Swollen Ankle Effect

I've got a sock full of ice cubes tied around my ankle, and the sock smells like some drug I smoked with a friend in my mom's car in high school. It was an oily substance, so we used the car lighter, and broke it.

My ankle looks like one you might see on an old person hobbling down the stairs, and I'd be hobbling after them. We're off to the mall to walk around. Look at my new goddamn sneakers. I got them on sale. Look how bright they are. Better put your giant polarized sunglasses on, Mauve, wouldn't want your cataracts to act up.

I could smile at people on the street without them thinking I was going to kill them. Old people are so fragile and weak, a little girl could scare them. This condition brings out trust in people and sometimes kindness... and sometimes the worst in little girls. And the old people, well, they clutch their purses and think everyone is out to mug them. They have just enough money to buy a certain amount of mints every Saturday without going broke. Of course, if they didn't buy the lottery tickets they could easily afford that cupcake their always talking about.

My Grandma takes walks around the parking lot: "Woof, that was a long one. Where to now?" Errands, Grandma, errands. There will never be an end to them, thank God. She looks forward to her bowel movements like meeting the best of friends. "There's our daily visitor. Hello, little friend. You smell bad." And he takes the long trip to the sewers where alligators wait to feast. "Ewww.... Grandpa! What kind of bed time story is that?" Oh, I'm sorry, I get like that when I'm drunk. But you can't tell the children that, because they'll tell their mom, and now their mom, your child, is now your mom. Oh, the horror.

I spent 18 years under the hawk like eyes of my mother, 60 christ forsaken years under the psychiatric eye of my wife, and now my daughter has the reins, was there ever any freedom? What would I do with freedom? Spend it on alcohol, probably, then puke till the wee hours of the morning. No, freedom isn't for me. Fuzzy bunny slippers are. And opium tablets. They'll give anything to the elderly to shut them up. Nowadays I like sitting in my rocking chair holding a book and trying to attain nirvana. It's not that hard. My mind is like an open field. There the wind blows, blowing the grasses on it's way to the mountains.

Soon it will be five o'clock, time to have a drink and hold my book. Nirvana is so much easier with a drink. Then it's dinner, which I eat to stay alive, or so they keep telling me. Why would I want to die? Why would anyone? Sure, there is pain, suffering, hard times, but those come and go. What the hell happens when we're dead? At least life brings with it familiarity, and with familiarity comes comfort. Our house could explode and there would be hardship, but there would still be our bodies, and by that time we'll know all about them and realize they won't leave us. The living are comfortable for the relative durability of their bodies. Anything about the afterlife (if there is one) is conjecture, and belongs to the imagination.