. . .

Some people mourn the dead. I mourn...

I mourn for our memories. Long gone by, we dream of them, painting the blacks with streaks of pastels and burnishing the pastels up to bright gold. Better to live in the present than the past.

I mourn for our futures. We fear them, we hope for them, we worry them about like dogs with chew toys. In any leisure time, we weep for the sands of time falling past us.

I mourn for our dreams. Never acheived, never acheivable, the eternal carrot on our eternal trek. If, by some chance, we should set them somewhere within reach, we move them just as we get to them. Sparkling fool's gold.

I mourn for our fears. They drive us like cattle. "Do I fit in?" "Am I too fat?" "She probably laughs at me behind my back." "No one really likes me." Fears run deep enough to cripple us in the pursuit of happiness. We limp onward, though, toward the impossible. There's a brutal beauty to it, rats caught in an endless maze.

I mourn for ourselves. I mourn for our lives. I mourn for... me.

Depressing, yes? Heartrending, yes? Feel better now? Feel better now that you've spoken meaninglessness paranoid pretentious drivel? You fool. Death is nothingness, life is sweet, and you complain about how miserable it is, when you can't comprehend the alternative. You with your suicidal thoughts and your trivial attempts to lie to yourself. Petty. Insignificant. Fool.

Peter Peter pumpkin eater. Had a wife and couldn't keep her. She ran off with her good friend Nell, and she has kept her very well. Hurts, no? She left you. Not for another man, but for another woman. A side to her you never suspected. Something that she successfully kept from you during all the years of your marriage. She was able to hide it from you, something central to her being. She knew all your hidden truths. You didn't know hers. Fool. Fool. Fool.

And now you sit around feeling sorry for yourself, writing notes to remind you to do the things she used to do, to remind you that she used to be there to do them. Writing to escape. Writing to hide in your little hole. Failing even at that.

So you think about that gun. The one you bought the other day, the first time you've left your house in a month. Loaded and waiting on the corner of your desk. Don't be even more stupid. Leave it alone. Things will change in time. Only if you give it time to change in.

Careful with it. Don't do it because you're even more clumsy than you are stupid. Don't do it at all. Put it down, walk away, live to love another day.

But you don't have the guts, do you. She's gone, your crutch that you leaned on, and you're too lazy and cowardly to live without it. Don't do it. Don't do it don't no. Oh, no.

Hello, Peter. Welcome to the family.