Huh.

I sit on the beach on a shitty chair with a shitty beer on a shitty day.

It’s not raining, but the storm system looks like a short-hair away.

I take a swig, remembering my life as entirely as I can. The good and the bad.

It gets me thinking, what do I have to look forward to? When I die, will the pearly gates open themselves to me or will I cross the fiery threshold into Beelzebub’s unspeakable realm.

Frankly, I don’t give a damn. For all I know, I’ll simply cease to exist.

I take another swig. Then what’s the point?

Greater (and far less drunk) men than myself have asked that question but fuck it, I’m having an existential debate.

I think that it’s kind of simple. Do the best you can, help your fellow man and experience what you can with the short, insignificant time you have in this world.

Because what it amounts to is this, we all die.

I kill my beer and toss the empty with the rest of his fallen brothers.

The only road to everlasting life is how you are remembered by the people you once touched. Stories of what you did and things that you accomplished. For all I know, my name will be remembered forever (and it probably will with what I did to the Bob’s Big Boy sign in New Mexico, but that’s a story for another time…).

I can see it. The monkey-men in our Planet of the Apes-like future will sing lullabies about Charlie to their fuzzy little children.

I watch the water crash on the coast, the salty mist gently caressing my face, and think “Hell, I made mistakes and goddamn I’ll make a heap of more.”

But, hopefully, not the same ones twice.

That’s when I notice a guy standing next to me, looking down at utter disdain.

“Hey, man! You better think about picking those cans up…”

I rock myself up onto my feet, and stare at the guy from behind my shades.

“What are you, the beach patrol?”

“Nah, I’m the guy that’s gonna’ shove his foot up your ass if you don’t pick that shit up!”

I swivel my head to the trash pile, then back to him. The air around us is still. The wind stops.

That’s when it hits me. Shit, I’m pretty tossed…

Then I hit him with something he obviously didn’t expect.

I vomit all over his Art Center sweatshirt.

He gazes down at his shirt than at me with utter shock.

I smile, bow my head in bravado, turn around and exit, leaving him speechless in my wake.

I guess tomorrow I’ll strive to be the best I can. Today, I take a nap…