The man is an ancient gold, the bronze to another’s a golden age. He has a white mustache and goatee. He wore a black and red checkered shirt. He was skinny. His Asian skin clashes with his Austrian heritage. He never knew where he got his tan or his eyes from. He never really searched. He wasn’t a perfect man.
He was a bad man in some aspects; He was a terrible man in others. His name was Jon. Jon was a warrior, a protector. He was a father. He did his best. That is what made him a man.
His martial arts didn’t make him a man. His suffering didn’t make him a man. His stories and battles never made him a man. No matter how many evil men he killed, or imprisoned, it would never make him a man. What made Jonathon a man was that when he ran out of inspiration, or hope, he used determination.
When the man ran out of bullets in his rifle, he drew his pistol. When his knife grew dull, he broke it. When the handle of the knife stopped bashing in the skulls he never let it go. He simply turned to his top two knuckles. His knuckles bled. He woke before the sun and worked until the sun.
Jonathan was a man because he chose to be a man. There is one way to be a man. It doesn’t mean you’ll be a good man or a bad man. It means you’re a man. That way is simple. People don’t want it to be simple. It is the thing that ascends the chemical imbalance.
Depression can push you into being a man, but if you do not choose to fight, you will never be a man. Being a man is choosing to keep going. When you hide, you hide in shadows beneath corpses out of your enemies' possible range of sight. Somewhere they can’t go. If it is physically impossible, you hide where they won’t.
Jon was a man. I hate the details of what that man did, and I hated why he did it even more. Yes, I give him respect. I would shoot him if given the chance. He was a man until he became a spirit. I’m upset, grieving. I would do what I did every single time. I don’t need to admit he’s a man. Being a man doesn’t make you a good man; it makes you a man.