So Close, Yet So Far
a piece of flash fiction by Tommy Paley
Like those other times, success had been in my grasp, only to slip from my somewhat greasy fingers at the last minute.
Gotta cut back on the fries literally swimming in that delicious oil.
If you knew me — which you don’t — you’d know that for much of my life I’ve had an unhealthy relationship with fried food and bow ties.
In one sense, I was raised by a bow tie, though in another, much more accurate sense, it had been my parents.
My parents spent their days slaving away in the basement; my mother at the chalkboard, frantically writing nonsensical equations, cackling at the top of her voice like a witch. She did spend considerable time in her 20s looking into the feasibility of becoming a witch only to change her mind at the last moment for financial reasons.
And my father, he with the washboard and the abs, just not the two joined together as the guy at the gym had promised, he wept.
Always weeping.
Always failing.
Always falling short of the finish line.
Always with smudged glasses despite having perfect vision.
He was described by others as “complicated” and “shorter than he looks” and “furry”.
I was so like, yet also so unlike the two of them in so many ways.
I once tried counting them all, but instead, dropped everything and decided to paint the word “go” in large green letters on my living room wall for reasons I could never completely explain to my landlord.
My landlord is so thin he’s almost two dimensional, as well as having an incredible ability to grow a mustache while sleeping. He was always sleeping, or just spending a lot of time awake, with his eyes closed, laying in bed not fixing my sink.
Success.
All I wanted was to succeed.
To feel that illusive glow that only comes with success or exposure to a heat source.
Actually, all I wanted was to give the appearance that I was succeeding. And then sit down for a dinner comprised of exactly 5 green beans, one tablespoon of mashed potatoes and an entire 10 pound chicken.
I spent a week, when I was 8, jealous of a cartoon chicken.
And I love protein and hope to become some one day or, failing that, a track star. With a huge ego and afro, to match.
A man can dream, can’t I.
