A fam­ous Irish writer said that he was a drinker with a writ­ing prob­lem. I’m not sure if I’m that seasoned yet, but as I type this I’ve been drink­ing since noon. That is almost nine hours ago. I also plan on going to the bar later, about mid­night. In a few days, none of this will mat­ter. I’ll point the Ford west in search of that mys­tic desert. I might do some research for my new book, which cur­rently sits in a locked closet. Shut tight in a metal­lic hard drive.  One that is infec­ted with space worms and spiders. Giant cyber spiders that hunt for cryptic key strokes. I have noth­ing else to say except that it is all fucked up as usual. Some­times I have this recur­ring dream where I get out of a car wreck.  My car is in a ditch some­where in Texas.  I see infant snakes sit­ting in cess pools.  I hear jack­knifed eight­een wheel­ers shout­ing some­thing inaud­ible.  I ima­gine that they are say­ing “Great job!” Yet I know they aren’t say­ing any­thing remotely like that.  Then I get my bear­ings by glan­cing at a blaz­ing sun.   I hope no one notices this.  Ima­gine what the bas­tards would think.  Most think that I am not nor­mal.  This hap­pens every time I enter a con­ver­sa­tion.  I simply have noth­ing to talk to them about.  As I walk home, a man is com­ing in my dir­ec­tion.  We are head­ing in dis­tinctly dif­fer­ent paths. He is hold­ing a young child.  It is his only son, or that is what I think.  I am clutch­ing a black bag with a six pack of tall boys.  The brand of beer is insig­ni­fic­ant.  This is a per­fect image of two life choices. On one hand, there is the domest­ic­ated fam­ily man.  Man­i­cured green lawns.  Safe and pre­dict­able.  I am like a lost sol­dier.  Search­ing for some­thing.  I walk up Skill­man Avenue towards my sanc­tu­ary. I find solace in my hun­dreds of records.  The beer is good, albeit pricey.  Then I am back in the cess swamp.  The baby snakes’ mom has shown up.  Her name is life.

Thom Young is a writer from Texas. He blogs at Me and this Machine. His work has appeared in Thieves Jar­gon and other sun­dry places.