Artist Man
There he goes, jerking himself awake once his neck falls over the back of his lounge sofa.The late night broadcasts rage in front of his half opened eyes. Still in his work clothes. Red wine and red eyes, wreaking of dunhill cigarettes.The light ones. Droplets from the leak in the ceiling gentle wash over the thick coat of his hair. A few had landed on his temples, urging him to effort fully bring his hands to wipe the amalgam of leak water and sweat off his face. He works up the nerves to wipe one side of his face, sighing after realising the other needs to be tended to as well. His eyes dart about what he could see amidst the darkness that loomed his room. Everything needed to be tended to. For weeks now. But he could only consciously manage one side of things now a days. He felt as if he could only sleep on his right side, comb the left side part, brush the teeth on the right side, make only the left side of the bed. Dust off only the one pair of his work shoes. Half. That’s all. Half of everything. Half a coffee cup, half black half milk. He’d look at everything and everyone around for half a second before closing his eyes. Taking a deep breath in the metals that roamed everywhere. He was good at his job. Signing papers from corporate. Managing a firm. Locking in clients. Making big greens. He was more than good. Maybe one of the bests. They called him the Jack of All Trades up at the Administration. He was humble, and kind. He liked a girl at work. He watched her from a safe distance mentally. Liked her enough to know what he wanted. He’d like to marry her. Have kids with her. Buy her a house and buy her pearls. Be her man theoretically. Mentally, he’d proposed. Said vows. Sealed the deal. Half a deal, anyway. In his mundane, He was no artist, but he was surrounded by it. The utter boredom of existence, the all so worrisome wait for death. It was already half a deal when it started he’d remind himself. He’d watch the men and the women and the children. Nobody was empty. Yet they were halves. Of life, of meaning. Especially the married ones. He’d sit in the park during his break, the end of his shift. And he’d light up his cigarette. Watching the art that rushes past him, the kind that sways around him. All of it. He watched and he observed, as if He were incharge of the lot. The families, the lovers and the busy joggers. Knowing how they all search for halves at the cost of their existing half. Not tending to the other half of things. And he’d smoke the cigarette to the half before crushing it by the heel of his shoe. Why must we all postpone tending to ourselves? Why mustn’t we love ourselves like our lovers? Care and protect ourselves like our parents? What a lot of waste. He’d say to himself, watching the parents play with their child, empty plays he thought, what good is that if they never learn how to play with themselves? Every deal people made was only a half. He had half a life, half the skills to enjoy it. He’d wonder if it was all part of the artist’s plan. To keep the other half a secret from all of the members of the universe. Maybe just for shits and giggles.
