Random writings #1

A gulp of coffee flows down my throat. Coffee. I hate the taste. Bleary eyed, I type on. Just finish the work and sleep. The time ticks to 4. Ha, I'd grown accustomed to sleeping in the office now. A few lines more, a few lines more. And I lie on the ground and pull my jacket over. A night's rest before another nightmare.

The ground crunched beneath my step. Poisonous sun burned my skin. I walked on and on. Forward, I said, forward. Mouth parched and tongue dry, I wondered, when had it become so barren? But I marched. Forward, I said, forward.

Hope had deserted me by now. Only the barren shell which once held human emotions remain. Here a smile, there a laugh, as though from memory but never from my own willingness. I see the world through these green jewels they call eyes, and I experience it past a shield of cynicism, but I can't control reaction. Laugh as I might, my heart feels nothing except the palpitating motion forced on me to sustain shell's existence.

My work drones on. What once provided excitement, sparked, stimulated the brain has become just a distraction now. A reminder, too. The acerbic fluid of failure in success pumps through my veins, slowly eroding my concentration and monopolizing my thoughts. I try to work through it. I stare at my strategies, my models, my math, but my mind wearies and dreams of home.

Home. I, too, once had a home you know. It was everything you wanted out of a home: comfort, protection, a place to live. With it came a nourishing mother, an alma mater, but it disappeared all too soon. My greed ransacked my home before I even left the house, leaving a trail of broken friendships and wasted opportunities. But keep walking forward, I said. Keep walking forward.

So now I walk forward. Everyday, I trudge and slog and lumber. Forward, I said, forward. And what humanity I had cries behind me at broken home that could have carried a family, but crying shows weakness. So my shell drags on, each step trampling my heart under the leather sole of progress.