I looked around in slow motion, my old neck handling nothing more than a snail's pace. Have you ever felt like your life has become something of a joke? Or maybe had always been? I was at that stage half an hour ago. At the moment, I was wondering what would happen to the rest.

I saw the grass field in front of me. Its damp blades, the clay underneath sucking in the rain boots I was wearing. The heavy brown substance sticking under its ribbed soles. Getting stuck between the edges. The grass held the moisture of the nights’ rain. Big droplets still reflected the meager light that came through the thickly clouded sky. A light but cold breeze taking dominion over the field. Most droplets of water would do the inevitable by disappearing in the moist clay underneath. Serving as nutrients for the same blade of grass it rolled off from. Like my life, I thought as my vacant stare made its way across the empty field.

The grass had always been my friend. My companion from early morning till late at night. Who knew it would also bring me this feeling of regret. What have I been doing all these years? All these precious years I will never get back. Years I could have spent with Shannah. Before she died an agonizing death. Fucking cancer. In the fucking throat. What kind of irony was that? My talk sick wife got cancer in the goddamn throat! Not able to speak for the last two years of our time together. I always wondered what she had thought worse, dying or not being able to complain about it. The love of my life.

The grass. It had helped me make a proper man out of one of our two children. For a time. The other not so much, which might not matter to most, as she is a woman. George was now a retired professional. Never great. But good enough for me to be proud of him. Better than I ever been. Sad that he didn't want to play anymore. Or at least not on the grass. My oldest though… Norma… Beautiful but I sometimes doubted if she only thought with the thing between her legs. Such a shame. I didn't want to think of her at the moment, the thoughts might worsen my mood, something well-neigh impossible.

I sighed. A cloud of smoke removing itself from my lips, drifting into the cold autumn air. It might be condensing air. It could be. But I think it had more to do with the cancer stick that was burning away in my hand. I made my hand go up toward my face in a slow arc. Not even registering what I was doing, as habits of forty years did not need conscious guidance. A long breath, breathing in the smog of delicious death. The hand lowering again. Holding it in while I thought about the great times I had with the grass. What were they again?

The smoke came out my nose this time. A trick that isn't hard to learn if it requires learning at all. Yet I pride myself on being able to do so. Being able to blow smoke out of my nostrils. Sometimes I wonder if I had come further if someone taught me how to blow smoke up into someone's anal cavity. Fucking suck ups. Well, I shouldn't curse the lot too much. All but certain Norma did some unsavory sexual acts I don't want to know about. No way she had gotten her job for her brains alone. A father should always be proud but naïve I was not. I had caught her with her pants around her ankles in the alley behind our house too many times for someone to convince me of her innocence ever again.

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"Fucking kids…" I grumbled to the green blades that were my only audience. I should have been there for them more. I should have taught them to show respect to their peers and elders. Now they had grown up. The ship had sailed, and only the grass was here with me on my last day. Grass that had grown lavish in the summer but was now dying. Turning brown. Bold spots of clay covering frequently used areas. Just like me.

I focused my weary eyes on the distant group of young people. So much vigor, so eager to play. Passing the round leather around in their group. From one foot to the next. Their technique sloppy, the young man in the middle lazy, moving slower with every second that passed. A small smile had crept on my face before I realized. It had been a waste of time, but I had enjoyed every minute. This band of undisciplined punks would have been breakfast.

I would have told the young man in the middle to come and have a little chat with me. Would have told him he was doing great, but I needed to see just a little more out of him. Then I would have smiled. The kind and fatherly smile. Maybe I should say the grandfatherly smile? I was nearing seventy-four this year and George had impregnated some crazy fan along the way of his rise to the top. It had been a foolish mistake of the still young lad at the time but permanent none the less. At least I knew with George. I was almost ninety percent sure Norma had hidden an offspring of her own somewhere. If not, then I guess I should be rather proud of her ingenuity.

Anyway. I would have smiled at the punk. Putting my arm around his shoulders, I would have guided him to the bench. Making him sit, confused, unsure what was happening. Then as the good Samaritan I am, I would have called the group towards me. As they arrived, I would tell them that the little exercise had tired the boy out for today. They would laugh, and I would wait. The moment they stopped I would tell them the bad news. They would need to fill his place by running five kilometers before anything else would happen. Including sleep. Just thinking about it, I could see the glares and hear the groans.

Ah, the sweet bliss of peer pressure. How hard the guy on the bench would work for the next few weeks. The smile on my face broadened at the thought of all those times the trick had worked. I loved those moments the best.

The group made its way towards a different part of the grounds and I lost sight of them. The smile that had made its way onto my face changing into a scowl. The scowl interrupted by the sucking motion, pleasuring my half-smoked cigarette towards exhaustion. Smoke filling my lungs with its poisonous chemistry. My lungs screaming back to stop. My brain saying no. It was the everlasting struggle between addiction and rationality. Chemistry and Logic. Cognitive dissonance and aching reality.

I quitted once. When my wife, may she rest in silence, got diagnosed. Didn't seem right to smoke next to someone with throat cancer. She was dead now. So I didn't care enough anymore to keep fighting the constant urge. I heard once that we elderly people did not feel the urges of nicotine addiction after a certain age anymore. Guess my body missed that memo. 

The hand went down again and another puff of smog escaped my yellowed teeth. Coffee and cigarettes are bad for ones’ teeth. That was not an issue though. The grass, that was the real addiction. I took a long sniff of the cold brisk air. Coughing as the air went into my damaged and irritated lungs. Still, I smelled the fresh and crisp air that always hung around the field. Whatever life might there be after the grass? I had no answers to give.