dad, you didn't say hi to her either."