The beginning of another book I've yet to write.

When you get old you get wrinkles in your face. Your skin, it gets dry or something and wrinkles up. It’s hard to notice at first but it gets real noticeable when you get to be, I don’t know, sixty or so. Every old person I’ve ever known has wrinkles in their face. Of course I don’t live in Hollywood or Los Angeles where apparently they have ways to deal with that sort of thing. I think I’d rather die with wrinkles though. I suppose it’s a sign that you’ve been to the beach or played with a dog or didn’t wear sunscreen. Anyhow, I hope I live long enough to have wrinkles.
I doubt it.
Heini Brothers' Coffee on Frankfort Avenue has thinned out. My wrinkled subject has departed. Into the cold. It hurts outside. I wish it were summer or at least spring. What good is the cold to anyone. It’s biting. I can’t stand it for more than a moment. Alaska must be the prettiest place in the world otherwise I can’t imagine anyone choosing to live there. On account of the temperature and all. If I had a million dollars I’d live in a greenhouse. Come to think of it I could probably live in a greenhouse for a lot less than that. And it probably wouldn’t be the best life. Greenhouses smell kind of funny in my opinion. I wonder if anyone would come and visit me in my greenhome. Smell the flowers. Steal potting soil. I’d have bags and bags of the stuff. Doesn’t every greenhouse? Potting soil, petunias, a bed in the corner. Maybe a dresser with clothes piled up next to it. A green hue cast on everything. An off-white bedspread. A little dirty. Not messy but dirt dirty. And well yes, probably messy too. I would have to drive a pickup truck, old, maybe green, hunter green, with too much rust to fix. Rust gone wild over the bed and tailgate. Large, gaping holes. Bald tires. Strong engine. Gardener friends. Leather hands. Dirty hands. Hands that feel pain but a face that doesn’t let on.
How does one go about buying a greenhouse and I suppose land to put it on. Good grief, how much would that cost. Being a landowner just sounds expensive. To get cheap land I’d probably have to move to… well Alaska, and you know I’m not moving there.
I could sell flowers I suppose, maybe sell fresh cream. I’d have to buy some dairy cows for the fresh cream. I could probably make enough money to stay alive if my gardener friends would stop stealing my potting soil while I was out making cream or milking cows or whatever. Maybe I’d buy a big fat combination lock and put it on the greenhouse door. That’s what I’d do.
If I live to see it I’ll be an old, lonely, wrinkled gardner.