ANTHONY AND THE GOLDEN PATH: A CHAPTER BOOK

[veritas]

CHAPTER 1: THE PRELUDE

Anthony Colavito, aged 29 years old had finally realized it. He was going to die. His death would not be heroic, or meteoric, nay even memorable. Anthony knew he would die alone, miserable and afraid. This epiphany was realized as Anthony pushed his 2001 brown Pontiac Sunfire through yet another Harrisburg rush hour. Work had sucked today, and to be honest, work sucked every day. He had to deal with assholes all day long on the phones, and quite frankly, he had to take it. Sometimes he imagined that he was able to just say whatever he wanted to these people, these people in a figurative sense, because to Anthony these were sub-human dirt people who should all be sodomized and shot. Or at least tortured. Anthony would often look down at the phone and tune out. He would imagine stabbing voices, and then, as usual, when the voice on the other end got quiet he would say: “mmmhmm” and the voice would continue….As would Anthony.
The day that led to this rush hour revelation was filled with imaginary murders of subhumans and Anthony was feeling rather crunchy already as his Sunfire had to stop because the cars in front of him had decided to do their best parking lot impression. Anthony lit a Seneca up and rolled down the window. “Hope you niggaz sleep” by Notorious B.i.g feat. Cash Money was prominent, all tweeters, all 6X9’s. “I know you bitches know that I aint to be played with” Stated Turk emphatically. Anthony put on his sunglasses, as the sun was burning his face and increasing its oil output. Anthony looked to his left at the car next to him…and it started: The car to his left was a later model Honda Accord and the man was talking and the woman next to him was turned towards him on the seat. She was listening to him, and Anthony realized that she was a good woman and that he would never have that. Anthony exhaled smoke and looked to his right. He saw a woman driving a van and there were 3 kids bouncing around in the back and the dad was sitting shotgun laughing out loud. Anthony’s brow furrowed as he realized he would never have this either. Anthony looked in the rearview and saw a bald man wearing sun glasses with a beard in a black Challenger looking directly at him looking at him. A chill went down Anthony’s spine.
Anthony looked at the car in front of him, it was an older man, middle aged, grey just now touching his temples and he was smoking what looked like, from at this distance, to be a quality cigar and his nice suit seemed to respond willingly to the air moving around him as his convertible Benz stood still in the gridlock. Anthony thought again that he would never have that. He looked up into his rearview mirror and he saw the man smiling. “I WILL NEVER MATTER, TO ANYONE, TO MYSELF, TO HISTORY…I DON’T MATTER.” The voice rang through Anthony’s head and caused the sharpest pain, as if someone was trying to stick mechanical pencil lead directly into his urethra. Luckily the traffic started moving again and Anthony flicked his Seneca out and rode to his home. It started raining as soon as he pulled up to it.
…….