Guilty as charged

I long to reach out and touch you, Niko. Buster sits on the side of the bathtub observing the bubbles with a golden gleam in his cat eyes. He has white fur that curls from his ears and long whiskers. I adore him. Sometimes I think he is Niko reincarnated to console me and Cholo. I don’t really believe this, but somehow the thought comforts me. When he licks Cholo’s ears, I can’t help but think of the way Nik cleaned them out and playfully bit them.
I plod along, sometimes in my bulletproof led suit that protects and isolates me at the same time. I have broad shoulders that bare the weight grudgingly. Sometimes it is hard to get out of bed, and sometimes I envision a gun in my hand with one bullet that would put me out of my misery.
But that, I think, would be cheating. And the moment, glancingly brief, darts away when I see Buster cuddle on the couch next to Cholo or when I force myself outside to ride a horse.
Life is like that. The scenes keep changing. And I still haven’t left my mark. Haven’t finished, much less sold, the book to be or saved the world. Shit, I couldn’t even save my own son, what makes me think I can accomplish anything of note?
Today I feel like flour in a sifter. The hot bath smoothed out the tension but left my skin wrinkled. Two flies hound me, landing on the computer screen, my arm, my fedora. Three roses in mixed stages of their blossom remind me that life, is indeed, fleeting and can be oh so sweet yet riddled with thorns.
A part of me believes that something grand must be on my horizon, that God has not forsaken me and that I have a purpose. The committee that lives in my head charges into battle, screaming obscenities and laughing at my hopes and dreams. They call me a loser, a liar and a hypocrite. I bow my head to their accusations. Stand in front of my mirror with a towel wrapped around my thick hair. My reflection amuses me. Who is this sad woman with the red blotches on her right cheek, the somber blue eyes lined in pain and the stained teeth? What happened to my youth?
Guilty as charged, I say. I am, after all, human.