Friday at last, Now flash!

For this Flash Friday I am going to do a literary, experimental piece I wrote last year and had published in Literary Chaos print issue #1(link to the right if you want to see about buying a copy). It isn't horror, but I still liked writing it.

Life In Vignettes

It is dark. Light has not touched my skin. I have not been born.
This is the beginning. My story goes back further but this is where I start, deep in my mother’s womb. The muffled sounds of the world pulse around me as I contemplate my own existence. What will I be and who will I look like. My sex has not been determined by any visible means.
This is my life.

Light floods my eyes and drowns out the rest of my senses as I gasp for air. Hands reach and grab as I am forced out by my mother’s body. My own body is ready to live outside but depends on the body that has just rejected me. I am soon suckling a tit that tastes like sweat and pain.

I have grown older. Taunted, teased by so many an older neighborhood child as I walk down the street. My grimy hands holding plastic six-shooters as I wage war with invisible natives and bank robbers. I play alone in a world of millions, perhaps billions of others like me.

Adolescence now. Acne mottles my face. My voice struggles with pitch and errant boners strike me down as I try to understand girls and life in general. Running away is always an option but not a good one. I am frightened to die but scared that I may live forever like this.

College. My voice has settled as well as my pecker. My face is clearer. I meet new people who don’t know the old me. I struggle with classes but pass anyway. The future is still uncertain but the nightlife has improved.

Graduation. Silent parties of cards come in with the bills. Grim reminders of reality, expectations, and an empty wallet. It leaves me no choice but to carry on and hope for an early retirement or a sudden winning streak in the lottery.

My wife is beautiful. She looks elegant with her flowing white gown and shimmering shoes. I love the way her hair spills over her shoulders and envelopes her face like a picture frame made specifically for her. She smiles at me.

The children arrive and my wife yells at me to get off the couch, put my drink down, and get another diaper from the cabinet. I slump off to do this for her.

Graduation day comes for my children. I look at the people that they have become and wonder where the kids are that used to fall from their bikes and ask me to make it feel better. I wonder if I will ever be able to take them fishing again.

My children start to marry. I wonder what some of them see in their spouses but give them a smile and a nod to bless their choice. I remember being young and in love once too.

Grandchildren. Wonderful little moppets that I can load full of sugar and ambition and send home at the end of the day. It makes me feel old thinking that my children are in charge of these little people.

The day I have been working almost forty-five years for. Retirement. Day in and out of sluffing paperwork and nodding in agreement to the right people to get to this endpoint. I can finally get to work on that perfect golf game or maybe write that novel.

I lay in my casket. The tears of loved ones drip on my starched lapel. My spirit floats amongst family and friends as they make peace with my corpse. I make peace with my life.