He was born in a big city to simple parents — a dichotomy of sorts. A smart boy who didn’t achieve much. An empty vessel that eventually turned itself over to dissipation — for how else would it be filled. A mechanism of sorts — it takes a lot of winding and unwinding to get anywhere and he was too smooth for his own good.
Now, don’t get me wrong — Sam had a job. He earned good money, had a great smile and was liked by his peers. But as he walked home at night from the big steel cage called work — he thought to himself, “Is this it? Have I done everything? Is there nothing more to life than this?” And as he lit himself a cigar on reaching home and belching up some healthy salad, he would look deep and spend time wondering about the meaning of life in a balcony.
These were the good days, after all — weren’t they? The roaring 20s of his life — the time to get drunk with a friend and spend the night tripping on something. The beautiful haze that would make mornings feel divine and make mediocre or mean conversation feel like something out of a stand up comedy show.
And they were all funny, nice, successful, just out of college types — the guys he would hang out with. Just a cog in the wheel — not a standout, exceptional or rare cog — but a cog nonetheless, although sometimes the bicycle would squeak, it could still run decently for some time.
After all, the world was turning — but every turn would be an inevitable shift towards something …
