Requiem

He looked out over the expansive ocean. He could feel the cool breeze whipping through his hair, could smell the ocean wafting up to him from the waves crashing against the rocks below him. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes as he imagined all the tiny fish swimming in little school in the clear water, darting in between the crevices of the rocks and searching for food among the cresting waves. He looked down and could see the erosion on the cliff face where the waves would crest and finally break against the side of the cliff, thousands of years of erosion making the cliff face a remarkable sight to behold. This environment, this ocean, the beautiful clear blue sky, the sea gulls cawing overhead, the broad expanse of the horizon seeming to stretch on for endless miles in any direction he glanced was truly an intoxicating sight. He could feel his head starting to swim, he could sense somewhere deep within himself that what he was doing was somehow right, that it was somehow divine.

               He reached into the back pocket of his shorts and pulled out his wallet. It was made of some sort of plastic leather and had been worn over the years from constantly remaining in his back pocket. He opened up the wallet, reached in, and pulled out two crisp one hundred dollar bills, looking upon two identical solemn faces of Benjamin Franklin. The faces seemed to stare a hole right through him, and it sent a chill up his spine to look at the crisp pieces of currency for the last time. These bills were really the only paper money he had left to his name. He looked at them intently, turning each one over in his hands to examine the back of the bills. I detest and despise this symbol of the American dream, he thought to himself. Nothing matters unless you have a bank account full of these solemn looking faces of Benjamin Franklin, Ulysses S. Grant, and Andrew Jackson. I don’t understand this America I live in, and I realize that I have no desire to try and understand life in America. He crumpled the two bills up in his hands before throwing them over the cliff and into the clear waters below. He watched the ball of US currency float on the breeze and land gently in the water, where it bobbed up and down on the water before finally disappearing beneath a wave.

               He reached into his wallet again and pulled out his Social Security card, looking at the numbers on them, thinking how odd it was that in America—the land of the free and home of the brave—essentially all we were was numbers. Numbers on paper that went into our wallets to show we were citizens of this “free” country. This was again something he could not understand, and had no desire to understand. He flipped the Social Security card over in his hands and read the back of the card.

Do not laminate this card

This card is invalid if not signed by the number holder unless health or age prevents signature.

Improper use of this card and/or number by the number holder or any other person is punishable by fine, imprisonment, or both.

This card is the property of the Social Security Administration and must be returned upon request. If found, return to:

               SSA-ATTN: FOUND SSN CARD

               P.O. Box 17087 Baltimore Md. 21203

Contact your local Social Security office for any other matter regarding this card.

               Words. That’s all these things on the back of this tiny little piece of paper proving citizenship were: words. Nothing more, nothing less. What did they mean? Upon close inspection, one could find many arguments as to what these words meant. It is all based on perception, however, and for his sake, the man felt as if the words were nothing. The words meant to him absolutely nothing, and were representative of such. He did not, nor would not, understand what these words meant, or how these words on the back of his Social Security card were supposed to be representative of anything of sociopolitical importance. He ripped the card up into four equal pieces before tossing them over the cliff, watching each piece break away from one another and fly off on the breeze, fluttering on their way down before finally landing amongst the waves and rocks below him.

               After doing just these two things, he felt as if a giant rock had been lifted from his shoulders. There was one other “important” piece of material he must rid himself and the world of, however. He reached into his wallet once again and took out his “all-important-for-survival-in-this-modern-world-in-which-we-live” driver’s license, valid only in the state he was currently residing. I live in no state, other than my current state of mind, thought he. He looked carefully at his picture: deep brown eyes staring into nothingness, brown hair quaffed over to one side in the typical teenage style of the day, a blue shirt on (he could remember the shirt being an American Eagle shirt; another of those modern-day “things” we buy that really has no bearing on the person we are or the person we will one day become), a half-attempt at a goatee growing on his chin. He looked especially close at his eyes; the clichéd “windows to the soul”. If this were true, his soul was either black or non-existent. Those eyes showed a deep longing that nothing in this world could satisfy; they showed a deeper inner turmoil that was brewing right below the surface, just longing for the day when it would finally overflow and burn everything in its proximity. It was making him sick to his stomach to look upon this face. He quickly broke the card in half, folding one side toward the other until it snapped that to his ears sounded like gunshots going off in a distant wood. The snap was instant gratification that no fast food chain or microwave oven in the world could even come close to comparing. He instantly felt a light-headedness come over him, and he had to catch his footing for he almost fell off the cliff and onto the unforgiving rocks below. Not yet, he thought, we still have some more work to do first. With as much effort as a kitten yawning, he flicked the pieces of his now destroyed and useless driver’s license into the air, again watching as almost like watching the hand of God gently placing the two pieces into the clear ocean below him, before the wrath of God swallowed up the pieces among the rocks and waves.

               One more little bastard in this bizarre ritual. He reached into his wallet once more, and pulled out the Cheque Mate debit card from ORNL Federal Credit Union, powered by Visa. This little fucker hates me almost as much as I hate it. Franklin, you have nothing on this little piece of plastic. This little piece of plastic was symbolic of everything that was wrong in America today, more so than the two Benjamins he had tossed minutes ago. For this piece of plastic, he had something special in mind. It would not suffice to simply break it half and throw it into the mighty ocean. No, he had something special in mind for his precious debit card.

               He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small can of Zippo lighter fluid that he had bought a few hours ago for this special occasion (with the debit card he was holding in his left hand, no less). He flicked the top and brought it to his nose, savoring the smell of the flammable substance. He knelt down and placed the debit card in a crevice upon the cliff. Atop the cliff, it looked as if many a person had enjoyed this view before him, as there was a smooth and somewhat circular hole dug into the ground. He placed the piece of plastic into the dugout, face side up. He then proceeded to generously douse the front of the card with the lighter fluid, causing the card to take on a somewhat milky looking substance. He could see the fumes from the fluid rising into the air and being carried away from him on the breeze. After he had doused the front, he felt it entirely necessary to turn the card over and douse the backside of the card with the flammable liquid. He picked up the card with his index finger and thumb, careful to grab it from only corner so as not to get too much of the fluid on his hands. He quickly flipped the card over onto its reverse side, the side with the black electromagnetic strip with which every time a card machine scanned another dollar was taken away from your bank account.

               As he started the ritual once more on this side, he could feel sweat beading on his brow and rolling down his arms. He could feel the back of his neck beginning to perspire. He could sense that his eyes were becoming dilated as his heartbeat started to pick up its rhythmic pace until it was beating so loudly and so heavily that with each thud he could feel his pulse in his temple and could hear the whooshing of blood in his ears. The tips of his ears started to burn as his heart picked up speed, and he could feel a slight twinge in his testicular region, a slight hardening of his flaccid member. The thrill of what he was about to do was somehow causing his adrenaline to kick in, his adrenal gland pumping the substance to every muscle in his body, preparing it to either flee or fight. Once he had soaked the card thoroughly and there was a tiny puddle in the hole where the card lay, he threw the empty Zippo lighter fluid container over the cliff and into the ocean, hearing it faintly splash into the water even over the roar of the waves and the wisp of the breeze. The man reached into his pocket once more and fished out an old Bic lighter. It had a peace sign on it in neon white, with a black background. He flicked the Bic and watched with something akin to amazement and bordering on terror in his eyes, the flame flickering in the gentle breeze. He knelt down once more and touched the flame ever so gently to the pool of lighter fluid.

               In an instant, the entire tiny hole was engulfed in flames. The card disappeared amongst the dancing fire for a moment, and then he could clearly see the plastic melting and sticking to the rocky surface. It smelled both awful and amazing, as he inhaled deeply the smell of burning plastic and dirt. “I believe I’ve never smelled anything quite so heavenly,” he said aloud, speaking to no one except the voices inside his own head, the ocean, the breeze, the fire, and the God-awful piece of plastic that now no longer resembled a debit card at all. He was not sure if he had actually spoken or had only imagined himself speaking. Perhaps, he thought to himself, God Himself was speaking of this wonderful aroma emanating from this unholy piece of plastic, the symbol of which is greed and sin. He allowed himself to think that God had just spoken through him.

               He sat there for nearly ten minutes until the flames died down. The card no longer resembled anything. It looked like a piece of tar that one might use to patch a pothole in a parking lot or something. He picked up the still red hot mess of plastic, reveling in the pain that the burning heap caused in the tips of his fingers, blistering them. With a lunge, he threw the heap of unidentifiable plastic into the ocean. “Fuck your money, fuck your systems, fuck your banks!” he screamed as the tossed the mess. He stood there momentarily, hair in disarray, his breathing erratic, his eyes wild and flashing. He felt so much anger deep within him, yet at the same time he felt completely at peace. It was a wonderful and awful feeling, which made him both sick to his stomach and feeling higher than any drug could make him feel. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides, and his teeth were clamped together, spittle flying from in between them every now and again from his erratic breathing. His heart was beating so fast now that under other “normal” circumstances he may have feared he was going to have a heart attack. His penis had become completely engorged with blood, and was causing the khaki shorts to tent slightly in the front. His penis felt as if it were on fire, burning with boiling blood that was coursing through his veins. He felt so exhilarated, so alive. It was as if he were the only living creature on this God forsaken planet, and nothing else mattered.

               After a moment or two, he sat down. He sat there a long time, spaced out, thinking of nothing and looking at nothing. He reached into his pocket once more and pulled out his trusty pack of full-flavored Marlboros. He flipped the top and looked to see that he still had seven cigarettes left. One for each day of the week. Right right? He took one out and placed the golden-brown filter into his mouth. Fishing into his pocket yet again, he found the peace-sign-embroidered Bic lighter and lit the end of the cigarette, drawing in the lovely and injurious tars and resins into his lungs. He had his feet bent at the knee, and he rested his arm on his knee, flicking the cherry off the end of the cigarette while letting the smoke out of his lungs. He watched with amazement as the smoke drifted toward the sky in a cumulus-like cloud of puffy wonder. He took another drag off the Marlboro, this time watching the tobacco burn the paper as he inhaled the smoke into his lungs. It never ceased to amaze him for some reason. The cigarette was representative of everything both wrong and right with the world, in his mind anyways. He allowed his mind to momentarily drift back to a time when his mother had caught him smoking. Smoking will kill you! You’ll go the same way as your papaw! He died right outside the hospital where he’d been for several weeks after his heart attack, and you know what? He had gone outside to have a cigarette! Your papaw literally died with a cigarette hanging out his mouth! That’s how bad that stuff is for you!

               He could hear his mother’s words as if she were sitting right there yelling at him for his newfound vice. That was ten years ago though, and his mother had long since died in a car crash. His mother’s boyfriend had been drinking, it was wet out, and he had slid off the road into a deep ravine where their car had flipped several times. His mother, the doctors had told him, probably died before the first flip. She had more than likely died whenever they first slid off the road, where the severe skidding had given her whiplash. He always figured they had simply told him that to make him feel better. He always imagined that she had died burning to death at the bottom of the ravine, screaming for help as the fire licked at her skin and melted it away. Her boyfriend—fortunately for the drunken fuck face—had been thrown from the car because he wasn’t wearing his seatbelt. He had always felt it was ironic that his mother was wearing a seatbelt and had not been drinking, yet she was the one who died. Sometimes, life makes about as much sense as death.

               He snapped back to the present time as he finished his Marlboro. He flicked the filter into the ocean and stood up. He realized he had left his wallet laying on the ground. He picked it up and surveyed once more. He pulled out a plethora of movie ticket stubs (one for a midnight showing of Fight Club, one for A Clockwork Orange, one for a midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show, and countless others) and flung them nonchalantly into the breeze, watching them flutter about, some of them landing on the top of the cliff and some of them making their way into the water below. He pulled out his Food City ValuCard and tossed it into the ocean. He pulled out several business cards ranging from professional wrestling trainers all the way to neatly printed cards from the bank and tossed them into the ocean. Then he pulled something out that made his heart momentarily skip a beat. It was a picture of him, his deceased mother, and her boyfriend when he was a young lad. They all looked so happy smiling goofily into the camera. This was before the boyfriend has picked up a taste for exotic booze and cheap cigars. This was a period in time before the yelling, fussing, fighting, and arguing that would become a staple in his adolescent years. This picture seemed as if it were from another lifetime altogether; it was as if he had switched bodies with someone suddenly in his teenage years. A single tear rolled down his recently-shaven cheek, before he tossed it into the ocean, as well.

               Now there was nothing left in the wallet. He had used the only prophylactic that was in it the previous night when he had picked up a hooker. Two hundred dollars and he did everything to this prostitute, including a little backdoor action that he had missed out on during high school and had yet to venture into during his college years. He ripped the cheaply made wallet down the center where it creased, and tossed each individual section of the wallet over the cliff and watched it sink into the water. That’s that, he thought to himself. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the keys to his 1992 Buick Century Custom, which was itself parked about two miles down the path leading up to this cliff. He tossed them over the cliff and watched them land amongst the rocks below. He did the same thing with the few coins that were in his pocket (two quarters, a dime, a nickel, and three pennies), and he even thought he could hear them clang against the rocks even over the roaring of the waves and the whooshing of the wind around him. He pulled out his pack of cigarettes and lighter, the only things that were now left in his pockets. He realized he had six cigarettes left, and threw all but two of them into the ocean. He could not understand why he kept two of the Marlboros, but he immediately lit up another cigarette while he was contemplating his next action.

               He inched his way closer to the edge of the cliff. Once more, he was completely enthralled and taken aback at the beautiful sight before him. It was nothing short of perfect, and to him it was more than perfect. It was positively and utterly divine. Looking out over this beautiful landscape was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He felt it was completely right that this would be the last visions he had in his mind’s eye; he loved the thought that the smell of the sea would be the last smell to enter his nostrils; he adored the thought that the seagulls cawing overhead, the crashing of the waves against the cliff face, and the gentle whip whap of the wind would be the last things his ears would hear. It was a glorious sight, made even better by the cigarette hanging limply out the corner of his mouth. Yes, the cigarette. The wonderful tobacco smoke somehow brought this entire picture together with more clarity. The nicotine buzz he was feeling right now, combined with the high he was feeling from this breathtaking view, was better than any drunkenness from the finest wines, was better than the highs from weed, LSD, cocaine, and heroin combined.  He was reeling from the pleasure that was taking away his pain, when finally he leapt off the surface, his feet pushing hard against ground as his body was propelled from the safe confines of earth. He leapt with all his might, tensing every muscle in his body and charging from the cliff ten feet from the earth.

               On his way down, everything seemed to be going in slow motion. It was as if he had taken three drops of acid and his mind was riding high. He could see the rocks getting closer with each passing millisecond; he could hear the wind getting louder in his ears as he picked up speed. He felt no fear, he felt no pain. For the first time in his life, he felt absolutely no pain whatsoever. He realized that tears were streaming out of his eyes and flying up behind him. These tears were the happiest tears he had ever shed. He could hear himself laughing from somewhere, but he was not entirely sure if it was his mouth making the sounds or his mind. He was laughing, crying, and his erection had returned. He somehow noticed that he had came, as there was a large stain on the front of his shorts. He thought of every time he had masturbated or had sex, and this was the best orgasm of them all. This orgasm was better than making love while tripping on the strongest and most pure form of ecstasy. This orgasm was so powerful his head was swimming. He felt so alive at this moment. He was invincible. Right before he crashed into the rocks, he realized that he still had the Marlboro hanging out the corner of his mouth.