When I Die

 "When I die, I won't feel any different than I do today."

A hush came over one corner of the cocktail party as Johnny spoke these words. Johnny never had any sense of what was around him; he sucked at reading the room.

People were drinking, talking, laughing, flirting - it was Friday night and everyone in the room was happy as hell to be away from their fucking jobs. Deliriously joyous. Until..........

Anyway, Monique unwisely asked "What the hell are you talking about, Johnny?"

Johnny spun on his heel and looked her right in the eye.

"I'm fucking dead already, do I have to spell it out for you? I feel nothing, nothing at all. I'm fucking bored, I am unfulfilled as a human being. I hate my fucking job, my paycheck embarrasses me, I drive a fucking Hyundai, I live in a studio apartment in a building filled with assholes, and my diet consists of Cheetos and Spam."

Monique unwisely commented "So what you're saying is that you are not living your best life."

Johnny, loudly: "I fucking hate that saying. It is pure bullshit. No one lives their best life. It is not allowed, it is not possible. Like the fucking American Dream. Carlin got it right - He said "the reason it's called the American Dream is because you have to be asleep to believe it. Fuck your best life."

Monique walked away, towards the bar. Time for something a bit stronger than white wine.

People began edging away, but Johnny was on a roll.

"I started killing myself decades ago. Little by little, I lost my edge. Crushing my feelings down into a pocket of pus, leaving an enormous fucking void. My sense of humor disappeared, replaced by pure sarcasm. Poison-filled and knife-edged. Hope was the first to die; I don't miss it. You might as well believe in the Tooth Fairy. Once hope goes, the delusion that you are in control of your life, that you actually have options, dies along with it. Your life is a prison and you are going to die in that cell."

Ralphie was the only one left close by. "Johnny, let's get out of here, hit a bar, get our drink on, and check out for a while."

Johnny responded "Fuck that and fuck you. What am I going to do? Sit around a bar listening to other people whine about their lives, lives that suck every bit as much as mine? Or pretend to be happy while they pretend to be happy as the bar gets thick with despair and reality? A reality that kills, slowly, painfully, torturously, and treacherously. Decades of suffering. People suck, Ralphie, and I don't want anything to do with them."

Ralphie walked away shaking his head.

Johnny decided to slip out of the party and go home. Turns out he didn't have to slip; no one was anywhere near him. "They are all fucking fools", he thought, "with their phony live your best life bullshit. Fuck them, fuck my parents, fuck my boss, fuck this joke of a life that is supposed to be so fucking precious."

He went home, grabbed his whiskey bottle and dialed up Requiem for a Dream on the TV. His favorite movie because it was utterly hopeless, filled with despair and desperation and suffering. 

And if he was still awake he would dial up Affliction with Nick Nolte and James Coburn. Nolte melts down in that movie like nobody's business, just fucking falls apart. Loses both his jobs, his girlfriend, his wife and daughter, and kills his father. Ends up drunk and alone.

Which is what Johnny expects for himself. Doesn't bother him at all for that to be his future.

Life is a vicious, sadistic, joke. The only way to deal with it is alone, with a bottle of whiskey, and dead dreams. Johnny turned up the volume.

He was happy.