Stuff and Nonsense: A growing heap of things of various length

[sneakyonfoota]

596 words.

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True Confessions of a 40 Year-Old Ogre

Every morning you wake up ten minutes before the alarm clock and just stare at its red digital face as it counts down, knowing that you can't close your eyes knowing that the minute you drift off the morning's traffic and weather report will blare and ring in your disproportionately small cauliflower ears. At 5:29 you gingerly raise an arm and flick off the alarm and sit up in bed with a sigh, a groan and a crack. Another day of the same. Another day of being you. Another mindless routine of routines. You wonder why you do this to yourself, but in your heart you know why--it's because you don't know any better, and the alternative--written in postcards from Ma and Pa back on the yak farm--is far more painful. So you accept your fate and swing those tree-trunk legs of yours over the side of the bed and despite those inch-thick calluses you feel the rough granite sides of the slab you use as a box spring. Stiff and sore you lumber as only a nine-foot galoot like you can lumber and wince and squint when the bathroom light turns on like a flashpan. Yeah, there you are in the mirror. All pug nose and thick brow and sloping forehead. You twist the knob for cold between your thumb and forefinger and splash water on your face from a basin the size of your hand. You smack your lips and a shiver runs down your spine as the shock adrenalizes you enough to carry you as far as the kitchenette to make coffee. You dry your face, smell your breath against your palm and trudge your way to the kitchen, comprised of another tiny sink, a refrigerator, a neglected and grease-encrusted electric stove and a microwave too weak to melt the icy hearts of those breakfast burritos you buy in the dozens because they're fast and cheap. As the black-brown water drips down into the glass carafe you start to think how it looks like an hourglass, and then you start to think about all the things your life still lacks despite being in upper lower management, having your own place, being free of debt and possessing a correspondence degree in Latin languages. What you'd really like is to be is one of those guys who have one really important thing that he cares about... some men have cars, some have stamp collections, some have women, some have men if they like that--which you certainly don't--and some have their kids. But you know you're no spring chicken, or even on the radar of the feminine persuasion at large. And if it weren't for the latest hockey scores to talk about you wouldn't have anyone you'd call a friend. As the stream of dark liquid breaks into drops the hourglass image returns and as you wonder about turning your life around, being that guy you'd like to be but aren't, you hope in your heart that some sort of miracle like the ones in books and movies will suddenly happen to you out of the blue, some sort of change that will make things a better, or in the very least different. The last drops of coffee fall from the filtre. You sigh, pour yourself a mug, put it to your nose and let it that heady smell fill you. You look at your reflection in its surface, throw your head back and tilt the mug to your lips. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.