a r k a d e

Baker was a stout man, black of beard and black of eyes, but not black of character. His face was pleasant enough from afar but if one were to see him close up they’d notice the furrowed troughs of his forehead and the lack of laugh lines in his jowls and the puffy pouches of his eyes.

However, for no real reason, on his forty-eighth birthday he had decided to find the green vigor of life for his own. Rounding into the last stretch of his life he had determined himself to no longer rest on the laurels on which he had. Every day would be a precious, and impactful adventure.

He went sailing, and took piano lessons. He even courted the idea of enrolling in night school though in the end the tuition proved too steep for him. He was able to turn his life around, and he was happy. The weeks went by and people began to notice.

Even strangers who he had known for nearly half a decade finally started to smile and even make small talk with him. He was a ruffian and a gentleman all at once when he would drink on the weekends at his favorite bar. A few ladies even began to chat him up and he would often take them home.

It was a shock then, when four months after his forty eighth birthday he died of an aneurysm.

Shatter-skull-schuck.

Life’s a cruel bitch that way. The few friends who came to the funeral made speeches and some highlighted the terrible loss of a middle aged man whose life had so recently found spark and caught flame, and pitied that it had been snuffed out so unceremoniously.

Written: 3/17/2021
      

[NEXT]-|-[PREV]