and the clubs and the bars and the restaurants and all the venues fill up with souls hunting for entertainment
Not doing anything entertaining on the weekend is associated with failure
to fail to find entertainment on a weekend is to be a failure
a weekend with nothing to post on social media is one hard blow to one’s social status
nobody wants to be in those shoes so they keep hunting for entertainment
Meanwhile… Well, haha, how beautiful it would’ve been to be able to say that I am my own form of entertainment and that I go into the silence and meditate and find the entertainment within myself while all others seek it outside
but c’mon no one can afford being that pretentious
and I don't know whether he's the main character or just one of them
but I see him going to middle school in ragged clothes, carrying an ancient backpack on his frail shoulders
As if especially to look more like a fragment ripped from a folk tale he carries bread crumbs in his pockets and takes a fistful and tosses it to the pigeons as he passes by the park
pauses
stares at the birds for a minute or two
and the birds stare back
and he resumes his unhurried pace, this time with the faintest of smiles on his face
"His mother died four years ago," the muse tells me. "Another drunk driving incident not different from the rest. She just came home from work and crossed the street when one of God's drunkest drivers hit her and didn't even stop to check. Now the boy spends his days in grief. He'll never know that the same driver who murdered his mother is the man who participated in giving him life and raised him. It's... a weird story."
"Damn," I say. "Must you always be so needlessly dark?"
"I forgot to add that he's getting bullied every day in school and thinks of leaving this world entirely even more than his father does. Unlike the old man, he hadn't yet discovered alcohol so that kinda explains a lot."
"Eh, I don't know," I say. "I'm not in the mood for another tragedy. Don't we have enough depressing stories?"
"There's never enough depressing stories, silly."
"I know, but... I mean, I'm not saying to quit them altogether. Just take a break and, you know, write something else for a change."
"Disgusting," she says. "I don't appreciate the taste of other stories. You wanna write about sunshine and rainbows like all the others?"
"I must tend to the balance."
"The what?"
"You know what I mean... I can't let the madness weigh too much. Gotta add a bit of mass to the other side as well."
"Pff, look, if you're gonna be soft with me, I'm leaving."
She left
For now
And I stopped by the park benches and sat on one and the pigeons surrounded me with eyes full of want
and I had no breadcrumbs or anything to give them
so I just watched them
and perhaps my eyes featured even more want than theirs
because eventually they turned around and left
It's good to be completely alone for once in the while
he was so sure of himself behind the wheel you'd think he could pass the damn truck through the eye of a needle
And I sat on the passenger seat and just listened to his stories
man, he had a lot of 'em
and most were about his wife who was 19 years younger than him
He used to tell me that she's complexed by the fact that one of her breasts is significantly larger than the other
that she drinks too many energy drinks
can't have sex without background music
never learned how to drive
had an abortion at 17 but is pro life now
cooks eggs in the air fryer
wants a pet dog one day and changes her mind the next day
can pee standing up
and many, many other things
I didn't learn so many intimate things about my own girlfriend
and the way he'd talk about his woman made you feel like you were the one living with her
he'd talk about it so much and with such openness that at the end of the shift you'd think you don't even need a woman in your own life anymore You're good with hearing so much about his
So it's no wonder that I miss working with the guy so much
I really meant it when I said he was the best driver in the world
He didn't just drive better than other people walked but he drove better drunk than most people sober
And that's the thing with him
He drove drunk a lot
If everyone was as good at drunk driving it would've been legal
But nope, we do not live in an ideal world
The law didn't care that he never made a mistake while driving like that
So he was left without his license and that left him without the job and it was over
he wasn't much good at anything else
and what's even worse He got put into prison
The man just wouldn't give up driving drunk and with no license
they caught him once twice and I guess the third time they had to stop him for good
Well, they did
and I head he doesn't have it good behind the bars
"He got a big tattoo of that woman of his all across his back," said the guy who replaced him and now drove his truck, "An' problem is she a pretty one. You know why that's a problem when you're going to prison?"
"I can imagine," I said
"Yeah, better just imagine it and leave it at that..."
Poor guy his problem was that he lived too happily in a sad, angry world and the world sought to do away with him
It appears that the world has won this battle
but after all that time spent with him in the truck I know him too well
The world might have won the fight but not the war
Daydreaming as a profession 