The Pessimist Dies Alone
By Michael Treder
A wooden, creaky rocking chair sat in the farthest corner of the concrete room. When in truth, it was actually more of a cell, but it was home to him, and anyways it somehow reminded him of her; and there was a little window along the wall that gave him just enough sunlight to stay happy and to keep a small potted fern wilted and brown, but alive.
James Lake was an eternal pessimist. The sort of man who, while sipping his weak instant coffee, read obituary columns every morning without fail, , repeating to himself that you never know when someone you once knew might unexpectedly keel over and die. This way, in a way, he assumed, he’d always be the first to know.
Though, the reality was that he had little friends and the friends he did have, were more like strange, half acquaintances; people of little interest that he held away from himself at some vague distance. At a quick glance, he was a quiet sort and shy and only semi-profound in act and in appearance. He never drank or smoked or swore and, just in case, dotted all his i’s and crossed all his t’s.
At the age of sixty-eight, Lake had always been a quiet man; a fair simpleton who not only resembled a breakfast cereal, but also probably contained as much fiber as one; moral fiber that is. He was dry and remote and always day-dreamed more than any one man should have, and people called him desolate, though he never quite understood why.
Separated from his wife, he lived by himself now, in his quaint little hovel, a little house behind the railway shipping yard where he’d watch the big rig trucks some nights in his free time. His own frail existence seemed nearly as cold as his leaky, little home and deep down inside he knew it was only a matter of time before he would one day, over a cup of weak instant coffee, read his own name in the obituary column.
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Michael Treder is a playwright and aspiring filmmaker living in Montreal. His short fiction has appeared in Quantum Muse, the Cynic Online Magazine, Flashes in the Dark, and Death Head Grin.
By Michael Treder
A wooden, creaky rocking chair sat in the farthest corner of the concrete room. When in truth, it was actually more of a cell, but it was home to him, and anyways it somehow reminded him of her; and there was a little window along the wall that gave him just enough sunlight to stay happy and to keep a small potted fern wilted and brown, but alive.
James Lake was an eternal pessimist. The sort of man who, while sipping his weak instant coffee, read obituary columns every morning without fail, , repeating to himself that you never know when someone you once knew might unexpectedly keel over and die. This way, in a way, he assumed, he’d always be the first to know.
Though, the reality was that he had little friends and the friends he did have, were more like strange, half acquaintances; people of little interest that he held away from himself at some vague distance. At a quick glance, he was a quiet sort and shy and only semi-profound in act and in appearance. He never drank or smoked or swore and, just in case, dotted all his i’s and crossed all his t’s.
At the age of sixty-eight, Lake had always been a quiet man; a fair simpleton who not only resembled a breakfast cereal, but also probably contained as much fiber as one; moral fiber that is. He was dry and remote and always day-dreamed more than any one man should have, and people called him desolate, though he never quite understood why.
Separated from his wife, he lived by himself now, in his quaint little hovel, a little house behind the railway shipping yard where he’d watch the big rig trucks some nights in his free time. His own frail existence seemed nearly as cold as his leaky, little home and deep down inside he knew it was only a matter of time before he would one day, over a cup of weak instant coffee, read his own name in the obituary column.
- - -
Michael Treder is a playwright and aspiring filmmaker living in Montreal. His short fiction has appeared in Quantum Muse, the Cynic Online Magazine, Flashes in the Dark, and Death Head Grin.
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