Hard Times for Hard People

Its dark in here. The moon is again hovering somewhere in the sky, hiding itself on and off behind deep black clouds. There are no birds chirping and the wind has
been rolling over the outside of my bedroom window with a strong determination to once again turn frigid and Ive suddenly gotten used to it. Its very quiet here.
I stood outside in the backyard to have a cigarette and I could hear the tobacco and paper slowly succumbing to the process of heat. It made a sort of crackling sound.
With every drag I took I thought to myself "Hell. Its quiet here."
and I don't think I remember the world ever being that quiet. I tip toed around the back yard so as not to disturb its innocence and I gave the earth one night
to itself. I finished with my cigarette and I heard it bounce off of the dry leaves on the other side of the fence. I wondered, If the thing ever did catch fire,
would it even make a sound?
So. Now.
Here I am. Wide awake in my room. Telling myself yet again that sleep is good. Repeating it over and over again inside of my head as if I were subconsciously
trying to cheer lead myself into slumber. It doesn't work. It never works and I let that thought sneak its way into my wannabe optimistic bedtime banter and
I'm wide awake again. Counting to ten used to help. I'd start with a solid rhythmic pace and as my eyes began to weigh themselves closed and my body became progressively
more like a large mound of dough, I would count each number slower in my head. Onnnnneeeee... Twwwwwwwooooooooo... Thhhhhhrrrreeeeeeeee...
And into the sleep. Maybe I'm just not used to the quietness of it all. Maybe I just need a drink.
These are hard times for hard people and word's are only word's if you do not live and feel them. In this isolation, in this soundless place, I feel them the most.
I used to live in the city and who knew that noise could cover up other noise? I can't say I did until now. I can almost hear all their drinking and rambling from here.
All the people sitting alone or with friends in the bars on a Monday night telling themselves that one more drink is all they'll have and by the end of the night
they'll have sucked six more down. In the morning they wake up hungover and late for work and they cradle the notion that they will never do that to themselves on a
Monday evening ever again with pride-less integrity. When the work day is over they do it again. An endless cycle of easing boredom. Hard people. Hard souls. Hard
like me.
That is just the world we live in now. Too loud or much too quiet. No in between. Purgatory for all of the real people with aspirations of grandeur and when
that cognitive time bomb finally does pull back and fire off, we are all doomed. Doomed to realise that there is no pushing forward from this and that contentment
is just a cup of coffee in the morning or a cigarette in the back yard. Or maybe it's just that sleep is a time killer only meant to single out the weak and the
tasteless and the ones void of any real insight into these strange lives of ours. Oh yes... I feel the words now.