Epilogue

EPILOGUE


What exactly is happiness?  The first memories of happiness are oft so simple.  Riding on the hobbyhorse in the basement, watching your favorite TV shows, birthdays (your favorite cake and presents a necessity).  Who could forget that first night you were allowed to stay up past your bedtime or that first star you got from your kindergarten teacher?  The looks on your parents’ faces when you brought home a good report card.  Summer vacation, swimming, going to a movie.  It’s all so far away.

You grow and the simple pleasures are no longer simple.  Graduating high school is just another link in the chain.  That first kiss is more awkward than anything else.  First loves have to end.  Money, power don’t bring you happiness, only the desire to have more.  Knowledge, experience are enablers for cynicism.  The road to true love is so marred with pitfalls; the end is rarely justified by the means.  Yet we endure.  We follow the path as has been done over the ages.

And what are dreams?  Some believe that dreams are our actual reality.  Some say they represent what we want.  Who amongst us wants to have monsters chasing us as children?  Was it that we wanted to feel secure in the fact that mom and dad would be there to rescue us?  If so, why did we oversleep for the big test?  Why did we go to the store with no clothes?  Why don’t the brakes work?

If dreams are a release for anxiety, why do days go by with knots torturing our digestive systems?  A means to maintain sanity; predictions of possible futures?  Then why can’t they be remembered clearly?  A world of true happiness?  Possibly.


Larry shot straight up in his bed.  “What the hell just happened?”  The phone was ringing.  He looked at the blurry clock on his VCR.  He found his glasses on the nightstand.  Twelve o’clock flashed on and off.  “Damn, the power must have spiked again last night.  I wonder what time it is,” he thought he as reached for the phone.

“Good morning.”  There was that groggy voice again that he looked forward to.

He cleared his throat.  “What time?”

“Huh.”  There was confusion in her voice.  She must have just woken up.

“Who’s driving?”  Geri had mentioned she’d have a car for a few days and that she’d drive him at least once.

“I did.”  She started to sound a little more coherent.  The phone rang again.

“What the . . .” Larry felt a rustling of the covers.  As he turned, Geri sat up next to him and kissed him gently on the cheek.

“Hi.”  Her smile lit the room.  He wrapped his arms around her and held her.

Click.  “I guess your not home.  It’s your mom.  Just wanted to see what’s new.”