[pt.1] https://theprose.com/post/28499/hello-whiskey-my-old-friend

Hello whiskey, my old friend. Yes, yes it’s really me. I know it’s been quite a while. The words just don’t quite come like they used to. It’s maddening this world, isn’t it? How-

Ah, yes I know. I’m an “adult” now, don’t you know? Hah, it feels weird even just saying it. What does it matter if I still feel like I’m in high school, right? Twenty-seven years—ah what was the cliche—cold or some-

No, no, I am not sad, don’t worry, bràthair. I am not stuck in some vertex of ennui, nor depressed nor anything like that. Maybe I don’t talk as much as I used to. Maybe I don’t quite find the same things funny I did a few years ago. Maybe I have noticed, little by little, that I’m not actually immune to humanity. I am, in fact, not some immortal Peter-Man-Pan-Can-Can’t-If-Only-Haha!

Indeed, I’m actually quite satisfied with my life, broski. I am quite boring now, I admit that I don’t go out much anymore.

No more of those crazy

all night party holy damn

wow why am I waking up in a

bathtub that is full of blue

Kool-aid but the girl I happen to

like just asked me out ah shoot it

really turns out she just was playing

wing-lady to-oh-god-like I can remember

anymore I’m way way way way way way way way way

WaaaaaaaaaAAaAAAaAAAaAAaAAAAaAAAaaAAaaaAAaaAaayyyyyy

WAY

too drunk to—

god life is great

—nights.

Yes, old friend, haha, no more nights like those. I am trying my best to be an adult now, man stop, haha. I have to be proper, you know. I might land a job if I try hard enough, right? I mean, shoot, that’s fair and life is always fair well maybe not but hey what happens happens, right? Maybe I was not the most motivated or the smartest or anything special or really even a little past where the ordinary overflowed somewhere a few years back or but I worked my ass off! Haha, I do-

Oh god I remember tha-

Ahaha! Man... where did the years go, huh?

Seems just yesterday I was some dumb-ass kid who didn’t really care about anything. But now look at me, strange right? Sort sort of respectable, an adult-ish creature and I wouldn’t be too ashamed at all if I were to die right now. I mean, there are holes and black spots in my soul I wouldn’t dare poke, but so what? Being human is grey and you need a bit of black to get the colors just right. Oh man, do y-

Ah, no, no. No whiskey for me tonight. Yes, boring I know. No, really I-

No, no, it’s not that at all, old friend. It’s not that I don’t miss the fun times we had. Truly, it was great. Living free, the world was our oyster, RIGHT? But. Really, here I am realizing that no, no, the oyster wasn’t an oyster at all but just a plastic bottle of something I don’t even recognize or want at all anymore.

But, lets not dwell on that. I mean, here we are. Years. But alive we are, you and I, old friend. Glad-

Oh what’s that? You met someo-

Wow, is that really the first thing you said to her?

How the stars were just pimples in the sky compares to he smile and how when you saw her face there could never be anyone else and that it would be perfect and passionate and rough and soft and how no no no we won’t be like those other couples and no no no we are special and no no no you are indescribable and no no no though sometimes my words are sad and trite and cold I couldn’t mean them any harder because God when I see you I can no longer think straight and I stutter because you are beautiful, yet, you have insides fu-

Haha, right, right. Sorry for rambling. Well, I am really glad for you. It seems like this time, you were right about all those things. That-

Wow, she really said all that back to you?

How you were her sun and moon that she would never love you to death only love you alive and that years later even after the terrible break up in some terrible dispute that horribly really was nothing at all that I will still love you quite terribly and how she would keeps all the boxes of birthday cards you handmade her and how she would always keep the box the you made her for the warm sad soul you said saw in hey and although she would never talk about it she still cared but creepy is creepy and love is patient and kind and angry and horrible and although maybe she might forget for a few years and maybe the stuffed Pikachu will sit in the back of her closet she hasn’t forgetten anything and that whatever we are now is what we are but she won’t ever forget what we were.

God, old friend. You two were made for each-other. Strange how Lady Luck is retired now. But here we are, frater. I do remember love like that. I do remember the end of love like that. But—water under the bridge—as they say, foxes and grapes and whatnot, you know what I mean. Seriously though teina, you lucked out you. I-

Ah. True.

Enough of that depressing talk right? I mean, here we are, right? We’re alive. You and I somehow, through all of the crazy and all of the boring, yet we somehow haven’t crossed our names off on some list in the heavens somewhere or some list in Avicii somewhere or just a grocery list forgotten about years ago or that we haven’t ended up as cold, dead corpses; whoever we were, in the end we all end up with nothing but sh-

SHOOT, stubbed my toe. Ow, gah. Where was I? Ah, right...

in our pants. Caveat lector my bror, haha, sorry, this is what happens once I start talki-

Oh, what was that? I seem happier than last time? Well, I am! I-

Why?

Well, I guess that’s a good question. But...

Why not?

I’m alive aren’t I?

I have found something I am somewhat good at. Not amazing, but maybe one day if I try, who knows? I have a use, a purpose, a point! What more do I need? I am living every day like well God, if i died? I’d slap him on the back and say, “Thanks for the ride, G-man!” I don’t drink much anymore, but I chain-smoke like a motherf-

Ah, yes yes, bad habit I know. I need some vice, though. Sanity and all?

Life’s not some white, pure, get in get out perfect cupcake!

Life’s more like that slab of ribs, that one tequila too much but wow it was fun.

Life’s that water-slide that scared the living daylights out of you.

Life’s that messy first date where everything kinda sucked but everything was kind perfect.

Life’s a bunch of people and places and things and feeling and sounds and music.

Life’s a bunch of experiences and tears and joy and laughter and sadness and smiles.

Life’s a bunch of words and compliments and insults and laughs and love and songs.

Life’s a bunch of things no one can ever remember or forget and THAT’S-

Why it’s so damned great?

Why do I wake up in the morning and go about my day? Because I damn well want to, of cour-

Haha, yes yes, I got a bit excited there, sorry about that.

I just feel like we haven’t talked in a long time, is all.

Maybe the last time was sad.

Maybe I was a little bit pathetic.

But still, I’m glad I can still call you veli.

Kazoku, like they say in Japan.

C’est la vie. Bloody French.

All those expressions in all those languages I don’t actually know but—

the words...

—they make me feel something. Music without music.

Anyway, funny isn’t it? Years later, here I sit.

Talking to whiskey and wine, just another madman who isn’t really angry at all-

Ah yes, I remember last year. Our last conversation didn’t end so well.

How distraught I was, surrounding by so much genius I couldn’t be bothered to read.

“An Odyssey,” I said. “An Iliad,” I joked, hah. What was the rest? OH, I remember, “Too fu”-

No, no wait, let me stop you there. This isn’t me anymore at all, tij laug. You know, after I while you realize no one needs any of those silly melodramatics at all.

Why?

Well, because life’s not really so bad.

Why?

Well, maybe I feel a bit more boring. Hell, maybe I am a bit more boring, but deep down-

No no, DEEP down. Who am I deep down, bruder?

Am I still afraid of adventure? Not anymore. God, man, living is adventure!

Huckleberry-Finn? Just a name!

Hubris?

Well, you talk about all these flowery word but what are they?

What is hubris without a silly human, dueling Atlantis water pistol in hand, all-in with his life on the line?

Why?

What’s the point in pettifog over the name of some car in some street?

Desire? Desire is raw humanity. Desire is not something that belongs to rubber and steel and vinyl and glass.

Crime, punishment, these are for us, for the men and women, not mice nor pigs any animals on the whatever farm.

I wasn’t alive in 1984, and damned if I remember who Aesop even is anymore.

Names? Names are just words on paper and sounds on lips and they mean nothing without the thing behind it and—look —God is a word in a book just like any other and Odin is a word as is Hades and Thor and all of them! All of them just words, sometimes ugly sometimes beautiful, but everyone forgets that so is Lot so is Ægir so is Andhrímnir and cooks are a still lovers and cooks are still fighters and Lachesis will still judge your ass whether or not you remember how she was fate itself and Hildebrand and Hadubrand who invented the cliffhanger, well dammit, they are as glorious as Hercules even if no one else thinks so.

So here we sit, old friend.

Why?

Well, maybe we realize that we are not all that shiny or exciting. Who cares if we end up another of Les Misérables? Don’t you remember the ending? Jean Valjean died, as do we all. But-

Why? Why do I care?

Hah, your memory fails you, ախպեր. Glory and dramatics and action and all of this and all of that and if you don’t have life is pointless and God-

What’s wrong with not wanting that?

Maybe, just maybe, it’s not so horrid a mortal sin, so taboo a way of life, to just be me or you or whoever you are or want to be today. What’s wrong with a bit of contentment? Life isn’t action and gunfight and spies and orgies and car chases and cops and robbers and death and chaos. Life is dull and sharp. Life is alive.

In the end, Jean Valjean died content, did he not?

Why not live like that as well?

#prose #poetry #writing #streamofconsciousness

Deep in the forest--far from the civilizations of the animals that walked on two legs, who build large and forboding dwellings of stone, who drove around in monsters that filled the sky with smoke--there lived a wise old sycamore tree. She had seen the toils of centuries. The rings deep within her trunk stood as proof of her long existence upon the earth. She felt the weight of each ring of age on her heart.

“Come to me” the old tree would say. “Come flock to my branches robins, sparrows, jays. Come and clamber up my wide trunk little squirrels. Come burrow in the soft earth between my roots.”

All the animals of the wood who heard her call, came with haste to play, and fly, and climb, and burrow by the old tree, for they knew she had a kind heart, and would turn none away.

On one such day, as the sun was filtering through her green leaves and a light breeze rocked her high branches, the wise old tree’s call was answered by a young doe, who wandered near the base of the sycamore. Her coat shimmered in the spotty sunlight.

“Come here, little doe, and eat of the grass that grows beneath me. Stretch your neck to eat the leaves off of my lowest branches. The food you find here will fill you.” The old tree said, with her voice as smooth as the gentle breeze that floated along.

The doe looked around very timidly. Her tail was up, as were her ears, alert for the sound of danger.

“What is wrong? Why are you afraid?” the old sycamore asked.

“The animal who walks on two legs is in the forest.” the young doe said, “He came with a long metal stick. It made such a terrible noise, and when he pointed it at my father. . .”

A tear trickled from the doe’s glassy eye, coursed down her snout and fell at the base of the tree.

The old tree let out a heartbroken groan. The sound of despair echoed throught the forest, and many other trees took up the melancholy call.

“My little doe. . . When men come to the forest, there is loss. There is such painful loss. They do not understand. Please, come closer”

The doe crept closer to the sycamore, and she stretched down her long, sturdy, branches to shelter and embrace the doe. The enclosure felt so safe, that the doe stopped crying.

“Thank you mother tree.” the young doe cooed.

The old tree sighed. “The sting of loss will not leave. To forget would be a sin. But as long as you remember, with humility, the precious bright memories, those we lose are still with us. Their spirits watch us from the sky, and they never are truly lost.”

The young doe stayed right there in the tree’s embrace until the sun set. Then she meandered back to her home. After all, the doe still had a mother and a younger sister that she could take comfort in.

As time passed, the animal that walks on two legs began to enter the forest more often. They came with the sticks that make loud noise, and many animals fell at their shot. The old tree continued to comfort the creatures affected by this loss.

Then they came with blades, and began to hack down the trees. Even the mightiest among them fell with the swoop of of their blades. The old sycamore lamented for her fallen kin. But she remembered their mighty spirits, and she felt them in her soul. The animals that walk on two legs made such noise. Noise that was unfamiliar in the quiet wood. They made noise with their weapons, and their blades, and they shouted to each other. Even the old tree, who understood the tongue of every animal in the forest, could not interpret their garish cries.

The doe became a regular visitor to the sycamore tree.

“Why do they do it?” she asked the old tree one day.

Birds landed in the branches. Squirrels stopped mid-climb, nuts still in the cavities of their cheeks. Even tiny insects stopped their patrols. Every creature had been thinking the same question and were eagerly awaiting the answer of the one they deemed the wisest in all the forest. They waited a long time. She did not respond.

“Mother tree?” the doe asked.

The sycamore swayed gently. Her bark shifted and crackled.

“I do not know,” the old tree finally said. “I do not know why they cause so much destruction. Perhaps they are as the predators in the forest and must kill to survive. Perhaps they use the limbs of trees to make their homes.”

“They are cruel!” a finch in one of the highest branches tweeted indignanly.

The old tree chuckled. “Are you, who eats the worms of the earth, and who uses twigs and grasses to build your nest. . . are you, little finch, so much different than they?”

A cold winter struck the forest. It was bitter and snowy, and the ground was hardened with frost, but the cold seemed to keep the animals who walk on two legs away from the forest. For which every creature was grateful.

In the driving snow, the doe approached the old tree.

“What are you doing here my little doe? Shouldn’t you be at home taking shelter from the snow?”

The doe seemed to walk with heavy, slow steps. She looked tired, and in pain, but also very happy. Her stomach sagged in the middle.

“I couldn’t think of any place better than this to have my first child.” the doe said with a smile. “Besides, your many sturdy branches will keep the snow away.”

The old tree watched with an expression of quiet awe and joy as her little doe pushed a new life into the world. The doe and her new fawn laid at the foot of the tree and slept all through the night.

Late into the darkness, the storm stopped. But the white twinkling stars made it seem as if the snow was still falling-- just taking a very long time to do it. The new mother licked her fawn, and caressed his head with her own.

“Mother tree, ” the doe whispered into the chilly air.

“What is it child?”

After a time, the doe continued, “There is one more reason I came to you to have my baby. . . You are one of the last trees in the forest. You have always been a refuge for so many, and you are one of the only ones left.”

The old tree would have cried if she could. “I know.”

The doe perked up her head as her infant stirred, then rested again as he quieted.

“Mother tree, I fear I will have to take my baby and find a new home.”

The sycamore began to quake. “Oh, don’t leave me!” she said quietly, but with sincerity. Then she replied with gentleness,“But of course you must do what is best for your child.”

The moonlight sparkled in the old tree’s snow covered branches.

“I will remember you,” the doe whispered. “Just as I remember my father, and as I remember the other trees.”

“And I will always be with you,” the old tree promised.

Many years later, the summer sun shone down on a barren hill. Brownish grass grew sparsely, and short tree stumps dotted the ground. A mother doe was walking with a fawn. She stopped at a particular stump, and looked down on it with sadness in her black eyes.

“This is where she stood,” she told her son.

The fawn, who had grown so much since the last time he had stood in this spot, also looked sad. He had heard the story from his mother. A kind, wise old tree who offered protection to all animals in need. His mother had given birth to him under this very tree, he couldn’t remember it though.

“Why would the animals on two legs cut her down?” the fawn asked.

The mother stood closer to her son. “I just don’t know. I once asked her why they did what they did.”

“What did she say?” the fawn inquired curiously.

“She told me that they were just like other animals of the forest. They used the trees to build their homes.”

“But why would they kill her?” the fawn was close to tears.

Just then a child came bounding up the hill. Not a creature of the forest, but an animal who walked on two legs. The two deer had been so deep in conversation, they had not heard him coming. And there was nowhere for them to hide for protection.

This was one of their kind. They had taken her father, and now her mother tree. The doe was frightened and angry at the sight of this child. They were capable of destruction. There was no telling what this animal might do to her, or her fawn.

The doe ushered her fawn back, and started to step backward as well. Then she saw what was in the child’s hands.

He opened his palms to reveal a single seed. With his fingers he dug a shallow hole in the earth by the stump. Both puzzled and interested, the doe inched forward very quietly. The child dropped the tiny seed into the hole. His expression was very strange. The doe had never seen one of them look like he did. He looked sad. He looked forlorn that others of his kind had caused so much hurt. His eyes also sparkled with hope.

He noticed the two deer a little ways off. Though he was startled at first, he crept closer to the doe and her son. When they backed away, the child stopped. He stretched out his hand.

The fawn was the first to move forward; his mother followed. They nestled their noses against the boy’s palm.

Though she doubted he could understand, the doe breathed three words into his hand.

“I forgive you.”

It was a hot, summer day on July 12, 2014 in Columbus, Indiana. My family and I loved to go boating on hot days like these. Neverless, my dad brought out the boat and told us to get ready. We all sqealded and ran upstairs. When we finally got to the lake and were in the water we decided to go tubing. My sister was on the left, my brother was on the right, and I was in the middle. We started out slow and got faster, faster, and faster! Then we yelled, “Zig Zag!” And my dad started turning the boat left and right, left and right, until finally we were speeding on top of the green, vast lake. Then out of the distance I saw another boat. Yes, it’s normal for other boats to be on a lake but this one was different. This one was speeding through the water, past all the other boats heading straight towards us. When it got close enough I saw the drivers face, it was dark and sunburned, he had emerald green eyes and a long pointed nose. His lips were tightly pushed together. Then out of the blue he hit the tube! My sister went flying off along with my brother. I start to sink. My life jacket gracefully slips off my body and starts bobbing at the top. I keep sinking. I hear muffled screams and yells, whistles and horns but I just keep sinking. Everything turns black. Silent. I’m gone.

In a matter of seconds, my cold, lifeless heart started to beat again. How is this possible? I placed my hand across my heart in awe. It's true, there's something beating beneath my hand. I thought my heart had withered away when my wife passed away last year, but for some profound reason, I've begun to feel again. It's all because of...her. I carefully watched her from across the lake. She was breath-taking. A temptress with eyes of emerald and lips so succulent. Why does she not see me? In an instant, as if she heard me, she lifted her head and our eyes met. The most glorious smile graced her lips. It was as if she knew what she did to me. She crossed the lake between us, stopping midway. Her smile never faltered.

"Hello Micheal." she said, her tantalizing voice causing shivers along my back. The wind caused her hair to whip around her delicate face, and her thin dress clung to her as if it was skin itself. Her gaze pierced my soul.

"Hello..." I managed to whisper. As she lifted her hand to beckon me to her, her dress had tighten ever so slightly around her figure, causing my senses into overdrive. One step, two step, three step...the coldness of the water never felt so refreshing. I have to get to her. She needs me. I need her. It wasn't until I was knee deep in the lake, did I hear them.

"Stop!"

"Go back! Go Back!"

"Danger!"

"Siren!"

Looking at my feet, I realized it wasn't the fishes talking to me. In fact, there were no fish nor water insects around. Strange.

"Mister, go back!" a small voice yelled. Looking around, I noticed the reeds and cattails swaying as if there were a storm.

"Micheal, come to me." my love called out, snapping my attention back towards her. I took another step closer.

"Danger!" a voice yelled. I looked around for the for the culprit, only to find that all of the reeds and cattails had stopped swaying. In fact, they were standing upright as if soldiers in battle.

"Danger?" I asked. Simulaneously, all of the reeds and cattails nodded twice. Shocked I stepped back towards the shore.

"No!" a banshee like voice cried out, causing me to take another step towards the shore. My gaze searched for the voice, only to find that my love's emerald eyes had turned pitch black, and her smile a little too sweet.

"Come back, Micheal," she said, trying to lure me in. But reality began to seep back into me as I realized where I was.

What happened? Why am I in the lake? What's going on? Running back towards the shore, I heard a splash behind me. Panic sent me into overdrive. Almot there... As I neared the shore I felt something grab ahold of my ankle, then a searing white pain. I fell to my knees as the pain continued up to my knee. Before I knew it, I was submerged into the lake, my screams muffled by water. The last thing I saw were the beautiful emerald eyes of my love.

Moral: There are things in life that'll tempt you, and it might look pleasing. But don't let it overcome you to the point it controls you.

Animals, legendary creatures, plants, inantimate objects leading to moral communication OR nature historically defined leading to moral instruction.

Aged from behind the structure, remaining longer than the lifeforms around it, a broken horse calls to an open rooster classification for the correct title attachment to its' sight.

Unsighted by hoofs sinewed circular trunks emerged to respond. "How much longer should we graze questioning the unbeyed nag?"

"too much longer to hide behind that round object!"

"Then we are not carrying this away with us."

"away from what?i told you personally that it would not stay between us."

The days pass unnoticed from some views.

"So when those that grew from under it return, do we accept and combine or continue to meet unearthed?

"too deep for me to bury one in, should we look for cover?"

End of moral compassing thought,

one flys away without leaving as the other flys while leaving, neither meet.

To instuct a different light one does remove another.

SMACK.

And just like that, I clattered to the floor, my insides spilling out in embarrassing fashion across the cold linoleum. I rolled a bit, teetering back and forth, then fell still.

“What in bloody hell?” I heard a man’s voice grumble. I spotted a wrinkled, jittery hand, reaching down for me, inching closer, closer, closer…

SMACK. A flash of perfectly manicured bright pink fingernails flitted across my field of vision, swatting away the wrinkled hand and swooping my white plastic body up in a single jerky motion.

“Poison, Dad,” said the young woman who was now clutching me with a death grip. She slammed me down on the table between them. “You want another damn heart attack?”

“Grain of salt, sweetheart,” said the white-haired man, his voice playful.

She sighed and shook her head. “This isn’t a joke.”

“Honey.” He reached toward her with his bear paw.

“No,” she said firmly, pulling her fingers away and raising them to her left temple. “I can’t have this conversation again. My head hurts.”

“Eat something,” the man said, gently sliding a bowl of plain oatmeal toward her and accidentally knocking me over with his bulging knuckles.

Lying there on my side, I saw her face. It looked ragged, older than its 20-something years with dark circles around brown eyes, betraying chaos inside.

“Nah, my stomach’s been off,” she said, her face suddenly looking paler. I watched her dark ponytail swish as she turned around and squinted at a clock on the diner's far wall.

“Almost 8:30. Gotta go teach,” she said, jumping up and grabbing a rolled-up yoga mat from under the table.

“Lindsay, doll,” said the man, concern growing in his voice as he beckoned to the dimly lit parking lot. “It’s 8:30 p.m. P.M.”

“Wait, but…” the woman said, trailing off. A nod. “Yes, of course. I taught this morning.”

“You did,” said the man. “Here, take some,” he said, pushing a half-eaten $3.99 diet plate of egg whites and cantaloupe toward her. She sat down slowly, her eyes welling with tears.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me lately,” she said. She didn’t move when her father took her hand this time.

“It’ll be fine,” he said, reaching over to stand me upright and slide me towards her.

That’s when she looked straight at me. And instantly, I knew. Her headache. Nausea. Confusion. It wasn’t something I’d seen much in my days here at the Big Rig Diner in Tallahassee, but there it was written all over her face, plain as day.

Salt deficiency.

She’d been decrying me as poison for years, worrying about her father, perpetually afraid genetics would take her too down the road of diabetes and heart failure.

She didn’t want to die. She didn’t want him to die. And so she had cast me out—to dangerous extremes—imagining that removing me from her life would ward off the inevitable. Now she was wasting away with alarming alacrity.

She stared at me curiously, a realization dawning, then coming into focus: moderation.

“Grain of salt?” her father asked again, pushing me toward her. She smiled weakly.

Shake, shake, shake.

Once upon a time, in a far away forest, lived a wolf named Truman. Each and everyday, Truman would go and play with his friends Randy the squirrel, Franklin the rabbit, and Nina the raccoon. Each day the four of them would go and play in the meadow by the stream until the sun went down. But one day, Nina got sick and couldn't come and play with the others. So Truman, Randy, and Franklin decided to go and see if they could make Nina feel better. Each of them brought Nina a gift to make her feel better. Truman was the first to arrive at Nina's house. But when he got to Nina's house she was fast asleep. So he decided to wait. Next Franklin arrived. But Nina was still fast asleep! So Franklin decided to wait with his friend Truman. After a few more minutes of waiting, Randy arrived at Nina's house. But like before, Nina was still fast asleep in her bed! So Randy also sat down next to Truman and Franklin. And then, Nina woke up and saw her three friends waiting for her. And Nina was feeling all better. So after giving Nina her gifts, a new pile of feathers from Truman, a bunch of berries from Franklin, and a nice big stick to play with from Randy, the four friends ran to the meadow by the stream. And the four of them played until the sun went down.

The Pig hammered away at his keyboard attempting to meet his deadline. He wasn't actually a pig. If his intelligence wasn't an indicator then his mane and fur would probably suffice for evidence.

Nay, they called him the Pig, or Piggy, because he ate like one. He always thought that was a little racist, but none of the pigs in their accounting cubicles seemed to mind... or maybe they were too busy crunching numbers and eating to notice.

Piggy ate so much because it helped to relieve the stress of the bills. He went to college to receive an education. He had an cousin that didn't go to college and then had to get a job in the city pulling other animals around, pooping in a bag and sleeping in hay.

That wasn't the future he wanted. But the bills he accrued from college, the water he used for pooping in a toilet and the rent for the room he put his bed in made him think maybe his cousin really had it figured out. But not really... right?

But Piggy knew what he was doing was right. I mean how couldn't it be? He was an underwriter for the third largest bank in the United Prairies. And while it provided some sense of stability and a reasonable amount of time off, he spent a lot of time pondering how funny it was that his job consisted of writing about possible fire hazards in sleeping areas of barns he could probably never afford. His parents, who called him Larry even though his real name is Lawrence and had a very very large barn, always nagged him about when he would get a barn and mare of his own. But Piggy had settled on figuring out who he was - which was hard on account of the three names - before he settled down.

The money leftover he did have was spent on food, which was really all that he had (he also had a HayStation 4) to make him feel better - and probably the reason he couldn't actually meet a mare. And while everyone told him it would kill him one day (damn sugar), he figured that day was far enough away that in that time he could eliminate his debt, buy a nice new toilet and bed, and maybe one day he could go overseas and see the world wonders. He promised himself that tonight he would start saving and really start living - not just eating.

As he made that promise and flicked off his monitor to begin the daily prance back home he felt a tightness in his chest. The office seemed to spin. He found it hard to breathe. Piggy felt dizzy. He felt scared, alone and like the world was crumbling. He crouched to one knee and wondered which name everyone would remember him as. He felt sad that he spent so much time striving for a future he was unsure he wanted and never really adventured. He admitted to himself that he had never even really tried to talk to a mare.

But then he passed some gas and felt alright again.

He looked around, hoping nobody had saw him. One of the pigs, without looking up from his computer, commented on the stench.

He started for the elevator.

"Wow, that was scary" Piggy thought to himself. "What the hell was that? I'm going to celebrate getting through that with a big meatball sub. I can always start saving and living tomorrow."