The Smallest of Fractions

The Smallest of Fractions

    Our galaxy spins in a spiral.  One by one mass encumbers matter and all is swirling around a star.  And one by one we all follow, our year is not like theirs.  But we share the same time.  Each planet has its own characteristics.  All eight of them surrounded around a sun trying to keep up.  Some trying harder than others some falling behind.  Runts that don't make it and ones to big if split up they could be 8 planets the size of ours.  Some reach their extremes and our too hot or too cold depending on their distance from the ominous sun.  Most don't like the presence of humanity or humanity can't establish their curse on their soil mostly do to their behavioral atmospheres. 

    Each one following thir same orbit, maybe changing by the slightest degree every year that will eventually lead to their demise.  Shifting to far or to close to the sun could ruin anyones balance.  But only one of these eight are entirely different.  It contains oceans that are not frozen over, some sort of nature and actual life that isn't so mall you would need a telescope to observe it.  I guess this is all our home planet but how many times do we realize our probability in the whole universe.  Their our billions of galaxies which include millions of starts that have hundreds of planets and asteroids that revolve around them and till this date, we are the only living organisms that inhabit one of these planets.  the probability is one over infinity but random chances happen.  They happen in war, in life and in love.  Everything we do, as humans is significant even if it all leads to death because we actually achieved something. 
    We lived.
    And then while on Earth, we have 7 continents, 5 oceans, 187 countries that all contain capitals, cities, towns, villages, communities, neighborhoods, houses, apartments.  We have created a logical system to live which has been the same for over 100 years.  Ever since the industrial revolution.  Transportation, technology and entertainment has changed but its for the short term.  Each adaption of luxury items are miniscule to the enxt.  Cars have been the same for 90 years each contain engines and pistons and need oil to run them.  Television has been around for 60.  Movies another 80.  Music over 200.  It's all a notion of trends and money.
     The reason we live the way we do is through this loose concept of monetary value.  We pride each other on our worth and our work.  Growing like a turtle, it slowly evolves and moves and changes.  Humanity is way to intelligent for such a system but we all soak it in.  We love vanity and greed and envy, without it how could we commit sins.  Capitalism is our archaic economy, everyone in the world familiarizes with it.  We have goods that equal this invisible dollar.  We all spend building on its prosperity and demeanor.  All the vanished days, that we worked is now counted by bankers, treasurers, executives, management, statisticians and government officials counting their hours.  Some lining their pockets, others without pants.  Countries are all looking for an answer while one of them, America, is trying to fix it.
     A super power, a 1st world country that always leads other countries, cultures, ideologies,  technology, commerce to revolt against us.  They say they hate us but by destroying them, they only make them stronger.  Nationalism succumbs fear.  We thrive to be the best.  From Olympics to Nobel prizes, survival of the fittest and science being our top honors, they just couldn't lose.  They have the mouth and the wallets to back it up.  In America, their are 50 states from unbearably cold to blistering heat.  Natural beauty to urban landscape.   They are the father of invention and the leader of democracy.  They all dwell on this.  They leave a bad taste in your mouth when they stay to long and whisper these phrases to each other.  With all this commarodery, they have split too.  Some of them believe in preserving our culture, the present day.  They believe in war and illegal aliens and keeping America true.  They are known as red.  Then their are liberals, radicals who wants peace, pro choice and America to be the melting pot it has always been.  Coined phrases are loosely used to their original context anymore.  Bigotry has been confused with intelligence for to long.  These preservationists/liberal.radical/socialists are known as blue.  America has three colors that represent it but one is always missing from the equation.  
    But who is the white?      
    Colors that they get tattooed on their bodies, paraded around us but still...something is missing.   But sometimes its to hard to say in the densest of crowds and through giant egos.  It seems like no one wants to even know.  So lets move on.
    One of these 50 states is Nebraska.  A corn state that is known to be one of the most boring drives through.  Completely flat, showcasing their farms and windmills and some weird Ark that represents something from the Medieval ages.  Basking in their old way of life for far to long.  There is two major cities there, Omaha and Lincoln but they are not familiar to the ones you might know or even recognize in the rest of the country.  They are simple, kind and virtuous.  No skyscapers, no homeless, i guess you could call it a simple city.  One everyone imagined but, in the more populous cities, never could of been achieved. 
    One of the towns their is called Chicaboo.  It lies on a small lake, to small to even boat on, that is of the same name.  It's a rather booming town with a population of 2457 and has a run down middle school and a state of the art high school.  Nebraska, despite their love for corn, they also highly appreciate their sports.  Quarterbacks are paraded around like state senators or soldiers and the crowd all cheer and roar when he raises his iconic arm. 
    In Chicaboo, lies a boy named Darren and today is not his best.  His house sits on an intersection, so from my any room in his parents three bedroom house, you can always hear the press of a brake pad to the rumbling of the exhaust after their stop.  Always slamming and reviving.  Everyone is always in a hurry, speeding by, there never seems time for anyone these days. 
    His farther was a white collar companion.  A manager at a Racine family deli.  He always smelled of honey ham and took much honor and appreciation for his job.  It is what he lived for and alway wanted, something that gave him reasonable money.  He loved it like his wife loved dandelions and thir child, Darren.  Rich, which was his fathers name, didn't go to college but has worked at labor wages his whole life.  He believed they reflected your worth like the mustard stain right below the pocket on your button up t-shirt.
    Darren thought his father was full of quirky lines and never actually lived a day of his own life.  Rich never had any dreams while he was growing up.  He was just another cloud in the sky.
    Darren woke up that day to grave news.  He rose at 6 o'clock from panic weeps from his pigeon-like mother.  He could here the noises coming from the living room but their was breaks in the cries from the sound pollution of the intersection.  He found solace in those trembles.  He tried to lay back down but his mother came rushing through the hallway and stood right in between his doorway. 
"You wouldn't believed what happened?"
"Mom, i am trying to sleep, please let me be" Darren says through his paper-white teeth.
Fine, obviously you don't care"  She squirts out while stomping off.
    Darren noticed this, something his mother does all to frequently.  She upsets herself when no one wants to listen which is again, all to frequent. 
"Fine mom, what is all the commotion for."
"Oh am I Disturbing the star"  she says under her beak.
"Mother, i am sorry about being remedial...what happened for crying out loud."
"I gotta clean up the reminiscent of your do...that is what happened."
    Darren's mother, Helen, like many midwestern wives, never worked a day in her life.  Except for housekeeping.  She raised Darren and her garden and that is all she ever wanted to do after high school.  Women seem to always get their way.
    Darren leaped from his bed like he was dodging a sack and nudged his mother aside. 
"Where is camel."  Darren says provokingly while already knowing.  He navigates through the lemon painted walls, past the grand piano no one ever touched except to place doilies  and mis-used clutter.  He scouts all around the house, calling out to an abandoned soul, never to hear his pit bull bark ever again.
    Tears roll down his plump, dried out cheeks until he finally sees the travesty.  His dog, Camel, lied right under the coffee table, flat like a sidewalk, sprawled out like a bear skin rug, with his eyes stained of determination.  They still glistened the way Darren remembered them, the long days he would play fetch with him in their barren back yard.  Camel would always trample the garden, always being scolded by Helen.  Those days are long behind the both of them.
    Darren still trying to vitalize Camel, shouting his name, pattting his bare legs, trying to knock some senses into his life-les dog but the only thing that returned were echoes.  No more barking and nothing to look forward to after his long days at practice.  Darren violently picked up the glass coffee table that Camel lied under and he placed it on the opposite side of the room, banishing it as if it has some role in the death. 
    Camel was no ordinary pit bull.  He just recently turned 9 years old and had white and grey spots running through his brown hair.  The way he ran was remarkable, pouncing his back legs before he would move his front clicking them together.  He enjoyed the little things in life, digging up plants and burying them by the old shed, running and playing catch with his master Darren, and napping at the front door.  He would nap their from the minute he could not see Darren in the family window till his owner opened the door.  The only thing that ever changed was his mat that he laid on.  Camel didn't have any preferences because all he knew was Darren was the best and he thought till his last breath, walking from the kitchen to Darrens room.  He knew his fate but he wished he could of changed his destination.  He was on his way to his masters bedroom.
    The death left a stale, peculiar smell in the air.  The whole house sat silently on that intersection.  Barely a spoken word came from any of its inhabitants.  Rich already left for work at 7 and Darren had to leave by 8 to make it to school on his big day.  The day of the championship game between their schools rival.  The Red Hawks vs. The Spartans.  It was said to be the biggest game of the decade and Darren was going to be the Quarterback to throw that game.  Many top-tiered, college scouts were going to be out that day studying up on their prized possessions, making sure they picked the right ones and solidifying their contracts.  Darren got one to University of Nebraska-Lincoln and he was set to go there for a Communications major.  All he needed was to play this big game.  The game of his teenage years. 
    Darrens quarterback career started when he was 9.  He loved playing it with Camel so much that he thought he should develop his craft.  Also the pressure from his father, who was trying to relive his golden days, helped persuade him too.  It wasn't for the glory.  Darren never liked being the spotlight but he was in it for the throw, his swift tactics and his strategies.   He didn't just throw the ball to perfection, which he did, but he also designed many of the plays that led his team to their victorious reign. 
    But the farther Darren divulged into football, the less he paid attention to Camel.  Their relationship was inversely proportionate.  Darren knew this but was far to busy being celebrated and paraded around.  Camel knew this but he only knew one thing.  Even though they were not with each other from sunrise to sunset,  they wished they were.  Darren rushed home everyday to be with his best friend and Camel reserved all his energy for that specific time of night.  After the attention soo struck Darren's ego, those nights came to far in between.  Camel still napped but the naps turned into long bouts of sleeping and dreaming.  Dreaming of what once was.  Darren eventually forgot about his dog, pushing his friendships and his football career to tremendous levels.  The pride got to him and his dogs aged quicker than usual.  He ate and slept waiting to expel that energy on something productive with his one and only master but then time hit him too.
    Darren decided against school that day.  There was no way he could commit such an act of defiance against his true best friend.  His parents disagreed though.
"Do you know what today even means for you, Darren"  Rich said with a snark, flaring his elongated nostrils.
    But Darren didn't answer.  Everything that should be on his mind, things that would resided on it if it wasn't for the un-expected death, has completely vanished from his thoughts.  Feelings he didn't know he had started to emerge.  Tears ran down his nose and images of ecstatic experiences with his dog.sprouted up. 
    Even though his parents understood the event, they didn't think he should cloud his judgment with such an emotional inferiority because
"Emotions are for the weak." Rich and Helen whispered in Darren's ear, like time and time again. He couldn't see playing in that game, he needed to act on these newly found pleasures.  He needed to honor the only thing he loved. the only presence that has made him feel this way.  Darren used to walk around artificial, but this was the first and last day for many things.

Epilogue
    Darren didn't play in that game.  He didn't do much after that day.  Since he decided not to go to school that game he technically couldn't play the game.  He didn't care either way and he didn't make a fuss.  He knew his outcome and he accepted it.  When he didn't  go to the game, the college scouts dropped him.  His team lost so he was subsided through his human relationships.  He never even explained himself.  School didn't matter to him since education didn't get him anywhere in life.  He had no calling, nothing that gave him assistance.  So he got a job with his father and was the happiest man on Earth.