Hangin around

You know you won’t remember when you get a chance…but you try. Listening to that tin can sound of piped in pop music that the kids will know, but won’t offend the geriatrics. Old ladies alternating ice cream and margaritas while giving hand-jobs to flashing machines. Cigar smoke. Neon. This is your home, and it infests you.

You sit there. Watching. Thirty years old with no kids, no savings, and no real direction. Working a job that has nothing to do with what you went to college for. This is your one ride on this floating rock.

You’re three years old. You watch your finger reaching out. The dead creature in the windowsill is soft and fuzzy. And beautiful. You touch it and scream. Something soft and fuzzy should not have a stinger. But it does, and it hurts. Pain is your first memory, and it never leaves you. Twenty-five years later when you are asked about your first memory, this is what you say.

You marvel at the conundrum of feeling. You’re numb. You eat when you’re hungry. You medicate when you’re tired, or not tired, or sad, or in pain. You see movies, or television, or sit in front of any number of devices created for the sole purpose of entertainment. A complete resistance has been built to creativity. If there is a feeling that can be experienced there has been an antidote created for it. No wonder you’re numb. You say you can’t feel anything, because you murder the feelings you have. So you search for more stimulation, and it’s antidote. You say, “How far can I go and still not feel, and will that make me feel?” Twisted a bit.