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The Interruption

W. Dontā Andrews

    Near downtown is the north end neighborhood. Really, it’s just a couple of streets, not quite the Nothing side of town, but in close enough proximity to turn noses upward. He bought his house forty years ago, however, and he damn sure wasn’t leaving because things around it had changed. As long as people stayed out of his yard, fine.
    He had written for The Wanderville Journal, but thought it necessary to retire when the good subject matter retired. His children were gone, called sometimes. His wife was dead. And so were all their original neighbors. But he kept his lawn mowed, updated the paint often enough, and watered his plants. He sort of enjoyed the way he was viewed in the community. The old man. He liked the fact that anyone who knew he was sharp, one of the sharpest, was dead or gone. There were no prospects, however, and the light at the end of that tunnel grew dimmer and dimmer every day.

    He formed the story in his head the way he did the pieces he had written for the journal. He sat next to the front window in that dark green recliner, hands folded in his lap, a thick slice of morning light showing through the sheers. He reflected.

    Not only one, no, I had four or five different ways to say it, ways to show it. Need. But nothing would have kept them. She is gone. He is gone. Everyone is gone. What is the point?
    Reflecting, I can see where I went wrong, believing what I knew to be false.
However, the con artists were not
much different from the pieces-of-work at my last family reunion. Family; the fiction of it, the unconditional nothingness of it, the lullaby, just people pretending to love you. So, who am I to judge them for taking advantage of my willingness to play stupid, to pull the wool over my own eyes? The pyramid scheme was not alluring. I am not stupid. No. It was the ‘not my life’ aspects of the situation, the ‘not my same old boring life’ aspects that snatched my attention, that asked me how far I could take them, rather than how far I could be taken. So, you see, some of the manipulation, most of it, was mine as well. Mine.
    You stand back at some point in your life. Some point. You take a long, too long, look and maybe you don’t like anything you see. Maybe you realize, all at once, where all you have done has placed you in the world. Maybe all you see is quiet, dim, weightless, uninterrupted life. Maybe it is a slow wasting away of the intelligence you took so long to sharpen to fine point. And maybe you hate it. The woman was beautiful, yes, and so was the man, though that was not enough. I am out of a bit of money as well, yes. But I have been truly interrupted for the first time in my life. I liked it. I am 69 years old, and I have never had so much fun.



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