Again I am an Infant

It was strange to come back home. To see everything had remained exactly how I had left it. It was like no time had passed at all. The leaves on the trees never fell. The snow never melted. It was never time for bed and the teacher never blew the whistle for recess. Yet time had passed and I hadn’t seen these walls in years. It rained and it snowed and the wind blew and the clocks all ticked and now I was back where I started. The clocks were all still ticking, ticking faster than I’d like them to. At that moment the clock was ticking down to the moment that one of my parents came up and asked me what was taking so long, so I started in the closet.

Everything was already packed, it was just up to me to load it into my car and do with it what I pleased. I didn’t care to look inside the boxes. It was all going to the dumpster. I’m not much of a sentimental person. Don’t need to hang on to the person I was all those years ago.

After about an hour, everything was in the car. It wasn’t much. I said bye to my parents and got into the driver’s seat. I took a minute to take in what would likely be the last glimpse of my childhood home. I didn’t mind that they were selling it. They didn’t need so much space. I saw myself in the yard, with boys I’d long ago forgotten the faces of, swinging sticks at one another, chasing each other down the driveway. I saw myself in my bedroom window reading comic books while my mother cooked downstairs. I saw myself sneaking out the front door to smoke the cigarettes I had stolen from my older cousin. I saw myself crying on the front porch after my dog died. It was all quite far away.

I parked at a restaurant so I could dump the junk in their dumpster. Occasionally I would hear the shattering of glass as the cardboard box stuffed with forgotten unknowables crashed into the bin. I was feeling a bit of soreness in my shoulder blades as I reached for the last box. I bent over and groaned like all the old men I’ve known do, and I noticed a black book on the floor of my car. Must have fallen out of one of the boxes. It was my old journal; from when I was a kid. I stopped writing when I went to college.

I held it in my hands. Hardcover, with small indentations in it. The spine was worn. It looked tired. I opened it. Yellow pages. That smell, you know the smell. Godawful handwriting. I found myself chuckling a bit. I glanced at the rest of the trash then back at the book. I felt a strange warmth in my chest. Like I was being held. I tossed the book in the passenger seat. The last box went into the dumpster and I headed home.

I stopped at the gas station about a block away from my house to grab a scratch off. I buy a scratch off everyday. Inside I thought about grabbing a pack of smokes. Not sure why. I’d quit years ago. I didn’t buy them. I waited till I got back into the car to look for a penny. I found one under my seat. I held the ticket against my steering wheel and flicked the penny across the surface. Scratch off was a dud. Maybe tomorrow.

As I got out of my car I noticed my check engine light was on. I sighed and took my keys out of the ignition. I grabbed the book out of the passenger’s seat and got out of the car. I checked the mail. Overdue student loan payment. Replacement window ad. Coupons for the taco place down the street. Overdue phone bill. I tossed the mail and went inside. It was quiet. As usual. My computer was still on. I checked my holdings. I’d bought some new coin that some kids on the forums said would be blowing up soon. I was down around fifty percent. Great. I’d tried my hands at the slots. The poker tables. The lottery. The markets. Crypto. I even got into trading fake video game currency. It was all a bet. And it was all I had. More and more my life had become red and green lines.

It was later than I thought. I had to get up for work the next morning, so I figured I should shut off the blue light, or I wouldn’t be able to get any sleep. I turned my monitors off but not my computer. It was always running. I sat back in my chair in the dark. I had alot of time to think but not alot of thoughts. I felt for the book in my jacket. I pulled it out and set it on my desk. I looked at it a bit before I turned my lamp on. I flipped to the first page. It was torn at the edges. The sloppy handwriting of a child who still held their crayon with a closed fist. Today teacher askd us what we want to do when we grow up. I want to be a firefiter Firefighter. Or make movies. Or be president. I think that would be very cool.

I caught myself smiling. Cute. I couldn’t really remember those days. They, like so many other days, felt so far away. I wondered what that little brain of mine thought being president would be like. He probably could’ve made movies though. I’ve been told he was a real creative kid. I went to bed thinking about that boy. I couldn’t see his face and I couldn’t think his thoughts, but it felt like he was still there when I drifted off into unconsciousness.

I woke up late the next morning, an exceptionally rare occurrence. My eyes burned and my head ached. I groaned as I rolled over in my bed. My alarm clock was still blaring at that unreasonable frequency. I checked my phone. 9:02 am. Fuck It. I’m not going to school today. I tossed my phone across the room. Wait. Work. I’m not going to work today. I haven’t been in school for years. I rolled over a few more times before I fell asleep for several more hours.

Eventually I pulled myself from the death grip of my comforter. I walked to the other side of my room and checked my phone. The screen had a crack in it. Oh well. It was 1:47pm. I laughed. I walked out into my kitchen, still in my underwear and looked for something to eat. I settled on a few handfuls of dry cereal, straight from the bag. I need a cigarette. I got dressed and walked over to the gas station, without really thinking too hard. I bought another lottery ticket while I was there. Surprise surprise it was another dud. Soon I was back home, sitting on the porch, cigarette in mouth, that familiar smell in the air. It sucked, but I loved it. I sat on the porch and chainsmoked thinking about new videogames, cute girls, and how much I fucking hate homework. I don’t have homework anymore.

I got a notification on my phone. My brokerage app. Shit. I hadn’t checked the markets yet. I ashed my cig and went directly inside to my computer. I clicked my monitors on to find myself facing the same screens that I had faced the night before. Red lines. They were all red lines. All losses. That meant I had to buy. Right? Buy more. It will go up. So I did.

I watched internet videos until two o clock in the morning that night. I only shut off my computer when my head started hurting. My lamp was still on from the night before. My journal was where I’d left it. I flipped to a random page. I’m scared. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m failing pre calc and college apps are due in a few months. I haven’t even thought about where I want to go. Truth is I just want to go far away. I want to be so far away. I want to go where the bees still drink the nectar and I want to go to where I can still hear the birds. I want to go where no one can hear me. I want to be a king somewhere across an ocean. I don’t want to have to do this. Yikes. That kid was weird. I’m glad he moved out of that phase. It worked out for him. He figured it out eventually. Right? He figured it out.

I want to drive the car. I want to drive the car now. I am taking my special book with me. There are green lines on the screen. Big numbers on the screen. I don’t care. I want to drive. Dad never let me drive the car, but it’s my car now. I want to see the park. The pretty park that mom took me to. The park with the flowers and the grass. I wonder if the other kids will be there. I am driving the car now. It’s fun to go fast. I’m driving so fast. I remember where the park is. Is tomorrow Monday? I don’t want to go to school but the chicken sandwiches are good. Maybe I can bring a toy to play with at recess.

I came to in the middle of a field, still in the driver’s seat, keys still in the ignition. I didn’t feel well. I didn’t know where I was. I was supposed to be at work. Suddenly I felt it all rushing back. Money, job, future, 401k, resume, loans, bank account, promotion, disciplinary action. I was a man. I had been a man for so long that I had forgotten how to be a boy. I had no money. No prospects. I used to want to make movies.I used to want to be a firefighter. I used to want to be more than just this. I felt my phone buzz. No more. No more red lines. No more green lines. No more numbers. No more money. I didn’t want it. I couldn’t resist. I looked at my phone. I was up. I was up by insane margins. Profits I’d have never dreamed of. $20k. I wanted to celebrate. I wanted to shout “Holy shit” or “Jesus Christ” into the heavens, but it meant nothing to me. It was all so abstract. I couldn’t feel it. All I could feel were the moon and the stars bearing down on me. The dirt beckoning me home. I still had the journal with me. Last page.

I’m on track. I don’t know what track, but I’m on one. Last night I dreamt I was a kid again. It was so special. It was so painful. I was at the playground and I was on the swings. I had everything behind me and everything ahead of me. There was sunlight and there was a cool spring breeze. Today I am spending my final night in my childhood home. Tomorrow I will be quite far away. I feel myself caught in the yarn of this place, drifting in and out of what is and what could have been. I still don’t know what I should have been.

I am crying. I am lying in the grass. The grass touches me everywhere, every inch of my body. I am nude and I am basking in the light of the moon. I am crying and I don’t know why. Some vague discomfort or fear. I don’t know what I am afraid of. I don’t know anything. For there was nothing before this moment. I don’t know what lies beyond this moment, for I know nothing at all.