Camus describes the feeling of absurdity in his work The Myth of Sisyphus. He ponders the question does the absurd dictate death? Maybe it does, maybe it doesn’t, but I am inclined to believe life is truly absurd. How could you not consider the human predicament as truly absurd? We try and protect ourselves from an inevitable demise and fear for those who will suffer a certain fate, yet we perpetuate the cycle by recreating life whose only certainty is its very demise. We’ll eventually mourn or live long enough to be mourned. Shit sounds pretty absurd to me. We seek meaning in the meaningless, we fictionalize stories to dream of alternative lives, we spend our given lives living under the shadow of the next. Whether it be the notion of heaven or simply a concept of legacy. Whatever your rock is, we push it everyday for it to roll down the hill and we commence again, pretty fucking absurd. I guess the trick is to acknowledge the absurdity and find a way to laugh in the face of life, to enjoy every breath of this absurdist comedy, but sometimes the winds blow heavy and we find ourselves unable to laugh. Occasionally, we just have to hold on and hope those around us hold on too.

VOICEMAIL

My phone rang

Let it go to voicemail

Didn’t feel like talking

It rang again

Turned it to silent

Lost myself in the quiet

Maybe I was selfish

Perhaps I was tired

If I’d have known

I’d have answered my phone

But I had no words to say

At least nothing

Capable of taking

Someone else’s pain

She called again

But I didn’t hear a thing

Finished my coffee

Rolled a cigarette

Walked down

Twelve flights of stairs

I called her back

But it was her voicemail

Figured she no longer felt like talking

I rang again

The world felt silent

Surrounded by quiet

Maybe she was selfish

Perhaps she was tired

If she’d known

I didn’t mean to not answer my phone

She might have had some words to say

At least something

Capable of taking

Away some of her pain

I called again

But she couldn’t hear a thing

She’d finished her coffee

Smoked her last cigarette

Flew down

Her twelve story building