Created By
Rate this Story
Embed
|
+
3
|
At the Edge of it All (Part 2) |
|
+
3
|
The Edge of it All (Part 1) |
|
+
4
|
Cold Hands |
|
+
2
|
The Last Step |
|
+
11
|
It Ends with a Broken Beer Bottle |
|
The Edge of it All (Part 1)
Fiction
 Created on 3-25-07
 Views(95)
 Story Rating G
|
This is it.
The last step.
The final jump forward.
I stick my foot out over the edge and let my shoe slip off and fall. It twists and turns as it tumbles one hundred stories towards the ground. It goes light and dark as it speeds towards its end through the shade of the tall buildings all around. First the shoe, then me.
It’s time to start a count down.
To launch.
To my blast off.
To my jump into the air, then my plummet straight down.
A countdown, to my death.
Starting at one hundred.
I stare off into the distance, way above the streets and the chaos bellow, above the high towers of concrete and metal all around me, above the people bellow, out on to the world ahead, and I try to remember what brought me here.
Ninety nine
Ninety Eight
Ninety Seven
Ninety Six
Ninety Five
I look way back, into my past, to what got me here.
Ninety Four.
I look as far back as I can, I look as far back as my mind will let me; I look as far back as I will remember. To try and find out why am I doing this? To why am I going to jump?
Ninety three.
I search deep into my mind, deep into my thoughts and try to find the source of all this god awful dreadful happiness.
Ninety two.
Thinking way back, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way, way back, all the way back to the start, to the beginning, way, way, way a thousand times way back.
Ninety one
I close my eyes, squeeze them shut real tight, and dig as deep as I can into my memory, into all that has happened these last few weeks, all that has happened, and I try to remember what my reason is.
Ninety.
The bar is heavy with smoke that stays stinking up my clothes and flames in my nostrils. The ice in my drink has already started to melt slowly, making my liquor in it watery and unappealing, but I drink it any way, alcohol is alcohol and it will get you drunk no matter what, and that’s all that really matters to me right now. To get drunk, have a little fun, that’s what the tiny multi colored umbrella stands for. The tiny ones they stick in drinks to make them festive, all they do is make your life seem boring, and depressing, especially if you’re sitting by yourself.
“Like a refill?” the bartender asks me.
“No, it’s about time I head out, how much do I owe you?”
“Twenty three fifty.” I push my hand deep in my coat pocket and pull out my wallet I throw two twenties on the counter.
“Keep the change.” I say, and stand up from my stool. I walk to the front door of the bar, shuffling my feet as I go. I’m not too drunk, I just don’t want to loose my balance and fall ass over teakettle into some pissed trucker who has drank his weight tonight.
Out side the cool air flows over my body, leaving the heat of the old bar behind. I close my eyes and take a long breath of the fresh air, or what is mostly fresh air, mixed in with the smell of tires and gas exhaust. I walk a couple of paces forward and stop at the curb next to my car and try to think back to when I took the last sip out of my glass.
Twenty minutes, I would say, so I have about and hour or so to spare before I should be fine to drive, or well, legally be able to. I turn to my left to see if any store’s lights are on this late, just a couple. Then I turn to my right and look across an intersection to a super store with its lights still on.
Why not? I thought.
The doors open with a cold hiss as they slide apart, and the greeter inside says “Welcome to Big Saves.” With a wave and a grumble I pass him. Why anyone would work this late beats the hell out of me. I walk with a slow pace down the rows between isles looking left to right to see what’s in each one. My feet make a tiny cold slap on the floor as I walk, and it echoes for what seems like miles. Then I stop and turn left to an isle marked “Hunting Goods.”
Neat. I think, with a half pleased smile on my face.
I walk down the isle looking at the selves. Looking at the camouflage tents and fake trick and kill ducks, the moose callers, the duck callers, the what ever the hell you can hunt callers. Then I come to an opening at the end with a large round glass case all around a wood pillar filled with guns and ammo. All around are other isles marked with things relating to the out doors, to hunting, to camping, to anything that gets away from the world and killing an animal in some other place.
I shuffle towards the large glass case, stretched out like a desk, containing little hand guns and knives inside. I stare into the glass box which is flooded with bright light and see myself staring back. Dark bags under my eyes, lips chapped and dry, hair a mess, I look like a murderer, a drifter, a crazy person, and I’m staring into a case of guns.
“Excuse me sir, can I help you?” I look up and see a middle age man looking at me, with a button up shirt and a blue vest on top, on his wrist is a watch that reads half an hour past midnight. On his finger is a ring. I look up to him.
“Yeah,” I say, half drunken and tired. “I have a question.”
“I’m here to help sir.” He says almost cocky with glee.
“Are you married?”
“Uh, yes, yes I am?” he is taken aback in a little bit of surprise.
“Happily?” I ask looking into his eyes that are filled with confusion.
“Um, yeah, I am, very much sir,” he pauses and looks back and me, then diverts his eyes and rubs his hands together “Listen, if there is anything that you need help with, any questions about the guns or knives or anything just let me know, I’ll be right over there. Okay?” He starts to walk away but I stop him before he can go.
“I mean, if you weren’t happy with your wife, why would you be with her any way, like, I mean, if you weren’t happy at all, mad, pissed, you could,” I give out a slight half breath chuckle “kill her. Right?” The man looks at me, he is panicky and confused nervous about the situation, uncertain, and most likely scared and uncomfortable.
“What?” he says looking down at me bent over with my elbows on the counter. Of course he is going to be panicky when a guy like me, a guy looking like a murderer comes walking into a gun store talking about murder.
“I mean, you work in a gun store, or well, part of one, and well, wouldn’t it be easy to take a gun and, and, and, just you know,” I bring up my hand in a side ways L to the side of my head “Bang. Blow her away.”
“Sir, I think I’m going to ask you to leave or else I will have to get a security officer down here.” He is edging his hand towards the phone a foot away from my hand, I look at him then the phone. I reach out and slap my hand down on it, and look up at him, he is now some what panicked.
“But you know, you wouldn’t, ‘cause your happy and all, and if you did that, it’d be, it’d be crazy right?” I give off this short chuckle. I take my hand off the phone and put him a little at easy, but not all the way. I’m still the guy who looks completely insane. “Any way,“ I say bringing myself up from the counter and standing straight as I can. “I think firearms are a waste of time and human ingenuity.” I try and show him some intelligence, but it doesn’t work he stands there not saying anything as I back away from the counter and walk down and isle trying to find my way to the front door.
Eighty nine
Eighty eight
Eighty seven
Behind my shut eyes I can still see the light of sun through my eyelids. They turn yellow and red as I sway in the breeze. I’m trying to remember what got me to this place, but I can’t seem to find the right time, the right setting, the right incident.
I squeeze my eyes even tighter, digging as deep as I can into my memory.
Eighty six
Eighty Five
Why can’t I remember, why can’t I stick this all on one thing, then I think, maybe, maybe it just wasn’t one thing, but a whole string of things.
Eighty four
That has to be it.
Eighty three
Wait, now, I think I have it, a thought a single thought a spark in my mind kindling fire into my memory.
Eighty Two
Eighty One
There it is, I think, I hope, that is it, isn’t it?
Eighty
The weather around here is the same almost every day, but for some reason I still watch the reports on the news.
Partly Cloudy chance of rain
Partly Cloudy chance of snow
Partly cloudy with a chance of mild winds
Partly cloudy with a chance of hail
All saying the same thing, all saying, partly cloudy with a chance of something to come, nothing special, but it just might happen.
I click the TV off and up from my couch. I walk out my door and leave my little apartment on the thirteenth floor behind as I head towards the elevator. There’s nobody else moving around, no sounds of anything coming from between the walls. It’s lonely in here, and the elevator is worse, the tiny little thing with it’s soft carpeting beneath my feet. I live in an skyscraper apartment condo sort of thing, like any well off bachelor. And out of the two hundred or so people like that, I rarely see any of them. Some might call this a blessing, to live in such a quite area, I call it a curse. It’s like your living in a graveyard. It’s quiet and eerie, and every second you’re wondering if some crazed lunatic is plotting out plans of murder across this hall. Deserts aren’t this quiet.
As I walk out the door I give the manager at the front desk a little nod. For five years I’ve been giving him this nod, but never once have I talk to him. Out side there is already a cab waiting for me, to take me to the diner that I go to every morning, the one down the street. It’s a nice little place, never crowed only a few people in there making a pit stop before they go off to their dead end hell hole of a work space.
The diner is one of those old ones with the booths on one side and the built in bar stools and counters along the walk way. All the seats have the fake hard dark red leather on them that makes a grinding sound when you slide across them.
The door opens with a jingle as I walk inside; I give the waitress a smile and a small nod as I head towards my booth in the back. It’s so odd, because I feel like I should be sitting up near the front to have some contact with the people here that know me as a regular. But for some reason I just keep distancing myself, it’s like something I can’t control. The waitress is a middle aged lady by the name of Nancy; she has on the white out side apron thing with that tee shirt skirt combo light blue blouse underneath, a stereotypical waitress out fit that you would see in any movie or TV show.
“How have you been dear?” The she says in her perky happy to be here fake as hell smile.
“Just fine Nancy and you?” we all say things like that, just to get the topic off ourselves, no one likes putting themselves in a spot where you have to tell what your really feeling, the word “fine” is ninety percent of the time used as a lie.
“Good, good, so, would you like the regular today?” The regular, the boring regular French toast with a side of strawberries, I would like anything but, but being me, I say.
“Yeah, that sounds good, thanks.”
“No problem dear, and some coffee before?” she already has a cup in her hand, she knows I will say yes but she asks any way, just to make sure, to get that double, triple, quadruple sense of security before making a stupid mistake and giving me coffee when I wanted tea, or just a water.
“Yeah, thanks.” She sets the cup on the table and pours the black steaming water into my cup, the plain black pile of teeth browning filth that gets me up in the morning.
“Two sugars right, and a cream?” She knows that I will say yes, but she just has to ask, just to make sure, like always, like with every little thing.
“You know it." We both chuckle in that tiny polite pity laugh. She sets two sugar packets from her little waitress belt on the table along with the little plastic container of watered down milk, the stuff they call cream, or half and half, half water half milk, all disgusting. Then she gives a small smile and walks away.
The same way every day, the same conversation every day, never a real conversation, just the old how are you doing routine, the “I act like I care, but I really don’t.” the “I am human, I show emotions, I really care.” But they really don’t, they just seem like they do. If I was hit by a car, shot, stabbed and left for dead and they saw it in the news or in the paper, or heard it from a friend, all they’d do is act shocked, stunned, and then the next day, forget. We are all great actors, most of us just don’t realize it.
I sit there and wait for my French toast to come, my soggy wheat bread slathered in syrup and those small one fourth cuts of strawberries on the side, the stuff I have every day, the stuff I’m getting bored of, getting grossed out by, disgusted, but I will have it any way, just like me, just like myself.
I look down the isle, along the stools, to the end of the bar where they make the coffee. A girl is sitting there sipping on a cup filled with something, probably tea or coffee, I don’t know many people who drink water from a clay made mug. She flips her long brown hair back. She has a pen in one hand that she is nibbling on as she stares down onto what looks like a newspaper on the counter. The crossword, she’s probably doing the crossword. A neat invention, a little word game for everyone to do when there is nothing else to do, or something to bring up in conversation, only people who try and show their co-workers or family that they are smart will do the crossword, the rest of us don’t even bother.
Nancy comes back and sets my breakfast on the table and gives me her happy as hell, great day, I love the world smile. I look back at her and give her what I can muster into a grin, while I take my napkin and set it in my lap.
“Is there anything else you want, dear?” Always calling me dear, and always asking me questions she already knows the answer to.
“No, oh no, this is fine thanks.” Fine is the easiest way to lie in the world.
“You sure now?” she questions. This is a new one, this is something off, out of the normal, this is a one hundred time double check, she is going above and beyond today.
I look blankly at her for a few seconds, almost like I’m thinking and then say, “Yeah, I’m sure, this’ll do just fine.” And then she walks away, almost pleased. Like she has accomplished something great, like she has succeeded in satisfying me to the fullest, giving me everything I want, like she is the best waitress in the world, totally full on herself.
Digging my fork into the toast the once calm lake of syrup turns into a broken dam and rushing river going head long into the strawberry village. I don’t intend on saving the strawberries, it gives me some glee that’ll they’ll be in discomfort before I shove them to the back of my throat. Like torture, but with out breaking the law.
The girl at the end of the bar stands up and digs into her purse, trying to find some money for the cup of whatever she drank. I take the napkin and wipe some syrup from the corners of my mouth. She takes out some waded up cash and puts it on the counter nods her head and says thank you to Nancy who says to her “so long.”
I sip down my cup of watery milk, sugar and coffee and turn back to my plate, when I look up again, the girl is gone, and Nancy is picking up the cup and taking it to the sink. The clock above the door to the back reads twenty past ten, I have to leave, my job starts in ten minutes. It’s half way up a hundred story sky scrapper a block down the street. A little cubical just across from a tiny conference room where I do eighty percent of my work.
Nancy comes back and walks down the isle to my table, and puts the bill down, five dollars and ninety five since, the same as always I hand her a ten and tell her to keep the change as I stand up and head out.
“Have a nice day.” She calls to me as I walk out the door; I give her a hand over the back of my head wave as the door closes behind me.
Taking off my coat I walk into my work cubicle and open a pull out the box of files for today, there will be five in here the same as always. Each one is a file on a person, kind of a résumé, to me it’s basically a list of what I have to do today. My cubical is nothing special, and the work I do isn’t all that special either.
My first applicant will be here in an hour so I have time to review the file. Sitting down I pull over the first file, opening it up read the name, Mr. Krady a well rounded guy, he has what looks like al the requirements for his job, for the job he’s applying to, one that I don’t know he will get.
It seems what I do is pointless. I get five files a day, one for each person I interview, then afterwards I mark if they would be able to do the job, then put it in the box under my desk, Mr. Krady will number twenty three, right near the middle, after the box is full I go to the thirteenth floor and give it to a man with another box, an empty one, then the process starts all over again. I have never seen a person who has been but in my box every get a job. My job is pointless.
I watch the clock as it slowly clicks to the minute Mr. Krady supposed to arrive, which should be any time now. I stand leaning against the sliver of wall between the door to my conference room, and the large glass window which sits behind my cubical.
A dark skin man comes walking in from the elevator with his coat thrown over his arm. Looking around he asks a lady something, probably “Do you know where I go to get interviewed?” and then she points over at me, and I give the half smile wave combo that we all give when someone is coming our way.
“Hi,” he says sticking out his hand “I’m Mr. Krady, I’m here to be interviewed?”
“Yes, yes you are,” I shake his hand, then turn and open the door for him, “right in here, please.” He walks in and lets me go around the desk and sit down, out of his cheery little politeness he stands waiting for me to tell him to sit. “Please, Mr. Krady, take a seat.” I put my hand out palm up, offering him the seat across from me.
“You can call me Jim.” He says as he sits. Now, now we are friends, or will be for the next five to ten minutes of our time together. That’s what a situation becomes when some one tells you to call them by their first name. I smile at him and open his file on the desk, acting like I’m reading it for the first time, but really, I’ve gone over it already, and just trying to remember what I’m going to say, what my script is.
It’s pretty simple really, my script, my equation for small talk interview. If the applicant looks like he or she could do the job just say, “looks like you are pretty well rounded, would you say that yourself?” then, let them respond. Next ask “do you think that you’ll be able to the job of fill-in-the-blank?” then, wait for response. Last, you say “well, everything looks good, real good, we’ll give you a call to let you know if you’ve got the job.” Then shake hand and see them out, if they say “well, that was quick.” You can respond one of two ways, “that’s how we like to do business here, fast and simple,” or “well, you look like a prefect fit and I don’t see any reason to keep you waiting.”
And if they aren’t good for the job, you say the same exact thing, but without the cheery happy mood that you have with a good applicant. Acting is a great skill in the work place.
“So,” I say to Mr. Krady “Jim, it looks like your pretty well rounded, would you say so yourself?” I look up at him, and he kind bobs his head up and down.
“Yeah, I do think so, you know, I’ve had this same sort of job before, and I took to it well, but ended up having to quit for some family related stuff.” I look at him, then scribble down some words on a pad of paper, looking like I am actually doing my job.
“Do you think you’ll be able to the job your applying for?” I ask him, giving him a questioning look.
“Why, of course, I will be able to perform my duties, why else would I be here if I didn’t think I was able to the job?”
Perform your duties, this isn’t the army. I thought.
“I don’t know Jim, you tell me?” I’ve gone on the offensive, this is not a real question, I just throw it in the there to make him think.
“Well, I-“
“No need to reply to that Jim, It was sort of a joke.”
“Oh,” he chuckles, and it seems so very real. This man is one hell of an actor. This interview will go on and on if it was for real, but I don’t really feel like it at the moment so I wrap it up, make him feel like he’s impressed me enough with his file.
“Alright, well everything here seems so good, I think that we can call this meeting to a very short end, we’ll give you a call to see if you have the job.” I want to cut this meeting as short as possible so I can get back to sitting in my cubical counting as many fibers there are in the office carpet as I can.
“That was quick, “ Mr. Krady says standing up.
“Well Jim, you just have all the right requirements, let me see you out.” He has a smile on his face as I pick up his file and walk to the door, where I open it up and give him a so long smile. He puts on his coat and walks away towards the elevator, while I head back to my cubical where I will put his file in the box and look at my next applicant. It’s a one Mrs.Arnem, she’s applying for a job as a secretary. She’s had three jobs in the past, one for a law firm, a bank, and an other for an office building, she looks fit for the job, but unfortunately, she’s just going to fit right on top of Mr. Krady’s file at number twenty four. No one it seems every gets to get anything but a place in my little box.
Seventy nine
Seventy Eight
Seventy seven
Way above the world everything else seems small and unimportant. The cars seem like ants as do the people, everything is small. They are all little black and white dots, the people, and the cars are yellow cabs and red cars, the only colors noticeable from way up here.
Seventy six
I’m starting to remember what it was that brought me here. I almost have it, so I dig deeper and deeper into my mind, my thoughts, my memory.
Seventy five
I’m trying to remember what happened, what went on that brought me here.
Seventy Four
My apartment is tiny, not to small, a luxury for some, but to others its not noticeable. It has three rooms, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a living room kitchen mix. The kitchen I rarely use, most of the time I find my self eating out, mostly fast foods. It’s a wonder I am not morbidly obese with all of it I eat. There’s a couch that stretches most of the length of my living room and an average sized twenty eight inch television set in front of it.
Right now, I’m watching it, the colors changing, the people talking. It’s an infomercial, the one of the three channels I get, the weather channel; the infomercial filled shopping network shit and then the one that is filled with gloomy static and electric snow.
“So Diana, how much do you think a system like this would cost any where out there on the open market?” The host with his product is always putting on his big out there glowing white smile with is money grabbing eyes wide, trying to make it look like his product is actually worth buying.
“I don’t know Dan, maybe fifty, seventy, probably eight dollars!” Then the host’s co-host, almost always the end of here twenties blond with her big bleached teeth and a v-neck shirt that points directly between her almost too large cleavage.
“You’re way off,” the host looks at her in his, I’m so cleaver smile then turns to the camera while four giant numbers flash beneath him. “It’s only twenty five ninety five.” The numbers flash and disappear beneath the host.
“Only twenty nine ninety five?“ She repeats his words, just to make the viewers know how much it cost, all with a very surprised almost over acting glee filled face.
“Yep, twenty nine ninety five.” Three times repeated, the money must be very important. The host is trying to sell something that cost him ten dollars to make, its basically a blender with a hose attachment, that does something ridiculous like strains all the unwanted juice to one area. It’s an off brand piece of shit that nobody needs but everyone wants.
“Well, what else can this do?” The co-host pretty bleached bright white smile asks.
“I’ll tell you,” the host turns from the lady to the screen, to the audience, to the viewers, to the camera and says “right after this commercial break!” then the show cuts to a commercial break of the product he’s selling, advertising in advertising, in advertising. One big loop of money grabbing schemes, they do this on purpose, cutting to commercial the way they do. It’s to attract viewers, to keep you on edge, to make you want more; they do this in all the TV shows out there. The reality shows where the three remaining contestants standing in front of the millions of one looking viewers and the judges who will make or break their future, or the drama series with a doctor who needs a cure, but right before he finds it something goes wrong and a cut to a commercial comes in, to keep you hooked.
It’s all to keep up interest, it’s to make you want more, it’s to make you need more, you need the whole story, you want the whole story and right after the commercial break you’ll get the whole story.
Seventy three
Looking back in my life, looking back on the events, I’m still trying to find what got me here, so I can blame it all on one thing.
Seventy two
I don’t think it was no where to go dead end life, or my boring routine, or the damn repetitive cut to commercial infomercial.
Seventy one
Then I think, was it, could it, might it be, her?
Seventy
The girl with the brown hair is back for the a seventh time, She is talking to Nancy, like she has been this entire week. I’m waiting for my loathed French toast to arrive while I sip down my black cup of steaming filth. Nancy finally walks over with my food and sets it down on the table, she smiles at me and asks “is there anything else you want, dear?” the same thing she has.
“Oh no,” I say, as always, as I normally do, like everyday, I repeat myself, I repeat myself, I repeat myself. “this is fine, thanks.” Fine is almost always used as a lie.
Nancy walks away with her happy go lucky, perky, I love life and all it’s adventure fake as faith to an atheist smile. I put my napkin in my lap and look down at my meal while reaching and grabbing my fork.
“Do you mind?” I hear a voice, but it isn’t Nancy’s. I look over to my right. I see the belt line of jeans, and I start my head up past the breast line and unto the face of the brown haired girl. I leave my mouth open as the French toast hangs on the end of my fork, syrup dripping from it landing in the wasteland of what used to be strawberry life.
“What?” I say, confused and surprised.
“Do you mind?” she motion’s her hand to the seat across from me, I move my eyes to see around the whole diner, all the seats are empty, the only people here are me, the girl, Nancy and the two cooks in the back. I lower my fork to the plate and let it settle the calm cling of it nocks a little sense into me.
‘Sure, sure, yeah,” I say “go ahead.” The girl slides across the fake red leather with the sound of her jeans grinding against the seat. She sits back kicking her feet up so she is half way laying down sitting up against the wall in the seat. She flicks back her hair behind her and brings up a newspaper into view as she clicks her pen thinking.
“Ever do one of these?” she asks me. I take a bite of my food and look at her.
“No,” I say “no, I haven’t.”
“They’re kind of a hobby in mine.” She turns and brings her feet down bellow the table “Do you have any hobbies?” she asks.
“I…I…no, I don’t.” I say, I actually thought about that for a second, no, no I don’t have any hobbies, why would I, that would be interesting, and I’m not interesting.
She nods her head up and down and then asks “Do I know you?” I set my fork down after finishing the first half of my toast.
“I don’t think so.” I’m trying to keep this conversation simple, like all the other ones in my life. “I must just have one of those faces.”
“What kind of faces?” she asks, looking at me, looking like she is actually interested.
“Recognizable, I guess. I guess I’m just one of those people, recognizable, or easily confused with other people, maybe? I don’t know.” She leans a little forward, and looks into my eyes, but she doesn’t say anything. We both sit there is this silence she is looking at me and I am just trying to eat the rest of my food. I look back at her and we make eye contact. I look into her blue eyes, her bright beautiful blue eyes that seem to shine. We both sit there and stare at each other for a couple of seconds then I look down at my food.
‘So, how long have you been coming here, I see you here almost every day, and do you get the same thing every time too, ‘cause it seems like it?” I look back up at her, and watch her mouth move as she speaks the words.
“I don’t really know, probably for the last couple of years, since I got my job that’s just down the street.” I say.
“Really, huh, where do you work?” she bites her average sized pinky finger.
“It’s an office building, I work on the Processing floor, it’s all under this company called ‘Sierra Marks’” I say.
“What do you do?” why is she asking all these questions, why is she acting like she cares so much.
“It’s nothing really, my job it’s…it’s pointless.” She gives a little half smile.
“Tell me what you do, you’ve spiked my interest.”
“I…I interview people, and put there files in a box, when the box is full I give it to a guy with an empty box, and then I start to interview people again.” I start to eat my drowned strawberries.
“Do you hire the people, or do you just interview them?”
“Just interview them, and I never see any one every hired so, my job is pointless, but, what do you do?”
She sits back and puts her paper on the table with her pen as I set my fork down for good and wipe my mouth. She takes a breath, looks down then quickly looks up at me. She brings herself up again and lays her chin in her crossed arms she puts on table.
“I clean pools and hot tubs for people around the city; mostly I stay in a ten block radius, because there a lot of people around here have pools and hot tubs, rich bastards, and they are almost all indoors. I don’t know why people need all these pools in the city, there out of their house’s nearly all day, and when I go there, I’m almost always the only one there.”
“Well, that’s better then what I do, at least your job changes from day to day.” Nancy is now standing next to me and she lays the check on the table, the same as every other day and I give her my money saying “keep the change,” Then I turn back to the brown haired girl.
“I never said it wasn’t interesting.”
“What?”
“My job, I never said it wasn’t interesting.”
“Oh,” I grab my coat from next to me “well,” I say “I have to go to work now, it was nice meeting you….” I pause, I’ve forgotten this girls name, like I care.
“Macy,” she sticks out her hand across the table towards me and I shake it as she says “and no, you haven’t forgotten, we never exchanged pleasantries.” I nod and give a grin as I stand up and walk towards the door giving Nancy a wave as I walk by. “Same time tomorrow then?” Macy yells to me, and I turn around and look at her as I give a shrug and leave the diner.
All day at work I can’t stop thinking about this girl, the brown haired girl, Macy. Macy was her name, that’s what her name was. Why had she talked to me? Was she really interested? I haven’t ever had these thoughts about a girl since high school, why was I getting them now? I remember how her eyes seem to sparkle as we looked at each other and how her mouth moved when she spoke. I remember her smell, her smell. Why does it matter any way, it was an act, she’s an actor, probably a con, it was just a talk, nothing of importance, just making conversation because she was bored of Nancy and her crossword.
It doesn’t matter any way; she probably won’t even be there tomorrow, and it’s not like I’m an interesting person why would she be interested in a guy who lives a hate filled world of routine boringness.
Wow I thought I’m full of self pity.
Stop thinking this way.
Stop thinking, stop thinking stop thinking
About her, about you, about anything at all, just stop thinking.
“Just twenty nine ninety five!” a repeat of a repeat of a repeat in an advertisement of an advertisement of an advertisement, I sit in my dark apartment watching the infomercials as the burn their images into my brain all the time focusing on what will happen tomorrow at the diner, focusing on what I will say to Macy, to what I will tell her, ask her.
Sixty nine
Sixty eight
Sixty seven
Sixty six
Was she it, was she the answer to all of this, to what drove me to my suicide. Was she the one incident that I can put this all on? Was she it, is she it?
Sixty five
Sixty four
All this time it was her right? That’s what it was, it was her, that’s it, her. Or was it?
Sixty three
Sixty two
Sixty one
Behind my closed eyes, behind my dark world, behind it all, and on top of everything I try to think if this is all right, if this is all correct, if she is really it, the one, the problem, the solution to all of this. On my concrete and metal pillar of life and death I think if she is it, because she has to be, right?
Sixty
I watch the clock on my desk slowly click away second after second after second, watching time go by, slowly waste away in front of me. I’m just waiting to leave, two of my applicants showed up early today so I’m pretty much down for today, all I have to do is wait until the last second ticks by and I can go home to the bar and drink then mess with the people in ‘Super Saves’, or ‘Big Saves’ or ‘Gigantic Saves’ again.
This morning at the diner Macy hadn’t been there, she hasn’t been there for the last couple of days, she was there the day after we talked but since then nothing at all. It’s horrible because I can’t stop thinking about her, even though I want to.
Outside my cubical I hear a voice, one that sounds like Macy’s, but it can’t be because she is gone for good and she is never coming back and I am glad that she is.
“Hello Stranger.” The voice says and I look up and it is Macy, the one person who I didn’t expect to see or want to see and there she is, big bright, beautiful, and I hate it.
“Hey,” I say swiveling my chair and getting up “what are you doing here?”
“Thought I might take you some where, get you out of here.” She says looking around.
“What?” I ask.
“Come on, grab your coat.” She turns and walks off, I turn around and grab my coat and rush to put it on as I follower her. She is standing at the elevator doors and when I get there they open and we both walk inside.
“So what are we doing here?” I ask Macy as she fiddles with a lock on a door.
“I told you, showing you what I do.” she jiggles the key in its lock and the door opens up wide and she steps inside. I fallow after her into a gigantic room. Macy heads to the kitchen where she opens the fridge and leans over to peer in. “You want anything?” she asks.
“No, no I’m fine.” I’m looking around the room, the apartment we’re in. My shoes make a tiny tap when they move on the marble floors. I put my hand on the couch and feel the real leather as I look at the huge TV that stands before me, with its equally large speakers on either side. “Nice.” I say. “I thought you said you clean pools?” I turn to Macy who walks up next to me.
“I do,” she says “But I prefer to steal stuff more.” She takes a swig of the bottle of beer she has in her hands. “It’s perfectly okay, you see, these people are never home, and when they are it’s either to sleep or to screw with one of their lovers who isn’t their wife. You should see the things I clean out of some of these hot tubs.”
I turn to her and say, “Wait, wait, wait, you’re a thief?”
“No, not really, I just take things I like; I mean you can’t be a thief if a person doesn’t know they own that thing in the first place, right?” She walks off down a hall way “come on I’ll show you the hot tub.” I follow her catching the sent of her drift by me as I walk behind her.
We walk into a big room with a few windows and a hot tub in the middle, it’s dimly lit. Macy walks over to the hot tub and looks into it, darting her eyes left and right. “That,” she says pointing into the water “is usually the type of thing I have to clean out these disgusting devices”
On the top of the water a condom floats round being pushed this way and that by the streams of water coming out of the jets. Macy grabs a little pool net and scoops it out of the water.
“Rich people, they just leave their trash where ever they want it.” She opens a little door under the hot tub and drops the condom into a little waste bin. “I have to put it here, in hiding because if it was in plain view then all the world could see that this guy is screwing where he shouldn’t be, and no one would ever want to get in this thing ever again.” I look over at her as she takes a sip of her beer, “If it wasn’t for me, these people would never get laid.”
“Have you ever been in one of these?” I dare to ask this question.
“Once in a while,” she says “the ones I know are clean.” She turns around and heads out of the room. “Come on, I’ll show you where the good things are.” We head along a hallway to another room that she opens the door to, it’s a bathroom.
“What good things are in here?” I look around the bathroom, unusually large, almost too large. Macy pulls open the mirror cabinet where the shelves are lined with bottles. Sleeping pills, aspirins, cold pills, sore throat pills, any kind of pills for any kind of illness are in this cabinet.
“This guy’s got barely anything.” She says reaching up to grab a bottle from a self.
“Barely anything, he could run a drug store with what he’s got here.” I say. Macy turns to me and with cold eyes she says.
“You’d be amazed at how large a stash these people can have.” She flips over the bottle to read its label, it reads, ‘for use against herpes’, Macy looks from the label to me and asks “You don’t have herpes by any chance, do you?”
“No,” I say, then I nod to the shelves of drugs “so, what do you do with all these any way?”
“First off, I don’t use them all, just a few, like ten or twenty, and I don’t take them all from the same bottle, and what do you think I use them for,” She looks at me and I give a shrug “So I use for actual medication, like aspirin for head aches and sleeping pills for when I can’t sleep, but others I give to my brother.”
“And what does your brother do with them?”
“He takes them, and lets them set in, kind of like getting high, but with out the needles or lighting anything on fire, I don’t do it myself, but he says it awesome.” She closes the cabinet door and sees my confused look in the reflection of the mirror. “Odd stuff, right, well, welcome to my world.”
At least, you’re doing something besides getting drunk tonight. I think to myself.
We walk out into the main room again, the one that connected to the big as hell gourmet kitchen and we sit on the couch, watching our reflections on the giant TV screen, not saying a word, just sitting there, Macy with her beer almost gone, and me with nothing just staring.
“So,” Macy looks over at me “Do you want to take anything? I mean, this guy isn’t real great, but there is probably some small stuff that you could have, nothing that I wouldn’t want, but you might like it?” I look over at her.
“No thanks.”
“It’s not stealing if they can’t even remember having it.” She says as she gets up and heads to the kitchen. I sit there and just stare into my reflection on the black TV screen as I listen to Macy’s foot steeps fade away, then come back, then the stop. “So,” she whispers into my ear “What do you want to do now?” I turn to look at her.
“I don’t know?” I say “What did you have in mind?” I’m playing up this whole mood that was created with the whisper, the whole sensual feeling thing, and I told her basically what I want to do without actually saying it. Macy walks around the couch and sits down next to me. She looks at me and says nothing, and does nothing, just sits there and looks at me.
“I thought we might get together tomorrow,” she says “Maybe you could meet my brother?” then she stands up and heads to the door.
As I get up I say “Meet your brother? We hardly even know each other?” She looks back at me over her shoulder as she stands in the door way and I get up and walk closer to her.
“Well,” She says, and we stand next to one another in the hallway while she locks the door. “We’ve just ended our first date.”
Sitting in my dark apartment that night all I could wonder was what had went on today, what had that bitch lead me into, why had she told me all this stuff, confessed to me? Am I her priest, her counselor, a person to tell her problems to? Am I just some lame ass way to let little things out, to let a little part of the world know that it’s okay to be odd?
I hate this girl.
Her wonderful beautiful smile, her lovely brown hair.
I hate it, I hate it,
Her great body, her smell
I hate it, I hate it
Her being great, and wonderful, and totally insane
I hate it, I hate it
But all I can do is think about her, and want her, but I totally hate her. She’s changed my life, thrown it out of my routine, taken me off my marry-go round, and I hate her for it, is she trying to mess things up, is she trying to make me insane like her? Is that what she is trying to do to me?
Fifty nine
Fifty eight
That was it, it was her all the way, she took me out my routine, she took me out of my place, it’s her all her, she did this to me, she is killing me
Fifty seven
Why the hell did she do that, why the hell did she do this, why did she drive me to this.
Fifty six
Well, wait. She isn’t making me jump, she isn’t pushing me. So it has to be something else, it can’t be her it doesn’t work, but she fits all the requirements. So, who is to blame?
Fifty five
Comments
Please Login to post comments| On March 26th 2007 roffledwaffles Said : | |
|
Okay, to any one who has read this...there are some spelling and/or grammer errors, I've taken them into consider ration, but for now, please just do your best to correct them in your head to a word you find suitable....
thank you |
| On March 25th 2007 Chelsea12093 Said : | |
|
I LOVED IT great details please mak ethe second part please |
