An Old Friend

by David Gibb

About the Author: David Gibb is a freelance writer and editor currently living in New Hampshire. He writes about topics as disparate as education, marketing, and professional wrestling. You can follow him on Twitter at @DaveWritesJunk.

Excerpt

Iguess I came to all this through the kind of existential late-20s crisis that has become a stereotype of my generation. In spite of a good education and what I’d call a somewhat better than average mind, no job I chose had ever brought me satisfaction, and due to the fact that I’ve never been motivated by money, I found myself back in my mother’s house.

A decade before, during a time when it had been decided that I had transitioned into responsible adulthood, my bedroom had been transformed into a space for guests. The room was bursting with overly stuffed pillows, the kind designed to be looked at rather than used, speckled with pictures of seashells and starfish. The only practical feature of the room was a memory foam mattress that had been purchased to save the backs of my mother’s honored guests from the spring-filled torture device of my youth.

I was laying on my back, sunken into the bed with the comfort of late morning weekday drifting, which only the unemployed and the depressed can appreciate, when my mother knocked loudly on the door.

“Yes,” I managed in an annoyed groan.

“Is it alright if I come in?” she asked meekly.

I pulled myself upright so as to cut a more appropriate figure for 11:18. “Of course! Come on in.”

Story Comments