ORDINARY JOE (standard:Flash, 608 words)
Author: Danny Zil	Added: Jun 14 2013	Views/Reads: 2904/2	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
This is how the precious gift of life turns out for most of us.

ORDINARY JOE 

Ordinary Joe liked winter. The cold. The rain. The snow. The darkness.
You could hide in all that. Become invisible. Disappear. 

Ordinary Joe hated summer. The heat. The blue skies. Endless bright
lite. Endless sunshine. Everythin visible. You couldn't hide in that. 

Things had started out fine for Ordinary Joe. In his teens, they were
lookin good. He was a handsome guy, beddin some of the more attractive 
girls in his school. Hell, even a few of their Moms. He was doin well 
in his studies. Engineerin. He was also throwin quarterback passes that 
were attractin the attention of the pros. 

Yep, everythin was lookin good. 

Then a motorbike accident left him with a small metal plate in his
throwin arm. Sure he could still use it okay but he couldn't make the 
passes anymore. 

That pissed him off real bad an his studies fell away. 

Then he got one of his girlfriends pregnant an wound up havin to marry
her. They had the kid and he had to give up his studies an take factory 
work to support them. Then the mortgage. Then the second kid. The end 
of dreams. Friends fell away. The drinkin started. The marriage fell 
away. The divorce started. 

Now Ordinary Joe was in his forties. Livin alone in a rented tenth floor
flat. Hardly any friends. No real interests. Occasional women but they 
got canned for one reason or another. Same way he got canned from jobs 
for one reason or another. 

Christ one time he'd been so desperate for money that he'd worked in one
of them care homes for old folks. What a stinkin job that was. Actually 
wipin old cunts' arses for a livin. Changin their diapers. Moppin their 
drool. Shovin mulched up shit into their toothless gobs. That didn't 
last. 

Now it was a borin repetitive factory job packin internet orders into
boxes. Christ. He could go a whole shift an hardly say a word to 
anyone. Not that it mattered. 

Ordinary Joe had nothin much to say anymore an hardly anybody interested
him. For daytime, the drug of choice was Zanax. For nitetime, the drink 
of choice was vodka. Ordinary Joe drank himself to sleep most nites an 
drank himself into a stupor at weekends. It would go on that way till 
he died. 

Starin out the window at the downtown scene on winter's nites, Ordinary
Joe could drink himself into the darkness. Sittin there, smokin an 
drinkin, he often thought about how bad it had all become. Dead end 
job. Hardly saw his kids. Hardly any friends. Always chasin money. No 
hope of ever achievin anythin anymore. He was just another nobody. An 
ordinary joe. 

How good it had all looked when he was fifteen, sixteen. ‘Christ, if you
knew how your fuckin life was goin to turn out there'd be hardly any of 
us left,' he often thought. 

Every day it was the grim struggle. The grim struggle to keep work. The
grim struggle for money. The grim struggle to stay sane. Convicted 
criminals were prisoners on the inside. Ordinary Joe was a prisoner on 
the outside. 

He was still a fairly bright guy but the booze an the drugs an the
depression an all the failures were beginnin to dull that. He was 
glancin thru a magazine once an he saw a quote from an old German 
philosopher an he was still smart enough to appreciate it. 

Nietzsche. The guy had written, ‘The first best thing is not to have
been born. The second best thing is to die soon.' 

Ordinary Joe couldn't have the first one. Fingers crossed for the
second. 


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