been there done that

bob dylan plays in the background and his harmonica echoes as he tries to get the idea out.

all his life our insomniac wanted to find the person who fitted the bill, like the man about town in o henrys short story, he sought to find the man who'd been there and done that, a person who when he breathed his last realised he hadn't died at all but had attained the state he'd wanted his entire life, immortality, for someone who through his last breath, wheezing though it might have been, smiled as he nodded off into sleep and beyond.

he sought that person in every place he went, from his amorous overtures as an awkward teenager, striving to find love, torn betwen pablo nerudas lush verse, and marquez's choleraic eternal ideal and the bitter sweet truth of oscar wilde. from his visits to the women of the night, if only to find out whether love was lust or whether it were the other way around, and to the moment when he stared into a pair of perfect brown eyes and felt his soul sink into an oh so comfortable rest

he sought to find his happy being over swigs of bitter liquor hoping to stumble across him through a haze of hypnotic.

he sought him through the purple haze of green, through the senility of opium, submerged within the peyote cactus, and emerging through the frenzied pulse of amphetamines.

he wandered through urban jungles and dwindling forest cities, pausing every now and then to appreciate how mankind could pull himself in a downward spiral and then second guessing his past.

he waded through corporate whorehouses, through shrewd witted bankers, and in the near somnolent beauty that is the yuppie dream.

he looked here and there for his tambourine man, and sought others who shared his dream too. and finding none, he'd often grit his teeth as he went to sleep each night. discontent as he'd always been since that one fateful night.

he roamed aimlessly through the confusion of adolescence, through the aggression of youth and the empty deserted wilderness of age.

he knew not why he sought to meet the person. he knew not why the person beckoned to him in his sleep. why that person had become a misty echo over the remainder of his life.

discontent he remained, as he did always.

until one day, he realized he'd lost the game of chess with the reaper, that his time of equality had come, but just then. that very moment when he gritted his teeth because of his ignorance. he looked skyward, and reflected in the barely moving fan, solemnly moving as he lay on his deathbed, his love holding his hand, his friends by his side. choked tears everywhere. he saw himself, ravaged by age, his cheeks hollow, his mind wandering. and just as he'd begun to draw his final breath a chortle emerged from him.

and smiling, he sank through the curtain.

the fateful night, 50 years ago.

he wakes up in the middle of the night, after an entire day well wasted, muttering it to himself, he thought of something that sounded clever and kept muttering it under his breath. he sits down to type, and hopes the words flow as they used to whenever he felt this way, whenever he felt the germ of an idea beginning to sprout.

happiness is truly a life spent in discontent

of all the things ive ever written, this is the one im most unsure about.
side question though.

what would your epitaph be?? and how would you like to be interred.
me, id want to be buried, in my yard if i could afford it, with the title of this post written on my tombstone.

ive stolen the following idea from an old readers digest page, so bear with it.
and from my coffin, just where my mouth would be id want a pipe that opens into the ground, and on birthdays, special occasions, or even just randomly, id want anyone that morbidly bored with life to pour down a drink for me.

flowers are just way too passe