Chapter Seven
Two days later Peter got into a spat with his nosey neighbor over her spying. She was a degenerate old woman with a seething need to know everything about everyone around her. Like an animal in a cage, she would peer out through her imaginary bars and sneer at people walking by, peeking auspiciously into the windows of others and finding fruitfulness in her hopes of glancing something she ought not see.
Peter grumbled on his way back into the house after venting in her general direction. He felt completely, well, not completely angered, so he thought it might be a good idea to log onto Facebook and add just an extra helping of misery to his plate. Fitfully reddened in both eye and cheek, he typed in his password, ready to spend the rest of the evening painting.
Then he recalled it was an election year.
Then he recalled the election was only two months away!
Good golden buttons, man, if ever there was a time both rife and ripe with possibility, it was that very moment, indeed.
Then there it was…
Everyone was posting feverishly, as if it were a contest to see who was the less informed and most easily mislead, and there were more than an abundance of photo memes that included an image of the president. Some even included his family. Oh, and to his delight, and it was such a reward for his perseverance, people were slinging cross and malignant words over their politics like prison hash in a cold cafeteria, and it was beautiful, simply a darling sight to Peter’s sore eyes.
“Our president is a card carrying communist! Can you believe he wants to use our hard earned tax dollars to help Americans? What kind of socialist freak would do that?”
His nipples began to burn and twitch like popcorn seeds in a pan filled with searing hot oil. Then a few photos of cats made him smile, so he scrolled more quickly and with greater intent so as not to thwart the intended outcome.
Almost immediately, as if placed there for him personally by the gods of Facebook tyranny, he found what he was looking for. It was pure gold, like the stuff wet dreams are made of, and it was posted by someone he grew up with, so it was sure to make him extra mad.
This is what it said:
“What we need is a God fearing Christian in the White House who will defend our first amendment to own guns AND our right to keep America free from immigrants.”
Ahhh… Eeeee… Iiiii… Oooo, and the very best part, the part that made it all so delectably and most gruesomely succulent and scrumptious, was that, not only had they invoked the incorrect amendment during their rant, but two of the words had been spelled wrong!
Peter bit down firmly on his lower lip. Then, without further hesitation, he scurried to the basement where a fresh jar of water, a bright white canvas and a clean set of brushes awaited his timely return.
But it didn’t work.
To Peter’s regret and most dismal dismay, it felt as if he’d signed up for a Viagra trial and unwittingly received the placebo.
The clock he’d spent three hours painting appeared to him distorted and mediocre at best. The subject of the painting was one of those old brass alarm clocks with two bells atop the frame. However, to downtrodden Peter, the image he’d forged looked more like a novice’s drum set seen through the dystopic and misshapen eyes of a drunken, out of work window washer with cataracts.
Peter was devastated. Feeling more than defeated, he walked the staircase upwards and fetched himself a scotch. He took it neat that eve.
“Son-of-a-bitch,” he said aloud, “I can’t win. No matter how hard I try to remind the world about the precious gift of time through the medium of my art, I fail. Then what do I do? I try to improve my work through applied psychology, and I failed again! I should just give up and find my true calling before it’s too late.”
Feeling undeniably like a wretched, older version of his former self, he counted his options. He saw very few there before him.