Guest Post By El Steppenwolf
A soft death, the rattle heard in every whispered breath. The flickering television light bleaches all colour. It plays about the tired face, flushed red skin and puffed red cheeks. The eyelids still and closed, and everything is so still. The once-so-jolly man retreating from the world that never offered anything but mediocrity in a mediocre world. He knows no regret but knows no joy.
Far from the raging plains of war. Cozy in the carpeted lounge, the TV loud but unwatched. The incessant advertising may as well be white noise. Cold tea sitting in a colder cup.
The Literary Gangster 
Thanks El, intriguing story. It rattled me…! I love the last line, it gives me shivers. So does the part about the ugly carpet…oh sorry, that’s how I imagined it! I meant the carpeted lounge! Cheers El xTLG.
A great original piece that resonated with me, and triggered a memory of a poem by John Betjeman called “Death in Lemington”, which contained the lines “Chintzy, chintzy cheeriness, half dead and half alive” (or so I remember, but it was many many years ago that I read it).
Thanks Rowan. I’ll have to read that. Also, I like “homo suburbiensis” by bruce dawe, a poem we studied in school many years ago. The character of that poem is a part of his garden ecology and I’m much more sympathetic to that. I just think it is a common tragedy that we die doing really boring things. Like data analysis… that would kill the brain cells of anyone…