I promised you a short story.

I just finished one in a fury. I feel I have just run a marathon, yet my lungs are dry. I am going to post a page a day for the next five days. It's long and I want to keep your interest. Also, due to the formatting of this compared to word some of the formatting won't come together. If you ask me nicely I can email it to you. It's raw and I mean that in every way possible. No editing other than grammar and spelling occurred. The subject matter is uncompromising. I feel it is the best thing I have set my hands to. Please, I would love feedback. Any emotional reaction would be greatly appreciated. This is my new greatest achievement.

THESE HANDS

PAGE ONE

His days are numbered. All of ours are. As he looks into the night sky, he feels powerful. He feels strong. He feels drunk. The smoke he exhales brings a new shape to the street lamp over his head. An orange cloud, that seems to linger forever in his closed eyes.
The night was long and his head hurt. He sighed through it. Pouring wave after wave of lightly colored beer. It subsides long enough for him to slam dance to a cover of The Ramones. After that “Shout.” He looks around and feels that he is jumping higher than anyone else. The tall and short people around him don’t feel the music like he does. In fact that is all he feels.
After all he hadn’t had a night out like this for a while. He let his friends buy him drinks. Shitty beer and not so bad music made up his night. He was to forget who he was, but that he never knew made it impossible. The waves of beer brought the stars closer, but that didn’t matter. He was alone in a sea of people who didn’t know his name.
He smiles and feels like he is going to cry. He hasn’t been laid in two years. He hasn’t touched a woman in months. Those around him think he has nothing but laughs boiling inside of him. At this moment he could have been anyone. He could have been a Greek god. He could have been a beggar, the one who shat on the street in front of the crowd gathered outside. He honored that beggar’s wild unabashedness. He shouted guttural noises that even he didn’t understand.
That night ended not in peril, not in joy, in mediocrity. With a flash he woke up and found himself disappointed. He was to wake up in a stranger’s bed. He was alone. He was frustrated with the man in his bed. The sunshine outside only made him angry. He rolled over but no more sleep came. His routine had woken him up.
It was the potential that made him regret where he was. The night was right. He searched his memory to find something, anything that could tip him off to how he failed. He didn’t have a goal that night but after waking up he knew that he missed a chance. Was I talking to anyone, sitting there in the booth while others danced? This question lingered.
At that moment he felt like he had been alone all his life: déjà vu of never doing anything. Regretting the nothing that he accomplished. He noticed that the night before he had changed. His wasn’t in his pants and socks and button up shirt he had worn to work and then out. His frustration comes from not knowing why he was frustrated. He looked down at the floor. A fingernail or toenail, ash, one sock. This was his life, drowning in the wood.
He heard a car drive by and understood he wasn’t alone. He was never alone. The one idea he hoped for was that he would wake up and no one would be around. He wished that he could scream anywhere he wanted. He might not be alone. The bums who cruise by shout as if they are lost at sea. What are they looking for?
Transported back to his human form he searches for his water bottle. He searches for his cigarettes. He searches for himself. Everything I have done has led to this. He collapsed back on his bed and vice gripped his eyes shut for ten seconds counting aloud. Then he sprung up and looked out the window. Everything was still he thought he made them disappear. Then a woman walked by with a dog, blue plastic bag.