bad


I saw a film about a writer but I couldn’t consider him a writer at all. He was one of those perfectly built, slightly idiotic looking men who become renowned for their ruthlessness in sport or their greed to get ahead in some non-scientific region of the corporate world. He didn’t drink, didn’t smoke and was clean shaven each day. It was a farce. Then, towards the end, he lost his girlfriend and grew a beard. Finally he showed some pain in his eyes and started to take on the look of a man who may be capable of writing something other than cheap romantic fiction.
                I turned to the woman beside me, someone else’s partner, and admired her naked body in that dusky candlelight. Wine and beer bottles surrounded us and the room was filled with the smell of soul-destroying deceit. Because of what we are taught we believed that what we were doing was wrong... but the teachings are wrong. Everything is wrong. Love is transient at best. Humans don’t mix in a permanent state. Marriage doesn’t bring happiness to a couple. Children may bring happiness to parents individually but not as a couple... not over a lengthy period of time.
                Outside I heard noises, after she had left, and I wondered if this was the partner arriving to take revenge for my wicked ways through the night. And yet, I know, there cannot be remorse for I am at the very end of my youth and must squeeze all the joy that I possibly can from life before it is too late. My life has been one of restraint; of turning down opportunities in fear of giving away too much of myself. Oh, how I long for some of those opportunities to return. Never the less, I have been very fortunate in recent years... and I have accepted and made the most of most chances that have come my way. I’m still sensitive but I am lashing out at a world that has bitten and beaten me too many times. I’m the bad man replacing all the bad men who have taken advantage of my good man ways.

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