The Life of Smith

There once was a man named Smith, and nothing ever happened to him. There was no great conflict, no great dilemma. No “but one day”, no “but suddenly.” No protagonist, no antagonist. Everything was, and nothing was ever going to be.

Smith’s life was the anticlimactic. He got up, got dressed, got paid, and got fired. Every day was the same, and the only thing that ever changed was the season. He married, divorced, hated, and loved. He lived and died on a daily basis.

Smith created his own problems; he solved them himself too. He wore the same suits and the same smile, and bought the same coffee at the same store. He took the trash out on Tuesday, and went to church on Easter. The sky was grey, but he never looked up to notice.

Every year, Smith went home to the same Christmas at the same house with the same people. He got the same gift, but in different wrapping. Santa came every year, but never stayed to talk about it. Every year he made the same resolution, and every year he needed to.

Every day, Smith hated himself for the same sins, and glorified himself for the same delusions he’d had as long as his memory. He thought the same thoughts, and ate the same bullshit. He read the same books over and over again, and listened to the same cd that skipped on track five. Smith was the apple and the dust.

One day, a clot developed in Smith's coronary atery. Laying on the floor clutching his chest, Smith looked back at his life from a different perspective, as a proverbial god would. He saw the same mistakes and the same accomplishments that he had held with such individual value being cycled again and again under different guises. He saw, in essence, the mundaneness of life and his. He realized that even in death he was still just a statistic. And with a bitter taste in his mouth, Smith died.