Park Bench 3

A man, clean cut, eye's bright honed and focused sits down. He crosses his leg seemingly over enough to be uncomfortable. He is wearing a suit, obviously designer.

"The state of the world can be defined by the Theory of Thermodynamics, a constant cycling of energies throughout a seemingly organized system bound dissonance. I once thought that everything had a purpose, that there was this large group of people in a room and they were all laughing maniacally with this huge plan for the rest of the world. They would then implement these ideas and thoughts through clever use of the mass media, and we would all just be herded to this ultimate coal of a select group of men, hence why the trends would change as obviously, with the death of older members, newer members would have to come in.

I also smoked a lot of pot during those kinds of thoughts, and I wanted to blame the be-dazzler on something ominous. My sister had one and would always bedazzle the most random of things in our house, and within days everything within fair game possession of the family would be clad in the most absurd rhinestones and gems. She was a bonkers lady, she was into the classic rock, which those of my age group would always be sure to let her know she was lame. We were mod, as it was known back then, wearing suits and dying our hair black and listening to The Smiths, The Cure etc. I never forgot the arduous nature of making sure that your hair look like you had never washed it before. We smoked cigarettes and talked about pop culture as if it were this science, acolytes of conspiracy and defining music as an ideal religious backed by mopeds and ties.

My sistered died rather soon after I graduated, her college junior summer. She tried a drug which would later be refined and turned into the recreational ecstasy. She cooked her brain and dropped at a party and was trampled by euphoric desensitized twenty somethings until she had irreparable brain damage, and was gone. She was going to be a high school teacher. I remember standing at her funeral, and most of the parents other than mine looking at mom and dad with a little bit of pity, and a little bit of judging in their eyes. They didn't care about my sisters death as much as they cared about my parent's insufficient skills at their roles in life. As if they knew anything. I just wanted to scream at them all, pointing the finger back with fervor.

'YOU'RE NO BETTER, YOUR KIDS WERE THERE TOO! THEY DID IT, AND WILL DO IT AGAIN AND YOU FUCKERS THINK YOU'RE SO MUCH BETTER?!'

I'm sorry, this place makes the emotions, memories, more vivid. I stopped the mod shit after that. I just acted and wore what was normal, sold the moped, bought a junker car and started drinking. I became that pathetic drunken stoner that whenever someone acted like they were about to do something about my behavior, their friend would rest their hand on their chest and say 'Whoa dude, that's kid's sister died...let him be." Eventually it got so bad that my parents and I went to grief counseling. 20 years old and in grief counseling with your mother and father.

It helped out though...it was tough 6 months getting used to her not bedazzling everything. I would expect my shower curtain to have a giant yellow jeweled sunflower on it when I went in...but it was still just clear and plain. Everything was clear and plain in that house. Slightly grey scaled, and I knew to find color I would have to do something drastic.

I join the Air Force after about a month of the shakes and purifying myself from drinking. I would run everyday until I threw up that poison. I was on a mission, a reckoning to make myself something else. I became the fervor at the funeral. I would prove that my parents weren't the right target of judging eyes. I went into the Air Force, and I worked my ass off fighting my own idle habits and just, everything. I went into the medical school program, and against I found myself busting even more ass than before. I would not quit. I was condensed diamond solid fervor back by ungodly determination to reach something I had even established. I became that doctor, and I got out of the Air Force and I set to save the world...

I joined the Peace Corp, and traveled using my knowledge to help people that were less fortunate than myself, people that those other parents would also judge. I never forgot those faces, I never forgot my sister, I wrote my parents once a week with pictures of the habitat developments and me and groups of foreign people. These people with me in these photographs gave my parents a shield from those bastards in that small neighborhood with their pitying eyes. It gave them a sword to fight back.

I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I am just trying to feel out this compulsion I have to rant about how one shouldn't judge for the past, but the aspirations of the future. I am not defined by previous actions, but rather defined by the goal and the path up from this point to then. You can judge the past of someone when their dead, and the bedazzlers are resting on the dresser and collecting the dust of things once childishly adored. Intent is the curse not the aftershock of the action.

I never married, now in retrospect I kind of wish I had. I just never had time for that kind of thing. When you in an obsession, when you have to prove yourself to yourself, you can't expect to be suited to take care of anything but that. See that's what a relationship is, these two people, completely stable independent, finding each other, and building this...thing more stable and larger than the both of them. It is them, but something else, and only grows with time...I was stable to the point of being defensive, like a noble gas...

Now that's all I am, I guess...Success in life defined by life is funny that way...without it's context or definer, success is nothing."