The morning head of steam dissipated into the still office air. Josh slumped into his chair and rolled into position. His back ached in a distant way. He squirmed. He envisioned his spine and a time-lapsed vignette of X-rays tracking its compression over years of sitting. No one ever sat this much. He stared down at his desk, jumping along its speckled laminate surface. A little like cookies-and-cream. Been a long time since I had any ice cream. Faintly audible voices mumbled in either frustration or excitement. Being inside the confines of his workstation was like being on the brink of fainting. The sound-dampening batting behind the cloth of the cubicle walls muffled all sounds beyond his perimeter.
This isolation reminded Josh of being inside an igloo. From years six to eight, he and his father built crude structures out the snow removed from their driveway. Snow is on the short list of most exciting events in a child’s life. The cancellation of school was no less relieving than last-minute clemency granted to a death-row inmate. After rising from the sweet rest of sleeping in, Josh wanted nothing more than to play in nature’s time-sensitive embellishment. The world became an amusement park and a battlefield when a white blanket descended upon his neighborhood. So much was newly possible: the sledding and the slippery surfaces, the laughing and running and heaving lungs constricted by icy air, the nose red and dripping like a faucet to be absent-mindedly tongued or wiped with a sleeve, the hurried scooping and packing, the close-calls and the cold melting down your shirt, under your gloves’ cuffs, and clinging like ice-cubes around the ankles of socks. At least, those were Josh’s dreams.
Dad and lad, with age-appropriate shovels, created a mound on the western side of their north-south slab of concrete. After the best the Midwest had to offer in the way of blizzards, the final products would be taller than Josh. They looked lumpy like mashed potatoes, except with undertones more blue than brown. Carefully, young Josh dug a hole in the center of its base. This was his bunker. Once the cavern was sufficient to contain him in a fetal position, he outfitted the fortress. He carved out tiny enclaves to house a secret cache of snowballs in expectation of an attack. This was his arsenal. Once completed, he army-crawled inside and waited for the siege to begin. He felt safe at first. He thought it was like being a part of mom, dark and warm with body heat. Inside, nothing beyond respiration could be heard. He had made it. Mission accomplished. The kids would come and he would be ready. Now he would be protected. Even more, he would be victorious. Who else had an igloo? He waited for his chance. He laid on his stomach and felt the chill seep through his black snow-suit that swished when he walked. It was so quiet. No cars, no air conditioning, no dogs or television made noise. Dad went inside. There was nothing to do. There was nothing to look at. Everything was the color of graphite ahead of him. Looking around his puffy red, blue, and yellow coat, he saw the glow of light by the mouth of the mound. Were they out there now? Why was he in here? Excitement fooled him again. Nothing happened. He had no friends. The neighbors’ children never welcomed him into the fold when he moved onto the block. The snowballs sat in their spots. The silence became antagonistic. He was deaf to the world. He felt consumed. Within fifteen minutes, he grew hopelessly bored and frightened. He started to panic. Josh was lost (in the sense of not knowing where he was going rather than knowing where he was). He retracted from the orifice like an inchworm. Defeated, he went inside and dried off by the floor vent, thawing on the carpet. Mom made hot chocolate with swollen marshmallow icebergs in it that clung to his lips mid-sip. He looked out the front windows with their droplets of condensation at the igloo, a monument to disappointment. After a day in full sun, the forlorn structure would start to sag. Often it would be trampled on by the kids he wanted so badly to play with when they returned from escapades unknown, laughing, with ruddy cheeks and sleds in tow. If left alone, the igloo would stay longer than the rest of the snow. It melted and froze into the consistency of a snow cone. It would be soiled with the little bits of dirt that floated in the wind he learned about in science class. In his ninth winter, he heard of a similar structure collapsing on a child and suffocating him. He imagined the terror of being trapped inside that scary place—unable to see, hear, or move. The danger, coupled with recollections of previous attempts, was enough to prevent him from doing anything with the subsequent mounds Mr. Stevenson confusedly built on his own. Poor dad.
For all this thought of snow, Josh felt colder. He rubbed the sides of his arms quickly, making his hands tingly. His eyes were open, but he paid no mind to his visual field.
While on the clock, it never looked good (i.e., productive/profitable) to have translucent neon bubbles floating across one’s screen or pipes stochastically elongating and bending atop a black backdrop. Accordingly, Josh disarmed his screen-saver. His monitor’s steadfast display suggested he was never far away from where he should be and never stopped doing as he should be doing for more than ten minutes. It was a simple move to ingratiate himself to the “powers that be” (wherever they were) should they ever pay him a visit. Moreover, it prevented the wandering eyes of passersby from gaining compromising intelligence. The ploy was not without drawbacks, though. First and foremost, the cursor blinked indefatigably. It never stopped. It seemed impatient like a mother tapping her foot. By the end of most days, its throbbing was reminiscent of the tell-tale heart. It made Josh feel guilty. The blinking black line would not let him forget the job he had to do. It was waiting for him, taunting. It could keep this up all day. It was going to outlast him. Presently, Josh saw it pulsate confrontationally. Damned machine. Clocks do the work for you. Cursors, though…they won’t do a thing without your effort. He rubbed his chin, which felt warm and slick in comparison with his cold, dry hand. He wondered how many times in an average day he derided himself for daydreaming. Come on now. Back to work. He swigged his tepid coffee. It did not satisfy. The aftertaste was not unlike burnt toast. At least it’s strong.
Josh grabbed for the mouse. He ran his circuit around four websites. He checked his personal email (nothing), his profile (nothing), his blog (nothing), and then his preferred news outlet (nothing). He sifted through local scores and half-heartedly read a recap of a recent hockey game. He was not interested in sports, but hometown allegiance was an easy position to act upon when idle. For grins, he perused the “most popular searches” feature of his standby search engine. Apparently an actress announced immanent plans to take a sabbatical from the screen and spend the summer in a recording studio. She enthused, “I just think music is great and I really love movies still, too, of course, they’ve been good to me. But I’ve always wanted to sing ever since I was like a little girl. I think I can now, you know? I want to make something really special, you know, that people will want to go out there and buy and connect with. I’m really excited! I’ve got a bunch of ideas for album covers already.” This is what people are interested in. He withdrew from the mouse, pushed down on his heels, and rolled back a little. A faint sound, either laughter or sobbing, briefly interrupted the silence. Josh looked about himself. Kleenex. Mug. Calendar. Papers. Kinda barren. I really should put something on the partitions. A thumb-tack would go right through that material. A print? Cezanne? Would need to cut off the bottom title. Tacky. Why do they put those titles on there? It detracts aesthetically. Better to not know than to detract from the art. Why are people so concerned with the title or who made it? The art stands alone. Is it just curiosity? People naturally want to know. Misses the point of the artwork, though. It’s not for knowing. Still, credit where credit’s due. The point of art, though—what’s that?
The musings were arrested by footsteps. His adjustable gooseneck desk lamp quaked in anticipation. Here comes Ralph. Ralph Metcalf, chief supervising engineer and elitist in residence, was neither good nor bad. He was simply large. Everything about him was large—his bovine face, his booming voice, his splayed and bulging wing-tips, his mile-long parabolic ties that never managed to descend beyond the dark concavity his gaping navel created beneath his shrink-wrap-like dress shirts. Given his girth, the ground announced him before he could announce himself. The steel girding of the high-rise flexed with each stride. Upon noticing this phenomenon, Josh had visions of the Cretaceous period. The ever-so-slight jiggling in his fleshy parts could well have been the sensation of concussions produced by some great lumbering reptile. Like a vulnerable-yet-savvy herbivore, the tremors caused him to scamper to safety. A thought of Pavlov’s bell raced across his consciousness, but he let it dart by. Josh drew near his desk, opened the folder again, and began to rattle off more letters. Mr. Metcalf hollered, “Stevenson!” as he passed. His matter-of-fact tone implied the utterance was merely to identify what he saw, rather than to greet or scold it. A force of nature. Although his shoulders drooped and he exhaled after the thuds receded, he did not stop working.
Showing posts with label loneliness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label loneliness. Show all posts
Thursday, April 21, 2011
Sunday, March 6, 2011
Solitary: 1
There was a fuzzy, muffled sound flashing far away. The intermittent squawking pursued Josh, despite his evasion. The grating cry menaced him. It was his alarm. He turned to confront it. He tugged at his dreary body like a puppeteer. The air was cold. His arm was chilled during its escape from the blankets. He felt for the switch, clicked it, and reeled his arm back in. The crease under his pillow radiated heat. He tried blinking. Another day began. A number of relevant thoughts appeared like soldiers reporting for duty. Lunch. I need to make lunch this morning. Proofreading day today. He dismissed the bedding. It might snow. Josh hesitantly succumbed to necessity and stood up.
His job had a way of tyrannizing his day up until washing his dinner plate and silverware. He prepared himself due to his job, drove to the city due to his job, worked for the job-required time, drove from the city due to his job, and ate to recover from the occupational expenditures of energy (which were more emotional/spiritual than physical).
To begin, Josh addressed the mess he made. He bent and pulled his sheets taught, then his blanket, then his comforter. He stacked one white damask pillow in front of the other. He ran his hand across the top of the comforter and completed the daily ritual about which his father had boasted. (“Not a day went by where I didn’t make my bed. Sick, healthy, happy, or sad.”) He thought this was a trivial accomplishment, although he felt more at ease having done it. He moved on.
Josh did not slink across the carpet as tired people are wont to do. He felt old whenever he heard himself scrape the ground. The sound of shuffling reminded him of his ever-lost and pacing grandpa. He did not want to be like his grandpa. Josh was averse to aging. He consciously lifted and lowered his feet as if he was walking mid-day to convince himself he was entirely awake and alive.
In normal circumstances, he functioned within a regimented routine. The regime and its regularity were secondary to unconscious pacing (i.e., “autopilot”) rather than intentional choosing. The precision was a brute consequence of how long it unreflectively took him to eat, dress, and tend to matters of personal hygiene. 17-18 minutes were needed to pour and eat a bowl of cereal (e.g., frosted shredded wheat). 10-11 minutes were needed to pick out and put on an outfit (e.g. oxfords, khakis, and tan derbies). One-two minutes were needed to tie his tie (one being needed for the four-in-hand and two being needed for the half-or-full Windsor, dictated by flair of the collar). Four-six minutes were needed to mouth-wash, teeth-brush, and shave. Two minutes were needed to find a jacket and, in the winter, pick out a scarf. His alarm sounded at 7:01 AM and he was out of the door by 7:35-7:40AM. A 12-14 minute commute, a two minute walk from the lot to the building, and one minute elevator ride resulted in Josh being ready to work comfortably, but not excessively, before 8:00 AM. That the periods of time were so consistent at once impressed him (because he functioned like a clock and was, therefore, superhuman) and depressed him (because he functioned like a clock and was, therefore, subhuman).
The evening routine was less exact. Since the inauguration of his adulthood, workweek evenings involved tie loosening, jacket hanging, and dinner making. After returning the kitchen to pre-meal normalcy, Josh was entirely free (up until, of course, he needed to prepare to sleep so that he would not be tired the following day at work). This post-dinner time comprised of a mixture of movie watching, internet perusing, and, with increasing frequency, reading. Randomness was most regularly manifested in his lunch preparation. Whenever Josh felt “up to it,” he would make a sandwich for the next day. Last night, thanks in large part to a draining black and white foreign film, Josh went to bed without preparing a lunch.
This morning, in a dreamy stupor of sleepiness, he made his sandwich. Josh artfully applied a glob of peanut butter to the bread as a baker spreads icing. He wagged the knife side-to-side. When finished, the smooth, gently lustrous surface gleamed as though the topping was sprayed on rather than spread. The jelly-coated slice glistened with blotches of fruit flesh. He licked the knife, missed summertime berries, and rinsed it under the kitchen faucet. Josh placed the jellied-slice on top of the peanut-buttered slice with precision and slid it into a plastic bag. He inserted it and a mealy apple into his lunch bag, abutting the water bottle in a way that would not compress the delicate, vulnerable bread.
After this delay, Josh initiated the standard morning sequence. Despite chewing faster and fussing less with his tie, he could not accelerate his breakfast consumption to sufficiently compensate for his lunch-making. He locked the deadbolt on his door at 7:44 AM.
The car was dreadfully cold. The seats containing frozen foam were firmer than normal. Josh donned his sunglasses and adjusted the driver’s side visor. As his commute began, the sun hovered slightly above the horizon like a lion hunched low on the plain. Atmospheric pollution draped over the city like wax paper and tinted the sky dreamsicle. The distant buildings looked to be made of charcoal.
Driving east along the highway on a December morning was painful. A depressed section of highway with a nearly parallel stretch of road overhead felt ominous. Due to impractical geography at the time of construction, the road bent slightly to the south and back to the north, inadvertently mitigating the due-west confrontation. Abandoned, rusting buildings flanked the drivers. By the time his hungry pupils expanded in the shadows, he was nearly out of the elongated rut. Cresting the hill, the sun impaled his vision. “Erg.” The sight was not white and calm like something heavenly but yellow and accusatory like a police officer’s flashlight. He could no more look ahead than breath underwater. Everything in him resisted. It was too bright to think. At these moments, Josh focused his vision on the three foot area of pavement in front of his hood. The sun seemed to tolerate downcast eyes of deference. This is how I’ll die, running into some stalled vehicle. How is anyone else seeing? Eventually the angles and the surrounding structures were such that Josh could see again. He flicked his turn indicator, exited, and navigated the grid of numbered streets. He backed into a parking space and strode as quickly as dignity would allow into his office building.
Josh punched his timecard at 8:03. Mr. Calloway, the official assistant manager and unofficial office Bad Cop, glared as he passed. His blond mustachioed face twitched in disapproval. There’s going to be an email.
His job had a way of tyrannizing his day up until washing his dinner plate and silverware. He prepared himself due to his job, drove to the city due to his job, worked for the job-required time, drove from the city due to his job, and ate to recover from the occupational expenditures of energy (which were more emotional/spiritual than physical).
To begin, Josh addressed the mess he made. He bent and pulled his sheets taught, then his blanket, then his comforter. He stacked one white damask pillow in front of the other. He ran his hand across the top of the comforter and completed the daily ritual about which his father had boasted. (“Not a day went by where I didn’t make my bed. Sick, healthy, happy, or sad.”) He thought this was a trivial accomplishment, although he felt more at ease having done it. He moved on.
Josh did not slink across the carpet as tired people are wont to do. He felt old whenever he heard himself scrape the ground. The sound of shuffling reminded him of his ever-lost and pacing grandpa. He did not want to be like his grandpa. Josh was averse to aging. He consciously lifted and lowered his feet as if he was walking mid-day to convince himself he was entirely awake and alive.
In normal circumstances, he functioned within a regimented routine. The regime and its regularity were secondary to unconscious pacing (i.e., “autopilot”) rather than intentional choosing. The precision was a brute consequence of how long it unreflectively took him to eat, dress, and tend to matters of personal hygiene. 17-18 minutes were needed to pour and eat a bowl of cereal (e.g., frosted shredded wheat). 10-11 minutes were needed to pick out and put on an outfit (e.g. oxfords, khakis, and tan derbies). One-two minutes were needed to tie his tie (one being needed for the four-in-hand and two being needed for the half-or-full Windsor, dictated by flair of the collar). Four-six minutes were needed to mouth-wash, teeth-brush, and shave. Two minutes were needed to find a jacket and, in the winter, pick out a scarf. His alarm sounded at 7:01 AM and he was out of the door by 7:35-7:40AM. A 12-14 minute commute, a two minute walk from the lot to the building, and one minute elevator ride resulted in Josh being ready to work comfortably, but not excessively, before 8:00 AM. That the periods of time were so consistent at once impressed him (because he functioned like a clock and was, therefore, superhuman) and depressed him (because he functioned like a clock and was, therefore, subhuman).
The evening routine was less exact. Since the inauguration of his adulthood, workweek evenings involved tie loosening, jacket hanging, and dinner making. After returning the kitchen to pre-meal normalcy, Josh was entirely free (up until, of course, he needed to prepare to sleep so that he would not be tired the following day at work). This post-dinner time comprised of a mixture of movie watching, internet perusing, and, with increasing frequency, reading. Randomness was most regularly manifested in his lunch preparation. Whenever Josh felt “up to it,” he would make a sandwich for the next day. Last night, thanks in large part to a draining black and white foreign film, Josh went to bed without preparing a lunch.
This morning, in a dreamy stupor of sleepiness, he made his sandwich. Josh artfully applied a glob of peanut butter to the bread as a baker spreads icing. He wagged the knife side-to-side. When finished, the smooth, gently lustrous surface gleamed as though the topping was sprayed on rather than spread. The jelly-coated slice glistened with blotches of fruit flesh. He licked the knife, missed summertime berries, and rinsed it under the kitchen faucet. Josh placed the jellied-slice on top of the peanut-buttered slice with precision and slid it into a plastic bag. He inserted it and a mealy apple into his lunch bag, abutting the water bottle in a way that would not compress the delicate, vulnerable bread.
After this delay, Josh initiated the standard morning sequence. Despite chewing faster and fussing less with his tie, he could not accelerate his breakfast consumption to sufficiently compensate for his lunch-making. He locked the deadbolt on his door at 7:44 AM.
The car was dreadfully cold. The seats containing frozen foam were firmer than normal. Josh donned his sunglasses and adjusted the driver’s side visor. As his commute began, the sun hovered slightly above the horizon like a lion hunched low on the plain. Atmospheric pollution draped over the city like wax paper and tinted the sky dreamsicle. The distant buildings looked to be made of charcoal.
Driving east along the highway on a December morning was painful. A depressed section of highway with a nearly parallel stretch of road overhead felt ominous. Due to impractical geography at the time of construction, the road bent slightly to the south and back to the north, inadvertently mitigating the due-west confrontation. Abandoned, rusting buildings flanked the drivers. By the time his hungry pupils expanded in the shadows, he was nearly out of the elongated rut. Cresting the hill, the sun impaled his vision. “Erg.” The sight was not white and calm like something heavenly but yellow and accusatory like a police officer’s flashlight. He could no more look ahead than breath underwater. Everything in him resisted. It was too bright to think. At these moments, Josh focused his vision on the three foot area of pavement in front of his hood. The sun seemed to tolerate downcast eyes of deference. This is how I’ll die, running into some stalled vehicle. How is anyone else seeing? Eventually the angles and the surrounding structures were such that Josh could see again. He flicked his turn indicator, exited, and navigated the grid of numbered streets. He backed into a parking space and strode as quickly as dignity would allow into his office building.
Josh punched his timecard at 8:03. Mr. Calloway, the official assistant manager and unofficial office Bad Cop, glared as he passed. His blond mustachioed face twitched in disapproval. There’s going to be an email.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
A Portrait of Loneliness
(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)
An icy wind whistled in Josh’s ears. He pulled his newsboy hat lower and raised his shoulders. The streets through which he roamed look deserted. Milky steam plumed from a sewer lid and slinked across the road until it dispersed. Josh paused at an intersection to let a car pass. Once it rattled by, Josh resumed his course in defiance of the glowing orange hand that advised him otherwise.
The smell of vegetable oil and rice vinegar reminded Josh of his happier past. Walking among the downtown buildings, he caught a waft of such a scent while passing a bustling buffet. He slid into a stream of wistful recollections.
Josh became attuned to the scent of Chinese food during his first taste of independence. Bolstered by the new found freedom resultant from passed driving exams and hindered by poorly paying summer jobs, Josh and his friends sought inexpensive means to wade into maturity. It was preferable to leave their respective homes with their ever-cramping restrictions, yet it was impossible to take shelter in a local tavern. Senior year of high school was a time of conversations fueled by the excitement of youth rather than the intoxicants of adulthood.
Restaurants were a fitting locale for adolescent escapades. They were the sort of places you could laugh and carry on like adults without the bank accounts that come with careers. The blissfully nondescript Hunan Inn was the sort of place you could order something like the House Special and not think twice about price. Nestled between an anemic insurance office and a vacant store front, the mustard yellow neon sign for the Hunan Inn gleamed with the promise of quantity over quality.
Hunan Inn was distinct for its changelessness. Even its wounds of dilapidation remained the same. Dining was like eating in a forgotten museum. On the table at the booth in the southeast corner rested an archaic, small black-and-white television with an antenna cloaked in silver foil. Every surface was frosted with grey powder. Dust accumulated on ancient wisps of spider web to form forlorn bridges from a plastic framed silhouette of the Buddha on the wall to a lonely bouquet of fake flowers or to the pepper shaker near the soy sauce bottle. Rips in the russet vinyl booth cushions were healed with duct tape the color of chocolate. The liquids in the rainbow of liquor bottles never descended. It was as though the restaurant aged to a point and thereafter could not be touched by time.
What would have otherwise been a depressing environment was redeemed by the meek elderly couple who were its proprietors. "Grandpa," as Josh’s friends referred to him, cooked exclusively. He never made extended forays into the dining room. Instead, he kept near the back and grinned from a distance whenever he felt eyes upon him. The slight woman and presumed wife of Grandpa was the face of the establishment. She sported a heather grey ponytail and bright red apron that fell slightly above the knees. She served the food, cleaned up, and irregularly showered you with stale-but-sweet almond cookies as you left. Although it was a transparent attempt to make use out of expired goods, the treats nevertheless were a relished surprise.
Most endearing about the locale was the fact that on nearly all visits, the friends were the only customers. This gave the group two obvious benefits: greater license to be boisterous and an illusion the restaurant was their own private dining room, the sort of thing business executives had access to. They were kings of a small hill, but kings all the same.
Opening the door to Hunan Inn jingled a bell on a tattered piece of yarn and roused the staff to attention. Departing from the vestibule coincided with the tail of white knotted strings of Grandpa’s apron darting into the kitchen. The woman greeted the young man by counting them and stating “four” in a declarative rather than inquisitive tone. Although all the tables were available, the woman always sat the group at the same one. It was not near a window or in a corner, yet it seemed to them like the seating for very important persons. She took everyone’s orders with squinty smiles and nods.
Josh never failed to feel full after a meal at the Hunan Inn. There was plenty of food. More steamed rice and lo mein noodles were provided without charge in the rare instance that a voracious appetite outlasted the dinner portions. More than food, Josh felt filled by human connection. He and his friends would pile outrageous tale on top of outrageous tale in a comedic competition. Late-night escapades, close-calls with authority figures, female conquests (or impending conquests), and intricate plans of tomfoolery buttressed the remaining edifice of conversation they built. The friends left listening would chuckle and rattle the teapot with ecstatic slaps of mirth. Cynicism, hypocrisy, and spite fueled many of the jokes and wise-cracks, but the conclusion was always laughter. Whether the humor was good-natured or dark never mattered as much as actively sharing with one another. Rarely did any of the participants feel like they knew anyone else better, but they were unquestionably closer every time they left.
A raised slab of concrete tripped him out of his memories. Josh stumbled and felt embarrassed at his excessively awkward corrective motions. He stayed vertical at the cost of snickers from two passing women carrying large soft-drinks. He blushed and cast his eyes in a direction that would have kept him tripping again. He wished he had someone to laugh with.
Josh wondered why it was he always found himself depressed whenever he took the time to wonder. Then he thought of his isolation and how dreadfully unknown he was. It is not good for man to be alone. During the crucible of college, he grew disdainful of shallow interactions. He did not have the time to engage in conventional dialogues concerning what he was going to “do” with his degree. After college was over and he was fully independent (i.e., isolated), he found shallowness preferable to the loneliness.
Where did my friends go? Different towns. Different dreams. Everything goes to shit. Entropy. This is not what I expected. What happened? Why don’t we at least write a note to each other every now-and-again? Technology makes us brittle. We're so damned distractible--all these shiny, beeping gadgets shining and beeping every other second. I wish it was quieter. I wish I could go to bed thinking I talked with someone today. They never really cared. Or did they just stop? Transitioned to something else.
Crossing a plate-glass front of a café, Josh eyed the crowd. People were sporadically positioned along the lengthy counter behind the window. A man in a hooded sweatshirt and a denim jacket took a bite of a half-eaten hoagie. The bottom contents fell out in a slimy plop. The man pinched the fallen ingredients together between his fingers and tilted his head back. Josh looked forward before he could watch the man release them into his full mouth.
I want to have friends. I don't have friends. I am sad. I used to have friends. I don't have friends. I am sad. Repeat. Refrain. Encore! Encore! Sadness is a rhythm and depression is its waltz. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, want, 2, 3, miss, 2, 3, sad, 2, 3. We travel the same steps of thought to the beat of the old wheezy throbs of our hearts. We twist and turn, spin and sway, to the same notes that resonate for the same amounts of time.
Acrid saliva seeped into the back of Josh’s mouth. He felt nauseous. He fixed himself the only way he knew how: he gave himself something else to be conscious of. He unbuttoned the front of his jacket and let the air chill he core. His organs shuddered. Humans weren’t supposed to live here. It’s too damn cold.
An icy wind whistled in Josh’s ears. He pulled his newsboy hat lower and raised his shoulders. The streets through which he roamed look deserted. Milky steam plumed from a sewer lid and slinked across the road until it dispersed. Josh paused at an intersection to let a car pass. Once it rattled by, Josh resumed his course in defiance of the glowing orange hand that advised him otherwise.
The smell of vegetable oil and rice vinegar reminded Josh of his happier past. Walking among the downtown buildings, he caught a waft of such a scent while passing a bustling buffet. He slid into a stream of wistful recollections.
Josh became attuned to the scent of Chinese food during his first taste of independence. Bolstered by the new found freedom resultant from passed driving exams and hindered by poorly paying summer jobs, Josh and his friends sought inexpensive means to wade into maturity. It was preferable to leave their respective homes with their ever-cramping restrictions, yet it was impossible to take shelter in a local tavern. Senior year of high school was a time of conversations fueled by the excitement of youth rather than the intoxicants of adulthood.
Restaurants were a fitting locale for adolescent escapades. They were the sort of places you could laugh and carry on like adults without the bank accounts that come with careers. The blissfully nondescript Hunan Inn was the sort of place you could order something like the House Special and not think twice about price. Nestled between an anemic insurance office and a vacant store front, the mustard yellow neon sign for the Hunan Inn gleamed with the promise of quantity over quality.
Hunan Inn was distinct for its changelessness. Even its wounds of dilapidation remained the same. Dining was like eating in a forgotten museum. On the table at the booth in the southeast corner rested an archaic, small black-and-white television with an antenna cloaked in silver foil. Every surface was frosted with grey powder. Dust accumulated on ancient wisps of spider web to form forlorn bridges from a plastic framed silhouette of the Buddha on the wall to a lonely bouquet of fake flowers or to the pepper shaker near the soy sauce bottle. Rips in the russet vinyl booth cushions were healed with duct tape the color of chocolate. The liquids in the rainbow of liquor bottles never descended. It was as though the restaurant aged to a point and thereafter could not be touched by time.
What would have otherwise been a depressing environment was redeemed by the meek elderly couple who were its proprietors. "Grandpa," as Josh’s friends referred to him, cooked exclusively. He never made extended forays into the dining room. Instead, he kept near the back and grinned from a distance whenever he felt eyes upon him. The slight woman and presumed wife of Grandpa was the face of the establishment. She sported a heather grey ponytail and bright red apron that fell slightly above the knees. She served the food, cleaned up, and irregularly showered you with stale-but-sweet almond cookies as you left. Although it was a transparent attempt to make use out of expired goods, the treats nevertheless were a relished surprise.
Most endearing about the locale was the fact that on nearly all visits, the friends were the only customers. This gave the group two obvious benefits: greater license to be boisterous and an illusion the restaurant was their own private dining room, the sort of thing business executives had access to. They were kings of a small hill, but kings all the same.
Opening the door to Hunan Inn jingled a bell on a tattered piece of yarn and roused the staff to attention. Departing from the vestibule coincided with the tail of white knotted strings of Grandpa’s apron darting into the kitchen. The woman greeted the young man by counting them and stating “four” in a declarative rather than inquisitive tone. Although all the tables were available, the woman always sat the group at the same one. It was not near a window or in a corner, yet it seemed to them like the seating for very important persons. She took everyone’s orders with squinty smiles and nods.
Josh never failed to feel full after a meal at the Hunan Inn. There was plenty of food. More steamed rice and lo mein noodles were provided without charge in the rare instance that a voracious appetite outlasted the dinner portions. More than food, Josh felt filled by human connection. He and his friends would pile outrageous tale on top of outrageous tale in a comedic competition. Late-night escapades, close-calls with authority figures, female conquests (or impending conquests), and intricate plans of tomfoolery buttressed the remaining edifice of conversation they built. The friends left listening would chuckle and rattle the teapot with ecstatic slaps of mirth. Cynicism, hypocrisy, and spite fueled many of the jokes and wise-cracks, but the conclusion was always laughter. Whether the humor was good-natured or dark never mattered as much as actively sharing with one another. Rarely did any of the participants feel like they knew anyone else better, but they were unquestionably closer every time they left.
A raised slab of concrete tripped him out of his memories. Josh stumbled and felt embarrassed at his excessively awkward corrective motions. He stayed vertical at the cost of snickers from two passing women carrying large soft-drinks. He blushed and cast his eyes in a direction that would have kept him tripping again. He wished he had someone to laugh with.
Josh wondered why it was he always found himself depressed whenever he took the time to wonder. Then he thought of his isolation and how dreadfully unknown he was. It is not good for man to be alone. During the crucible of college, he grew disdainful of shallow interactions. He did not have the time to engage in conventional dialogues concerning what he was going to “do” with his degree. After college was over and he was fully independent (i.e., isolated), he found shallowness preferable to the loneliness.
Where did my friends go? Different towns. Different dreams. Everything goes to shit. Entropy. This is not what I expected. What happened? Why don’t we at least write a note to each other every now-and-again? Technology makes us brittle. We're so damned distractible--all these shiny, beeping gadgets shining and beeping every other second. I wish it was quieter. I wish I could go to bed thinking I talked with someone today. They never really cared. Or did they just stop? Transitioned to something else.
Crossing a plate-glass front of a café, Josh eyed the crowd. People were sporadically positioned along the lengthy counter behind the window. A man in a hooded sweatshirt and a denim jacket took a bite of a half-eaten hoagie. The bottom contents fell out in a slimy plop. The man pinched the fallen ingredients together between his fingers and tilted his head back. Josh looked forward before he could watch the man release them into his full mouth.
I want to have friends. I don't have friends. I am sad. I used to have friends. I don't have friends. I am sad. Repeat. Refrain. Encore! Encore! Sadness is a rhythm and depression is its waltz. 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, want, 2, 3, miss, 2, 3, sad, 2, 3. We travel the same steps of thought to the beat of the old wheezy throbs of our hearts. We twist and turn, spin and sway, to the same notes that resonate for the same amounts of time.
Acrid saliva seeped into the back of Josh’s mouth. He felt nauseous. He fixed himself the only way he knew how: he gave himself something else to be conscious of. He unbuttoned the front of his jacket and let the air chill he core. His organs shuddered. Humans weren’t supposed to live here. It’s too damn cold.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Functional Definition
(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)
A sensation of lightness rose within Josh and Ryan as the elevator they shared descended. Both stared ahead at their golden reflections in the elevator doors. Neither were certain of how to proceed in conversation. After a final electronic tone, the doors opened onto the lobby. Both exited. Josh looked down at the maroon carpet slightly in front of his feet as he walked; Ryan watched the pedestrians passing beyond the glass front of the downtown building.
"How can mornings be so long?" Josh asked.
Ryan put his hand on the bar on the revolving door. It resisted. Ryan felt weak. With additional effort, the door began to spin. Josh followed behind, awkwardly jumping into the next cross-section at the last possible moment. The cool fall air felt the same but smelled different than the air inside the building. "Didn't you have something to work on?" Ryan inquired in response.
"Yeah. Data to enter, as always. I haven't written a report in a while. I'm frankly looking forward to taking the last cup of coffee, so that I have to make a new pot."
The two wove through the median of the foot-traffic. Their aenemic city left them plenty of space to travel.
"Sounds rough."
"Yeah. Real rough."
Josh glanced at Ryan, whose stern countenance emminated dignity. "How do you go on?"
"How do you mean?"
"You do the same stuff as me, more or less. You've been doing it for a few months longer than I have. It doesn't seem to phase you."
"What other option do you have?"
Josh considered the question briefly. "No viable ones that I can find. That's part of the problem."
"That you have to work?"
"No, that you have to do crap work like this. I know. I know. We're both lucky to have jobs, but they could be done by computers...should be done by computers, really. It's completely mindless. Bodiless, too, for that matter. Just the fingers, wrists, and a little eye ball movement. It is a miserable existence and I am pretty much stuck with it."
"If you think about it, it's miserable." Ryan scanned the street for approaching cars and promptly jaywalked. He drew tepid satisfaction from breaking the law. Josh intentionally stomped on a cigarette butt that leaked a ribbon of smoke. "What can you do?" Ryan added.
"Didn't you hear me? There's nothing I can do. I said that was part of the problem."
"Part of the solution, too."
"What? How so?" Josh squinted and shielded his eyes from a blade of sunlight that stabbed between the high-rises.
"Well if there's nothing to do, don't give it another thought."
"You think I am trying to? I don't court these feelings. But if you take a moment to consider what you are doing for hours upon hours...the feelings come on their own. Type, type, type. Click, click, click. It wears on you. The clock moves so slow and when the whistle blows, you feel like you haven't done a single significant action all day."
Ryan shrugged. "That's work for you."
"Shit, Ryan. Some help you are."
Ryan glanced over the light blue fabric covering his shoulder at Josh. "Who said I was a helper? We're co-workers, not soul mates. You've gotta stiffen your lip sometimes."
Josh looked up to accuse Ryan with a stare. Ryan was eying the placard in front of their destination. He surveyed the happy-hour prices and thought he should return one evening. Josh was surprised by Ryan's response. He decided not to speak any further. Having reached the cafe, they entered and fell into line. The din from the lunch crowd careened off the walls.
After deciding what he would order, Ryan thought he would put an end to Josh's complaints. He pointed to the menu. "You see that? There before you is approximately one quarter of the purpose of life. One part eating, one part sleeping, one part copulation, and one part...tending to miscellaneous necesities--shelter, clothes, and the like. In twenty minutes, you can check one of those boxes off your list. That's what we get up to do everyday, check off boxes. Doesn't that make you feel better?"
"Are you serious?"
"Yes. Of course. That's how I get by. I have a simple understanding of my life and what I am to do. Jobs don't matter, so long as they let you keep checking off those boxes everyday. Anyone who's looking for more than that is looking for trouble."
Josh's mind hopped from objection to objection against Ryan's position. He was hesitant to respond and realized he had opened up to the wrong person. The two shuffled forward as the line advanced. Josh flinched at the sound of a plate dropping to his right. He turned towards the source of the noise. No one else paid attention to the accident besides another woman at the nearby table who was trying to console her clumsy companion. Josh resumed the discussion, unable to bear the offense of Ryan's version of simplicity. "Well, that's a bleak outlook."
"Mine? Bleak? I'm as happy as a clam. I eat, punch in, punch out, eat, punch in, punch out, eat, if I'm lucky...copulate a little later, and sleep. So what if there's some typing in there. How I make my money doesn't matter. Nearly every day of the week for...twenty good years years...I have the opportunity to be contented. And, you know as luck would have it, the things we need to do are delightful. I enjoy all of them. I look forward to them everyday. So I've got to spend a few hours toiling to get there. That's a small price to pay for so much satisfaction." Ryan interrupted his speech to scratch behind his ear. "Have you tried the pad thai here? It's scrumptious."
Josh thought he was living through his reason for not socializing with anyone else at his office. He resigned to silenc and felt wholly alien. Now even the lunch hour, the solitary bastion of work-week relief, had been spoiled.
Ryan spied a young woman in a pencil skirt getting up to discard her trash. They connected gazes while she tipped her tray. He smiled the half-smile he presumed women found charming. She blinked and Ryan faced forward in disgust.
Josh had watched the scene play out. It occurred to him there was nothing keeping him tethered to this oaf. He could leave without any predictable negative consequences. Ryan likely would refrain from mentioning it later in order not to concede his pride had been damaged. In the short-run, interactions may be cold. In the long run, they probably would diminish. "I'm going to go," Josh muttered. Ryan turned to see him depart, said nothing, and began counting the money in his wallet.
As Josh was exiting, a group of suits were entering. He slid past them and merged onto the familiar sidewalk. Instinctively he headed towards his office building and began to consider his options.
Where to now? Not hungry. Still have...fourteen minutes. The bank's courtyard again? Might as well.
The courtyard was one of the city's secrets. Josh inadvertantly discovered it on one of his early expeditionary missions. Heading north on Broadway from his office, the pattern was: building, street, building, alley, building, building, trees and fountain, street, etc. Dropped in the midst of aging steel and glass structures was a dollop of soil and greenery. Presumably designed for the bank's employees, the public was granted access during normal lunch hours.
To whittle the meaning of life down to four basic actions...that was tempting. But there's more than that. Ryan was way off. Simplifying is good, but not reducing. Simplifying leaves be what matters. Life cannot be reduced to a few physical requirements because those don't matter enough. I'd trade a full stomach for a full heart. And still, I feel empty all over. I am empty.
Upon arrival, Josh fumbled with the latch on the wrought-iron gate. As he had the previous two times he stopped by, he hesitated for a moment. Push or pull? Josh wanted to pull, but felt anxious about making the same mistake for the third time. He bucked his intuition and opted to push. The gate did not move. Josh looked up to see if the woman on a bench eating a sandwhich noticed his fumbling. Thankfully, she had not. He pulled and the gate squeaked. The woman continued chewing, unabated. He estimated he could sit for five minutes before needing to return. Josh selected the same molded concrete chair in the shade he had on his first visit.
I have always done what I was supposed to do--leapt through every hoop raised near me--and this is what I wound up with! My job is dehumanizing. It is a worthless way to pass my time. I am swapping half of my waking life for a paltry hourly wage. I'm practically getting paid to waste away.
The maintenance of the courtyard had been neglected. The bleached mulch was speckled with weeds. The tan husks of last year's annuals hunched in evenly-spaced piles along the building's facade. Rusty water gathered in a pool at the bottom of the fountain. Only the garden's ginko trees retained their vitality. In waves, they swayed with the breeze. Josh looked through the branches as he pondered.
Why am I so upset? I shouldn't be. Ryan was partially right. What can I do? Nearly everybody has a less-than-grand job. That's the breaks. You can't hire yourself. Employers aren't concerned with the satisfaction possible within positions they create. They want efficiency and efficiency goes up as thinking goes down. Thinking takes time and time is money. That invisible hand punches most of us in the gut. Has it always been that way? What did people used to do? Most of them farmed. What if I were a farmer a few generations back? I bet an old farmer never despaired. All that sweat and toil and so little control over the end result--that required resilience. Maybe your fields produce so much it rots. Maybe it doesn't rain and all that work goes for nothing. They were kept from daydreaming by their dependence upon nature. They knew their vulnerability from the start. I spent an awful lot of my days dreaming of an important career. That's the culprit for all of this disappointment: the proposition that one's worth comes from what one does. One's subsistence, sure. But worth? Couldn't be.
Josh interrupted himself to consult his watch. It was time to go. He stood up, tucked in his shirt, and went to the gate. He felt relieved as it swung open with the push of his hand. The one o'clock sun soaked the back of his navy blazer and for a moment Josh was happy. It may not be clean air, but it's moving. That's good enough. Soon, he was draped with the shadow of his building.
Josh tried to reassure himself once his feet were on the maroon carpet again. I need to stop expecting too much from my job. This is something I just have to endure. The up arrow flashed by one elevator; he waited infront of it. The doors slid open and an empty space invited Josh to join. Moments later, his shoulders dropped from the ascent.
The office receptionist did not raise her head when Josh came through the doors. He turned and traveled down a bank of cubicles and through a cloud of hushed rhythmic tapping until he reached his own pocket of space.
Josh's desk was distinguished by its unusually tidy appearance. There were no personal accoutrements save for the stark-white coffee mug with a brown stain from where he drank. He spun his chair around and slunk into his seat. He flexed his fingers, stretched his wrists, and blinked his eyes. He was ready to work.
A sensation of lightness rose within Josh and Ryan as the elevator they shared descended. Both stared ahead at their golden reflections in the elevator doors. Neither were certain of how to proceed in conversation. After a final electronic tone, the doors opened onto the lobby. Both exited. Josh looked down at the maroon carpet slightly in front of his feet as he walked; Ryan watched the pedestrians passing beyond the glass front of the downtown building.
"How can mornings be so long?" Josh asked.
Ryan put his hand on the bar on the revolving door. It resisted. Ryan felt weak. With additional effort, the door began to spin. Josh followed behind, awkwardly jumping into the next cross-section at the last possible moment. The cool fall air felt the same but smelled different than the air inside the building. "Didn't you have something to work on?" Ryan inquired in response.
"Yeah. Data to enter, as always. I haven't written a report in a while. I'm frankly looking forward to taking the last cup of coffee, so that I have to make a new pot."
The two wove through the median of the foot-traffic. Their aenemic city left them plenty of space to travel.
"Sounds rough."
"Yeah. Real rough."
Josh glanced at Ryan, whose stern countenance emminated dignity. "How do you go on?"
"How do you mean?"
"You do the same stuff as me, more or less. You've been doing it for a few months longer than I have. It doesn't seem to phase you."
"What other option do you have?"
Josh considered the question briefly. "No viable ones that I can find. That's part of the problem."
"That you have to work?"
"No, that you have to do crap work like this. I know. I know. We're both lucky to have jobs, but they could be done by computers...should be done by computers, really. It's completely mindless. Bodiless, too, for that matter. Just the fingers, wrists, and a little eye ball movement. It is a miserable existence and I am pretty much stuck with it."
"If you think about it, it's miserable." Ryan scanned the street for approaching cars and promptly jaywalked. He drew tepid satisfaction from breaking the law. Josh intentionally stomped on a cigarette butt that leaked a ribbon of smoke. "What can you do?" Ryan added.
"Didn't you hear me? There's nothing I can do. I said that was part of the problem."
"Part of the solution, too."
"What? How so?" Josh squinted and shielded his eyes from a blade of sunlight that stabbed between the high-rises.
"Well if there's nothing to do, don't give it another thought."
"You think I am trying to? I don't court these feelings. But if you take a moment to consider what you are doing for hours upon hours...the feelings come on their own. Type, type, type. Click, click, click. It wears on you. The clock moves so slow and when the whistle blows, you feel like you haven't done a single significant action all day."
Ryan shrugged. "That's work for you."
"Shit, Ryan. Some help you are."
Ryan glanced over the light blue fabric covering his shoulder at Josh. "Who said I was a helper? We're co-workers, not soul mates. You've gotta stiffen your lip sometimes."
Josh looked up to accuse Ryan with a stare. Ryan was eying the placard in front of their destination. He surveyed the happy-hour prices and thought he should return one evening. Josh was surprised by Ryan's response. He decided not to speak any further. Having reached the cafe, they entered and fell into line. The din from the lunch crowd careened off the walls.
After deciding what he would order, Ryan thought he would put an end to Josh's complaints. He pointed to the menu. "You see that? There before you is approximately one quarter of the purpose of life. One part eating, one part sleeping, one part copulation, and one part...tending to miscellaneous necesities--shelter, clothes, and the like. In twenty minutes, you can check one of those boxes off your list. That's what we get up to do everyday, check off boxes. Doesn't that make you feel better?"
"Are you serious?"
"Yes. Of course. That's how I get by. I have a simple understanding of my life and what I am to do. Jobs don't matter, so long as they let you keep checking off those boxes everyday. Anyone who's looking for more than that is looking for trouble."
Josh's mind hopped from objection to objection against Ryan's position. He was hesitant to respond and realized he had opened up to the wrong person. The two shuffled forward as the line advanced. Josh flinched at the sound of a plate dropping to his right. He turned towards the source of the noise. No one else paid attention to the accident besides another woman at the nearby table who was trying to console her clumsy companion. Josh resumed the discussion, unable to bear the offense of Ryan's version of simplicity. "Well, that's a bleak outlook."
"Mine? Bleak? I'm as happy as a clam. I eat, punch in, punch out, eat, punch in, punch out, eat, if I'm lucky...copulate a little later, and sleep. So what if there's some typing in there. How I make my money doesn't matter. Nearly every day of the week for...twenty good years years...I have the opportunity to be contented. And, you know as luck would have it, the things we need to do are delightful. I enjoy all of them. I look forward to them everyday. So I've got to spend a few hours toiling to get there. That's a small price to pay for so much satisfaction." Ryan interrupted his speech to scratch behind his ear. "Have you tried the pad thai here? It's scrumptious."
Josh thought he was living through his reason for not socializing with anyone else at his office. He resigned to silenc and felt wholly alien. Now even the lunch hour, the solitary bastion of work-week relief, had been spoiled.
Ryan spied a young woman in a pencil skirt getting up to discard her trash. They connected gazes while she tipped her tray. He smiled the half-smile he presumed women found charming. She blinked and Ryan faced forward in disgust.
Josh had watched the scene play out. It occurred to him there was nothing keeping him tethered to this oaf. He could leave without any predictable negative consequences. Ryan likely would refrain from mentioning it later in order not to concede his pride had been damaged. In the short-run, interactions may be cold. In the long run, they probably would diminish. "I'm going to go," Josh muttered. Ryan turned to see him depart, said nothing, and began counting the money in his wallet.
As Josh was exiting, a group of suits were entering. He slid past them and merged onto the familiar sidewalk. Instinctively he headed towards his office building and began to consider his options.
Where to now? Not hungry. Still have...fourteen minutes. The bank's courtyard again? Might as well.
The courtyard was one of the city's secrets. Josh inadvertantly discovered it on one of his early expeditionary missions. Heading north on Broadway from his office, the pattern was: building, street, building, alley, building, building, trees and fountain, street, etc. Dropped in the midst of aging steel and glass structures was a dollop of soil and greenery. Presumably designed for the bank's employees, the public was granted access during normal lunch hours.
To whittle the meaning of life down to four basic actions...that was tempting. But there's more than that. Ryan was way off. Simplifying is good, but not reducing. Simplifying leaves be what matters. Life cannot be reduced to a few physical requirements because those don't matter enough. I'd trade a full stomach for a full heart. And still, I feel empty all over. I am empty.
Upon arrival, Josh fumbled with the latch on the wrought-iron gate. As he had the previous two times he stopped by, he hesitated for a moment. Push or pull? Josh wanted to pull, but felt anxious about making the same mistake for the third time. He bucked his intuition and opted to push. The gate did not move. Josh looked up to see if the woman on a bench eating a sandwhich noticed his fumbling. Thankfully, she had not. He pulled and the gate squeaked. The woman continued chewing, unabated. He estimated he could sit for five minutes before needing to return. Josh selected the same molded concrete chair in the shade he had on his first visit.
I have always done what I was supposed to do--leapt through every hoop raised near me--and this is what I wound up with! My job is dehumanizing. It is a worthless way to pass my time. I am swapping half of my waking life for a paltry hourly wage. I'm practically getting paid to waste away.
The maintenance of the courtyard had been neglected. The bleached mulch was speckled with weeds. The tan husks of last year's annuals hunched in evenly-spaced piles along the building's facade. Rusty water gathered in a pool at the bottom of the fountain. Only the garden's ginko trees retained their vitality. In waves, they swayed with the breeze. Josh looked through the branches as he pondered.
Why am I so upset? I shouldn't be. Ryan was partially right. What can I do? Nearly everybody has a less-than-grand job. That's the breaks. You can't hire yourself. Employers aren't concerned with the satisfaction possible within positions they create. They want efficiency and efficiency goes up as thinking goes down. Thinking takes time and time is money. That invisible hand punches most of us in the gut. Has it always been that way? What did people used to do? Most of them farmed. What if I were a farmer a few generations back? I bet an old farmer never despaired. All that sweat and toil and so little control over the end result--that required resilience. Maybe your fields produce so much it rots. Maybe it doesn't rain and all that work goes for nothing. They were kept from daydreaming by their dependence upon nature. They knew their vulnerability from the start. I spent an awful lot of my days dreaming of an important career. That's the culprit for all of this disappointment: the proposition that one's worth comes from what one does. One's subsistence, sure. But worth? Couldn't be.
Josh interrupted himself to consult his watch. It was time to go. He stood up, tucked in his shirt, and went to the gate. He felt relieved as it swung open with the push of his hand. The one o'clock sun soaked the back of his navy blazer and for a moment Josh was happy. It may not be clean air, but it's moving. That's good enough. Soon, he was draped with the shadow of his building.
Josh tried to reassure himself once his feet were on the maroon carpet again. I need to stop expecting too much from my job. This is something I just have to endure. The up arrow flashed by one elevator; he waited infront of it. The doors slid open and an empty space invited Josh to join. Moments later, his shoulders dropped from the ascent.
The office receptionist did not raise her head when Josh came through the doors. He turned and traveled down a bank of cubicles and through a cloud of hushed rhythmic tapping until he reached his own pocket of space.
Josh's desk was distinguished by its unusually tidy appearance. There were no personal accoutrements save for the stark-white coffee mug with a brown stain from where he drank. He spun his chair around and slunk into his seat. He flexed his fingers, stretched his wrists, and blinked his eyes. He was ready to work.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Dejection
(For a newer draft of this story, click here.)
Desperate to say something, Benjamin grabbed a flyer that had been left on the grey cafeteria table. In haste, he flipped the paper over and riffled through his pocket for a pen. Feeling the plastic, he closed his fingers around it and brought it into the artificial light with the rest of him. With thoughts of his lover on his mind, he scrawled the following message:
I wish I could tell you something beautiful, like that every person has a single truth in his heart that he needs to tell the world. But I can't. I can't lie to you. Nothing beautiful stays. Whatever is beautiful--if anything is--is always being renewed. As soon as I would tell you, you'd start to forget it. Then it would die into nothingness, never to be remembered. That's our destiny--to become as much of a non-entity after death as we were before birth. I'd hate to tell you something beautiful because it would only go to nothing in the end. Everything is always dying because consciousness is fickle. That's what I'm most afraid of--becoming nothing. I tried so hard in my youth to get the attention of others because it felt as though they kept me alive with their looks. I could never keep up though. I died too often, and now I'm too old and too tired to try. Writing you this letter is the only way I know how to keep myself around anymore. Since I have no intention of giving it to you, I've succumb to relying upon myself to keep my self alive. It's narcissistic, I know, but it's better than letting go of my grip on
Benjamin stopped writing. He grew frustrated and wanted to leave. He crumbled up the piece of paper, picked up his books, and left. On his way out into the setting sunlight, he dropped the note into a trashcan he passed by. He saw it land on top of a plastic cup full of ice before walking on. The wind was warmer than the surrounding air and felt to him like being breathed upon.
He passed some of his peers. He did not recognize their faces, but overheard familiar discussions about recent parties. His level of dejection increased and he lowered his gaze to watch the sidewalk. He intended on visiting a patch of nearby trees, although he had no intention of stopping there. Benjamin was unsure about where to settle. He hated how his emotions turned against him and how, in so doing, made light of themselves. Now he was in a frenzy; by this time tomorrow, he thought, he may be feeling fine and laughing with Aubrey. He was disgusted by the progression of time and its way of belittling the present. He felt himself small and hopeless.
A patch of grass at the intersection of the curb and sidewalk flicked in the breeze, its heavy crown of seeds bending the blades downward. Benjamin observed this and the sporadic piles of geese droppings along his way. He was approaching a man-made pond. The noise of crickets filled his right ear as his pace remained even. Sweat began bubbling on his forehead in response to the early summer evening.
Benjamin was disappointed in what life had become. He had no clarity regarding what exactly it should be, but knew well enough that something was amiss. There was not enough grandeur, not enough wish-fulfillment, not enough love. There were instead games to be played, forms to fill out, and intricate dances to perform with the gatekeepers. When he was younger, he did not think extensively about the actual experiences of his adulthood. He only imagined he would be important and well-liked. Somewhere in the midst of trying to become important, he realized he would not be. Ever after, living was difficult.
He left the pavement behind and heard the slosh of the field underfoot. Four elm trees grew on the north side of the pond. Benjamin watched the gentle jostling of their limbs. He thought of how foreign they looked against the expanse of flat land on the periphery of the campus. Someone planted them many years ago to make amends for the forest of previously felled trees.
Desperate to say something, Benjamin grabbed a flyer that had been left on the grey cafeteria table. In haste, he flipped the paper over and riffled through his pocket for a pen. Feeling the plastic, he closed his fingers around it and brought it into the artificial light with the rest of him. With thoughts of his lover on his mind, he scrawled the following message:
I wish I could tell you something beautiful, like that every person has a single truth in his heart that he needs to tell the world. But I can't. I can't lie to you. Nothing beautiful stays. Whatever is beautiful--if anything is--is always being renewed. As soon as I would tell you, you'd start to forget it. Then it would die into nothingness, never to be remembered. That's our destiny--to become as much of a non-entity after death as we were before birth. I'd hate to tell you something beautiful because it would only go to nothing in the end. Everything is always dying because consciousness is fickle. That's what I'm most afraid of--becoming nothing. I tried so hard in my youth to get the attention of others because it felt as though they kept me alive with their looks. I could never keep up though. I died too often, and now I'm too old and too tired to try. Writing you this letter is the only way I know how to keep myself around anymore. Since I have no intention of giving it to you, I've succumb to relying upon myself to keep my self alive. It's narcissistic, I know, but it's better than letting go of my grip on
Benjamin stopped writing. He grew frustrated and wanted to leave. He crumbled up the piece of paper, picked up his books, and left. On his way out into the setting sunlight, he dropped the note into a trashcan he passed by. He saw it land on top of a plastic cup full of ice before walking on. The wind was warmer than the surrounding air and felt to him like being breathed upon.
He passed some of his peers. He did not recognize their faces, but overheard familiar discussions about recent parties. His level of dejection increased and he lowered his gaze to watch the sidewalk. He intended on visiting a patch of nearby trees, although he had no intention of stopping there. Benjamin was unsure about where to settle. He hated how his emotions turned against him and how, in so doing, made light of themselves. Now he was in a frenzy; by this time tomorrow, he thought, he may be feeling fine and laughing with Aubrey. He was disgusted by the progression of time and its way of belittling the present. He felt himself small and hopeless.
A patch of grass at the intersection of the curb and sidewalk flicked in the breeze, its heavy crown of seeds bending the blades downward. Benjamin observed this and the sporadic piles of geese droppings along his way. He was approaching a man-made pond. The noise of crickets filled his right ear as his pace remained even. Sweat began bubbling on his forehead in response to the early summer evening.
Benjamin was disappointed in what life had become. He had no clarity regarding what exactly it should be, but knew well enough that something was amiss. There was not enough grandeur, not enough wish-fulfillment, not enough love. There were instead games to be played, forms to fill out, and intricate dances to perform with the gatekeepers. When he was younger, he did not think extensively about the actual experiences of his adulthood. He only imagined he would be important and well-liked. Somewhere in the midst of trying to become important, he realized he would not be. Ever after, living was difficult.
He left the pavement behind and heard the slosh of the field underfoot. Four elm trees grew on the north side of the pond. Benjamin watched the gentle jostling of their limbs. He thought of how foreign they looked against the expanse of flat land on the periphery of the campus. Someone planted them many years ago to make amends for the forest of previously felled trees.
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