Much Too Young - Much Too Old

Studying my words from long ago, in the yellowed pages of my manifesto, when my mind was more alive than it is today.

"Sat at my desk to create legacy. Seeking fame and respect. An empire. From behind my desk in my humble log cabin, the void between inspiration and desolation breached. With the right words in the right sequence, one could tap the creative depths of my mind and bring to fruition something remarkable-unforgettable.

Words are the swords of intellects. In my hands, these weapons are more than their syllabic content.

The pitiful and wasteful pay no respect to intellects like myself. Following the leader, logging hours, and achieving nothing. Existence is a gift wasted on them, the peasants who find pleasure in the banality of the daily grind. Even when they bemoan their lot, they accept it.

The reality is one could write anything, give it a snappy title, and the fools would swallow it like the delicious sweet juice from the loins of their unsatisfied wives.

Juice reserved for me and my kind.

Their purity, my conquest.

~

Sure, there'll be those who'll complain and may even front their own rebellion.

Their rebellion, my revelation.

~

Writing without restraint the sacrilegious texts, my blackened heart marvelled as the sales increased and another fair maiden was entrapped.

If only you'd paid more attention to them, they'd never have given me their all. While they made your meals and opened your beer, they longed to be in my grasp.

Piqued interest? Want to know all my secrets? Want to secure that hot piece of ass in jeans and blouse you call a wife before she's another tart in another tower in my empire? You need my help. If you're willing to go further than those rusted simps and incels you call your peers.

You need to forget all about "common decency" and "moral standards" - sticking close to those will ensure you never achieve anything great.

Want that woman in the office or life as your own? Your own trophy and slave?

You need to reach out and grab her. Don't mistake those petty protests as resistance. All her bated breaths, laughs, sighs, and glances in your direction betray her longing. Let inevitability do the legwork for you. She will yield, not because of my demands, but because she was always mine."

~

It's humbling trawling back through words penned with such passion and purpose. As a crusty old son of a bitch, in that same log cabin, no longer the man portrayed by those words.

Too old, too frazzled to keep to the same frame of mind. My life has not been the glorious rise to prominence and infamy that blind arrogance had made me believe it would be. Now the log cabin rots like me, both stripped of core, both stinking of age. Much too young to write those words. Much too old now to feel this damn old.

*

Thanks for reading!

Author's Notes: This is for L.C. Schäfer's One Dollar Challenge - Quote Me Baby (Country Roads Edition).

To write a piece inspired by the quote:

I'm much too young to feel this damn old

- Garth Brooks, Much Too Young

As per her instructions - it is fiction, in first person, from the perspective of someone whose best years are been and gone... or at least he thinks so. There is definitely a light touch of melancholy and obviously some grit.

It is also squarely at the 500 words mark and does not contain the personal pronoun I.

As to her question of how I connect with the character and where I got inspiration from? There are a lot of people like the younger version of the character who feel entitled to everything in life and want to get what they want their own way, without following any common decency or moral code. There are also a lot of people like the aged, older version.

While, even in my most depraved acts, I have thankfully never felt nearly as entitled as either version of the character, the younger or the older, I fear I could have been. I have also been thinking about age and wasted years a lot recently, due to my mid-40s age.

As this was recently announced, there is still plenty of time to take part in this awesome challenge.