I had never planned to go out today, it was supposed to be another regular Saturday that consisted of me sitting around my house doing absolutely nothing. On other days I would have sat on my families faded leather couch, mindlessly flipping through channels, starting off the morning with cartoons and ending it with programs aimed towards a teen audience. I usually did this while eating some cereal or other breakfast that was always too big for someone who wouldn’t do anything later that day.
But this Saturday I felt inspired. The weather was gray and rain was on its way. It’s strange how you can tell if it’s going to rain or not. You just know, there’s no system of deducing or logic to it, it’s like you smell the water in the air. Or maybe I’m naïve, thinking I know more about something as simple as making the connection that it rained last time the weather was like this.
Instead of sitting on my couch this morning, I instead threw on some decent clothes and headed outside. I was dressed for warmth, not fashion in any sense of the word. Faded jeans, a long sleeve t-shirt underneath a black sweatshirt. I walked outside into the rain, probably the first time I ever did anything like this. I’m a conservative person, not doing anything that is out of the ordinary; I’ve had the same Saturday routine for as long as I can remember. But today I felt special, today I felt like being one of those spontaneous people. So I dawned my garments and went outside.
Out side I went into the chaos of the world, the melancholy of the rain, the anger of the wind, the depression of the overcast sky, and feeling of hopelessness of the sun, desperately trying to show it’s cheerful face through the clouds. This is the world that I avoid, the world that can take lives in milliseconds, the world that can completely change it’s appearance in a matter of millennia, the world that resents us and everything about us.
As soon as I stepped outside I slipped on the wet porch that had a thin layer of water accumulated on it’s swollen surface. I didn’t completely fall; instead I caught myself on the railing, instantly soaking my sleeve. I wonder why I didn’t turn back there, realizing how dangerous this, quoting my anti-hero, Savage Garden, really is. It’s almost laughable that I failed to see that I was nothing more than a careless creature roaming the surface of a world that was fed up to the brim with anger, and just waiting to lash out at somebody. Unaware of my failure to see an ominous omen in this, I steadied myself and walked down the porch’s steps, clinging on the rail not unlike the way a man on death row holds on to the hope that St. Peter was looking the other way when they committed their so-called sins.
I had no destination in mind for my exploits in adventure. Instead I decided the best approach to this situation would be to walk to the end of my drive way, turn right, and walk into town. I’d done it before, all in ignorance of the contempt that was presented to me every time I stumbled in a ditch, or tripped over a pebble. No; I was genuinely ignorant of the Deadly Haven’s hatred towards my fellow inhabitants on earth, myself included. Blaming every little misstep on clumsiness or bad luck, and more than a few times on my state of intoxication. If only I had known.
Thinking about man’s obsession with intoxication is almost humorous, almost. We never realize what we are doing is a different type of poisoning, and where do these poisons come from? Plants that the earth makes. I bet it’s silently chuckling over that triumph over man. What other way better to kill someone than with love? Isn’t it love that allows mothers to kill their offspring, and make the choirboys not tell anyone about the pastor’s affection with them? Is it not love that makes men and women world over go insane with despair and take their lives?
Reaching the end of my driveway I turned right as planned, and walked past the mailbox, involuntarily noticing the little red flag down, signaling that no letters had arrived, not even the entrepreneurs sterile love had reached my small section of the universe. It’s sad how nobody writes letters anymore; they’re so much more personal than emails or phone calls. An email can be lost in a billion different and meaningless ways, phone calls are forgotten within a matter of hours, but letters, they can be lost and rediscovered, rekindling affections, relationships, and memories.
It was then that the car hit me. It was a gold Honda civic that had lost it’s power steering, causing it’s young inexperienced driver to swerve about the road violently. It was this twisted path that brought the car to me and beyond. It hit me right as I was taking a step, which meant I wasn’t grounded to the ground which would of caused my body to explode, instead it hit me and I flew, tumbling through air and existence in a matter of seconds until my battered frame hit the empty mailbox, saving the postman one more futile stop. The force of my body hitting the box broke the pole holding it, so rolled through, finally coming to a stop a few feet later on the ground as close to liquid matter a human can be while still living. Although it will be short lived as I sit here bleeding, darkness closes in, bringing with it images of an empty wheat field in this rain. I feel a hand grab a hold of mine, a lady dressed in a flowing red gown that looks more like spilled oil paint than fabric owns this hand. Tauntingly she leads me on a road over hung by oak trees into the field of wheat. And there I meet my peace.