An excerpt from 'Staggering Past the Bone-Yard'

A Story by William Teague

a fictional story of mine: where the MC has just received bad news.

After the news I walked for hours and hours, numb.

Life's a fucked up thing. Just when you finally feel like your're getting the hang of it, it pulls the rug from underneath your feet.

Of the things and ways in this weird world, you begin to come to terms with who you are and whats important. . . . Bam! you get the horrible news. You feel there's no way to deal with this. There's no one you can talk too. No one can really understand and you know you'll just get some mediocre response from them. They love you and care for you and still, they offer nothing of any value or help.

You are really all alone, its an emptiness, a dull emptiness. Why even put up a fight, its futile? But how could you not fight with all your might, all your will. You fight in your head to try and understand, try to justify, try to accept and find hope where there is none. Helpless and hopeless is the final defeat. As if the world stopped spinning and became mute.

And but for the few who count on you, the few who love you; how could you let them down. How could you become dead while still alive; in their eyes? How could you just give up? Anger and rage seem the only cure to feel again; at least you'll feel something, anything; temporarily anyway. You owe it to them to lie; your faithful family, your optimistic friends. You must lie. Maybe lying is a good thing. Maybe its the only thing you have. And you lie to them and to yourself; you must because the mirror of truth that reflects your skull & bones is too unbearable.

The only way to rid yourself of the rage and fear is to dilute it, drown it, and wash it away - in whatever way you can, with whatever means is at your disposal. And when that fails to sustain you, you flee and jump ship, into a sea of anxiety.

And you don't possess the courage to acknowledge the truth, the hard cold truth. So you run and you keep running. You hide like a child who hears a noise at night and draws the covers over his eyes. Searching for some sense of security.