A Quasi-Autobiography

Starting at the lens-shaped light in a half-tidied room sat a man. Not a man really, for he had seen eighteen summers and winters pass in his life. But in those years, he had endured more than most had even read about. An air of maturity comes to mind, but still as a child of a divorced father and mother, he was forced to learn the lessons that most put off until mid-adulthood.

So there he sat on his unkept bed; his shaggy dark-brown hair in need of a trimming, smelling of cigarettes. He had smoked many that night whilst sitting in his favorite coffee house with his best friend, a girl who had seen one more year and had encountered many more trials than he. His father, who disapproved of the habit and his newly pierced ear was a good man who had pulled himself from a failing business and a crumbling marriage only two years earlier.

He provided what he could for his three children, but in the previous year of his eldest’s absence (at university in Chicago, the same school his son would attend a year later), he had come to know and love his son, for in previous years, a degraded family life and the pull of owning a restaurant had created a wall between the two.

His former wife was a very headstrong and dominating woman who had entered into the marriage at a very young age, growing directly from a daughter to a wife and then eventually a mother of three. Her strong spirit was her downfall in that she would not allow herself to relate or reciprocally communicate with, not only her spouse, but her children also. She divorced in her twenty-second year of marriage during a pseudo mid-life crisis; a bold odyssey to live her lost youth and to dabble in the middle-aged dating scene. Happy or not with her choice, she would never reveal, for her independence had both torn her away from her former family and friends and, in doing so, also drove her ex-husband and his children together in a bond of love that most families these days lack.

The eldest son had been very close with his now estranged mother, but had come to learn a very important lesson: people do not change, they only come into focus. This new-found understanding tarnished his view of relationships in a way that made him eager to judge. His flaw, as most would think to be a flaw, never occurred on a whim, but was the product of past experiences and much observation of those whom he encountered.

But back in the dimly lit room, the man sat, waiting. A day like any other had come and gone, but for some reason, it had touched him. He had experienced many more tribulations from former sunrises to moonsets, but tonight his mind drifted to reflection, contemplation, and utter withdrawal from reality. He did not like reality, for he thought it very seeming. He knew nothing was as it appeared and that his own façades were only an example of that phenomenon.

He had been close to tears that night, for the strange mix of an emotional movie and sappy songs that spoke of lost or attempted love had touched him. He did not cry though. Not because of the stigma of stoic males, but because his sadness was not one of a sobbing nature. It clawed at the very passion of his soul, touched what he believed was the essence of his existence.

After a trip to the bathroom, he contemplated a cigarette. He knew from a year and a half of experience that the familiar nicotine-induced state would help clarify his cloudy thoughts. After traversing the familiar labyrinth of his darkened house, he stood outside. The anomaly of a mild December was now mismatched with an unusually nippy breeze. Finally, the taste from a drag of his preferred brand of cigarettes catalyzed his thoughts, and tugging at scarf he received only days earlier on Christmas (a holiday which he did not agree with, but respected for its ability to bring people together), he began to make sense of his thoughts.

This scene was not unfamiliar, for he had enjoyed the panoramic view of the neighborhood whilst reading numerous books (for school and pleasure) with his cigarette in hand. With a distant siren in the background, he came to the conclusion that his drive to find a boyfriend was becoming old. Like most but unlike very many, he aspired to have companionship; someone with which to experience the world, to share his thoughts, and to eventually love. Love, to him, was such an apparent enigma. With a self-knowledge that most lack, he knew that he was unable to distinguish love from passion at first glance. This was his a mistake of his heart, however.

He did not belong to the group of archetypes, in fact, he loathed them more than someone in his position should. He knew it would be difficult to find that someone, but as a friend clarified during a similar smoke break, his scrupulousness would end in a near perfect match, or so he hoped.

The numbing of his fingers was his cue to return to the dark house and the disheveled room. Further in his thoughts, but no closer to a conclusion, he shifted his attention outward to the unfinished knitting and the like tasks that awaited him. Knitting was a new hobby he had picked up from a now not so close friend in college. That friendship had been wrought by compulsion and controversy from the beginning, and was now left in pieces that awaited his attention. Just like his messy room, he would put it off until he was eventually forced to assess and fix the problem.

With his eyes drooping and the thought of work the next day looming, he readied himself for bed, and eventually went to sleep. His dreams would be forgotten as soon as conceived and he would be forced to endure the new day with unrenewed fervor. However, unlike other nights, he did not think of death, his in particular. His death was a familiar obsession that had plagued him before bed many nights before. Another day of uncertainty, of waiting and of foreseen rhythm laid ahead.