A story...
I wrote this a while back, I have done some editing on it, but I am sure it still needs more. What do you think about it? (Still a Work In Progress) The finished product will prob be much longer I'll keep you all posted.)
(I don't really have a title yet...)
James sat at his desk. His eyes were fixed on the blue, white and black images in front of him. It was one in the morning, the television provided ambient background nose that he dare not turn off, less he be subjected to silence. He hated silence. He focused on the computer program running before him, but not exactly sure what he was supposed to be doing. He should be asleep now he thought to himself. But there was no reason he had to sleep. Tomorrow would be another day, he had little to do. Besides get his life back in order.
“What a life.” He said.
Just moments ago he had been looking at pictures of someone he thought was in his past. It’s hard to count someone in your past that embodies everything you know you could be. James was an intelligent young man. He was twenty-two years old. He stood taller then average, though many of his friends were taller then him, and that made him feel inadequate at times. Though he wasn’t fat he knew he could be in better shape. He knew he was blessed with great eyes though, blue one day green the next. They were the one aspect of his appearance that constantly received compliments.
“Right” he whispered under his breath.
Why was he thinking of the past now. That was a stupid question he thought to himself. He always thought of the past, one person who had gotten to know him well had told him.
“You live in the past, James its 2001 not 1999.”
Maybe I live life 2 years behind everyone else he thought. Now the year was 2003, October. Nearly 2 years ago since that first relationship ended. Oh where had time gone? Surely he had done something worthwhile in those last two years. His room had suddenly grown cold. It was definitely fall now. Which meant that soon the two trees out side his window would shed their leaves, it would rain, and somewhere in the mountains it would begin to snow. He couldn’t wait for the snow. Over the last 2 years he had taken up a new hobby, snowboarding. He had only traveled to the mountains twice before he bought his own board, boots, and bindings. The board was red and black, the bindings that are used to strap the boots to the board were red, black, and chrome, and his boots were grey and red. Red and black wonder what that means he thought.
He looked left to his bed then right out his bedroom window. It was black outside; two of the lamps in his room had red bulbs. His bed was a mess, covered in papers, a few bits of odd laundry that he folded earlier piled neatly at one end and an empty Gatorade bottle resting against the wall. Some one was trying to sell insurance on television, he was tired and it was dark. His hands smelled of cigarettes. He wasn’t a smoker but had taken to smoking when offered. Earlier that night his new roommate Michelle had offered him one. There was something rebellious about smoking at home is his back yard that made him feel better about himself for a while. Though he couldn’t pinpoint exactly what it was. He knew he would feel it in the morning, he knew, he couldn’t escape his problems. He needed focus.
He sunk down in to his chair. It was a nice black leather chair he had purchased a year ago, for a bargain thirty-nine dollars. Again he stared long and hard at the screen before him. The television continued on in the background. For him it provided constant noise, information, education and entertainment. When he needed to be alone he turned it on. Sometimes, he would actually watch the programs. That could be quite entertaining, and educational. But it never served up answers to his problems; but it served him, he didn’t feel alone when it was on. At the moment he was missing someone. Someone, he hadn’t had live contact with in over a year. Someone, he had loved, still loved and missed. He glanced back at the TV. Hoping to get lost in its programming, but to no avail. The program currently playing was too bizarre to interest him at the moment. He yearned for the mundane.
He didn’t like being alone. He wanted the company of fiends of live people right now. But he was tired, he was light headed, and he was alone… despite the television. Why had he looked at those pictures tonight? They were so happy, he wasn’t in them, but they were happy. This shouldn’t have surprised him or bothered him at all. They were friends they had even talked on the phone and had several typed conversations. Some of which he had saved. He felt like a stalker. He wasn’t but that was how he felt .after all. He never thought it possible to miss someone so much. He felt guilty, and inadequate. Guilty because he didn’t miss his cousin the same way, his cousin who had died two years ago, he didn’t. What made those five or six months so special. Why was it now? His room was getting colder still. Reminding him of the time, it would soon be time for another major change. He was going to do things right. He let out a short sigh of relief, time to go to bed he thought, time to sleep and think about the events of the last few hours. He cleared his bed and went to sleep.
The next morning began colder then the previous night. He awoke wrapped so tightly in his blanket, that his boxers chaffed him. His neck and back were slightly uncomfortable as he slept at an odd angle directly against his bedroom wall. His morning was fairly uneventful. The cold that he awoke to slowly faded away. His papers from the prior night were neatly piled on the floor. He didn’t have to go to his mundane job until two o’clock in the afternoon. So he would spend his morning as every other, thinking about school, doing odd bits of paperwork, cleaning his room and other parts of the house.
“Ugh, work.” He said out loud.
James liked his job, but it wasn’t what he had pictured him self doing. He was good at what he did. But by age twenty-two he wanted to be somewhere else. He didn’t want to be working with a fifty year old man, and uneducated college drop outs. His job, though he liked his coworkers scared him. He was scared of getting stuck. He had more talent then that. I can do better. He thought to himself. He had been in charge of much larger things before. He even started his own business for a while it was his dream come true. Now, he loathed it. He wanted nothing more to finish school, to get out of his job, to start a new. Not, that the economy at the time was ripe for new business opportunities. Thanks to a prolonged war that no one completely understood, questionable leaders, and a nation of people that seemed to be working against each other.
-J
