You Can't Wait on Life in Philly

A man stands waiting to be seated at a busy restaurant. It was a sunny Sunday morning in this quiet little town. It was unusually busy, that day for Sunday was a day that everyone and their brother would gather their whole family together for a nice cheery breakfast. A half hour had gone by and the man was still not seated, so fed up he sat down in the small foyer where everyone else sat, for some reason or another. He sat down next to an elderly man there with his son, his sons’ wife and their son.

“Unnaturally busy, eh?” Said the man.

“No, I find this to be the usual, in this here, Philly.” Said the elderly man.

“Oh…” Said the man as he picked up a local Philadelphia newspaper.

The man kept waiting what seemed like another fifteen, twenty minutes. Then the waitress came.

“Hello, miss…” the man greeted her with.

“Please, wait your turn sir.” She replied coldly.

The waitress came get the old man and his family.

“You all, may be seated now.” She said.

The man fiddled with his watch and waited some more, when and elderly couple came in and sat down next to the man. This time, he was greeted friendly.

“Hello, young man.”

“Hello…” the man replied.

“Is it your time yet?” Asked the old man.

“No, not yet, apparently…” The man replied.

“ Tis a blessing then…” Replied the elderly lady.

“Excuse me?” replied the man confused.

“Not now, Martha… he’s not from around here.” He told his wife.

“How did you…?” the man tried to reply before getting cut off.

“Just a guess…” replied the old man coyly.

“Well, you’re right… I’m from San Francisco. I’m here visiting my cousin who lives here.”

“Visiting? Well then I think you are in the wrong place.” Replied the old man.

“How can I be in the wrong place, he lives here in Philly!” said the man.

“ I mean you’re here… waiting.” Said the old man.

“Oh, well I wasn’t really sure if I was going to see him or not.” Said the man.

“Why not?” questioned the old man.

“Well he’s the only family I have left, my parents are recently deceased, and my wife just left me.” Said the man, sorrowfully.

“Well they’re in a better place now, deary.” Said Martha.

“They’re lucky.” Smiled the old man to his wife.

The elderly couple continue smiling at each other as the waitress returns.

“Your table is ready. Please follow me.” Said the waitress.

“Finally, it’s our turn!” laughed the old man.

“Seems like we’ve waited a life time to get into this place!” Marty smiled and followed the waitress.

“Aren’t you coming, Frank?” asked Martha.

“One minute dear.” Frank told his wife.

“My advice to you young man, is life is too short to wait around for your order to come up. You should go back and find your cousin. It’s time to move on don’t you think?” Frank chuckled as he walked away.

“Wait! When do I get to order?” The man shouted.

Frustrated the man sits down, and picks up his playbook he had on him. He was reading the play, the Philadelphia by David Ives. After a while a woman sat down next to him.

“Is it good?” she asked.

“Pardon?” the man replied.

“What you’re reading?” she asked.

“Oh, I’m sorry… It’s interesting. But I’m not sure I get it.” He responded.

“Isn’t that the truth of it!” She exclaimed.

“What?” he asked her.

“It’s a lot like life.”

“Oh…” replied the man bewildered.

“Ever been here before?” she asked him.

“No, I’m not from around here.” He said.

“I have. Once. Briefly, really. It was a close call. I hear it’s wonderful here. I hear the eggs are heavenly!” She giggled.

“Oh, then I’ll have to try them then, when I get in.” said the man.

“Oh deary, you can’t just sit around here your whole life! You should go out and enjoy yourself!”

“But, I’m hungry and I just want a bite to eat!” stated the man, angrily.

“Oh dear, I know. But trust me on this, you will know when it’s your time to go… The waitress will come an’ get you!”

The waitress came once more to tell the woman that her table was ready.

“Angelique!” The woman shouted. “I’m so happy to see you again.” she told the waitress.

“I hope you’re back to stay this time Marion!” The waitress said gleefully.

The waitress and the woman hugged and she left to go show her to her table. The man stood up and stopped Angelique.

“Wait! I think I finally understand!” proclaimed the man.

The man, left shortly thereafter. Several years later would pass before the man eventually went back the restaurant and sure enough Angelique had his table prepared for him. He ordered the eggs, but she brought him a cheese steak instead. However the man only laughed and ate the order he was given, and it was in fact, Heavenly.

Why LAND OF THE DEAD sucked pt.1

[...Posted by Ted H]

Those of you unfamiliar with how things work in Central New York, lemme give you a crash coarse on how the locals here react to a natural disaster anywhere in the eastern half of the US: "It's also happening here! O FUCK! We're all gonna die!!!"

Earthquake in Virginia? "I thought I felt a brief shake! It happened here too! Oh my God!"
Hurricane heading up the eastern seaboard? "Its comming for the fair! OH SHIT!"
Hurricane downgraded to a Tropical Storm before it even hits NYC? "I would still call it a hurricane! And these 15mph winds mean that the hurricane is hitting Syracuse! OH GOD WHY!?!"

Anyway...I passed the time watching a bad movie....

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[Land of the Dead...sucked part 1]

*I will spoil the shit out of this movie. You have been warned*

I’m gonna get this out of the way right now: I’m a huge fan of Romero’s Dead Trilogy. Night, Dawn and Day of the Dead are three of the greatest zombie movies in all creation and George Romero deserves all the praise in the universe for bringing them to the world. But let it never be said that anything zombie related this man touches turns to gold, because much like George Lucas, the second trilogy of movies he put out to follow his three masterpieces were anything but good. The greatness that was Night/Dawn/Day were followed by the tragedies that were Land/Diary/Survival.

Anyway-this deconstructive and whatnot review will only focus on Land of the Dead. Should I even watch just Land and Diary back to back my brain may hemorrhage and I could die, let alone throwing the third one in after…

I have copies of all the original 3 movies in my collection because they damn deserve to be there, but I lacked a copy of Land of the Dead. In order to procure myself a copy, I asked a friend of a friend of a friend who happens to work at Gitmo if he could let me borrow a copy of the movie-no dice. So instead I took a copy from my brother. He happened to have the directors cut version, so I get a version that contains tragedies so retarded that theaters even refused to allow. Wonderful.

First, some back story. I didn’t always hate LotD. I actually went to see it in theaters when it first came out. But much like Star Wars fans when they finally saw The Phantom Menace, I felt myself let down severely by what I saw. It didn’t start out all bad, but as time wore on, I felt a growing sense of dread about this movie that I could barely keep back with pure denial. By the climax though, it was too much.

Anyway, lets get this over with…

Part 1: This land is our land (of the dead)!
Opening credits roll. It comes across with a vibe that seems like a cross between the remakes of Night and Dawn had for their opening. Good start so far. Audio snippets of news reporting crossed with shots of some zombie action. Typical start to a zombie epic, but it does establish a few givens.

One particular rule of zombie movies seems to be that it must be established in the movie that the only way to kill a zombie is via the brain. Always. If you don’t, then apparently you run the risk that the audience will be too stupid to figure that out themselves. Night and Dawn did this through action. With Night: Ben tried multiple unsuccessful shots at a zombie with a gun before finally hitting his mark in the head. In Dawn: You have Flyboy flailing his way around with a rifle in a field, failing to net one kill despite many hits. All this while Roger follows him, picking off the dead with one single headshot each time.

Even if there’s an exception to the rule, you need to point out the exception. Return of the Living Dead made it a point to prove that headshots do nothing. Either way though, you either need to point out that a headshot is the only way to kill a zombie, or that it doesn’t work.

For Romero though, this being zombie movie #4, is it really necessary for a learning curve? This being the same universe as the original trilogy (I’ll get to that fucking fact later) then its safe to assume that if you’re alive, then you know how to kill a zombie. Hell, he already sidestepped that need in Day when he had his characters discuss why the brain was the key. They didn’t just establish the fact, they expanded on it.

For Land however, there was no need to establish in any new way and definitely no desire to expand on it. Instead we have one of those opening credits news deals talk about how stopping the brain was the only way to stop the zombie. No points for creativity on that, though I guess some points go to how all the news snippets seemed like they would have fit well with the reports in Night/Dawn…which begs the question as to why not just use those? You want to keep this movie in the same universe, why not just use news reports from those movies. For fucks sake, Night is public domain, you can use anything you want from that movie even if your name wasn’t Romero.

Fuck me, I’ve talked this much and I haven’t even gotten as far as the story yet…maybe I’m just putting it off…

Anyway: ACTION! We find ourselves in a random town, dominated by the living dead. Zombie are doing what zombies do when there’s no delicious humans to eat: mainly, walk about randomly, even going as far as hitting routines they usually had in life before being zombies. Still cool-Dawn of the Dead touched on these habits. Everything’s still credible. Enter two humans spying on the dead, talking about how the dead are “trying/learning to be human again” Whatever, I’ll let you slide. You always figure it’s bull shit small talk when you’re about to engage them anyway…then…

“He knows we’re here.”

Ok…still going smooth. Zombies tend to have crazy sharp senses for discovering tasty tasty humans. Then “Big Daddy” grunts and alerts two other zombies that there’s food. And not just any grunt, but a conscious grunt that was meant as legitimate communication as if the zombie was saying “Hey, go check that out.”

Aaaaaaaaaaand from there on out this movie spirals the drain. Subtlety at first, but undeniable at the end. The notion that zombies can evolve is laughable at best, and this is the first nudge to that idea we get. But it’s still early

Required introduction to the guy with the arrow gun. Whatever…

Introduction to Charlie. I didn’t like him at the start. To be fair though, he looked, acted and sounded like a retard so he was very much distinguishable from most other characters who looked and acted the same. Still though, I hated every line of dialogue he said. Imagine if Rocky Balboa had acid thrown in his face and lost the ability to throw a punch. Now you have Charlie.

Enter: Dead Reckoning. Now the movie is broken.

“This is my last night.” Nice to at least see Romero set up a time honored movie cliché and sidestep it by having nothing major happening. Then again, it would’ve been a lot more interesting than what eventually happened in this movie.

Fireworks. Seriously? You use fireworks to distract the dead? That shouldn’t work. Humans get to run right passed zombies now and nothing happens because of the God damn fireworks? What’s wrong with humans riding through and just leveling everything in their path? They showed that they clearly have the firepower if all they’re doing is running in and grabbing supplies. But no…because this is the show that Big Daddy has evolved as a zombie. The movie breaks even more.

Big Daddy mercy kills a decapitated zombie. I cry at zombie-on-zombie violence.

Problem with the fireworks. Alright! Perhaps the retarded fireworks logic was just a setup for some action. Zombies aren’t distracted and humans are all spread out and vulnerable to the masses. Time for some awesomeness! Oh wait…no…I forgot about Dead Reckoning. The fucking tank rolls right on through, killing everything. The one guy even points this out by saying that this isn’t a battle so much as a fucking massacre.

Some guy gets bit, shoots himself. Standard...Wait, how long were they in the liquor store before the kid got bit? How does that zombie not get up from behind the counter and attack everyone from the get go? Why was he even back there to begin with? Clearly it showed that it is capable of walking, so what’s the excuse? There weren’t even any fireworks or nothing to distract him. Was he waiting for someone to toss the cigars to the ground and for someone to blindly reach down? Is it possible that no one called out Romero for this lapse of logic?

Humans leave, Big Daddy gets a gun. Apparently knows how to use it. Leads the charge to follow the humans.

We’ve breezed through the opening round and there is no detectable sign of a struggle. Dead Reckoning makes zombies a moot issue in the fucking zombie apocalypse. At this point, you know right away that the only tension that can arise from this movie is if the tank is compromised. And it’s pretty clear that zombies have no chance of taking down the tank, so only humans can fuck things up for themselves. This movie has already signaled that the zombies are taking a backseat in their own movie. All we need now is a pointless female lead and a cookie cutter villian…

Happy DeathDay!

[...Posted by Ted H]

Cake, anyone?

Not counting anything from any Creative Writing class, Ive currently now have proofread stories from three different people I know....What I really wanna know is: WHO THE FUCK AM I?
Oh thats right, Im awesome...Carry on...

Ive also added some new features including a fucking SEARCH BAR at the bottom! Wooooooooooo!

...........................

[Happy DeathDay]

According to the computer clock, it was 3am. “When did it become 3am?” Mel asked himself as he checked his phone to confirm the time. Nope, the computer doesn’t lie. Wikipedia is a dangerous thing Mel learned as he switched the laptop down and went to empty the dryer. Click on one article and you can get lost in an endless marathon of side links. Whatever, its not like he had anywhere to be in the morning.

Mel gathered his laundry and made his way out of the laundry room and up the basement stairs of the house. He rented an old townhouse with a couple other people and the laundry machine and dryer were both hidden in the darkest corner of the basement. Mel never minded since his wi-fi still connected. He dare not abandon his clothes until they were finished, since his roommates were impatient and wouldn’t hesitate to toss his clothes to the ground so they could get at the machines. He wasn’t guarding his clothes in vain tonight either, he already chased away Neil earlier, who was notorious for throwing Mel’s clothes into a dirty corner of the basement.

Clothes in a sack hoisted over his back, and his laptop safely tucked under his arm, Mel made it out of the basement and headed for the main staircase. Fatigue setting in more and more every step of the way. All he could think about was getting to bed when someone rang the doorbell, causing Mel to almost drop his items.

“Are you serious?” he asked to no one in particular as he placed his laundry down and safely placed his laptop on top of it, then made for the door. Whoever this was had a lot of nerve, lord only knew if he woke up any of Mel’s roommates. The doorbell sounded again and Mel urgently ran to the door to prevent the ringer from doing so a third time. Without even looking to see who was out there, Mel threw open the door and was taken aback at who it was.

Out in the entryway was a man dressed in a black cloak, with a hood over their head concealing any hint of who they were. They bore an uncanny resemblance to the Grim Reaper. Held in their right hand (which was made to look like a skeleton hand) was your standard sickle while the left hand held a small chocolate cake.

“Not funny,” Mel said as he stared down the figure. “Happy birthday!” the figure said in a very unreaper-like upbeat tone “And by birthday I mean Death Day!” The figure held out the cake with their boney hand which up close looked legitimately like a real skeletal hand. “What’s going on?” Mel asked as he backed away and near the staircase.

“Look,” the man said as he entered with the cake “Lets just get this over with. You’re not the only soul I need to collect tonight.” Mel backed his way up the staircase as the hallway light illuminated the figures head. Most of the face was concealed by the hood but there was the unmistakable look of a jaw bone peeking out in the light. This guy was defiantly a walking skeleton. “Y-you’re death? Prove it!” Mel said, screaming out that last part in hopes that one of his roommates would wake up. “Don’t run,” the figure said as he ascended the stairs up to Mel “Now take your cake and let’s get this over with.

An overwhelming sense of intimidation washed over Mel as he realized the not only was death here to kill him, but it seemed that there wasn’t a damn thing he could do about it. “C’mon man!” Mel screamed again “Whys it gotta be me? I don’t wanna die!” It seemed that either Death was pulling some voodoo keeping everyone asleep or that Mel wasn’t screaming loud enough. He was too frightened to scream any louder though.

“Just have your cake so I can move on,” Death insisted as Mel finally accepted what apparently was going to be his last meal. “I-I’m not hungry,“ he said as Death shrugged and said “Then lets get this over with then.” Mel bit his lip and lowered his head as Death shifted and raised his scythe in preparation for reaping. Mel didn’t want to watch as he fixated on his cake that once spelt “Happy Birthday” but “Birth” was removed and a frosting skull and crossbones was there instead. The name underneath caught Mel’s eyes and at the last second he screamed for death to wait!

“What the hell, kid?” Death asked after stopping himself mid-stride, the blade of his scythe only a few inches away from its target. “Neil’s the one you want! I’m not Neil,” Mel said as he presented the cake back to Death. “Yeah, I bet,” death said as he raised his weapon back up. “No, I can prove it!” Mel screamed as he cowered up the stairs and placed the cake on the ground. He then dug his wallet out of his pants pocket and showed Death his drivers license.

“Looks fake to me,” Death said. “You got the wrong guy, man!” Mel protested as he ran into his room. “Wait right there!” he shouted as he grabbed a yearbook from high school and flipped through the pages. “Here,” he said as he showed Death his senior picture, then showed him Neil’s. “Might be a typo, or a mix up of names,” Death said, still not convinced. Mel then sprinted back to his room and dug up three more yearbooks, including one from college and showed Death that his name and picture match up in all of them.

“Well…” death said after a moment, “That certainly would have been embarrassing. Where is Neil then?” Mel breathed a sigh of relief. “Neil? You missed him. He’s sleeping,” he finally said. “That’s odd,” Death said “I was suppose to catch him on his way to bed.” Mel didn’t like the sound of that. Maybe Death was the one with the typo and was really suppose to kill him instead? “Accidents happen?” Mel squeaked out. Death reached into his cloak and pulled out a PDA. He tapped the screen with his boney finger and showed Neil’s name as well as some other pertinent information. “Not a mistake,” he said “I‘m just apparently late.”

Mel thought about it for a moment. Was Death really late? Or was Neil suppose to be the one doing his laundry at this hour? Did Mel save Neil by kicking him out of the basement? Either way, it was pretty clear something happened. “Looks like Neil missed his appointment with Death,” Mel said as a joke. “Not this time,” Death said as he brandished his scythe and marched upstairs. “I’m gonna…I’m gonna go do my laundry again,” Mel said as he sprinted down back into the basement, locking the door behind him.

Demon Bar

[...Posted by Ted H]

Well I've been without internets for a while so I guess we finally missed an upd-What? One of the authors actually posted something last week? HOLY FUCKING SHIT! That means we havent missed a week yet. Mad props to Will for actually remembering to show up! As you can see bud, I havent changed the locks...yet...

Anyway, Will led off the month in case youre confused,. Not taking this as a sign that things will be any different from here on out though, Im gonna throw up an update now and buckle up for the next 30 weeks cuz I doubt lightning'll strike twice.

...............................

[Demon Bar]

He walked right into the bar and was slightly taken aback. It was dimly lit but the lack of light was made up for by noise; loud music playing and people talking. There were lots of people in here. “Can I take them all?” he thought as he walked to the closest table. A couple of large men were sitting by talking about whatever the hell it is large men talk about while grasping their giant glasses of beer. The specifics of their conversation were lost to the static of the background noises and his own impatience to get started.

D reached over and grabbed one of the men’s beer glasses. The man immediately stood up and demanded his drink back before things got violent. He had no intentions on drinking, but the only way he could start tonight is if someone else initiated things. It’s not a rule or anything, but tonight he felt like changing things up a bit, perhaps justify a little murder, if only a fraction of the murdering.

He decided to give the mans drink back in the fashion of smashing the glass over his head. The glass didn’t break, it was too strong, but its contents did spill all over the man. The man didn’t waste any time in rearing back and cracking D in the jaw with his fist. He almost took to the air but ended up just toppling over into a wall. Laughter erupted as the man cracked his knuckles, indicating he wasn’t finished yet.

D’s jaw was definitely hurt. A fracture or maybe a tooth chipped, either way blood was coming out the corner of his mouth. Beautiful. He returned to his feet as the man approached, now followed by his friend from the table. He reached to his back and pulled out his sword. Slightly bent at places and a handle worn to the point where he had to wrap it in tape, it was still as sharp as the day it was made, perhaps even sharper. The little light in the bar reflected off the weapon and both men hesitated for only a moment before continuing their approach; they clearly thought one sword couldn’t stop two burly men.

They hesitated, he wouldn’t. In a quick, fluid motion he ducked below the first man, his sword trailing behind him as he came up in front of the other man and swung his sword upward, striking up in the middle of the face. Not a deep slash, but enough for the man to raise his hands to his face and scream.

D then shifted around the man and faced the friend as he reached for his other sword strapped horizontally on his belt. As he freed it, he continued the motion around him an right across the friends stomach. The three just stood there for a moment; the men clutching their wounds and D in between them with one arm in the air and the other out to his right, clutching a sword in each hand.

It was time to finish this. D dropped his right arm and shifted his hold on the sword and drove it through the back of the first man while he brought his other arm back around, straightened it up and drove it through the second mans chest. He then withdrew both swords and let both men fall dying to the ground.

The rest of the bar, finally realizing what just happened, started to panic as people broke for the front door. D was still closer to that door than anyone and moved into the path of people. He knew some might slip passed him, but the majority of them would meet one of his blades. He started slashing at drunks and whores as blood flew in all directions. The more that fell, the more difficult it would be to navigate to the exit, the easier it would be for D to kill them.

“Such a fire hazard,” D said when he realized that there was no other exit to the bar. The bartender had remained behind the bar. D saw the fear in his eye, saw that he had no escape. Too bad. All in all D could tell that only two people had managed to slip passed and out into the night. He’s done worse, and it would feel fitting if he left three people surviving, but a certain look of determination in the bartender’s eyes swayed D from any thought of mercy. Something about that man seemed to suggest that fighting him would be more worthwhile than even the man who punched him.

“You wish to die?” D said aloud, more of a statement than a question, as he started running for the bar. He could easily jump it, but there was something in the air that suggested an ulterior motive. No matter, D took to the air, both swords over his head as he prepared to swing down on the poor sap when he felt himself flying backwards. He collapsed backwards onto a table which tipped and sent him toppling down onto the ground. He dropped one of his swords and he found it difficult to even sit up.

“What the fuck?” he screamed as he tasted the air and realized what happened. Burning. The bartender fired a weapon. The intense pain in his stomach painted a clear enough picture as to where the bartender fired and the size of the wound and the mortal damage to his intestines suggested that as clichéd as it was, the bartender was indeed packing a shotgun behind that bar.

The bartender cocked his weapon and circled around the bar. “What a faggot, cheating like that,” D said while spewing up blood. “At least you could see my swords when I enter-” he cut himself off as he forced his body to roll over. He couldn’t find his other sword, no matter.

The bartender was approaching for apparently what was suppose to be the kill shot. D stood up and used a chair to steady himself for a moment, before tossing it at the bartender. The chair smacked into his arm as he tried to dodge. When he went to aim again, D rushed into him and elbowed the shotgun away. “Did you really think that would stop me?” he asked as he stuck his sword through the bartender’s throat and sliced.

“What a mess,” D said as he surveyed his stomach, which was bleeding everywhere. “Definitely gonna need a new shirt,” he said as he sheathed his one sword and began searching for the other. “Where the fuck did that thing go?” he asked as he glanced and saw a young woman clutching it nearby an overturned table. “What have we here?” D asked as he casually walked over.

“Stay back,” the woman said as she held the sword out. “You probably would’ve gone unnoticed had you not picked that up,” D said as he now stood over the woman. She didn’t know what to do and D felt like fucking with her. “Go ahead, kill me,” he said with a smile “Strike me down and save countless lives. BE THE HERO OF THIS NIGHT!” He could barely hold back the will to laugh when suddenly the woman screamed and stabbed him through the chest. D clutched at the hilt which was now right under his chin as he fell backwards onto the ground.

The woman let out a sigh as she sidestepped D’s body and started for the door. D then reached and grabbed her ankle, causing her to scream and fall over. D didn’t hold back any laughs as he stood up and pulled his sword out of himself. “You really thought that would kill me, didn’t cha?” he asked as he prepared to kill the woman but stopped himself.

“I like you,” he said as he put his sword back in its sheath. “I’ll let you live.” The woman almost couldn’t comprehend what D just said. “What?” she finally said. “Yeah,” D said “You can go home now. Though in return, I might have to crash with you one night, you know, as a return favor for sparing you.” D then turned around and sprinted out the door. The police were coming.

The Madhouse

[Posted by Will]

I lived in a madhouse. Although unfortunately for me, there were no patted rooms or solitude. My madhouse I called home, in central New York where I was born and raised. My home was a madhouse for years although I didn’t know it right away. Having lived in it for eighteen years previously I must have been mad, gone mad to have not realized it.

My father was mean old bastard, a drunk and a loser. A lowly factory worker all his life and the really sad part was he wanted nothing more, strived for nothing more. He was pathetic. Doomed to work, get drunk, come home, drink some more and pass out, to only wake up and do it all again. On the weekends if he didn’t work over time he would sit in his beaten up old chair and watch rerun cowboy serials from his childhood of yesteryear. I guess when things were better, but for him they weren’t. His father abandoned him when he was five leaving him alone with two sisters and a lush of a mother. Maybe the cowboys made him feel young again. Who knows, there is no point in trying to understand him anymore.

He sat on his throne at home and cried poverty at night. Every night he would get so shitfaced he turned every night into a pity party and the world was invited. It was always time to feel sorry for old Joe Kaminski. It made me wish he was sober, but when he didn’t drink he was mean and miserable, so miserable I wished he were drunk. He was just so mean spirited and hateful he was hardly ever easy to tolerate. He did however turn into an all right sort but it wouldn’t last. It exists in his drunken delirium somewhere between miserable and depressed. If he has two few he becomes angry and combative, hating everything in the world around him. If he has two many the pity party begins. If I only knew how many it took to just make him all right.

He and I never spoke much, rarely, sometimes not at all. He and I could go sometimes days to over a week without saying so much as a word to the other and we lived under the same roof, in the same madhouse. He never cared for me much, but the feeling was mutual. He blamed me for all his problems. I was the cause of his bills. I took too much of his wife’s, my mothers, love away. I was never into sports so I guess he was never into me. There was never father and son time or any bonding in my formative years. I guess when it comes down to it; neither of us could very much stand the other. Maybe he was jealous that I could leave the madhouse. I could see the world. That I could go out and live my life and he couldn’t because he didn’t really have one. Which would honestly explain a lot.

He was content in his misery though, or rather he never did anything to change his station in life. My father was the sort however that would be so miserable he had to drag the rest of us down with him. My mother and I, that is. We had to be as sad and miserable and depressed as he. I guess it made him happy. The only happiness he had, I suppose. He was the master of the madhouse, its creator and in the end it’s what destroyed him. My mother was a peacekeeper but she was mad. She chose to stay and live in the madhouse with him and I. To me no sane individual would be willing to live and subject themselves to that madhouse everyday for over thirty years as she had. Therefore she clearly was mad herself. Driven that way by a drunken unappreciative husband. She was brought down by it all, wearing her down and making her mad.

My folks were old, having had had me late in years. Growing up they were always vastly older than the parents of my friends in school. They rarely went out, leaving the madhouse. It explains a lot of my nature. I am a relaxed sort. I was never a rambunctious child. I never ran around a lot or went outside to play. Those things seemed foreign to me. I’d rather much spend my time in my room reading or writing, getting swept away from the madhouse. Dreaming of being elsewhere, anywhere in fact, than there. I was bound and determined to leave the madhouse one day and so I did just that. When I turned eighteen I went to college out of state. I spent two years living in Pennsylvania going to a liberal arts college, studying theater. Then I left the Podunk farming community for something bigger, more grandiose. I went to Florida and went to school down there and received my Bachelors of Science in Film after two years of study.

I had a lot of great times in college, those were my best years but unfortunately like all good things it would seem, they must come to an end. After graduating and having absolutely no job prospects I had nowhere else to go but home, back to the madhouse and I must be mad too if I willingly went back there. But I had nothing else to do and nowhere to go, what else was I to do, but return to the madhouse. I was defeated by life. Directionless, jobless and hopeless, is what I was. I escaped the madhouse only to go right back to it. I feared it was where I would have to stay forever. I had nothing at home, no bills, but college bills. No rent, but no privacy. I had a girl but she’s a state away and when you’re in love you know that’s another lifetime away.

I was trapped in the madhouse, doomed to stay. I was right back where I started and my skies were turning grey. There is no light at the end of my tunnel, no end in sight. I wish I could end my madness, end my plight. Life is an internal struggle, a personal fight. Man against man I will fight myself and find a way out of the madhouse again. My parents are with me, trapped in the madhouse but content with staying in. They are content with their madness, their life, their madhouse, but not me. I’ll fight my way out the madhouse again, you’ll see. My girlfriend calls me and asks me how I am. I told her I live in a madhouse, you see, but nobody here knows it but me. I laugh through the tears and tell her, it’s going to be all okay because we’ll be reunited, together again someday.

The walls are closing in and the light is going dim. Today ends and tomorrow will be a new. A new hope for a new day. One day I’ll escape the madhouse and be a new man, my own man. But for now I’ll go to sleep and dream of being swept away, far away from the madhouse. It got me once, then it got me again, but there won’t be a next time. No sir, never again.