Don't Forget to Write

Fucking Mornings

My eyes peeled open only to see darkness. They adjusted slowly to the faint gray light of early morning, the odd brightness of the sky that comes before the colors of a sunrise, filtered through white curtains. The screen of my phone told me it was only 4:30AM. didn't I deactivate my alarm? I rolled around a couple of times, hoping to fall back asleep, but my brain wouldn't allow it. I stumbled into the bathroom to wash my face and jumped back when I saw my reflection, baring scar on my head. Yet another one, I thought. And no beard hair to cover this one. I ran my finger along the raised red line of the scar. Then my finger lowered to my jaw, underneath my ear, digging through the thick beard hair, and traced the long scar that was given to me by a knife held by my dear old cousin. Before the beard, it had been a nuisance. It's hard to a hold a conversation with someone when you're looking at their eyes, but they're looking at your cheek.

My cousin had been demonstrating the proper way to disarm an attacker, and apparently, I hadn't followed instructions well enough. Flashbacks to days spent with him, of bloodied knuckles, struggles for air as my throat felt like it would collapse, shaking muscles and broken will of trying to overpower someone who was five years older and many pounds heavier. Then the knife. And the coke on his dresser. I didn't know what coke was yet, I just thought he had sugar in a tiny zip-lock bag for some reason. How old was I? 8? 9? I shook the memories and thoughts out of my head and used all of my remaining (though minimal) brainpower and effort to remember what day it was and what classes I was supposed to attend. I shook my head again, this time in frustration, as I couldn't remember. I watched myself in the mirror as I wrapped my head in bandages. The scar covered, my face almost normal again. In the kitchen, Bruno was already up and making eggs

"It will take a while to get on a normal sleep schedule again," he said without looking up from the stove pan. "How do you want your eggs?"

"Scrambled." He pointed to the fridge, I gave him three eggs from the carton. "Coffee?" I asked. He nodded.

We stood quietly, half asleep and enjoying the fact that neither of us were morning people. There is nothing more annoying in the morning than an annoying morning person. Those happy, smiling, bastards who nod their way through the daily minutia of small talk about weather, traffic, celebrities, sports, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit. They were, in the view of my chronic, solemn, morning blues, well deserving of a swift punch to the face. Because that is what waking up was. It was a cheap punch to the gut. A rude reminder that you existed in this world, and not in the world of dreams. We live in a reality where common men wrong each other over mundane nothings. Where the World Order of rich people in suits argued over the price of oil and the cost of a man's life all while claiming it was in defense of faulty ideologies which were propagated by, and only ever benefited, the rich suits anyway. And when they aren't talking about the good fight, they're figuring out ways to perpetuate a system that keeps the people in debt, a kind of modern feudal system, where the corporations were the lords.

What's the cost of a man's life? I'd say they write it off as a non-nominal crafting resource for the valuable product of power.

And waking up in the morning, knowing that I had to brush my teeth, dress my best, drink my coffee, smile and wave like the Pavlovian-trained little human that I am, was nothing but a stark reminder not only of this system and its flaws, but of the fact that I was living through it, and accepting it, and there was nothing I could do to stop it.

Bruno slid scrambled eggs onto a plate in front of me, in exchange I handed him a cup of coffee and toast. We ate and drank in comfortable silence. When we were done I washed the dishes and Bruno flipped the TV to the news. Pundits were talking about president elects Trump and Clinton. Clinton was ahead in the polls by a significant margin. "Should have been Bernie," Bruno muttered. He was right. We weren't ready for a quasi-socialist, so now we would have to choose between a pantsuit puppet of the corporate world with the tongue of a serpent, or an orangutan with the reading comprehension, temperament, and empathy levels of a seven-year-old. Oh, and there was Gary Johnson and Jill Stein, too, who would never make it to the presidential debates due to some treasonous bipartisan rules of our country's "equal opportunity" presidential elections.

We sat on the couch, the only sound coming from our lips slurping our coffee, scrolling through our phones to read articles and look at pictures. Once the coffee had done its job of waking us up, Bruno said "well, today is Friday. What do you say to a good old-fashioned bender to celebrate your belated birthday and our recent release into a world freed of collegiate sports."

I rubbed my bandages. Friday, THAT'S what today is. It's been a whole week since the NYU game. "Yeah, I could go for a few drinks."

"Great, I just have to do a few things for school. Let's rendezvous here in the afternoon."

"Rendezvous? What is this a military operation?"

"Excuse me for having a halfway decent vernacular."