…..and the days grew progressively longer as he got older, while the dreams of his lost youth shriveled up—one by one by one—and gradually vanished into thin air until there were none left for him to treasure. Is this then, he resignedly thought to himself, the real curse of old age: That I must now endure each week-long day—one piled slavishly atop the other like an endless row of felled dominoes—with nothing to look forward to other than my eventual cessation of breathing and ensuing chemical transformation from a dynamic flesh-and-blood organism into an elementary carbon derivative? He stood up at this juncture, sighed, stretched his limbs in exaggerated fashion akin to a creaky old dog just awoken from a sun-bathed nap, and shambled off to his congested medicine cabinet to indulge in some life-enhancing—and life-lengthening—nourishment. This certainly doesn’t feel very much like living, he thought, but then again it sure as hell beats the holy shit out of the alternative…..so far, at least…..
Fred's Soapbox 