"Look at him, he looks just like what Austin Power's dad would look like."

I exclaimed this while nestled on the couch, surounded by pizza boxes, soda bottles, and overflowing ashtrays. My usual days off consist usually of one thing: relaxing. By relaxing I mean smoking copious amounts of weed, eating greasy food, and watching whatever cinematic masterpeace my baked mind. Today's instalement was Snatch the movie with the English people making robbery, murder, bare knuckled boxing, AND gypsys entertaining.

Richard looked over at me with a glazed look on his face. My usual partner on such Tuesdays of R and R, I usually spend the days ramming movie knowledge trivia down his throat. I'm kind of agresive when it comes to that.

"Yeah...I can see that," he proclaimed, lighting a cigarette. I followed suit, sucking in the worse toxins money can buy.

"It'd be great if that had gotten him and fed him to the pigs..." I started when my phone rang.

"Excuse me Richard," I said as I got up off the couch in a sloth like fashion, while Richard gave me a nod of approval.

Slowing entering my bedroom I answer, already knowing who it is by reading the ID.

"Hey Mom," I say with a slight smirk because I'm high.

"Hey...how's it going" she says. Interesting because I just saw her about three or four hours ago. She makes small talk about what she did today after she left, but with a sound of saddness to her.

Then she tells me they turned the power off.

Some things hit you harder than others. You might try to think about horrible things that happen to people, but you never fully can until you experience it.

"Yeah..I came home and there was a note on the door. I had called them but they claim they don't have a record," she says softly...a mixture of embarassement and depression.

The only thing I felt was guilt.

Always there with money for me or any of my other siblings, even when she didn't have it, I still owed her about three hundred dollars from when the last time my car decided to shit the bed. Money that if she had now, she wouldn't be in debt.

There's a slight silence, because I don't know what to say. All I feel is the guilt wash over me. Guilt that my mom is sitting in the dark with a candle, and possibly crying herself to sleep. Guilty because my sister is their and must feel as hopeless as I do, and she has to see it first hand. Guilty because while my mom is struggling to survive in a life that has been hard on her from the start, I'm sitting on the fucking couch, high, and watching the same movies I always do.

"I'm sorry," I finally manage to mumble.

"It's not your fault," she says, but I know it is.

"I get paid Friday, I can get you some money then"

"It won't help me by then," she says it not in a negative way towards me, which makes me feel even worse.

"Rob might have some extra money," I said. Rob's my brother who at the time did have some and would give it to our Mom in a second.

"Well maybe if I see him I'll ask," she says. Both of us know fully well she probably won't.

"Well I got to make dinner, we're going to have dinner by candle light, right? she says I'm assuming is my sister. There is silence from my sister, and the guilt hits me again because it just confirms how she's doing.

"I'm sorry Mom," I say barely able to stop my voice from cracking. There is nothing I can do, nothing at all. When your parent has been there for you your entire life, through every endeaver you have ever taken, and the one time your parent needs a hand up and you can't provide it?

"It's ok, I'm going to talk to some people tomorrow," she says. She sounds exhausted, like the world being on her shoulders for so long is finally taking its toll. She sounds defeated, and all I can do is feel sorry for myself.

"If you need anything let me know," I tell her. It's all I can do to try to comfort her, but more likely than anything else I'm trying to comfort myself.

"OK...I'll talk to you later," she says, a bit of hope in her voice.

"OK...love you," I say.

"Love you too," she says her voice cracking.

I shut my phone and stand there for a moment. The cigarette in my hand slowly burning away, the ash barely hanging on the end. The red ambers slowly making its way towards the filter like snakes.

I wander back into the living room and silence fills the room.

"How's your Mom?" asks Richard.

I put out my cigarette, and immediately grab another one and put it between my lips. With a flick of the lighter I press the fire to the end of the cigarette and breathe in deeply, then breathe out.

"She's going to be ok."