The old man sat on an
overturned garbage can beneath the bridge, trying to listen to the slowly
drifting water. Of course, rush hour in the big city meant hundreds of cars
were attempting to cross said bridge all at once, honking and screeching and
revving. The old man, his hearing already diminished by such things as loud
music, insensate screaming and a really bad ear infection, could not hear the
rippling water. This irritated the old man no end.
The old man felt a booger lodging itself
in his left nostril; how fucking annoying those boogers. The old man shoved his
finger inside his left nostril, feeling around with the dull tip of his finger,
trying to get the sucker. He pulled out his finger, bloody snot pulling out
along with it and stringing along, the bloody snot string snapping and flapping
down against his jacket.
“Fack!” bellowed the old man. He quickly
flicked the snot left on his finger into the water and attempted to wipe off
the sticky stuff from his jacket; of course this only made things worse.
“Mother fucking…”
Resigning to the fact that his already
disgusting jacket now perfectly gleamed with snot along his entire right side,
the old man pulled out a Marlboro and started fumbling through his many
pockets, trying to find his lighter. With his right hand, he fiddled around his
flask of cheap whiskey, assorted keys that he knew naught of what they opened,
some loose change, a mangled dollar bill; he found no lighter with his right
hand. The left had no better luck, finding a pair of old gloves, a little
pocket knife and a guitar pick; the old man could play a single guitar song: a
butchered version of Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here.
Frantic that he may not be able to light
the death stick between his lips, the old man began swearing anew. “Tabarnak!
Where’s the fucking thing!” You’ll notice throughout this old man’s story that
he has quite the interesting backstory. For one, he tends to swear in French.
His mother was a French Canadian, and taught him very well the most important
words to this language. Of course, front and centre were the words of God,
which he uses so lovingly.
Finally, in the inside pocket of the left
side of his jacket, this old man finally found his lighter. He brought it to
his lips, which were now perfectly drawn out into a wicked smile, one so vile
and ugly not even his mother could love (we’ll get to that part later). He
flicked the lighter open; a tiny spark… nothing. He tried again and again. “Ah
bin Tarbarnak!” After twenty or thirty flicks, because for all his sins, the
old man was a patient man, fire! He slowly brought it to the tip of the
Marlboro, for fear of the small breeze putting it out, and slowly but in rapid
succession, drew on the death stick, the cigarette lighting, smoke issuing from
between chapped lips.
The old man drew a long breath of fresh
smoke, exhaled through his nose, and felt wet snot coming again. He rubbed the
back of his hand to wipe it off, but the snot kept coming. He pulled up his
hand to look at it, and deducted that it was slick with snot filled blood.
Between his feet, he could see droplets of blood splattering down in quickening
succession.
“Christ almighty!” he bellowed, his
Marlboro fumbling out from between his lips, bouncing off his left foot, ashes
sprinkling, then falling in the river. “Calisse!”
