I’ve never been one to give advice. So I won’t try and start now. I’m sure you already have your way of dealing with life. Maybe you wake up in the morning and sing to the birds chirping outside. Maybe you scream into the pillow, punch it like you’re Mike Tyson trying to channel his inner dog in his retirement phase. Maybe you turn over in your bed and kiss the girl or boy who’s laying at your side. Whisper something nice into their ear. Tell them you love them, and that they mean everything and nothing and all that lies in between to you. 

 

Well, I won’t spin on the possibilities—the possibilities are endless. I’ve learned that the hard way.

 

See, I’m the sort of person who has to trip and fall a thousand times before I’m able to mind the iron wire in front of me. Meaning, I have to fail and fail and fail—and usually in terrific fashion—before something sticks with me. Often, I make plans. Big to-do’s. And then, I never follow-through. I want to travel. But I’ve never seen Rome. I’ve never chomped down through the flaky crust of a steamed New York bagel. Only in my dreams have I boarded one of those high-speed rail trains out in Tokyo—booked it for the cherry blossoms basking out there in the valleys below Mt. Fuji.

 

These here two feet need to go, go, go! Lo…

 

Before we get any further—‘cause this engine won’t stutter once it starts—I just want you to know that despite having no idea who you are, you have my respect. Good for you, for reading. That’s a noble act. An act of self-care. A real stunner for the brain, especially during an age in this here American epoch that is so obsessed with consuming high-velocity video content and gobbling up post after post destined to die by the neverending page-scroll. To ask a question, we tap the keys of a keyboard instead of tapping on the shoulder of one of our fellow earthdwellers. For amusement, we take a stroll to a video player or a live stream and we sit there, googly-eyed, with our mouths slung slack-jawed to the one side, and munch, thoughtlessly. For social interaction, we hit the chat room and bang away at a conversation thread with our hardest of heads and closest of minds. 

 

Hell, like I’m one to talk. 

 

Since college, I’ve been a zany no-nothing. Quiet to a fault. I’ve failed a gajillion bajillion times over—there ain’t a number for it. For real, I’ve been fired from every job I’ve ever had—then, I’ve gone and turned around and said to the people around me, “I left them, they didn’t leave me.” 

 

Up until this very moment, in a lot of ways, I’ve allowed the world to skewer me through like a street-side kebob. I’ve struggled to exact any real agency over my circumstances. Meaning—I’ve allowed things to happen to me rather than happen on things… 

 

Never have I ever seized life by the balls.

 

Never ever have I stroked its saintly shaft. Never ever have I fondled its fair hair (ok, now this metaphor is getting gross)… No. I’ve bent over and taken it. Father Time, he’s robbed me of my hairline. Galactagos, he’s a god figure I’ve conjured in my head to make the pain go away. Mother Earth, she’s way, way out there somewhere in the peripheries where I can’t see her… seeing as I’m stuck behind a computer screen all day. The rest of the clan, they’re behind me. Got my back—but, like good Samaritans—I think they’ve seen enough of my wasting away… of my being a hypocrite and all… and, thanks be, they’ve taken a stand and are refusing to enable my indifference any longer.

 

Now, ever since… THE INCIDENT… I’ve been doing a lot of yoga. Which for a man, sounds about as soft as a roll of unrisen dough. But it’s helping. Not in a profound, “I see the interconnectedness of the world for what it is” sort of way. More in the sense that, “I can get through a day without having dark, unoriginal, Internet-spawned thoughts that steer me into a nihilistic void filled with dispassionate yearning and instant gratitude.”

 

Instant gratitude.

 

I despise that term, for the record. One of those buzz words that the Almighty Woke Gawds out there arm themselves with. 

 

Woke, shmoke.

 

Pussy. Fuck. Fart. Cock. Suck my schlong and take a hike before I yawn.

 

I used to be one of those folks. I got swept up in the heat of the moment. Sure, a lot of the social justice warrior dialogue is a long time coming—Blacks in America deserve equal representation and equal opportunity. All for it. The LGBTQ community should be recognized. 100%. 

 

But some of these headlines are cukoo bananaland slama-jama-ding-dong.

 

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Is that my “privilege” talking? Perhaps. I’m white. I’m a male. But I’m also a human being. Most importantly, though, I’ve turned the issues of the modern age over to death in my mind... objectively, from the vantage of a fiction writer who seeks not facts, but truth. As a result, I’ve tried to weigh, as best I can, the merits of all sides—not just both sides. And the truth is, folks, we’ve lost sight. This is a case of the blind leading the blind tumbling over a cliffside, gone crashing into a gorge, falling limply down into a fiery cavernosa of infinite degeneration, until POOF! the body which first fell, well, it no longer remains.

 

This story I’m about to tell, I’ve waited my whole wasted life to tell it. It’s about me—a version of me, anyway… but I think, really, it’s about all of us. I hope you’ll see that. I hope you’ll recognize that this soap box ain’t a soap box I ever wanted to stand up on top of and scream my little, measly lungs out from. But somebody’s got to do the hard and thankless work, here. Somebody’s got to step up and set us all straight. And if it ain’t me, then, hell, maybe it’s someone else. But at least you have my perspective… and that counts for something...