You point your finger, but there’s no one around.
Where’s your crown, King Nothing?
- James Hetfield
An unfulfilled life.
Stuck in limbo.
With some treacle to slow things down further.
There was a time when fulfillment was supreme. Vices were to be postponed, not given up. Just a defeated shadow left, diminishing, slow but sure. A man who fought for no flag. A man who did more than just survive. A man who knew the effect of an approaching cannonball but stuck his tongue out at it anyway. The past.
But its been more than a year since that rogue program got derezzed. A few enigmatic shards remain, surfacing and getting shot on sight, one at a time. Tactically accurate. One shot. Victory isn’t elusive. It just isn’t there.
The memories remain, shooting up the spine, everytime there’s an insane corner on the road, everytime the tacho crosses the red line, everytime Bad Boys II airs on HBO. But that is it. Ambition got lost somewhere on the way to the Supreme Court, the drive to excel got lost at the proximity checkpoint, the drive to survive got strangled outside a courtroom door, the cocksure attitude flopped over and gagged outside the conference room. Reclamation seems nigh impossible.
No ecstasy. No motive. No destination.
The guitar’s still gathering dust. The boxing strips have been relegated to the boot cabinet. Excalibur’s still wedged tight in stone. May not have been able to pull it out earlier as well, but there was an elemental doubt. The doubt’s washing away. The clarity isn’t comforting though. Adrenaline’s dried up. Its just blood in them veins now, I guess.
The smirk has been wiped off. Probably at the hands of the mundane nature of black and white. There was no colour beforehand as well, but that was exquisite photography. This is a TV set from the sixties.
What remains, is just an interminable wait. Just bobbing unsurely on a diving board fixed at the last step of Mount doom. Waiting to lose traction, fall in, be enveloped, obliterated. Lose all consciousness and shut down. Pull the plug.
Ash to ash, dust to dust and finally fade to black.
Its time, Lou. Gimme a ticket