A man fallen from the edge of humanity. A speck in the food chain that’s too small to feed the smallest of mice or the petites of birds. A man left in mere nothingness, but surrounded by everything.

The mail man smiles and gives him a nod as he stuffs his box with more unplayable bills. The interest rates seem to eat at any payment he tries to make and the late charges are the venom that kills hope, kills progress. Sometimes he wonders how he got in this financial debt. How he found himself in this lake of bills and low credit scores. He thinks back on the purchases. The swipe of the card and that mental plan he made to pay it off. The self accountant, rounding up his expected pay stubs in his head and determining the pay off date.

The plan seemed solid until another swipe and another swipe made the plan a little more complicated but still manageable. The whisper of no interest for eighteen months brought in another fiasco. His home became false stated with all these lavish gifts.

He thinks deeper and catches the repetition. He has seen this before, practically all his life he lived in false wealth. An illusion his mother started as far as he could remember. He watched her, infatuated with her material things. Always living lavish ignoring the telephone as it rang off the hook with the bill collectors calls.

A home full of items she truly did not need. Four TV’s, three lap tops, enough gym equipment to open a Bally’s, DVD players, CD players, mp3 players, video game systems. Things she never used but always claimed she needed. The telephone continued to ring. Not becoming silenced until the nine o’clock dead line. He use to look at her, pay check to pay check, that was a life he was going to avoid, a life he looked down on. But many years later, as he sits on the porch of a house in foreclosure, watching as the repo men remove that 52″ inch TV. He takes a deep breath, and suddenly the phone rings.