The Signal - Prologue

Prologue



           Here, now, he is what he hates.  Maybe that explains the prozac.  Pop, pop, make this misery bearable.  Forget changing what stresses him.  He lost the ability to buck the system a long time ago.  Now, sitting in morning traffic, he straightens his tie.  If his teenage self was sitting here with him, oh the conversation they would have.  No doubt, the adult version would talk about the youths lack of understanding, but knowing the whole time, that it was he who forgot.  He forgot how to live.  He forgot his values.  Hell, he forgot who he is.

         The drone that he has become sits swilling his morning latte, in traffic with thousands of other drones like himself.  Cookie cutter lives, cookie cutter cars, and some ridiculous cookie cutter ties.  His younger self would laugh heartily at what he's become.  The adult knows.  That youth sits deep in his soul begging to get out. 

         The rage in morning traffic, not at the delay, hell, who wants to rush into work.  No, it's the asshole that feels he's more important, he can't wait with the rest.  Driving down the shoulder, or riding a closing lane until the very end, and then expecting others to feel obligated to allow him to merge.  The youth, sitting suppressed, whispers to hit him.  The youth reaches up into his mind, he can feel his muscles tense, but it can't take control, and that knowledge builds the rage inside him even more.

         He peers into the rear view, not at traffic, but at himself.  He looks deep into his own stair.  Behind the stone blue of his eyes his youth laughs at him.  He can feel it.  He knows he's become a sham.  Life chipped away at him, one bullshit expectation at a time.  Along the way always believing he could maintain his identity, until his was no different than the moron sitting next to him.  All along his youth whispering to rebel.  Break out of this bullshit and become who you are.  Become a real fucking person instead of this shill that you are.

         He hears it all.  Sure, the prozac takes the edge off.  It makes the unbearable bearable.  His youth tells him every time he swallows the drug that it's killing him.  Hell, why should he feel the shit he deals with everyday is acceptable?  Is that really what life is about.  He didn't think so.  Still, he had no idea what else he could do.  He would have known 20 years ago, when he was 18, but he has suppressed that part of himself.  Suppressed it to a barely audible whisper.  The prozac helps. 

         Still, that whisper is always there.  Nagging at him.  Lurking.  Waiting to get out.  Trying to break free from the monotonous bullshit that it's being subjected to.  It waits though.  Youth is amazingly resilient.  It will break free.  It just needs the right moment,  the perfect opportunity to coax him back into the life that he really wants.  One free of rules created by others.  Rules he doesn't understand, but for some reason adheres to.  It's going to come crashing down, and when it does, his youth will be there ready to run wild once more.           He figures he'll be lucky when that day comes.  There's a suspicion inside him though, that it might not be as wonderful as he wants to believe it to be.  He can sense the hatred, the evil that his youth has become.  Pushed to the side and forgotten, it's bitterness sits waiting to level everybody that helped to lock it away.  If it has it's way, that day will be today.