“Monday”
Waking up, I’m blind in a pitch black room. I get up lazily, feeling the urge to pee. Unable to adjust my eyes, I rely on my mouse-in-a-maze instincts to find the bathroom down the hall. Forgetting how sensitive my eyes are in these wee hours of the morning, I immediately regret flipping on the light switch, feeling the sting of the fluorescent light hanging above my head.
I look into the mirror through squinted eyes, purple dots infecting my vision, like purple chicken pox. I look dead with the purple complimenting my ghostly pigment.
Redirecting my attention back to my bladder, I look towards the toilet. Inside the pearl bowl there is shit stained toilet paper.
The forecast for today is soggy with a chance of unnecessary situations; the shit stains told me so. The first five minutes of waking up is a pretty good indicator of what to expect the rest of the day.
Walking back to my room I try to remember what I’m supposed to do today and nothing in particular comes to mind. Coffee. Eat. Clothes. Work. Eat. Sleep.
My days always seem to start like this. As important as people believe consistency to be, I’ve grown bitter towards it. My life is like a plain, stale bagel. I drink cheap coffee, put on cheap clothes, and go to work at a gas station where people buy cheap junk food and overpriced gasoline. Then I go home, deal with a slob roommate who’s shit stains I can remember better than their face, eat cheap food, drink more cheap coffee, waste time, then sleep again to re-energize for another day just the same. Like I said, my life is a plain, stale bagel. Nothing too interesting. Nothing remarkable. Just a bagel.
Ever wake up and think to yourself, “What in the Hell am I doing?” That’s my life every day, every night, all the time. The question eventually loses meaning and you forget the past goals of yours that once prompted you to ask the question in the first place.
I wouldn’t mind living this less than average mundane routine, except I can’t remember the last time I actually felt like I was a significant part of it.
Sometimes after work, I’ll walk the long way back to my apartment in hopes of someone doing something unforgivable to me. I pray for a life altering experience. Apparently God is not listening. I get home safely to my cage every time.
What do I have to do to change this pointless routine? Maybe I should wear a sign that says, “THE END IS NIGH!” and wait for my little piece of cardboard to come true. Maybe I should start doing drugs, go to AA, meet another addict, fall in dysfunctional love and have semi-retarded children. Maybe I should go back to school. Maybe I should quit my job. Maybe I should shave my head and join a gang. Maybe I should lose weight and get a tan. I don’t know what I have to do: Every choice sounds expensive or boring and I don’t have the attention span for either.
Anyway.
My internal conflict has taken up thirty minutes of my time and I need to leave the apartment within two minutes if I want to make it to work on time. I hate being late, so I rush out of the house. My stomach jiggles like jell-o when I run, but you can’t tell when I wear my work shirt.
Feeling a pain in my lower abdomen, I realize that I didn’t drink my coffee and I probably should have brushed my--
Suddenly, I’m slammed up off my feet and the pain I’m feeling is splintering and rough. I can hear bones break. I can’t scream or yell because there’s no air left in my body. I’m nothing but a rag doll in this moment.
I taste pennies in my mouth. Blood has found its way out in so many places on my body that I probably couldn’t stop it if I tried.
I see a white Minivan dented in a terrible kind of way.
Dented by my now broken, useless body.
People are screaming, watching my body tumble into oblivion and a part of me wants to laugh. Tires screech to a halt and pain has never looked better on me. I’m a crumpled and twisted mess flying onto a cracked sidewalk and I’m wondering why I’ve never felt this good before.
Is it wrong of me to feel perfect?
Salvation has taken shape in the form of a Minivan.
I close my eyes to smile and dream.
Maybe God was listening to me.
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