Archive for the ‘Ken Brady’ Category
Ups and Downs
Wednesday, September 30th, 2009
He knows Hell is at the bottom and Heaven is at the top, but those are simplified concepts and don’t really tell him much about quality of afterlife.
So he stands on an up escalator cause that’s the sort of life he’s lived so far. It’s not like he’s always been going up, but he’s done a solid job overall. Paid taxes, used exact change, tipped generously, put the seat down. Important stuff.
The escalators stretch far into the distance, up to his right, down to his left, endless across the vastness around him. Some faster, some slower. People in different stages. The rhythmic clicks and squeaks of life flow around him.
He glances at the faces of the people going up faster than him, almost eager to get there.
This story isn’t about them.
It’s not about his parents who went separate ways when he was young, not about the few friends he had in high school. It’s always about where he is in his own story, even if most people ignore their own paths and read themselves in the trajectories of others.
He knows his story is about the only girl he loved, the one he should have married, the kids he should have had with her, the Karmann Ghia he never should have traded for a Suburban. But mostly it’s about the girl.
He’s always known he would see her again, and he finally chose to put himself on the right path to make it happen.
This is the middle. The point to embark or disembark. There’s a lot to be said for being able to change direction at any time, any place, but there’s even more to be said for doing it, for recognizing the reality of your situation and taking a chance when it could be your last.
She comes into view in an instant. No warning. It’s always like this. Radiant and beautiful and everything he remembers, extra years be damned. She’s moving downward a bit faster than he expects, but you can’t have everything.
He knows it’s not like the escalator’s going to stop for him. It’s like Mitch Hedberg’s joke about an escalator never breaking, just becoming stairs. But even Mitch made it off the ride in one direction or the other and he’s not telling jokes anymore.
She passes him, turns, sees him too, and in that instant he knows this is his one chance. It’s six in one, half a dozen in the other, blah blah fucking blah. He knows the choice he’s supposed to make. But it’s his story.
So he jumps the railing and runs down after her.
Exit Stage
Friday, September 11th, 2009
I was talking shit about old folks up until the point when I realized I was one.
Things like this don’t come gradually like you think. They come all at once, a shock, a crash, like everything in the world suddenly stops working the way it’s supposed to and you’re left to figure it out all over again, alone, no instructions, one good eye and way too little light to make sense of anything. This old age thing sucks. Ask anyone.
Only everyone I know’s always been young.
%Wiki says you gotta get a will together% says the blinking display in front of my eye. Can’t tell who sent it, but gotta be one of my boys, the ones who come around every day and take me to play. Only today they’re not taking me anywhere.
~Will you come and help me?~ I wait for an answer, but thirty seconds, nothing comes.
There’s these blips and beeps in the back of my mind and I can’t focus on it, can’t quite tell what it means. The constant stream of information that usually flows across my vision and ties me to the world is strangely silent. I wonder if I imagined it all along. And what the hell is this persistent beeping?
I look around, try to focus. Peeling wallpaper, faded floral prints, dusty windows. The glow of streetlamps through the glass. Dull radiation from the ruins of the nearby metropolis. Maybe just daylight. It all looked much better through the guise of augmentation. But everything fades with time.
%Wiki says you should probably take the easy way out%
~What’s easy?~
Deep down, I sort of know. Understand the things my boys say. Even if sometimes they say things I don’t quite believe about the world, as if I’ve been out of it so long it isn’t my place anymore. Not like I changed anything myself, cured cancer, invented flying cars, brought peace. But the world changed anyway. Always does.
You start questioning things and you don’t even know for sure if your boys are boys. Could be forty-year-old lesbians from Iowa, all you know. Who’s to say? And who’s to care?
%What would you like to do today?% One more query.
When I don’t answer, the query or my own thoughts, when I shut the connection, look around at the remains of the room, distant-and-long-ago, I can see clearly for the first time.
Unplugging is the most difficult thing. It’s quiet, sort of peaceful. Ticking of a clock, far-off honking horn. The world slowly floods in, and I can’t say it’s unpleasant.
We define ourselves by our exits.