Animals

On human nature.

Animals

                I was on the bus to Denver when I realized my flight had already left. The two flights I was on stand-by for were full and I had to sleep at the airport and I was still hungover. This was not a matter of money, I thought, even if I had thousands of dollars I could not get a seat on a full plane but then again If I had millions, well I probably wouldn’t be going to Boston in the first place or maybe I’d be going in my own plane so maybe it was a matter of money, everything else was.

                Paul had gotten hammered and kept trying to get me to dine and dash and then got pissed when the bill came. I told him to get out of there and go home because I wasn’t done getting drunk. I had five bourbons and then I went home and finished half a bottle of red. I was hammered and the room started to spin as I sat in the front of the trunk my ex had given me. I didn’t have any more alcohol so I went to bed.

                I woke up feeling like my brain had dried off and had started to crumble. My head felt like the air was closing in on it and all I wanted to do was vomit. I popped an advil, chugged some water, and ordered a greasy sub from the Deli Zone. I did laundry and gagged at the smell of the sub when it arrived, I didn’t even finish it until I was at the airport five hours later. I walked out of 1811 Folsom, took a right on canyon and walked down to the station. I took the bus to Denver and halfway there I realized my flight had already left. I was two hours late. I was either going to have to spend the night at the Denver airport or the Newark one, either way I was fucked.

                I kept trying to believe that maybe it was for the best, maybe the first flight was going to crash and burn, maybe the universe had saved me, but no planes burned, I was just a drunk fool who had missed his flight and the world was full of those. Hell, if anything, the universe was conspiring to get us all together in a plane and burn that one.

                My head was still aching but all I wanted was a bloody Mary. Fools never learn. I went to the tiny store and stared at thirty different types of trail mix. We were fools, all of us, staring, picking and choosing a ten dollar pack of nuts we were going to get out of our system in a few hours. It amazed me how terribly stupid we all were. We were all just animals that had become too smart. We were animals too afraid to die, so I wondered if we had been better off in the wild, affirming our nature, eating, laughing, f*****g, living like the true animals we were. The weak would die, the strong would thrive. We’d be living, just that, just living.

                They were all just standing, walking to their destinations, oblivious of other people’s mistakes, of other people’s dreams. We were so goddamn arrogant and we were nothing but animals. I sat down and watched the planes come and go. I saw the sun set through those huge windows and thought of love; I thought of love and then I went to drink a bloody Mary. It was late and it wasn’t going to get any better.