It was quite a revealing time for him, that fifteen minutes at the butchery. The dry crackle from the old ledger spoke to him, and asked him to make a promise. To promise himself that he would write more. Perhaps a journal, if nothing else. He indulged in an argument, with himself, about whether it should be in the form of a monologue, or in the third person. Obviously the third person won out. While he appreciates the intimacy of a monologue, a third person, to him, felt more ‘detached’ – or, if you’d rather not feel too cold at the choice of adjective, ‘neutral’.

He found out that there are still people who use landlines. Exclusively almost. Because they’re free, and because well, you can always call someone back in a half hour.

He re-learned that people don’t always tell the truth, even if they smile it into your face. He imagined that there are far worse states than ‘dead’. Like ‘dying’. He learned that there’s only a point in owning something if you master it. He learned that the scale of everybody’s problems is different, and so is their perception of it. He learned the value of a good laugh, and free time.

It was a very revealing fifteen minutes.

You can feel it slipping through your fingers, can’t you? The burden of humanity slowly sucking each moment of ease and comfort from your desperately clenched fists? No, this isn’t some stupid metaphor about how you should never hold on to something hard enough. That metaphor is for quitters.

But you’re not a quitter. You’re a pleasant human being who always puts up a smile when asked “Hey, can you come to the office over the weekend? There’s numbers we need to run, and everybody around here seems to already have a life.” Of course. After all, despite what you may or may not love to do. Or have a passion for in life, your work is what puts the bread and butter on the table.

Besides, at the end of the day, you have family and friends to fall back on, right? “How’s the wife and kids?” Oh. It’s that smile again. Don’t feel sad, marriage is not the fulcrum of your life. You have other people to try and please. There’s the friends who have always been there for you. Perhaps because you’ve always set floored expectations of what qualifies as being there. And also skewed your perception of them fulfilling that criteria. So you somehow made it your life purpose to be there for them when they needed you to. Because you’re a dutiful friend. Don’t you let anyone tell you how you’re ruining any grim chances you might have at actually living a happy life by being there for them. Because that would be wrong. After all, what are friends for? Don’t ever doubt that. No matter what anyone else tells you.

Why? Because you’re nice. You’d hate to hurt anyone through your actions. You’re pleasant to be around and you always have spare change in your pocket to feed the meter. You could even park their car if someone was in an absolute hurry. But only if they’re in an absolute hurry – you have your own ego, after all, you wouldn’t let someone walk all over you like that. Unless they were in an absolute hurry. Then it would be okay. Because you understand. You’ve been there. You know how it feels, and how nobody else in the world understands their pain – you can fix it. You can fix them, if they allowed you to. Some people would call that an obsessive compulsion to fix things, but you know that’s not it, right? You do it out of goodness. Not because you feel that fixing them would somehow fix you. That would be stupid.

You’re a good person, you really are. You’re nice.