Time’s always ticking, asking for me to fill it with something useful. Just like this essay, I’ve been plagued by a desire to fill it, juxtaposed with some great fear of not living up to my expectations or perhaps even worse, having to work and finish it. So when Mother told me to write it, I had to find something, and I got thrust back to eras long past, of dreams forgotten. There’s something winding and long about time that can’t be described through pure words and requires some higher existence to reach, perhaps when I reach heaven and we’ll be together, I can open ourselves. We’re all too afraid on this mortal plane.

There’s a train, blowing in the wind as it flashes down a rusted railroad. There’s always a train. It’s the American frontier. It’s been going by every day at 4PM for the past 14 years, perhaps even years before that in times I can’t remember. I’m looking for a job because I got fired a few days ago for stealing too many pens and coffee mugs. If it wasn’t clear, I was the guy below the intern, but still somehow got paid. (Maybe it was parental connections) I’m walking down Main Street, not the one in your town I bet because every town has a Main street, some have two. No, this is Houston’s Main Street. Houston is a city built of sweat, blood, and lights on a swamp; that and oil. But what’s the difference between blood and oil? People die for oil; people live for oil. Man’s great achievement, conquering the damp swamps, the prehistoric taboo, living in the uninhabitable. Next stop’s Mars.

Houston has neon lights, incandescent lights, LEDs, powered by solar, oil, gas, wind. We’re a city of energy and lights. There’s something superficial about that, the lights roaming around, intangible but graceful. Light can kill you if it has high enough intensity. They have Gamma waves that can kill you from outer space and lasers that can snipe you from a thousand miles away. You’re dead at the speed of light. Death by light. It has a nice tone, terribly majesty.

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

Anyway, I wish I could have a job in oil. It makes tons of money, but I’m going to find a job at my cousin’s restaurant. The jerk makes more in a month than my last year’s paycheck, but that’s because he’s the chef, no expenses. My mom had called my aunt the other day and gotten me the job. I’m supposed to report for the night shift today, wear the uniform and all that jazz, put on a suit and the whole world thinks you have a job.

He’s explaining to me, “Food has lots of organic chemicals. Dem alcohols and dem acids, you see Mahn!”

He’s yelling in my face. He’s a loud man, a successful man. He screamed and shouted and fought his way to this restaurant, while I’m here. I nod quietly. He’s the boss after all. He pulls me to the side. “You do a good jahb, Cuz. And Ah’ll getcha a chick tonight. Drinks on me.” He winks.

He’s a good man, my cousin, for all that I ever complain. Restauranting is dead. No one eats anymore. We live off TV and internet trolling. I don’t tell him that though. “You can count on me.”

He pats me on the back. He’s a big man, bigger than me. Mother always asked why I couldn’t grow to be as tall as him, as rich as him. Money, height, loudness, America. But Houston has lights. We’re beneath a street light now, but it isn’t on; the sun’s still beaming down. We walk in. It’s cool, sterile air-conditioner and dim. It’s underground. He called the bar-restaurant Tartarus. He was a Greek buff, thought it made him an intellectual.

He continued. “You know! There’s this professor guy who eats here every week. He’s a real guy, real guy… Been telling me ‘bout them things they do up there.” He points up main street, at some unforeseen place. He stumbles, “He talked bout them benzenes and DNA and the meaning to life.” The meaning to life? He rambles on, “It can all be found in the code, the code that means everything.”

He walks away, leaving me to put on an apron. I’m supposed to be a waiter; I’m pretty sure.