Ellipses

It’s a desert out here. Nothing but dust, cigarette butts and smoking ruins. As I sit here on the mountaintop of a grey, fast dwindling existence, I try to remember how it was that I ended up here, like this.

Growing up, there always used to be this one motto:
“Sticks and Stones won’t break My Bones;
My Mom says I’m Quite Healthy”
You could do whatever you wanted to; go wherever you wished, as long as mom said you were allowed to wish so. Running around the neighbourhood as a young, obedient little tyke, it wasn’t long before I realised that there really was no reason why mom should tell YOU to stay within the 4-street block and go out herself every single day, especially when those little ragamuffin friends of yours were so quick and so consistent in pointing this out. I took my first step outside the block into the alley way one day and it was the first time I got pummelled by street toughs. So, mother was right; but this had to be a one-off thing. Why would she scream at me then, if it wasn’t for the fact that she was afraid that she might be wrong. Had to be a one-off thing...

I think a lot of your habits depend upon how early you get introduced to stuff. Take porno; if I’d caught my older brother watching it when I was 8, I would’ve started watching it myself pretty soon. It wasn’t porno, however, that my friends passed around. I was in High School at that time, and Hash was pretty cheap. I remember my girlfriend telling me not to get involved with “bad stuff”, but once I was out of conning mother for money, I had to turn to dealing off the streets to keep me fixed. The cops caught me one day, and mom had to come save me from Juvi. But that was just coz I had gone to take a leak and kept my scooter with the stuff on it in plain view; it wasn’t coz of any “bad business”, it was just stupid me.

The neighbourhood falling apart around me and my record soiled by my previous arrest, I knew none of the bosses would have me. I had to make a name for myself. I got a lead on a supplier and started my own “dealership”, though I had to keep it low, I had no turf of my own and had to make do with scavenging off of the others’. My buddy Kyle warned me I’d never last long. We’d known each other since grade school and always did everything together. But it was his dead body in the sewers that told me he was right; but only that one time.

Bush declared war on Iraq. Everyone knew he was wrong, everyone else looked the other way and let him go about it, but for guys like me there was just one option.

We were all sitting on the ground. The Colonel got up and started shouting, like he always did, “MEN!!! It’s a desert out there! Nothing but dust and smoking ruins!...”

So, they were right all along, eh.