Question 13

-I feel that I have lived the right kind of life, True or False?

Steve contemplated at his laptop screen, wondering how had he gotten to this point in his life, what kind of question was that, and what could possibly be the truthful answer to that question if you were being asked that. The silence stretched for what seemed hours, Steve started fidgeting with the cord of his pants. All of this beneath the reach of the camera on his computer, the worker kept staring at him puzzled by his lack of words. What kind of life had he lived?

He could recall some cold spring mornings running around with his friends, feeling the sudden burst of smells as life came back. Suddenly there were colors back on earth and he was allowed to play outside without his winter gear. Those days in school had passed in a breeze of a second. People kept telling him to enjoy it as it lasted, but not too long after he was already denying cartoons as a form of entertainment, the only thing a youth of his age could watch was MTV and it was too late to enjoy the sensation of imagining a whole town with his plastic toys.

Had his life in his teenage years been the right of life? He wondered as the worker on the other side of the screen repeated his question, wondering if they had lost the connection. Sometimes it was painful to exist and the social circle rules he had to adhere to made him make some of the worst decisions of his life. For starters, he could have chosen a better set of individuals to hang around. They spent most of their time being angry at the people around them and looking for excuses to get them pissed. They went to parties and secluded themselves in the back, gulping their drinks until they were so hammered that they would start beating the shit out of each other, without feeling anything. Eventually, things went out of control and the kid whose parents owned the house understood why it was not the cleverest idea to invite other teenagers to his house. The pains that we go through just to fit in the social jungle of high school.

Was it because of those teenage years the reason why he was leaning towards 'False' to the person on the web meeting? Or was it because of the time that he took going to the gym to the next level? Constantly Steve felt ashamed of himself as he entered the sweaty and thick atmosphere of men competing in a gym. There was something in the way his man boobs bounced on the treadmill, while the people around him displayed chest plates capable of stopping bullets. Steve couldn't resist his need for approval from his peers or be seen like another average guy who joined after New Year. He needed to be one of those guys who lifted iron weights and looked like a superhero. So, things happened as they tend to happen and indeed Steve got huge, and that didn't satisfy Steve at all, now he was as unrealized as before just angrier.

Steve caught himself going into a dark passage of his life and remembered the number of women that passed through his bed. The nights at the club when he offered his credit card for the entire table, getting the approval from strangers for a couple of hours. Shouting and screaming to the top of his lungs as people from other parties joined their enthusiasm. They didn't have much to celebrate or at least Steve couldn't recall if there was a necessary achievement to be celebrated on any of those nights. Probably one of his friends quit his job and they needed the distraction. They were the loudest in the club and were those kinds of people who bought sparkling fireworks with their drinks. By the end of the night, he had kissed with two girls and hooked up with another in the bathroom. When it was time to pay the bill, everyone left. That reminded Steve about his ongoing debts, and how much time he had spent with the bank behind his shoulders asking for the minimum payment.

There had to be some reasons to say True. Or there really wasn't any fond memory of his life after being a child? There had to be moments, but what does a person look for when they ask you those types of questions? Maybe he could think about the time that he bought the pieces to assemble his Mustang 86. He spent months assembling the car of his dreams in his parents' garage. He had a place of his own, there was no garage though. And his father had died years ago and it wasn't like his mother was ready to move elsewhere away from the house she and her husband had shared for decades. Steve was so invested in this project, that he went around different shops and ordered pieces through what was novel at that time "The Internet" and got his hands dirty assembling them. He was so excited that he invited his two pairs of friends and his mom to watch him turn on the car. It roared with a mighty force and everyone cheered and clapped. That was the right kind of life moment and Steve convinced himself that he could answer with complete certainty that it was Truth, being someone capable of assembling together a Mustang 86 was the right kind of life. But, he recalled that the Mustang had only been able to start and move around for two weeks. Then one day he tried to start it and it wouldn't. He checked every spot and every screw. There was nothing that evaded his tight scrutiny. He knew that car like the back of his hand and there was no single spot that avoided his vigilant scan. Five days had passed in which he had spent six hours each day on top and under the car. Steve grabbed the key and blew on it, remembering the days as a teen when he had blown on a dusted Nintendo 64 game cartridge and emotionally reasoning that all of those times the game had worked because of his breath was a form of good luck. Just in case he lifted the key to the sky and asked the All-Father for his blessing. It didn't work, and Steve blew up in a steroids rage. He grabbed a metal bar from the trunk and started wrecking the fruit of his effort.

The person on the other side of the web looked at him impatiently as he moved his mouse pointer around the two possible answers. The letter F started vibrating from Steve's mouth as he decided, and disappointedly understood the implications of saying False for the rest of his life. Yet he remembered a time in the fields with his cousin who was visiting from down under. They played gotcha and rode dirt motorcycles, at night they got wasted and carried each other out of trouble. By the morning they were still drinking and watching the sunset, they were slowly laughing at an insignificant thing that had been forgotten as they laughed for minutes. Wiping the tears from his eyes and asking each other what was so funny. His cousin took out his pack of Marlboro Reds and offered him one. As he placed the cigarette in his mouth he smiled once more into the sunset.

"What else could you possibly want in life?" He brought the lighter closer to his lips, "We have everything that we could ever want, just you and me buddy, this night was awesome!"

Steve smiled and said:

"True"