Noah Cicero - The Collected Works of Noah Cicero Vol. I

“I prefer heaven.”

“We all do.”

“Heaven sounds like a fairy tale though.”

“I know, that’s why it’s absurd,” Jimmy says.

“So all I am is a man on a rock, living a meaningless life, doing meaningless things, for meaningless reasons.”

“Most likely.”

“I don’t want to be human anymore.”

“No one does.”

“But I’ve had experiences with ghosts, what does that mean?”

“Who knows?”

“You’re right, who knows.”

“Probably even the ghosts live a meaningless existence.”

“It must be hard being a ghost. Sitting around all day in the same building, that must get boring and a little tedious.”

“It has to be, I’d never want to be a ghost.”

“When I die, there better be heaven, because I want an answer for this.”

“Maybe heaven doesn’t have an answer, and if they did, maybe you wouldn’t accept it.”

“If I’m in heaven, I have to accept everything.”

“Why would you have to. There is always a chance for rebellion.”

“And I prefer to be a rebel.”

“It is always better to be a rebel. Following kills,” Jimmy says.

“Following is for mongrels.”

“There is no fun in following, but there is no fun in leading either.”

“There is only fun in going alone, it is always better to be self-reliant.”

“Self-reliance is the key to genius.”

“Self-reliance is also the key to loneliness,” I say.

“A long time from now we’ll remember this day and not smile.”

“No we won’t.”

Absurdity.

We sit in silence for several minutes.

The war has started.

I want a relationship, but it’s hard.

Everyone that wants to go out with me is insane.

I can never find a sane girl.

Not that I want one.

I had one girl about a month ago.

She was in love with me too much.

She thought I was so smart and beautiful.

A lot more than I actually am.

I don’t know what makes a certain person fall in love with another person.

My bet would be loneliness.

Most relationships I see, the two people in them don’t have anything to do with each other. They just think each other are cute, so they begin a relationship.

I can’t stand that.

But I guess there’s more than that.

There’s connection.

Like you have good conversation.

But I don’t even see that in relationships.

I see a horny man and a woman who doesn’t want to be alone.

There is so much sadness in this world.

Nobody wants to be alone.

So we thrust ourselves into relationships for reasons we don’t even know.

But no one really knows the reasons why individuals do things.

Madness would be my guess.

I hang out with Kendra because we have good conversations together.

And she is really good in bed.

I don’t know which one brings me back.

Most likely both equally.

I will always walk the earth loving Kendra.

I can’t imagine loving anyone else but her.

I’ve loved her for so long.

Seven years.

We have so many memories together.

I would have to kill them all to go on.

And live a proper life.

I’m incapable of living a proper life.

Or showing real love again.

To anyone.

I used to say ‘I love you’ to Kendra with such sincere conviction.

But those days have passed.

Those days of happiness are over.

Now I’m left with the future and myself.

Absurdity.

“Jimmy, I spend all my money on sin,” I say.

“Where else should it go?” Jimmy says.

“It seems like the poorer I am, the more I spend my money on vice.”

“I thought you were broke. How do you have money to spend?”

“I got my income tax check.”

“That’s horrible to give to a broke person.”

“Yeah, I know,” I say.

“What did you spend it on?”

“Nothing yet, but I plan on going to the strip joint and getting drunk at the bar. I figure it’ll cost me like sixty dollars.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right.”

“But I know I shouldn’t, I should save the money for better things.”

“Who cares about saving money? You need sin. You’re poor.”

“I need sin to feel happy, to feel better about myself and this world.”

“Sin is always good for that.”

“You want to come with me to the strip joint?”

“Yeah, I’ll go, I just got my income tax check too.”

“Cool, then I don’t have to sit there alone.”

“Personally I love strippers. You can get touched by a woman without having to ask her out, or take her out on a date.”

“Yeah, that’s why I go too.”

“Don’t tell anyone, but I like sin too.”

“What sins do you like?”

“I like pills,” Jimmy says.

“Uppers or downers?”

“Uppers, of course.”

“How’s that working for you?”

“Great, I have a three point eight in school.”

“That does sound perfect.”

“Damn straight.”

“I like alcohol and strippers.”

“When we were little children all we needed for happiness was to play hide and go seek, now we have to jam stimulates into us just to get through the day.”

“I know, it’s horrible,” I say.

“But that’s what it means to be human.”

“To be addicted to things.”

“Yes.”

“I don’t like being addicted to things, but I have to be, I must be.”

“We are all compelled to madness.”

“I hate being compelled, it’s like I have no control over myself.”

“What use is it to have control over yourself? That’s so boring.”

“And neither of us wants to be boring,” I say.

“Being boring is premature death.”

“My brother is boring, he’s Christian Republican, he goes to work and plays golf, that’s all.”

“See, that’s a horrible existence. I hope I always live an exciting life full of intellectual discovery,” Jimmy says.

“I hope I don’t die.”

“You still worried about death.”

“Of course I’m still worried about death.”

“Don’t be, it’s not that big of a deal.”

“I think it is.”

“You think wrong, everything dies, it’s the natural order of things.”

“Once on television I watched an alligator kill a zebra. It seemed horrible, but it’s the most natural thing there is.”

“Maybe it’s natural that we are killing people in Iraq.”

“Maybe it is,” I say.

“What is natural?”

“Anything that is biological.”

“Is war biological.”

“Aggression is biological, so I don’t see why it isn’t.”

“War is natural then, so are we for or against the war?” Jimmy says.

“I suppose we’re still against it,” I say.

“Life is a war, this is just on a bigger scale.”

“Perhaps.”

“Maybe we should enlist.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Why not, we could get to kill some Arabs.”

“Well, when you put it like that.”

“Yeah, it would be great, you and I out there in the desert getting shot at, shooting at people, killing them dead. Then staring at their dead bodies in the sand. Oh, it would be great.”

“Yeah, that sounds so fun, killing people and looking at them dead lying in the sand.”

“Oh, we would have a great time,” Jimmy says.

“I think we should give an oil well to each of the families of the soldiers who die.”

“Yeah, because those are the people who really deserve it, because they gave birth to a child who died for already rich people to get richer.”

“And I also think after the regime is gone, they should make me president of Iraq.”

“You would make a great president.”