HALF HOPE

Half Alive (III)

 

"I know, dad... things are gonna be great after my next book gets published. I'll be happy." Dustin told his father who was now sitting in his dark room on a wooden beige reclining chair, smoking a cigarette whose smoke puffed around like a fine wine in a boom felazi glasswork.

"What's your next book about, kid?" His father asked him, as he saw Dustin frail and weak sitting by the David Hunt lamp he gifted him on his fifteenth.

"Nothing big dad... it's about loneliness and a kid who sees his dead father talking to him more often and after a while he accepts that insanity and kinda lives in that bubble. He refuses to see dead as dead because what's dead if your mind refuses to accept its fate." Dustin talked in a substantial tone.

"Your book seems quite worthy.. is that what you thought of becoming Dustin, when you were young? Giving stories to people to read?" His father questioned his state of mind. "Giving people the questions and then answering them in whatever way you like them to be. Putting words in people's mouths when all they could do is hear their own voices."

There was a short moment of silence in the room now after his dad asked him. His father stood up and dragged this ashtray towards him that was sitting some meters away.

"I..." Dustin expressed sadness in his facial expressions. He had something else in his mind he wanted from life. He just couldn't find the exact words. I would have loved a normal life Dad. His eyes were teary, and his lips tried losing them to bits and shakes. He held on to his teeth to support his consciousness. He didn't wanna break in front of his father. "I want people to like me, but ironically I don't even like them back, I despise them. Hate them. I am too weak to love, too feeble to get any." He said it, a moment of satisfaction grew in his heart. "I want people to like me and make me feel good about myself. I want to be less lonely. Maybe when I was young I dreamed of marrying or getting a job as a professor somewhere outside Astartone, so no one could refuse talking to me. I want to have friends." Dustin continued. "Loneliness makes you do stupid stuff, stuff you can't control. It's arbitrary and lame. It has no point." His eyes were teary. He cleared it with his left hand. "I think God was lonely, he did this all to please his own self. I can't do this anymore dad. I can't lock myself in this dark room that now smells like solitude and screams like isolation. Maybe the social connection is a metaphor for change. I want to be happy." Dustin started quivering and sweating. "Mom used to say we are not alone in this world. There are always people we can depend on, we can put our trust in. I wonder if those people still exist. People make it look so easy, connecting with other people, talking to them, sharing good vibes, pretending aesthetic extroverts, a bunch of masochistic maniacs whose world is the people they can manipulate. Morons trying to feel a little less lonely. Everything we do is a way to not end up being alone in the end. Marriage, for example. I miss my old self when things were not complicated, dad. When I used to play and learn some chords with you on the rainbow ukelele you bought for me from Pattaya."

"How can one miss himself? People miss other people...". His father questioned his thoughts. He quenched the cigarette and took out another from the box that was sitting on the table.

"That's where you are wrong, dad. I think people can only miss themselves. Never anyone else. He took a breath and started talking again. And there's no debate on that. You know it's true. When people say they miss someone, they miss the part of themselves that was so happy being with them. You miss happiness. And that can only be felt by you." Dustin got up. Took out some notes from the top shelf quickly and wrote down what he just said.

"I miss you son..", his dad tried to look towards his Dustin but a tear stopped his clear image. "I had so much to tell you. So much to raise you for. I keep thinking about all those things I kept to myself to tell you later because I thought there's always later. I guess until there isn't." His father looked towards him and caught Dustin looking back at him with the same intensity.