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The Bastard
By: Graham Robertson

People always say the bottle stares back at them when they really start to hit it, but I don’t think so. No eyes, after all. Though eyes would be an improvement at this point. Better a blank stare than a rapidly expanding void. Funny how an empty bottle is so accusatory, how the absence yells at you, yells how much you’ve wasted and how much you will waste. It shouts about what you’re willing to do to please yourself, what a bastard you are.

On second thought, maybe it does stare back. A savage swing takes it off the bar. Whoops, there was stuff left in it. Oh, and whoops, the bartender is pissed.

“What the hell was that for, you bastard?”

I don’t really care, not even as I’m escorted headfirst into a snowbank. He was right, of course, I am a bastard. And not in the boohoo I never knew my daddy so now I get turned on by being spanked with a bottle of suntan lotion way, I mean a bastard bastard. A mean spirited son of a bitch who only serves himself until its too late to fix things with the people he cares about it, and I guess I only wanna fix things so I don’t feel so bad, and once I fix ‘em I’ll forget about feeling bad and screw it up again. Vicious cycle, or something like that. The circle of bastardity. Heh.

Hypothermia briefly seems like a viable solution to my problems, but I eventually figure out which way is up and heave myself onto my feet. I stagger about for a while, then look up at the stars. Now the stars, they’re eyes for sure, and they judge like they’re in the sockets of God. You insignificant speck of dust, they say, why do you even bother? Why do you slide through life, making all the other little specks of dust hate you? You’re not even a good speck! You’re worthless, less than a thing!

I can deal with other people hating me, even the universe. Like I said, I wanna fix it, but I can deal with it. Friends, girlfriends, parents, co-workers. All I have to do is change jobs, or bars, or supermarkets, and poof, new friends, new girlfriends. Not parents, of course, but they pretty much had their job done by the time I was sixteen, so it’s not like I bother about them. Where was I? Oh right, change. See, you go through a bad break up, you borrow money from a friend and can’t pay it back, whatever; all you need to do is unplug the phone and move on. Fiddle with the social compass, right? Then you’re set. You can be a whole new person this time around, give it another shot, since the last approach doesn’t work. I’m not talking about lying about your past or anything though, I mean, if you’re into that then go for it, but I’m not. The past doesn’t matter that much to me. Born in x, to parents a and b, lived in y, committed crime z, went to school c… doesn’t matter. It’s what you do, after all, isn’t it? What you think is bullshit, let me tell you. Buuulll-shit. And I know first hand, cause I’m probably the nicest guy in the world on the inside. But somewhere in mix of neurons and thought patterns and reflexes and whatever else goes on in my noggin, I turn into a selfish bastard.

And so since I act like a bastard, people call me one and think I’m one. Now I used to listen to my thoughts, right? Used to think I wasn’t so bad cause I’m a nice guy on the inside, and once you get to know me blah blah blah. But then I realized that doesn’t really count for much. After all, we live in a democracy. Which means of course, it doesn’t matter what I think when everyone else thinks the opposite, but I have the exclusive right to complain, as long as I do it quietly. Anyhow, since it really doesn’t make a difference what I think, I might as well go along with things. So here I am, a bastard, and thinking of myself as a bastard.

Now at first, I didn’t care, so what if I know I’m a bastard? It’s my life, screw you, etc. etc. But man, it’s a big change. It’s bigger than the world, once you make that decision. It’s so quiet though, you hardly notice it at first. Maybe it really doesn’t come until you realize it’s happened. No no, that doesn’t make sense. Maybe it doesn’t cement, isn’t real, until you admit it. Once you do though, it sucks. You can’t change bars or unplug the phone for this, no way. You can’t run from yourself, can’t fiddle hatred like that away. It’s always there, no matter how much you drink or hurt anyone else. Even I swallowed a .45 the hate would still be there, with my brains painting the bathroom wall it would just fucking sit in the air, float around like a bad smell. Where I go, what I do, it doesn’t even matter anymore. Because it’s always just pounding into me, screams coming from every little thing: Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!

The evening tunnels, it warps and gets cut as everything pales to what I just realized. All of a sudden it’s like there is a train hurtling towards me and I can’t seem to care. I’ve suddenly lost myself, I’m floating away, sliced away from everything like a bad piece of flesh. I’m a fucking buoy in the ocean, drifting and serving no purpose at all.

I’ve forgotten the way home. It’s just…gone. I can’t remember which way to turn, and now I can’t even remember what my street looked like. My brain turns to liquid and it’s quietly slipping through the cracks in my fingers that I can’t plug no matter how hard I try. Things are slipping away, my life is breaking away piece by piece and I’m just standing here, staring at the wall with tears running down my cheeks. Frankly, what the hell can I do?

I step out of the other side of this dream and all I know is I had a reason to drink, and now it’s gone. The woman I’m picturing isn’t her, I know that. It’s just something I made up to comfort myself. Heh, at least I can count false hope to make me feel better.

I stagger off in a random direction. It’s not like it really matters anymore.

Article Source: http://journal.ilovephilosophy.com

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