Crumbling... (460 hits)
Category: GeneralRating: 1.6 on 6 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Coleslaw_Murphy (View user info) at 2006-06-21 15:54:48 EDT
Denton Ivey was sitting over a man-sized tupperware bowl filled with Lucky Charms and too much whole milk. He glanced back and forth from the crossword puzzle to the crossword puzzle dictionary.
"What, you're cheating on the crossword?," his roommate Joel glanced into the kitchen.
Denton's initial reaction was 'Mow your own fucking lawn', but that would have just been the headache talking. That huge fucking headache. He considered not taking it out on Joel.
"Crosswords have their own language sometimes. I don't really speak it yet. I mean, who uses the word 'asp'? And if someone did, you'd probably tell the asshole just to say 'snake'. And q-a-t? Shit!" Denton wasn't even looking at him. "Oh yeah, I took a couple of your Advil."
"Ah, that's cool. I feel like a slug too." Joel popped open a 32oz Gatorade, "Way too many beers last night, dude. And what the fuck was I thinking, doing that shot. What was it called?"
"Cement Mixer."
"Yeah, what genius invented that? It's like, here!, drink some oatmeal. And you- hey D, you heard it from me first - you need to lay off of those, uh, asp bites."
"Very funny," this time, Denton was looking out the window. "You're right though, Yukon kicks my ass."
"You think? You remember how you got that big scrape on your arm don't you?," Joel was looking in the fridge for no reason.
"I kinda want to forget," though Denton knew that would be impossible.
"Well, I believe your exact quote before you knocked two of those shots back was," and here Joel went into his deep voice, dumb guy impersonation of Denton that was wholeheartedly innacurate, " 'I ain't afraid to hit rock bottom.' I don't know how many you had after that, but they all landed you 15 feet up into that skinny ass tree that I still don't know how you climbed."
"Oh, I told that girl we met that you guys call me Daniel Boone sometimes. She thought it was because of the beard," Denton gestured toward his face.
"One of the branches hit her when you bowed it over."
"I know," Denton finally glanced up at Joel, "you think her sore shoulder will remind her to give me a call?"
Joel's cell phone rang, and right away he was telling someone else about the beerlarity of the night before, so Denton went back to the newspaper. In the small blank space next to the puzzle, he took inventory of his life:
1) Drink too much.
2) Smoke too much.
3) Eat too much.
4) Don't sleep enough.
5) Don't exercise enough.
Joel was just hanging up the phone when he walked back in, "Hey, you wanna go get some brunch with Jill and Amy and them? They're already at your favorite spot."
Denton sighed, "You know, I'm living at the lowest point of my mental and physical abilities-"
"Whoa, what are you-"
"No I'm serious. By my standards, I have bottomed out. And there's potential to sink further."
"Short of a major drug addiction?" Joel tried to add something to what he thought was an odd conversation.
"Well, yeah, that'll never happen. But I'm saying, when you don't analyze yourself as much as I don't, then one day you wake up and you're a wreck."
"Dude, I just want an omelet, and they want us-"
"I just realized it, man. I am completely unhealthy. I said I wasn't afraid to hit rock bottom, and here I am."
"We can talk about it in the car."
"I'm not going."
Joel threw up his hands, "You got me waiting around for you, talking about who knows what."
"You'll get over it. Call me when you're done, if you go somewhere else."
Joel just shook his head in frustration and left, which merely translated as "Okay".
Denton poked at number 4 on his list, and went upstairs to take a nap. Before lying down, he picked up an old notepad that he used to write in. In it, a year prior, he had written:
. VIII
.
. Years of unfulfilled ambition
. Left him crumbling
. Like a Parthenon
. With only eight pillars
. When he needed forty-four
.
. He was furthest from perfection
. While still standing
.
He couldn't imagine those words being true of him when he reached 47. He hated his recent mental and physical deterioration; he still had 20 years to do something about it.
User Reviews
Submitted by maiorano84 (user info) at 2006-11-17 15:52:31 EST (#)
Ranking: 2
Late +2
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2006-06-26 21:03:50 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Blow me
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-06-22 17:03:25 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
For linking the VOU poem.
Submitted by swine_powered_hate_machine (user info) at 2006-06-21 16:18:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
I know the feeling.
Submitted by Coleslaw_Murphy (user info) at 2006-06-21 15:59:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
This is severely and, sadly, autobiographical.
I guess I should've put, "Part One" on it.
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-06-21 15:57:41 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
errrrrrr...I am baffled by this, I really am.
I just couldn't string it together.