Tuesday, August 22, 2006

A Portrait of the Marxist as a Young Man, Cont'd

Breakfast. Two eggs, sunny side up. Burnt toast. Orange juice. He breaks the yolks and makes faces, swirly faces that struggle to establish their identities before melting back into the sea of yolk with a silent scream.

"What happened to that nice girl you were with - Jane? Joan?"

"Joanne. I don't know, mom."

"What do you mean, 'You don't know'?"

"She's just a friend, mom."

"You should ask her out. She seemed like a nice girl."

"You already said that, mom."

"Honestly, I don't understand what's wrong with you. You should find yourself someone."

"How can I think of that when I'm surrounded by so many problems? How can I be so selfish? Someone has to help the people - maybe I'm that someone."

"That's nice, dear. Eat your eggs first."

Walking behind a bottle blonde on the street. Eyes swivelling, following, tracking. He wants to scream, wants to rip out all those arrogant, probing eyes and dance in the mush. Most of all, it is his own eyes he would pop, his eyes that reveal nothing but the inevitability of life.

"It's all so meaningless," he says, to no-one in particular, and he means it.

He would write, but he doesn't know what to write about. "Write what you know," his friends say, but what he can not tell them is that he knows nothing, that they all know nothing, that everything he is and was is a lie perptrated by a myth.

"Whatever, man," he says instead, and shrugs.

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