Draft After Draft

I am old. The lines on my face trace days past, the laughs, the scowls and the sleepless nights I’d spent on things that had seemed so important back then and mean nothing now. The weather is beautiful today. I’m sitting in a park, hiding in the furthest corner I could find and I stare at that which used to mean something. The sky as blue as my soul, the sun shining and shining and threatening to burn holes directly through my retinas. I blink. There’s a pressure in my head that has been there for a very long time and one that I have never felt in my youth. It confuses me, frustrates me. A constant reminder that I am not who I used to be anymore, time has passed and I have grown and nothing can change that. There are children playing nearby and although I cannot see them I can most certainly hear their laughter, free and unburdened from responsibility and the shattering of one's dreams. It is a strange thing to, after all this time, feel a warm summer breeze run softly through the trees and my hair and my body, carrying a distinct earthy smell with it that would for some inexplicable reason have left my young heart pounding in excitement. It hadn’t been rare for the oddest scents or sights or sounds to leave me in such an anticipatory state, like at any second in any day of the week of the month of the year, something truly great would happen, and I knew not when, but I knew it would. Such was the strength of an adolescent mind, defiant in the face of adulthood and a future that would for certain never be meant for them. It is hard now not to let the slightest hint of a smile creep onto my face, not deprecatory at my foolishness but fond at the memory of a simpler life.

As much as I’d love to reminisce all day long, it is not without reason that I find myself where I am today. I shuffle through my satchel bag until I find what I’m looking for, a worn out notebook that has certainly seen better days and flip through the pages. I’ve taken on the habit of writing whenever I feel the thoughts in my head running rampant and pleading to be set free one way or another. And had it not been for the art of writing, I’m sure this beautiful day would’ve most likely been anything but. Pencil on paper my hand lies frozen atop the empty page. What to write, oh what to write. Draft after draft, beginning and scratching and scratching and beginning. I sigh and try to focus on one thing and one thing only. A man, a man like me walking through life with his luck finally having run out. Yes. He lets days pass him by without ever looking up from the hole he dug and jumped in himself. My luck has run out, my luck has run out, he thinks to himself. His head is lowered everywhere he goes, on his way to work and back and to the store and back and and and. Whenever he makes the mistake of looking up he is greeted by a sight so grotesque and mocking he wishes he had been born blind instead.

He sees a certain spark in the eyes of every youth that passes him by, the same one he can still see in old pictures of himself. They are from a time when his smile would stretch far too wide and bright in a world such as this, a smile he suddenly feels himself pining after. He wishes things could be as they once were. No, no. Scratch that sentence. He casts his eyes back onto the ground beneath his feet and with a groan keeps moving. Memories of his younger days flood the man’s mind, his first day of university, his first love, his divorce, his childhood dog and the death of her, the first time he performed a song written by himself in front of an audience. He walks through life caught up in what once was, leaving no room for anything new. There is nothing new to be remembered, he convinces himself, for my luck has run out and nothing will ever be worth remembering again.

A stranger casts a smile at him, recognizing him as an old friend but the man walks on by. The kind woman working at the café he passes every day blushes, for she is utterly infatuated with him but lacks the courage to speak to him. The light at the crossroad turns green just as he walks up to it. The rain that’s been terrorizing the neighborhood suddenly halts and the new man living in the house across from him stands outside and attempts to wave him over, as he’s been planning on introducing himself for a few days now. They are all things that could change the man’s life in a heartbeat, if only he had half the mind to look up from his self-inflicted misery and give fate another chance. He–

“Excuse me, sir?”

I look up from my notebook, meeting the eyes of a much younger gentleman. As startled as I am, having just been pulled out of an almost trance-like state of concentration, I simply stare as if I forgot how to use my mouth.

“I apologize for disturbing you, but me and my colleagues just bought a lot of drinks and it seems we might've gone just a little overboard,” the man laughs, “so I came over to offer you one.”

He holds out his hand to reveal a can of beer, most likely freshly bought judging by the condensation on it. I am nothing if not terrible at performing like a normal person when confronted with sudden interaction, so I say nothing and nod, taking the cold drink from the younger man. He smiles at me and waves, trotting back to his colleagues just as the thought overcomes me to maybe, just maybe, thank him for the kind offer. A sigh escapes my lips while I mentally scold myself for my rude behavior. Well, nothing to be done about it now. I place the beer next to me and redirect my attention to the notebook.

Now, how to end this story, oh how to end this story…