Golgo

While the sky darkened and heavy rain clouds converged overhead, on the bus stop he stood, Golgo, holding a plactic cup of Buko Joe’s Real Fresh & Delicious Buko Juice, and whistling to a song he hadn’t even heard before.

To his left were two lovers. Sixteen or seventeen years old they were by his guess. The girl was wearing black Adidas jogging pants and a red crocheted blouse. She was very pretty, and with her long, straight, naturally black hair highlighted with random streaks of chesnut brown, she looked even prettier. The boyfriend, Golgo noticed very little, except for his constant yakking about what he knew (or thought he knew) about college, the sun, and, yes, even Neitchze.

To his left was a green plastic trash can he thought was out of place. Printed on it was the emblem of the commercial district, underneath which was the acronym MaCEA. They were in the middle of nowhere.

It was then that Golgo was reminded of a day when he was still with his family. They were eating lunch when suddenly his mother pointed with her fork at the slice of prokchop lying untouched on his plate. She then asked with her mouth half-full: “Are you going to eat that?”

For indeed, the emotions he felt that day seventeen years ago was not very different from the emotions that gripped him that lonely afternoon.

He looked at the trashcan again, and longed deeply to throw up. He approached it, opened its lid, and prepared to vomit… He couldn’t.

The young couple momentarily ceased their mutual fondling of each other to pay attention to him, and then laughed cruelly, their fingers pointed to his general direction.

It made Golgo even more depressed, and now he longed to cry. But as before, he couldn’t. He felt sorry for himself. It was always easy enough to want to cry or to throw up, but to actually do those things was another matter. As far as Golgo could tell, he hadn’t cried or thrown up at will for a long time. He was so alone even his ability to express his emotions had left him, and he suspected that if there was an exact date when it did leave him, it was the day at the dinner table, when his mother pointed with her fork at the slice of prokchop lying untouched on his plate. With her mouth half-full she asked: “Are you going to eat that?”

The young Golgo looked up to his mother, and with eyes ever so slowly becoming devoid of the ability to express human emotion, answered, “Of course I am. Let me just get this cup of Buko Joe’s Real Fresh & Delicious Buko Juice open.”

© Jay Santos 2003.