C29
Public Record
Excerpt from novel: Best Cellar

So what was your solution, Rose?
I think about it more than I'd like to admit.

But if I’m honest I know that it must have just
been the musings of a young brain —
a brain without the experience to tell you that
the world isn't so magnificent as it looks from those small eyes.
It can't have been anything substantial, right?
I’m too old to believe in some great wisdom from a teenager.

Fifty-nine damned years old.
Fifty-nine is the point when all you have are memories;
the time to make more is nearly over.
All you can do is tell people what you found out
when you stumbled across all the rocks and asphalt of life,
but the hardest part is finding anyone who will listen.
That's the irony of it all, I think.
You get to this point when you have the solution for most problems —
everything from how to patch drywall
to how to save a marriage faced with tragedy —
but no one cares about the advice from an old man.
They cover their ears so that they can go on
to make all your mistakes
and gather all their own knowledge
for no one to listen to.

That's the human condition, I think.
If there is just one, that's it.
The human condition isn't the burning of resources for the sake of the fire —
it's a megaphone at a deaf rally.
It’s me in this empty room,
my head all filled with words
that will stick with me until I settle down
into a nice bed of fresh soil.
The human condition is this goddam typewriter,
buried a mile under a mountain of shit that no one will ever read,
and all I can do is add to the pile.
All of this nonsense.

The good car’s just pulled up the driveway.

Thresher Charles