The Last Seven

Chapter One

What is it to live a fulfilling life, is it determined by how many hearts you've changed? Or maybe what your greatest accomplishments were. If that's true I've never accomplished any of those. I live in a apartment in Bellevue,Seattle and i wouldn't say its a exciting thing to have my own. I got kicked out of my house at seventeen because i got caught smoking weed. So i moved with what little money i saved up and got a job at a clothing outlet called Yamada's. It was owned by this weird guy from Vietnam. He'd follow me around the store all the the time and i kept trying to figure out whether he just was seeing if i'm working who devising a plan for rape.

Id usually get home late because i closed the store up myself. My apartment had a small 30' inch television set, coffee maker, some silverware and what not, and some internet. To be frank i really don't know how I've made it on my own this long. I slept on my friends couch, then went to a shelter, then i started to deal drugs but it was weed and I  made a few bucks until i got a job and paid for my own place. I mean its tough but it actually feels good to earn it the right way when i started working. I'm a man with a past, a man with no present, looking towards the future.

My neighbor had this dog who would bark all the time, I've contemplated on how to take him out, usually in my head though, i tend to procrastinate, plus its a little chihuahua. I'd go and get the mail early in the morning but i peek out the door first because i know he's waiting to chase me. Its been a rivalry like this for about six years now, ever since i was seventeen he's been chasing me. In my opinion I think all dogs hate me but this ones worse and I've came in contact with some vicious huge dogs but this one was pure evil. It was like a race and we were off, I ran all the way there but no sign of the dog. I looked around before opening my mailbox admiring the scenery. I grabbed the mail and began to walk back to my apartment. While i was looking at my mail i heard a car pull up but i didn't pay attention to it. It sounded like a door open and i looked to see who it was. It was just Jane and her son who was four. So i waved and kept walking until i heard the little boy say come on Momo. I looked over my shoulder and saw the bastard. This time he had a bandana around his neck like a cowboy. I ran and he came tailing. I hit the corner at a thirty degree angle, or that's what i thought and drifted but the dog had skills. I got into my apartment and slammed the door in his face and began exhaling heavily from exhaustion. I checked the mail but it all seemed like junk so I sat in my chair and just listened. It seemed so "lonely here", i said. Until a idea came to me and i thought maybe getting a cat will save me from my social confinement and my Momo issues. Life got pretty complicated after i got kicked out. My mom has been searching for me but it seems i've been able to avoid her.

I drunk my coffee and got ready for work that day. The sun had illuminated through my bathroom window while I was taking my shower. The breeze of the morning was like my first breath I took as a child. Even though I can't remember it, I could taste the life of the surrounding area and took my first step forward.

At the end of the day I would go home to the same thing, like a never ending loop. My mother and father told me that living on my own would make me grow up. That was a lie, it only made me envy the younger me. I wondered into my kitchen to grab a glass of water with the city lights shining into my apartment. For only six hundred a month I expected it to be like this. Some nights I couldn't sleep because the lights would shine into my bed room, almost like it was day time, so I would go for walks to clear my mind and wonder where my mother was with her health. Maybe is as selfish knowing my mother was solicitous about my well being. I must fly on my own though, she pushed me out of the nest and I'm still falling, wondering if I will soar or fall. I place the cup on the counter and stood over it. "I need to shave", I said. I tend to be lazy with things and procrastinate with things like how I was in school. I missed my classmates back home. I envied them too because they still have a childhood to retreat to when it gets too tough, they have that adolescent's and naive mindset that I wish I still had about the world. Just a little more time is what I wanted. I knew eventually that I would have to grow up.

I got the wine out of the fridge that I got as a gift from my coworkers. I stood there thinking and wondering why I didn't beg my mother to not kick me out. Maybe deep down I wanted to grow up. I was naive, I remembered all the crazy things I did when I was young that I chuckled a little. I poured a little wine and hesitated to actually remember what it actually meant to be a child. "Too crossing over, may the journey as a adult be as fun as my childhood", I said while putting my glass of wine in the air like I was giving a toast. I drunk the whole thing and almost choked. It wasn't much alcohol in it but it was enough to make me gag a little. I took a deep breath to relax myself and washed out the cup, then put away the wine.

They had a old say that the darker the berry, the sweeter the juice. Well that's how reporters life's are, the darker the controversy the sweeter the story. The mindset is fortification built around the determination to keep them buying stupid shit. My father when I was young would teach me and read me Stories, ones that imprinted into my heart. My favorite one when I was young was about a young boy who had gotten lost. He couldn't find his way back and he began to cry. A old man came up to him and tapped his shoulder. The boy looked back and saw a old man with white hair and a long white beard. The old man said, "If you continue to cry you'll drown". The boy had gotten confused but had stopped crying. "No I can't", the boy said as he chuckled and wiped his tears. The old man sat next to the boy and said, "I don't mean externally young one, I mean internally". The boy had hugged the old man even though he did not understand. The old man in shock asked "for what reason has thou hugged me"? The boy had let go and looked at the old man. "Thank you, my momma always said to say thank you if someone stops you from crying". The old man had smiled and chuckled. "Well your mother is a wise women, let's go find your mom". Eventually the boy found his way home and his mother was livid and worried. "Where were you!She had said. The boy smiled and turned around to point at the old man but he had disappeared. I loved the book so much that I kept looking for it but they said only twelve copies had been made because he was a local book writer. I never knew what the ending was. My father never got to it because we read two pages a day but he started working again.

I decided that I wanted to learn how to write a book. I often had dreams that would make a great story. Dreams of me drowning in the ocean That had I left behind. I would laugh at those dreams because my mom always said something I think all moms say now is, "You have to sleep in the bed you had made". I got a call that night from my old time friend who said that his mother had passed. I didn't like funerals but maybe its time I start getting use to them.