Second

Second

He always felt second-rate, second-best, second, even when that meant third or fourth.
Sometimes it made him feel like he was nothing more than a whisper in the night that was shrugged off as background noise.
Words leaking into the night from a neighbor's television with its volume too loud. An argument in an apartment down the block.
A song bumping while the car turns into the boulevard and drives away.
He became the chirping of birds.
The barking of dogs.
The buzz of cicadas in the city.
He became the swishing freeway that rises up off the concrete and sails into the ears of those unlucky to be writhing earshot.
Eventually he stopped becoming anything.
Not the hum.
Not the clank.
Not the whistling or rumbling.
He became silent.
He stopped getting in line.
He was no longer second because he was no longer there.
 He simply was not.