My friend Joey here is a misanthropic mess. He misses his old life. Another life in which he believes he was meant for. Sitting here beside me with his head bent down on his stomach, I can only console him at arms length, literally. He has been temporarily (if temporarily) orphaned. A friend moved away from him and so I took on to being his friend. Or something along those lines.
Joey is a drunk. He's a protesting and banter-bartering drunk from the other side of my old neighborhood. On some nights when I take into my dull inexistence to be willfully and joyously (not to mention limitlessly) plastered, Joey sits beside me and pours me another one. If it's empty, he'll fill it. If it's sitting, he'll sip it. If it spills, he'll leave it. He'll laugh and wait for me to clean up. For as long as I've known him (though I haven't known him for too, too long), he spends more time watching me dead and drunk than I to him. I saw him once though, slobbering on his belly and saying nothing in the corner by my desk (where you'll normally find him). I only sat at the foot of my bed near him, saying nothing. Silence had been my best bet, you never know with Joey, but he knew this about me. I pitied the poor bastard.
This inanimate, sad thing. Joey the misanthropic mess. If given any length of time--if given enough length of time, the human emotion involuntarily spreads onto the world. To this still world. The world inside of a quiet room. An always quiet room. Where lights flicker on at night and off by morning. Where heating vents whir the volume and the silence of the hours. Where dust gathers and colonizes. Where candles burn until blown out. Clothes on nobody. Books neatly erect in a case. Just like my drunken friend beside me, if given enough time, the strings of the mind tugging at desperation and hopelessness could create any sadness from nothing.
Post sciptum.
It could be the alcohol, but sadness builds no matter.
