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September 20, 2004
Fifteen Minutes in September
The sound of thunder echoes from outside the walls of his small converted office, while he listens blindly through glass windows still covered with plywood from last month’s hurricane. The dark loneliness of the rainy night is somehow comforting—being alone means there is no one to worry about pleasing except himself.
There’s one job left before the man finally sprinkles granulated food into five fish tanks in varying states of cleanliness and ambles off into his bedroom where a sixty pound American Staffy mix sleeps quietly and comfortably curled amid his master’s pillows, innocent of the day’s anguished paper romp through the living room. Fingers, nails chewed to the quick, tap lightly on a month-old keyboard, already smattered with coffee stains and cookie crumbs.
Bubbles rise and water drains from the tank near hin, while lone cichlid and gourami await tiny morsels of dried food, and albino channel cats and plecos patrol the pebbles for scraps. The air blows cool through the Maytag in the window, uselessly recycling air from an oddly cool night outside, a night more reminiscent of late fall then the menacing heat of a Fort Lauderdale summer.
Independently, the man’s legs bounce up and down, anxiously warding off aches that the body neither understands nor appreciates, notices of an approaching age of forty, now less than nine hundred days hence. He sighs, not entirely content with his quality of words, never entirely content. He knows he knows how to write, and in spite of the dissatisfaction, much of his words will serve to be appreciated, for free, by hundreds of people, many of whom are his friends.
A disheveled desk serves him, strewn as it is with multicolor pens with missing caps, an orange highlighter, business cards, a stapler, folders, work orders for scripts that he hopes to deliver the following day, his system CD, carelessly exposed to the splashing of the fish tank, a BellSouth bill that he hopes doesn’t overdraw his account once more, creating a charge that he can scarcely afford. A seventeen-inch flat screen monitor stares back at him, his last (he promises) purchase on a credit card that’s far outlived its usefulness to him.
Despair serves him not. He still remains entertained at the wonder of life and who he is. He still suffers from four of the seven deadly sins, having given up Anger, Greed and Envy some time ago, but now only gives in to small doses of Sloth, Gluttony, Lust, and Pride. They no longer suit his life.
He’s right there in the middle of a typical man’s years, but it’s not unlikely that the damage has been done and he will no longer serve the remaining thirty-seven years. It’s all fine, however, because he’s come a lot farther than he expected at one time.
The man hopes to do a few things before he finally rests, publishing his book, watching his niece marry, being there for his mother and father as they grow old. Maybe he’ll be close beside one that he loves, maybe he’ll be among many.
The man feeds the fish, closes his bedroom door away from roaming cats and disrobes. He rouses a sixty-pound American Staffy Mix who emits a futile guttural growl when the man pushes him from his way. Finally, he climbs beneath his soft sheets, closes his eyes, lying on his side, his arm around a pillow with a faint odor of dog. The American Staffy curls comfortably in the crook of his master’s legs.
He sleeps easily, for he has prospered another day and is satisfied.
Posted by Bastique at September 20, 2004 11:59 PM