I'm hiding in the tree tonight, and when they come back to finish it, I'll make them pay. It's the fourth time this month that the side of my house has been tagged by these no good punks. Every week I come out here and see this crap and every week I have to take time out of my busy schedule to sit here and scrub the wall. I scrub until my back aches and my shoulders burn, I even rub the skin raw on my hands. This is not how I should be spending what little time I have left in the world, I'm an 82 year old man for god's sake. I should be playing Bingo or obsessively watching the game show network, not cleaning the side of a brick wall week after week to no avail.

"Art" they call it. No, art is what I see on the rare occasion I visit the Westerden Art Museum. Art is Michelangelo, Rembrandt, Newton....no wait, he was a scientist. Whatever you get my point. What it isn't is vandalizing property with crudely executed bubble letters.

I've been up here for almost an hour and I'm already starting to regret it. In fact I started regretting it the moment I tried to hoist myself up here, which was no easy feat I might add. I've still got it though, these old bones haven't given up on me yet. God, I remember climbing down this very tree when I was a teenager, escaping out my bedroom window to run the town and reek havoc with my friends. That seems so long ago, like it happened to someone else and I'm just remembering a story somebody told me. I'm a completely different person now. In fact, if I was a teenager now I'd probably be hanging around with the very people I despise.

It's not that bad up here actually. You can see the whole city. I've never noticed it before but a lot of buildings around here have been marked by graffiti. Some from the same group that tagged mine, but there's a lot of different symbols too. Hm. It almost gives the city....dare I say it...character. It's imperfect, the city is. It's not all white washed and clean. I kind of like it.

Maybe it is art.
Maybe it's the fresh air going to my head.
Maybe I'm high on nostalgia.
Maybe it's time for me to go back inside.
Maybe I'll try again tomorrow.
Maybe not.