happiness

i believe in happiness the way i believe in santa claus: a red-suited, jolly fiction invented to keep the kids in line. "if you're good, you'll be happy." and I believed. and I was good, so good, terrified into goodness by the prospect of the alterntive to happiness: sadness, or worse yet, anger.

just when did i realize that the fellow in the red suit was just an ordinary man, not a saint. that his laugh was a hollow imitation of long imitated jolliness. that the beard was plastic.

only his fat gut was real.