The Widower the widower 15 years, it was. Yes. Harold hadn't been in love for 15 years. Yes. It was in 1985 when she left him. Not for another man, but for another world. After all, she was too old to cheat anyway. At 56? Hell, she was 4 years younger than he. But very wise, and very sweet, and oh did he miss her youthful ways! Photographs of their first day of marriage stood framed on the mantle. Her with her long curled locks; he with his hat and suit. Long gone, yes they were. 50 years ago to this day, it would've been their anniversary. 'God is a cocksucker,' Harold muttered as he drank his cocoa. Every day, Harold would go out on afternoon strolls through the park, to the school where he taught American History. He would watch all the impressionable young men and women stalk about the place, smoking their cigarettes and chatting. He even befriended one of them; it was some strange young man who claimed to be a screenwriter but did little to show off his craft. II. The mail came later on. Harold was a senior. He received several odd little items in the mail, such as sample drugs and wills. He often wondered why they did this, and wondered even more when he saw the bottle of herbal X. He inspected the pills, put them back, and set them aside, not knowing what to do with them. Harold never did any drugs; not if you count the many bottles of No-Doze he gobbled in the 1950s. It did help him with his work; and it did help him in the battlefield during the Korean conflict, not to mention the love sessions. That was something he missed as well; the love sessions he and his wife had. He felt as if his pipes were useless nowadays. He started masturbating to kill time but it turned into an addictive behavior, or so his doctor told him. He started taking prozac in order to kill his depressions, as well as the demons downstairs. Aside from the masturbation, he hadn't felt much arousal in years. Instead of such pleasures, he turned to the world of sailing. He owned a small boat that he took out to Crissy Field, where he let the wind take him, as well as the boat, across the bay and back. But that eventually became too boring for the retired school teacher. After all, how many times could one sail back and forth? Who knew that his loins would awaken once again? III. There weren't any cars around. Harold walked out for a while, even if there wasn't much of a reason to; it was going to rain anyway. So the park was empty, and the people gathered in restaurants to suckle on coffee cups and talk about the latest films. He decided to join the socialites, even if he wasn't going to talk to them anyway. After all, he wanted little to do with them. He just felt like a good cup of Joe. Harold sat near the window, watching the beginnings of the rain reach the windshields of the cars in the lot. He drank his coffee, indulging in its rich aroma and flavor. Was this love? A girl of 12 glanced at him inquisitively, wondering why he looked so sad. Harold sipped his drink more, this time loudly. This did not drive her away. A depressing thought raced through Harold's mind as she sat in front of him. When he looked up to her, he nearly choked. 'Sorry to bother you,' she said. 'Oh, it's alright, kid,' Harold replied, sounding exhausted. 'You seem really sad today,' the girl observed. 'No shit,' he groaned. 'I see you walking around all the time, looking this way.' 'Well it's none of yours, I'm keepin' my shit to myself, thank you very much,' Harold grumbled. 'I'm sorry, I should leave,' the girl said finally before getting up and leaving. Harold finished his drink and contemplated following the girl, or just simply leaving altogether. What more was there to do here? IV. Harold walked to the beach, ignoring ths increasing droplets of rain as they slapped the sands below him. He sat on a mound of sand and watched the bay's water as it rippled and crashed against the shore. He watched the gulls as they swooped nearby to dig through the trash. He watched a swimmer's head bob up and down, the clouds turning darker and greyer and more ominous. The bay seemed to whisper to Harold's ears as he leaned upon the mound, trying to figure out where to go next. The vision of the girl popped in his head. He found himself awash in a dream... He was in the coffee shop again, a breakfast of pancakes and donuts before him. He bit into one of the donuts, the flavor of sand filling his senses. He spat the food on the floor beneath him, repulsed. 'Don't like our food, huh?' a reverbed voice shouted from nowhere. Suddenly, the girl appeared, wearing a tight pink shirt and a pair of snugged jeans. 'Hey old man.' 'Hi,' Harold muttered. 'Ever wonder if there's something better to live for?' she asked. 'Honestly, I do it 24 hours a day, sweetie. Why?' 'Well, there is, old man. Just 'cause your 75 don't mean you have to lay in your own shit for the next 15 years.' Harold stared uncomfortably at the girl, who smiled an oddly innocent, erotic way. Her red curly hair cascaded upon her chest after she whipped off the tie that was holding it in a bun. Harold bit into a pancake but spat that out as well, as it had no flavor. 'That's rude, old man. You shouldn't spit in public. Didn't your Victorian whore mommy teach you that, old man? You sick fuck. Spitting on my toes like that, you fucker!' The girl then smirked evilly, slipping her shirt over her head, revealing her subtle curves. Her breasts aimed at each of his eyes as she spat on him in return. She sat down again, kicking him in the ankles. 'You sick fuck! Staring at a girl's tits! Sicko!' she shrieked. Instead of a hardened sole, however, the girl's kicks were of flesh; she took off her shoe. She reached into his crotch with her foot. Harold stared at her painted green toenails as they curled against his loins, crushing them and enticing them. 'You're too young for this shit, little girl!' Harold yelled, pushing her foot off his crotch. She re-positioned herself in the chair. 'Not stopping ya from being aroused, buddy.' 'No. It isn't.' Harold proceeded to unzip his pants, but instead awoke, a pair of high school students standing above him in curiosity. He re-adjusted himself and stood up, embarassed at his erection. 'Save it for the Home, grampa,' one of the smartasses snidely remarked. 'Fuck you,' Harold grumbled as he walked away, towards his home. There was no place else to go, and nothing more to say. V. Harold eventually returned, but couldn't nap like he usually did during the afternoon. After all, he was old and needed energy for any menial task during the night. Bored, with Rosie O' Donnel on the television set, he thought about those pills he received in the mail. They were on the kitchen table, in a tiny purple container with a yellow cap. The colors seemed to draw Harold to it, to taste the contents, to feel its gifts. (Save it for the home, grampa!) Fuck those kids. He would do whatever the fuck he wanted. He was in Korea in 1952! He deserved the right. Harold felt his stomach surge as he retrieved his Vintage Whiskey to wash the pills down after he popped them in his throat. What would happen if he were to...? He didn't care anymore. Life was so dull and pointless anyway. Time for something new! He guzzled the whiskey, its harsh alcoholic content stabbing his senses. He felt the drugs taking effect immediatley; his mind raced and his loins awoke. What was this stuff in the purple bottle? What was in it? X? LSD? Harold found himself swimming in a pool of violet and yellow, the girl from the coffeeshop telling him things he didn't need to hear. It was like a water-less swimming pool filled with a cushion of air. The voice was a soft reverb elevating and decreasing in volume. 'I like riding ponies too,' Harold replied. 'When I was a boy, I used to be tossed about the fellow's back like a rag doll attached to his ass.' 'That's fun,' the voice said, speeding up in its reverb effect. Suddenly a monotonous drum-like rhythm filled the air; it caused the colored waves to vibrate with each beat. In fact it came from the television. A minimalist composer was on the O'Donnel show. The girl appeared before him, wearing the same clothes she wore in the last dream. Her shirt was still off and her lips were smeared with pink. 'You're pretty cute for an old fart,' she said in a sultry, gritty voice. 'Don't compare me to a flatulent, please,' Harold replied. A powerful urge overcame him. He lunged at the girl, tearing his tongue harshly into her mouth, tasting the sweetness of her tongue, staring into her pure eyes with his old, dirty, rotten pupils. Pupils that watched soldiers get their heads blown to bits. That saw students tease him. That saw his wife sleeping near him for many years, also that saw her waste away from cancer for 2 years of agonizing pain, the smart young girl he loved so much degenerated into little more than a moaning mess of shit, bones and eyeballs. No mind was left. The witty words they shared were gone. Instead, they were replaced with depressing conversations of years past, of their aging children, of the will. He thought of this as the girl transformed into his wife before the cancer, as she was. 'Gloria...' he moaned, falling to her feet. Harold began to cry on her foot, his nose in the grass of the Marina, where they used to fly kites together. He heard the traffic breeze by and the gulls cry as he looked up at her, her face still youthful, thin, and plump with life. 'Harold,' she whispered, tears in her eyes. As the tear rolled down her face, she rapidly aged, her skin sagging weakly as her hair became stiff, brittle, and her clothes hung from her body as it lost its subtle curves. Before he knew it, his wife was a skeletal mess, barely breathing, fluids seeping from her body as she collapsed like a rotted Victorian. Harold held her hand as it aged and brittled into a green-fleshed set of appendages, until it came apart like wet, rotting wood. The corpse rasped and gagged until it melted into a blue puddle, steam rising from it. 'Poor Gloria,' the girl exclaimed. 'Get outta here, child! Don't-don't talk to me!' Harold screamed. She stripped her jeans off and tossed them at him; they hit him like a row of bricks. 'GRRARGH!!!!!!' shouted Harold as he tossed them down. 'I want Gloria again.' 'She'll come to you again,' the girl said, smothering Harold with her breasts. The old man started to like this, but it wouldn't last. He awoke to the TV set running near him, Oprah talking to a pair of Siamese twins joined at the hip. One of them seemed to babble coherently while the other couldn't seem to talk well at all. Their round country-bumkin of a mother spoke for them, angering the babbling Twin. An argument took place, and Oprah's show started to resemble Jerry Springer's. Repulsed, Harold shut the TV off and fished out his playing cards. He thought about inviting his old friend Steve over for a game.
Copyright © 2000 Tony Seljuk |