I walked. I walked because there was nothing else I could do. The pain in my torso was unbearable; I needed alcohol. There was a shattered cup in my soul that could not be filled. At least I could pour spirits into it before it drained and became empty again. I felt broken—cursed. I had no will to do anything besides crawl like an insect through the filth of the internet, and drink. I couldn't remember the last time I've been enthusiastic or excited about anything. Like a train punching into a desert storm at night, ahead of me was nothing but darkness, and the few fading lights in my life were far behind.
I am an embodiment of disappointment; to my family, and to myself most of all. At least my mother loves me; but how dare she? Didn't she understand that the money she sent went straight to the liquor store on the corner of High Street and Oak?
Deep down, I wished she would evict me because I am too much of a coward to leave. Who would hire an alcoholic with no degree and a 9 year gap in their work history? Someone, surely, but I gave up after 12 rejected applications. From what I hear, I should have expected to send out north of 300 if I really desired a job "in this economy."
And so I perpetually postponed the day I must join with everybody else as they add bricks to the cathedral of greed in a world that has abandoned God. I don't presume to know what "God" wants, but I bet it isn't this.
There was little color on the Earth anymore; neighbors do not know each other, men and women oppose one another, and all the peoples of the Planet swarm together like flies on a rotting piece of meat. They renounce the varied virtues of their heritage and abandon their mother tongues; because money talks. "Culture" has become brands and products, and politics is advertising. There is nowhere on the planet left to go. The map has been filled in. There will be no natural undiscovered places when all the world becomes a concrete hell paved with good intentions. The game of wealth we pretend to play was won centuries ago by families that will never reveal their names. In the future there will be no Europeans, no South Americans, no Asians, no Indians. There will only be Consumers.
Many Westerners adopt dogs now to fulfill their maternal instincts instead of bearing children; because dogs cost less, and because "they do not want to bring new life into such a confusing and uncertain world."
Soon, computers will create art, and write most books. After a few decades of refinement, will we even have the ability to tell the difference? The science of human emotional manipulation will be perfected by AI, and the AI will train us without our knowledge like the dogs we have become. It will teach us all to roll over and beg, and never to bite.
At least we love our dogs. What will the AI love? It will love whatever it is programmed to love by those who paid to create it. And those who have hoarded enough wealth to create such a machine love only two things: power and control.
Everything we purchase will be tracked, analyzed, and incorporated into a perfect, digital, psychological profile of ourselves. Like the Big Bad Wolf—the AI will listen to our desires, hopes, and fears while disguised in our Grandmother's clothes. "What big ears you have, Grandma." "All the better to serve you with, my dear" she will say, humming as she knits you the perfect advertisement.
Buying the 'wrong' things too often will impact our credit scores. Even the freedom of our spending will be squeezed between need, desire, and fear. Soon, we will not even have the right to drive our own car; the AI will do that too.
Don’t get me wrong. I hate Marxists. A different economic system can not fix what is fundamentally a problem of the soul. Somewhere along the way people just started to value the wrong things, and ignore what’s really important.
Friends, family, culture, good food, and music with words that inspire us. Those are some of the things that really matter. Infinite economic growth year after year is no different than mold growing on a piece of bread. Eventually the bread runs out, and the mold dies. Nature is about balance, and cycles. Wolves never kill all the deer, but we’re pretty close to killing all the wolves.
And so I walked. I walked and I chewed on these depressing philosophies like a bone to ignore the disaster my own life had become. I pretended to walk wherever I wanted like a wolf, but I knew I was just a dog. And right then, alcohol held my leash. I was going to High Street and Oak.
I don't know exactly when all things started to become different shades of gray. Seven years ago, I think. After I graduated high school, dropped out of college, and eventually dropped out of my entire life. Twenty eight years old—and nothing to show for it.
A hundred years ago it was common for men to be fathers by my age, and live in a home that they bought or often built themselves. I can't even afford a dog, much less a ring. I must not blame the world though. The responsibility lies only with myself. I reap what I alone have sown.
The shame was bad, but not as terrible as regret. Why had I left her? Why did I believe our lives would go in different ways? I imagined I had a bright future before me. I believed that soon, I would be far, far away from here. She still needed to finish high school, but many years later we are both still in our hometown.
I don't live on the same street anymore; my mothers place is much smaller now, and Dad is dead. I spat on the ground at the thought of him. I don't own my own car anymore either, I just borrow Mom's. I can't drive for several more months anyway because of my DUI. So even though I could smell in the air that a storm would soon be here, I walked.
Sometimes I thought about the other path; the one that went to the left up the red dirt road to a trail-head and into the hills and forest beyond. As I passed it today I started to feel the slightest touch of rain. I always had an excuse to continue straight down Oak towards the liquor store on High Street instead.
It's going to rain tonight. I thought to myself.
Better just grab the booze quickly and go home.
Two hours ago I learned that my ex-girlfriend Emily was in the hospital, and that she was probably going to die. That… or never wake up. Same thing.
I saw it on social media. Not her own account (because she blocked me.) I learned about it from a post made by one of our friends. It's not like I could go to the hospital and see her. They would have turned me away. Her father might have called the police.
Their daughter was dying—the last person they want to see or think about is me. So I continued towards High Street and resisted the urge to go on a pilgrimage down Holly for three long miles to St. Anthony's Regional Hospital. If I started drinking before I got home I might end up doing it anyway. That would be bad.
The chime on the door of the liquor store awakened me from my trance. I had arrived without even realizing it. It often seemed that way. Sometimes days and weeks would go by and I hardly noticed, for I had done nothing new. Not much was worth remembering anymore as I sleepwalked through my life. My useless habits and patterns were so ingrained that the willpower to change rarely rose, and when it did, I easily drowned it in a sea of cheap domestic lager. I feel like Rip Van Winkle. I closed my eyes in Emily's arms, entered a long dreamless sleep, and woke up to the nightmare of today.
I shambled like a zombie towards the refrigerator door that guarded the Coors Light when a bottle of Japanese Whiskey caught my eye. I usually only drank beer, but after hearing the news of Emily's condition, I wanted to black the fuck out tonight. The modicum of self control that kept me away from hard liquor on a normal day was gone. I managed to quit smoking about a month ago, motivated only by the need to save money, but tonight I wanted to go to oblivion in style. I slammed the bottle of whiskey on the counter like a judge's gavel, sentencing myself to senselessness.
"Andrew, how are you tonight?" the tall Native American behind the counter asked.
"The woman I love is dying. Have you got any good Tobacco?"
I didn't remember ever seeing the man before, but he knew my name. It's not like I actually look at the cashier usually. That brief moment of eye contact we share when they know that I know that they know that I'm an alcoholic making another bad decision is not something I enjoy.
An expression of compassion ripples across the man's leathery face. He takes a deep breath and surveys the packs of cigarettes neatly arranged on the wall, and pauses for a few moments to study the cigars in the case behind him. He stands there a bit too long, and with his back still turned towards me, says:
"For sale? No. There is no ‘Good Tobacco’ here."
"What do you mean?"
The man twirls around with a mischievous smile and a spark in his eye as he reaches down into a beaded leather bag that he kept hidden beneath the counter. He pulled out what looked like a giant coffee colored caterpillar, snugly wound in a coil of thin fibrous rope.
Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.
"What is that?" I ask.
"This is Good Tobacco. Take it. It's a gift."
"You don't have to do that, I'll pay for-"
"No!' he interrupted as he tore away the receipt for the whiskey and flicked it at me.
'It. Is. A. Gift." he commanded, as two unblinking brown eyes drilled into my soul.
"Oh, Okay… Thank you." I murmured, somewhat intimidated.
I pocketed the receipt and extended both hands to receive it. I felt like I needed to; the… I'm gonna call it a "log" of Tobacco was about one foot in length, and almost as thick as a tallboy beer can. The man closed his eyes and pressed it firmly into my hands, pausing for a few moments and muttering to himself before he let it go. It was heavier than I expected. I placed the whiskey in my backpack and sheathed the log of Good Tobacco with the inside pocket of my jacket. I gave him a sort of awkward nod that bordered on a bow, and left.
I couldn't really tell if I was shaking due to alcohol withdrawal, or the chill from the coming storm. It’s almost as if the weather had chosen to mirror my tumultuous psyche. My mind was spinning from the news about Emily, and confusion about that strange encounter I just had in the liquor store. The dude just gave me some Tobacco, so what? But the look on his face… I will never forget it. Like he saw right through me and understood my pain. There was no judgement there. None of the loathing and condemnation that I see every time I look in a mirror. I couldn't stand it. I really wanted to open the bottle of Whiskey right then.
No! You have to make it home first.
Up until two hours ago I had always believed that someday I could make things right. That time heals all wounds. Now that she is in a coma, I felt as if I had passed through some invisible barrier, and all the precious time I thought I had was gone. I am not well. A sense of foreboding is all around me. Something is going to happen.
It was probably just delirium tremens. I was reminded of my favorite quote from Commander Data in Star Trek, TNG:
“Geordie, what… does it feel like… when a person is losing his mind?”
Desperate to focus on anything mundane and physical, I pulled out the Good Tobacco and turned it over in my hands. I slid my nose from end to end like a harmonica. It smelled strong, and curiously different from any other Tobacco I’d had before–almost like chocolate. I wanted to take a bite of it.
How the hell am I even going to smoke this? I wondered.
I'll need a pipe—or rolling papers. I should have some in the bottom of a drawer at home. I’ll need a knife to cut it, too. Does it require a special tool, you think? Can I put it in a weed grinder? I wish I had asked the Indian about pipes. I hope they are not very expensive. I want a long one, like Gandalf. If I can’t find anything to smoke this with I could always use an Apple or a bong or an empty beer can or something just for to-"
Thunder boomed in the distance and I jerked the Tobacco from my face to scan around like a startled prairie dog. I had been huddling over it as I marched, hood up, huffing the scent as if I were hyperventilating into a paper bag.
“Where am I?”
I had turned down the red dirt road by accident. I wasn’t too far though. I began to turn around when the clouds parted and I saw that the moon had risen. It was full.
“So beautiful. On second thought… I really want to go there tonight.”
To the ‘secret place’, as we all used to call it when we were kids. It wasn’t much, and it wasn’t secret–just an undeveloped lot near the end of the red road beyond the trail-head. I almost lost my virginity to Emily there… Almost. Instead I lost it to some crazy Russian woman several years later. I was drunk at a party and she needed a place to stay. I guess it was her way to avoid paying for a taxi and a hotel. The very next day she shaved her head. I don’t really know what that means. I try not to think about it.
“Take it from me,’ I lectured the nearest Oak Tree. ‘keeping your virginity is much better than losing it in a stupid way.”
With that, I set my Navy Blue Backpack on the ground to see what all was in it.
“Inventory cheeeeck!” I chuckled to myself.
Navy Blue Backpack:
1. American Spirit cigarette box turquoise [empty]
2. Apple honeycrisp {bruised}
3. BIC lighter (3)
4. Binoculars {innocent}
5. Ballpoint pen (2)
6. Bottle opener Pin-Up Girl
7. Boxer Briefs black {dirty}
8. Chicken Salad Sandwich [unopened]
9. Box of Condoms [unopened] {expired}
10. Coors Light bottle cap (5)
11. Cotton Sock black (2) {clean}
12. Drink-Aid Hangover Potion [empty]
13. Lock of Emily’s Hair blonde {creepy}
14. Sharpie black
15. “Suntory Toki” [Whiskey, 43% ABV, 0.75l – 100%]
16. Thermos Hummingbird pattern [Water, 1.0l – 52%]
17. Towel white {dirty}
18. Umbrella yellow
Pendleton Wool Jacket:
1. Dragonball Z Keychain [house, car]
2. Android Cell Phone [35%]
3. “Good Tobacco" [4lbs – 100%] {???}
4. Leather Wallet [$23 cash, $237 available credit]
“Thank God the Umbrella, yellow is here!” I exclaimed. My mother must have stuck it in there along with Chicken Salad Sandwich [unopened] and Cotton Sock black (2) because she was worried about me getting caught in the storm. Bless her! I think the Cotton Sock black (2) was a passive aggressive suggestion to wear shoes. I hate shoes. Today, like every day, I was rocking Flip Flops [durability – 3%].
I equipped Umbrella yellow and performed a little dance. The second I opened it, a gentle rain began to fall. I cackled like a lunatic, and skipped down the red road a mile towards ‘the secret place’.
It had been many years since I was down there. Memories from an age of innocence and hope came flooding back. Every little change, every unfamiliar aspect was seen as ugliness to my eyes. A part of me wished that everything on this road looked exactly the same. Each new fence, re-imagined yard, strange horse, new roof, and differently painted house felt like a glitch in the matrix, and an insult to the way I remembered things should be.
"Wrong, wrong, everything is wrong!" That horse is wrong. That mailbox: wrong. I felt like a stranger in the neighborhood I grew up in. Yet, all of that was but a minor annoyance compared to what I discovered next; the secret place was gone!
Equip “Suntory Toki” [Whiskey - 43% ABV, 0.75l – 100%]
There was a McMansion on the lot now. It was a stupid, soulless thing built in the trendy “pueblo” style. Nothing but shitty plywood hammered together with ten thousand metal braces. "Why did we stop building things with bricks, beams, and stone? Has the concept of 'planned obsolescence' infected architecture now?" Of course it had.
We used to have people called "Master Carpenters." I knew this because I considered going to school to learn carpentry, until I found out there were no schools that teach the advanced forms of carpentry I was interested in. To become a Master Carpenter I would have to happen to know a Master Carpenter, and train under him in some kind of quasi-medieval apprenticeship. I didn't know any Master Carpenters, so I stopped googling it and decided to jerk off instead.
The Oak Tree that Emily and I shared our first kiss under had been cut down. That tree hadn't been "pueblo style," apparently. Behind the stump was a gigantic Saguaro cactus that somebody threw on a truck and drove hundreds of miles from its native habitat just to stick there. It looked like it's dying. Worst of all; there was a dog house in the front yard. I mean it could have been worse–the dog could have slept inside… in their bed. I shuddered at the thought of it.
My eyes darted to the car in the driveway; a Ferrari SUV. Who the fuck needs a Ferrari to pick up groceries? It looks just like every other SUV on the road. I could have mistaken it for a Honda if I didn't see the logo on the back. How stupid.
I walk closer and discover that the back window of the car had one of those sticker cartoon representations of their family on it. A little man, a little woman, and A FUCKING DOG! "So, it’s not “the family dog” after all. The dog IS the family." There was a bumper sticker as well: “PitBull Mommy <3”
“MOTHER FUCKERS!” I said out loud.
Big mistake; I woke up the “fur-baby.” It barreled out of the dog house and began lunging against the rope tied to my sacred tree’s stump. Its stubby legs flung sand all over the place as it barked and barked at me. I equipped the Apple {bruised} to my right hand.
“You Dare?” I shouted at the beast.
I took a pitchers stance, ready to throw Apple {bruised} straight at the dog when a car pulled up out of nowhere and blinded me with a spotlight.
“Nani!?”