Recollection and Reflection

With the last drag of my cigarette I looked up toward the towering palms silhouetted against the night sky. All sorts of strange thoughts began trailing through my brain. Things that wouldn’t make sense even if I tried to explain them. I thought about what life was, where it begins and how it ends. I thought about how it is wasted by people that pursue such finite and material things like money and social status. Is that really a life worth having? Is that something that you can tell your grandchildren and have them marvel your wisdom?1

I can see it now. “Well, Billy... Let me tell you something. When I was only 25 I netted $75,000. Can you imagine that? Your old grandpa here!”2

I guess for me it was never about those things at all.3

As a child I was always said to be brilliant and vibrant, always doing my own thing and never caring about what anyone else thought. Some people claim to not care about the thoughts of others, but the people that vocalize that thought are the biggest offenders. You know the type, the ones that color their hair in the skittles bag variety and dress themselves in the most depressing attire in order to express their hatred for the world, or for their distain at what has happened to them, as if anyone cared enough to even mention their opinion on them in the first place. No, I was not that type. I was the one to pursue the strangest things, to collect oddities that interested me.4

One memory that comes to mind was from a time when I must have been around ten. I had found a dead lake rat behind my house. Upon inspecting it, I noticed that the skin and sinew had been eaten away by little ants and parasites and such. I thought of how cool it would be to have in my room, on a dresser or shelf. I walked back home to get a bag and collected the bit that I wanted to keep, the skull. 5

I trekked back home with the skull in my bag, almost fantasizing about how happy I would be with it in my room, watching over everything I did. I even imagined it being alive, remarking on my activities.6

“Yeah, Carl! Build that model car! Paint those pieces to your perfection! You’re awesome.”7

Well, needless to say, a mother doesn’t look too kindly on her son having the remains of a dead rodent in her house, much less in her boy’s room.8

“Carl, you can’t surround yourself with things like this. It’s not healthy. This is not what people do.”9

I thought back onto myself, something that I have never forgotten since then. I thought, “Well if normal people don’t do things like this, I don’t ever want to be a normal person.10