Jared was thirty-three

I guess I am particularly inspired to blog today. Maybe it's the gray sky or the fact that I've spent most of this afternoon cleaning my room that was recently hit by hurricane Victoria. I'm slowly recovering and picking up the pieces. Anyway, I wanted to post the most recent written passage about my newest protagonist, Jared. I hope to either make this particular story longer, or continue to write several excerpts regarding Jared and his all too interesting life. (That was sarcasm because Jared is an increasingly normal person...but aren't those characters the most intriguing, afterall?). If you have read my other passages you can tell that this blog has absolutely no organization or time scheme. I am merely posting whatever feels right at that moment or whatever makes its way into my hands. I have a feeling some deep, sentimental poetry shall be making an appearance soon...Buckle up!
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Jared was thirty-three. He lived in a modest yellow house, with an unkempt lawn, white window shutters that always let in too much light, and one redeeming feature: a giant oak tree. Jared was already considering his retirement. He sold auto parts. That was that. He lived alone, aside from a squirrel that sometimes rested in the shade of the giant oak. Jared liked to feed peanuts to the little creature when he was feeling brave, on days when a bout of rabies didn’t sound too miserable. Needless to say Jared was depressed. Well, somedays he was content but only when the game was on and he could sit in silence in his underwear on his ratty red couch from the “good ol’ community college days”, drink his favorite beer, and relish in the fact that he wasn’t being disturbed. But it was lonely and quiet. Living alone had its perks, but that didn’t quell the sinking feeling in his stomach.

One particular evening, as the sun was setting, Jared peered out his window. This was his favorite place to reflect. The window faced the street. His loneliness was momentarily subdued as the cars sped by and the people strolled to and fro along the pavement, distracting him. But what Jared liked most was staring at the giant oak tree. It fascinated him. It was so large, so miraculous, well, so miraculously out of place on his small lawn, in front of his small house, in his small life. The roots were stretched out among the grass, making the soil and the earth rise and fall. The tree’s strength was mystifying. Even passersby would comment about the girth of the trunk or the vibrancy of the leaves. As strange as it sounds, this tree was Jared’s only source of inspiration. It had every quality he lacked and every quality he longed for: power, presence, command….life. This tree was more alive than Jared felt he could ever be or had ever been. His whole existence was based on taking orders or being passive. He was an empty vessel. He listened and he operated. He was a machine, but he was running out of oil and as a result he was tired.

As Jared inspected the tree, he noticed that the leaves were starting to change color. The yellowing orange had chased the green to the tip of each leaf. His eyes followed the meticulous lines of the bark down until they met with the ground. He wondered if Toby would come. Toby was his nickname for the squirrel, his home companion. He had saved his whole bag of peanuts (the one he buys every day at work from the vending machine) because he was feeling particularly generous/ masochistic today. Jared was even thinking of hand feeding Toby, hoping that the squirrel might accidentally nibble a bit of his fore-finger, spreading a tangible disease throughout his body, making life simultaneously more interesting and less time consuming.

Jared waited for 2 ½ hours. He watched his digital clock, the red bold numbers changing after what seemed like days. He walked outside, pushing the creaky door open, feeling a slight breeze whip past his unshaven cheek. The porch reeked of linoleum and death, even though neither of those two scents were physically present. Jared scrunched his nose and stormed up to the tree in search of Toby. As he rotated his torso, too lazy to move his whole body, he saw a tiny dog wagging its tale. It was one of those Weiner dogs. It was mostly black but some brown speckles were scattered throughout its matted fur. Jared only saw the dog from behind, the short tale wagging profusely. As he approached the dog, Jared noticed something large and brown held between its mouth. He thought he saw blood along the pavement pathway leading to the porch as well. As he got closer he realized that the son-of-a-bitch dog had captured and killed Toby and now held him happily in its mouth.