My Adult Outlooks

It was mid October. The clouds hung heavy, the days were strained cold, the sleet feel fast and hard.

Where John worked there was little in the way of shelter. He shoveled heaps of rubbish at the dump, the icy frost giving it a diamond wink as he stabbed in with his spade and pushed it together towards the incinerator.

John had little warmth in his life. He was involved in 'Adult Dating' a service organising meetings between lonesome mid aged widowers and widows. All ready to sleep next to anyone they could cry out the name of their long lost first love and not expect remorse. Not one was gorgeous, not one would turn a glance on the street. They were mainly battered by life, wrinkles growing deep, slicing through skin like carvings, smiles missing teeth, tongues dry and laughs cackled.

John shoveled faster. The cold began to sweep up his arms and shake through his fluorescent jacket. Tonight was his first date with a woman named Georgina. He hadn't held much more than an almost teenage forced desire for him to rid himself of the passionless chill of the empty mornings. He knew like all the women at 'Adult Dating' she would leave him with a taste of old cigarettes and purpling grey hair on the sheets, but it was warmth, it was another body to be beside.

Since he joined 'Adult Dating' John had shaved everyday, showered before and after work and washed his hands even before eating. He considered himself a well rounded member of society. No crimes. No convictions at least. High school grades forced through the slow twitch of his teachers eyes. He knew inside he was nothing much, but there always was something inside him. The girl. Fiona. That lustful adolescent bulge in his body, she sat in front of him in classes, always led him on with a few words, a few soft promises of future enticement, of future words and worlds such as

"Can i borrow some paper?"

Or

"Can you finish this work for me?"

He fell for her. She trusted his work, even though he understood so much less than she ever did. It just showed him inside that maybe she was right for him. The shadows behind her eyes quivering with blinking lasses.

But now he was here, hands red under old cracked leather gloves. 'adult dating' keeping him quenched of humanity.

He stuck his shovel back in. The sunshine almost gleamed on the frost, then it peeled away to the rubbish.