the sons of man

Henry sits down and looks out the window and tries to think, for just a moment, about what he doesn’t want to think about. About the thing he knows is there, but can’t quite work out.
“Down the drain. Down the stairs. Out the door. Hit the floor!”
It’s like counting sheep for the…
“Wide awake and ruminate!”
Sometimes he wishes his brain would stop. Would freeze. Right there. Right now. Right where it is. But this invariably leads him to thinking about how horrible something like not thinking would be.
“I’d be a vegetable! And vegetables are dull. Dull as beetroot. Boring as cabbage soup. Potato head! Not really a term of endearment, is it? No one likes vegetables. No one wants to be like a vegetable.”
He thinks all this in one long solid thought. And it makes him tired.
But still, he thinks. And he keeps on thinking and wishing he couldn’t and knowing, all the same, he wouldn’t have it any other way. Because Henry keeps company with misery just like his neighbours keep company with each other and the hands of a clock keep company with the time.
Because misery – and this is the thing that’s seen and unseen and something he no longer tries to dissuade himself of – misery is the only thing he has in common with every other human being on the planet; and “…aint that just a bitch.”