Pastoral Field Along Country Road
Drive as fast as you want, I don’t care. Your little coming of age montage is going to end sooner or later. Yeah, the sun may be the brightest it’s ever been and the radio just so happens to be playing one classic riff after another, but just leave me the hell out of it. Stop pissing on my sides. It’s not that funny when you drive away. And stop having sex under my ONLY tree. Latex is terrible for my health. What? Is the environment a joke to you? It must be because you’re sitting unrestrained in the back of your friend’s convertible, laughing into the wind like it’s nitrous-fucking-oxide. Well, screw you. Your years of irresponsibility are waning before you like this magnificent sunset. So get out of here. You already missed the exit and it’s not like you’ll ever notice the white van that’s been tailing you since whisking your girlfriend from her cashier job. Just carry on without me. Soon I will only be a flashback and, frankly, I’m OK with that. God speed, you meddling assholes… and welcome to adulthood!
Lookout Point
Well, aren’t you fucking contemplative? Let me guess, the distant skyline looks like a pearl necklace come undone? And the stars? I suppose they’re like holes punched through a mask? You and your metaphors. Scamper off before it’s too late. Sneak back home with your figures of speech and the pilfered condom you’ve been hiding in your wallet. Yeah, I’m omniscient. What did you expect? I look over a fucking metropolis. Those stars, if you must know, have been dead for years. The city lights, however, are very much alive—alive with adultery! Why else would the lights be on? Here’s some advice, kid, grownups want to do two things: waste energy and be seen fucking strangers. Don’t worry, this will all make sense after you lose your innocence (which, by your strong aftershave, I can tell you were planning on). It shouldn’t last long. You’ll feel something different (which will be scary), feel something great, catch your breath, kiss, and then feel like you’re in love (which is really just sleepiness). So get it over with and be gone. Don’t stay up to watch the sunrise; there will be other ones. You can, but you’ll never see it because it’s too late. A white van crept past your rosary-adorned mirror while you slipped in an Elliot Smith CD. On the bright side, maybe police will think it was a double suicide. At least you’ll have that romantic ending you always wanted. What can I say, Romeo? Your parents were right about me.
Desert Isle
No man is an island separate from himself and yadda, yadda, yadda. I get it. But of all the places your plane could have gone down, it had to be my desert isle. I had this shit on lockdown! Sketchy Black Ops history: check. Eerie ancestral spirits emanating: check, check. Sepulchral monologue delivered from a drunken fisherman with rotten teeth and a crazy laugh: check, check, mutha-effing check! This place was perfect, ungoogleable—the fucking Voldemort of desert isles. But that’s just how life is, isn’t it? Once you finally conquer earthly damnation, somebody’s gotta make a parable out of it. So please row futilely away in your shitty raft and both of us will be better off. First, I recommend you start a fire. It’s not that difficult, so whatever you do, don’t pretend like you’ve found God in its diabolic swirl of color. There is no God, only Boy Scouts. But I’m not concerned if you do. After tallying a palm tree with a sharp rock four hundred and seventeen times you’ll realize this soon enough. That and the fact that no one is looking for you. You know why? Because no one cares. Humans were put on this earth to suffer. We’re not social creatures. Look what happened after that Eve chick, right? Right. That’s why no one is going to save you. Not your adorable fiancée or your bitter co-worker or your nerdy, former MIT roommate who developed the first amphibious van that’s surfacing from the water. There is no salvation because you are meaningless, replaceable, and can’t be totally free until—wait! No! Don’t run to that van! They’re only going to hurt you! Don’t embrace your fiancée, contemptuous co-worker, and stalwart golden lab. They’re all fakes! Fakes, I tell you. The inhabited world is just like our desert isle! You’ll see that. Don’t leave me. I love you! We were meant to be together. Don’t you get it? It’s fate! I’m the truth! The truth! The truuuuuuuuuth…
