everyman

I’m thinking about firing him.

He never does anything I tell him to do.

He never listens to me, and won’t listen to the needs of my friends and neighbors when they visit.

You’re actually lucky to find him, as he always goes on vacation. This one has taken more days of vacation than any servant I’ve ever had.

I think he’s stealing books from my library, but oddly, only the ones that have anything to do with science. Weird!

I sometimes catch him listening to my phone calls, and much worse, looking over my shoulder whenever I browse the web. Why can’t he mind his own business?

I even caught him stealing money from my safe. It wouldn’t bother me so much if he needed it, but he carelessly spends it on toys… for HIM, not his kids, oh heck no.

He doesn’t take care of his children, doesn’t spend money on their education, and doesn’t take care of them when they’re sick.

As for his father? He completely ignores him, and it’s so sad because he’s a war veteran. He deserves better but my servant refuses to take care of him when he’s sick and won’t even buy him meds (though he took his father’s rifle and spends plenty of money on ammo when he goes out hunting, killing animals that never attacked him.)

As for his mother? Whenever they’re on the phone he orders her around in a condescending way, makes it seem like she doesn’t have ownership over her own body. She’s capable of driving a car but he took away her keys. Her driving instructor says she passed her test with flying colors but my servant told her “I’ll be the judge of that.”

He only seems to think of himself and his own interests. Without asking me, he has destroyed most of my garden to make room for an addition (an extension to his living quarters behind the house.)

On garbage nights, I frequently catch him tossing all the trash on what little vegetation remains in my backyard! Nothing can grow there now. Whenever we’re hungry, we need to leave the neighborhood to shop (which angers him because the further we are from home, the more “evil” he says people are.)

He always tells me the word of Jesus but never practices what he preaches.

He’s very racist and has a short temper. Whenever you disagree with him, he’ll throw punches at you instead of trying to see your side of the argument.

Our neighboring township is a very nice place, but it’s a mixed neighborhood. My servant says anyone who lives there is a “terrorist” and can’t be trusted. He has all kinds of prejudices.

Whenever I leave the room I hear him bashing my gay friends (if he only knew that most of his friends are gay.) He says being gay is breaking God’s law, and claims to talk to God at least once a day. He’s very big on law, especially God’s law.

But when HIS friends break the law, he rewards them!

I need a servant who listens to me when we disagree, allows me my privacy, keeps my money safe, practices what he preaches, doesn’t take so much vacation, takes care of his parents, friends, and family, spends time with his children, actually talks to my neighbors and guests, doesn’t fear people who are different, treats women with respect, has tolerance for gays, and for the love of God, actually WORKS!

Yup. I think I’m going to fire him.

In fact, yesterday….

behind his back….

I hired a new one.

It does no justice calling it amorous. I see it and feel like a spec.

I spent a half hour this morning sitting in the backyard staring up at the water falling from the branches washing away the snow.

Leafless, that unpredictable artistic pattern nature painted above the trunk… dark gray sky overhead, and water slowly dripping down from the twigs, time still, and cold… so damn cold. No matter what I wear, shivering.

Feet of snow turned to grass and I wondered if the Earth was big enough for the new ocean it was about to acquire.

Surely it will snow again but to see this glimpse of Spring before the insects breed and the birds early catching their worms, all seems lifeless, ice melts draining lifelessness, it soon feasts, and my cats more often than I.

I slip and fall and nature says you’re not meant to be, the oceans push me back to shore, the sun burns me freezing, can’t take anymore.

That is one incredible sight to see, that old tree. Has all the water it needs, it wants to be fed, it’s looking at me, I breathe out, it breathes in; I faint…. “feed the tree” it says to me, its feet, my bed.

Water falls on my face to awaken me and I wonder if it’s holy. Am I being washed or washed away? like the snow, I’m cold.

I go inside, I don’t belong.

My watch still works from years of wear, as do barely my playa dust covered shoes, treads unsafe for tires, but safe for every man, as is my tired body with its dizzy head & cold skin & this fresh cup of tea, with a drop of honey, my tummy calls dinner.

I call it winter.

They seem the same as we think we need more or want more than we really need or want but we do it anyway and it surprises me how easy it is to take a life if you think about it you eat and drink life daily and more than you really need but about as much as you want which is always more than you probably need which is just like fucking which is a nice workout and feels good but then you bite more than you can chew and we’re back to food again and eating seems overrated and fucking seems overrated but both feel good when you do them so you do more than you think you need to do and it’s funny how fucking gives life which is almost incidental this day and age an afterthought but it gives life and consuming takes life from plants from animals from the air breathe in breathe out life take in life take out life and you can remove it so quickly with a blade when you cut the lawn or with a tractor or a machete or a bow and arrow or with a gun because guns are fun and fucking is fun and eating is fun and killing is fun we just rip that tomato out from its roots and end its life right there with its red blood all over our hands and we lick up its juices like gushing wet pussy and they taste good and they both nourish you in their own way and you take your knife and cut the wall and you can hear it bleed and see the blood seeping through the floor into the ground and you kill the fucking window with your gun which feels good and sunlight comes in and it nourishes the seeds in the ground from the bleeding wall and tomatoes grow and they feel good and you think you are hungry but you’re not really hungry but you bite off more than you can chew because you want to not because you need to and it tastes good so you eat more and it feels good so you rip that tomato right from its root like a new born baby ripped from the womb just a few months early and you chow down like your life depended on it which is ironic because the seeds from the wall that spilled into the ground nourished from the sunlight shining in through the fucking broken glass made a poisonous vegetable and you ate too much and it kills you and you fall to the ground and it swallows you whole and to the ground it is like fucking and it feels really good like eating a life to make more life like killing a life to save a life like killing yourself to save someone else because it feels real fucking good.