annoyed

“People who ask too many questions annoy me. People who don’t talk at all annoy me. People who can’t hear annoy me. People who eavesdrop annoy me. People who chew loudly, who pretend to be cute, who try too hard, who are always late. Stupid people.  Ignorant people.  Pretentious people.  They all annoy me.”

“Aren’t you just being misanthropic?”

“Maybe I am. But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re annoying.

Oh, and I forgot one more thing.”

“What’s that?”

“People who are annoyed by everything are annoying.”

a natural death

He stood at the edge of the basin and looked beyond.  A sea of evergreens met his eyes, an occasional flock of birds erupting into the crisp blue sky and into the horizon beyond.  Snow-capped mountains jutted against the skyline, just barely covering the sun as it set into a brilliant flare of red-orange.  The colors reflected beautifully off a nearby lake, on which a half dozen swans pruned ivory feathers.

This was life.  Thoreau was no fool; nature was our greatest teacher and greatest example.  He turned to look in the direction opposite of the cliff, where the city smog billowed from the industrious, poisonous, dangerous society he dared call “the norm.”

With a sigh, of relief or grief it is difficult to tell, he leaped off the cliff, hoping that something, someone, would save him, and if not, that he would fall painlessly to his end–or into another beginning.