I was depressed. The kind of depression that sneaks up on a man about half way through your day, clenches his gut and doesn’t stop squeezing.

I decided to stead clear of my place so I continued down Sepulveda and hung a left on Victory.

The drive was nice; twilight gently blanketed a warm, red glow over the hood of my car.

I drove until dusk dimmed into night. I witnessed a technicolor world go black and white in front of my eyes.

The sparse traffic thinned into a lonely, one-car highway.

I lit a smoke and breathed in deep.

See a couple of kids tossing a football back-and-forth as they walk home. The scene takes me back to when I was a kid.

Takes me back. I was about 13. My friends and I were playing war at the local park. Me, Julian, Aaron and Sean.

Julian was from England. He was a good cat. Aaron was a sweet kid I knew from third grade; had a great sense of humor. Sean was kind of an elitist prick, but he had parents that didn’t care how late we stayed out so he was in.

We were thick as thieves.

Aaron and Julian ended up really getting into Nirvana and forming a band. Sean followed suit, but didn’t play an instrument. He was just into it.

I never did take to it, so I slowly got cut out; which was fine because we all ended up going to different high schools.

Aaron and Julian ended up going to Seattle and trying to form a band. Haven’t talked to them in a decade. Sean, I’m sure, is either in prison for tax evasion or doing middle-management somewhere.

Me? I’m a degenerate bastard with more scars than brain cells.

But as I turn around and head home, I’m reminded of an Oscar Wilde quote:

“Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future.”