23. A lucky number some people say. An age that is expected to be lived without doubt. A meager age to all the elders. "You've only started living." I am 23. I hit that age when my Aunt showed me the cake she bought for me which had the number 23 on it. It was frightening to see a number so high placed on a flamboyant birthday cake. From my childhood, I can only remember numbers like, 9, 12 or 13 on cakes. Not 23. It seems irrelevant on a cake. What am I celebrating? Celebrations occur for those on-lookers to applaud the growing. But I have grown... I am grown. This cake in front of me symbolizes the death of youth. Embrace this year? Why?
23. I have grown to this number. I don't know if this number has grown on me, such like the other numbers. 20 felt like a tickle to the year of boozed crazed nights in bars. 21 felt like a blur that actually occurred in those bars. 22 felt like retired youth going to that same pond his dad took him for the first time to fish.... I had already been to that pond plenty.
23 feels like the unknown... I'll just live my life as the numbers pile up. I'll have my 24th birthday which will come to a short lived surprise like 23 but work will still start on Mondays and end on Fridays. And 25 will come. Some things will change, I might have a car. My apartment might actually be acceptable to visitors. I'll own a dog, who cherishes my arrival no matter how grey or blue the day is. My visions might alter a bit. I might own a lawnmower. The cubs might win a world series. But that age will keep on crawlin' towards me, always on the lookout, always searching for me... Making sure I don't slip and let me know to always act my age.
35 will come. Damnit I best have a wife and a kid on the way. No kid wants an old man as a father. 'How could such an old man teach me anything?' My American life will be on the way towards 40; where the middle aged man is crippled beyond recognition... My dog will have long past. He was the reminisce of true love. I will always miss him. Without my dog, friendship dies. What am I worth? What is anything worth? I have given so much to society while giving nothing at all. Shouldn't I be rewarded? Or even Noticed? I wont die like this.
55 will come with a crush. My life better be around perfect with plenty of relaxation. With no temptation of suicide or killing of my family for whatever they have caused me through the years. My house has been fixed multiple times with all of my friends' dramatically wrong inputs thrown to the side. I know wrong from right. It'll my Goddamn American right.
I'm on my death bed and the light never seemed so close. A time for reflection never seemed so irrelevant. I reflected all my life. Must I explain why it's OK for me to die? I don't need my families OK to. I just need a comfortable bed and a fan to dry the sweat accumulating around my brow... It's been there quite some time now. My wife folds over me in doubt of living on her own... She doesn't know it, but she has all this time. The garden will continue to grow. Our grandchildren will always need to be tendered to. Her book club needs her insightful input. And someone will learn to love her cooking. But I must go now. I lived on Earth and the Earth helped me follow my true intuition of free will. Free will to do whatever I please. Like the song that will be played as I fall into my endless nap; the nap I have been waiting for my whole life. No appointments. No phone calls. Nothing to clean. Nothing to do. That's how I liked it and I will forever now, embrace that.
Jesus Christ, we should let this dead guy sleep.
