Friday, March 23, 2007

9:40 AM | Vignette | How to Live

He can smell the decay in the morning -- tropical almost, the rot of overripe mango left out to wither in the hot sun. He believes this is a portent, and already he feels sad, and a bit sick, the orgy of chocolate bars from yesterday now a festering sore in his throat. He shouldn't have eaten that much chocolate, he tells himself, almost jokingly, because he doen't even believe himself anymore, not the recriminations he takes himself to task with, not the gentle self-rebukes before morning mirrors. How do you believe a sad old joke? He is almost thirty, and the proverbial well has dried up for him. Or so he believes. He knows only that he feels tired.

Quickly, he got up from bed resembling the ruins of last night's ridiculous attempt to make love. The body beside him is not moving, and it is alive only to him as in the careful measure of early morning snore. He does not wake the body, and, zombie-like, he gets up, staggers really, to the shower, where the shock of cold water is not even enough to breathe the slightest hint of life into wasted body.

Quickly, he turns to the comfort of routine, sans coffee: the toweling away of wet body, muscles rippling, the sudden invasion of wardrobe, only to come up with a grey shirt with red stripes, and yesterday's pair of jeans. The sartorial equivalent of disappearance. He doesn't care.

From last night, he can still taste the delirium of having come from some aimlessness, culminating from the recent succession of scattered days; he was in Kitty's place, with the city's artists, and with them he had toasted to all of life's shit with so much wine, and little of song. It was, in hindsight (but is there any other?), perhaps a very bad idea. He had, naturally, gone to bed staggering like a fool, and in consequence woke up late Monday morning, with barely minutes to go before work starts.

Dressing up in the grey shirt and old jeans, he realizes youth is finally over when one doesn't even think about summer vacations anymore. The idylls are gone. And suddenly, he just wishes he can stop breathing.

Labels: writing

[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich

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