Oh, it’s you.
Just stop right there, and don’t even think about crossing over my threshold. You’re not welcome here anymore.
And now I can’t believe you are giving me that look…that look like you can’t understand why…as if you have no idea what you’ve done…that ‘who me?’ look because you’re just as pure as the driven snow. Right?
No! Don’t speak! Don’t say a word. It’s no longer your time to say anything. You’ve said all you had to say before, which in the end wasn’t much at all. Empty, thoughtless, stupid words were all you knew…all you know.
You left me here. You left me in this purgatory. I thought I was going mad. What else was I to think? That’s exactly what happens when people go mad…what happened to me. What did you think I knew? You think I was on the inside? I told you I wasn’t. Did you think I knew their secrets…that I was a part of their party? I was alone. You knew that. But it didn’t stop you, did it? It didn’t make you more human and less simian.
I gave you a chance…no, I gave you every chance to prove that you were more…that you were better…that you were evolved. And each time, what happened? You didn’t change your ways. Each time you treated me as if I were your thing…your token in a monopoly game. Which one did you envision me as, the wheel barrow, the thimble, the scottie dog? Never mind. It doesn’t matter. None of it matters anymore.
And before you ask, no, it’s not just about Tootsie O’Toole who showed up at my door one day, waving that ring. The one you know I paid for, because without me you would have been a nobody. Laugh if you like, but you know that’s true even if you don’t have the guts to see it. You know a lot of things you’re not man enough to see.
I never did tell Old Toots the truth. What would be the point? She thinks you’re an American sheriff and those black licorice guns you carry are the real deal, but we know better…don’t we. We both know I’m the only sharp shooter around these parts.
The choices you made about me, didn’t you see them in the headlines? They were written there. You can’t make choices about me and not have them echo throughout this world. Those choices resounded in moments in time…words overhead…things spilling, falling, breaking, dying. Your choices were well recorded everywhere. And even when the Universe threatened to strike you down with, for God’s sake, lightning itself…even when it thundered and crashed right above your head…even with all that, still you held on to your fool’s cap like it was the Word of God. Nothing could shake you from that egotistical dream you made for yourself…that egotistical dream you made of yourself.
And now it’s too late…now that you see what happens when I pull out, it’s too late. And there are no do-overs in this world. You failed the test. That’s it. It’s done with, finished, kaput. The buzzer sounded and you didn’t have the right answer. You lost. Now, go! Go cry your heart out on Tootsie’s shoulder. And if things get real bad, you can always pawn that ring.