A short story that a wrote some time ago. It's a long stride from my best work, but it's all I've got of a PG-13 nature, and I can't let Tainted's slander fest dominate this section any longer.
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The walls were white; bereft of decoration.
There is a vogue for bed-sit residents to attempt to stamp their identity upon their dwelling by plastering every flat surfaces with posters, photos and other miscellanies decorations, but I’ve always felt four featureless walls says more about my character than any amusing image of Samuel L Jackson could.
The furniture, such as the limited space allows, follows much the same trend, most of it looking completely unused and making the room look very much like a page out of the IKEA catalogue, except without the obligatory bowl of fruit and jovial family sitting around discussing how much they’re getting paid.
If I’m honest with myself, and since I can see no logic behind deliberately deceiving ones self I always endeavour to be; I didn’t actually want the furniture in the first place. I simply turned to IKEA like religious people turn to the Bible, hoping that it would fill up a void in my life, or at least make the void marginally nicer to look at.
I also have a clock. A small bedside affair which has played a major part in my life, and as you join me I am presently reclining upon my bed, hand to my throat with the clock a few feet from my face, trying in vain to manipulate my heart rate to match the ticking of the afore mentioned time piece.
Given that the chronometer to which I keep referring has been the subject of my gaze for the duration of this fruitless exercise, one might detect a trace of irony in the fact that I have absolutely no idea how long I’ve been doing this. It was definitely dark outside when I started. I know this because I started after coming home from work, which given that the lighting outside my window has altered from dark to light, I suppose must have been yesterday… or the day before.
No. It can’t have been the day before, because yesterday was Thursday. I had to do checkout duty in the afternoon which only happens on Thursdays, and I work on Friday, so unless I’ve missed work again it must currently be Friday morning, which means I will shortly have to stop paying attention to my pulse rate and go to work.
One way is which I conform to the social norm is that I greatly dislike going to work; but I dislike conversing with Mrs Harris a great deal more, and that is the fate which surely awaits me if my rent is not paid this month, and my rent cannot be paid if I do not go to work. Furthermore, although I hold great distaste for it, work can at times be exhausting, and if I exhaust myself enough then I am sometimes able to sleep, and when I sleep I don’t have to watch the clock, which I dislike doing even more than I dislike conversing with Mrs Harris.
Also, if everyone didn’t go to work simply because they didn’t want to then nobody would earn any money, no goods would be produced, and as such the world economy would totally collapse, everyone would starve and the human race would be wiped out and replaced by cockroaches at the top of the evolutionary ladder. Cockroaches can survive a nuclear holocaust and don’t suffer from insomnia, so I sometimes think that they are more advanced than us anyway, but I’m sure the majority of the non insomniac population disagrees, which is probably why they all go to work in spite of not having the threat of Mrs Harris in their lives.
If I concentrate on the clock then I can ascertain the time, and deduce how long it is until I have to go to work, but given that I don’t expect I shall do anything different upon learning this information, it seems pointless to endeavour to find out. The clock will beep at 07:15 regardless of whether or not I know the time, and at that point I will stop trying to match my heart to the tick, trans-locate from my room to the bathroom in order to shower, shave and partake in other unnoteworthy activities. I don’t need to shave every day, but it is easier to keep the same routine every morning and not have to maintain focus on the date, and besides, it is very important that I arrive at work looking tidy, because “Tidy workers represent a tidy store”. Whether or not my failure to shave will cause us to be instantly closed by the heath inspectors is an experiment that I have not yet undertaken, and given that the necessity of rent is forever floating over my head like a particularly malignant thunder could, is probably not an experiment I will be practicing any time soon.
Even with the surplus shaving, my bathroom activities are unlikely to take me past 07:30, and as such there will still be an hour to endure prior to my leaving for work; however I choose to undergo my daybreak practices early in order to avoid running into any of the other three men who share the bathroom, none of who keep a tight schedule and might make me late, or worse try to talk to me.
In truth these days only one of them makes any serious effort to talk to me. Mr Jones doesn’t talk to me much because he is religious, and once gave me a book to read. I did read it, and then asked Mr Jones why, since my bed sheets are made of satin (an abomination), God has not sent wild animals to devour me, after which he mostly restricts himself to a simple greeting, which I in turn reciprocate in order for a quite life.
I have a similar arrangement with “Sam” who lives next door to me. I am only on first name terms with “Sam” since he has not vouchsafed his surname to me. In fact, excluding the fact that his name is Sam, and occasional comments regarding what he considers to be a “nice day” made whilst waiting for the lift, “Sam” does not talk much.
Finally, and most dangerously, is Mr Atkins. Mr Atkins is, in case a simply process of elimination has not already made this thunderously obvious, the resident of this floor who still repeatedly endeavours to talk to me. I consider Mr Atkins to be even more compelling evidence than Mr Jones’s book against the existence of God. Mr Atkins, if given half the chance, will talk the hind legs off of a donkey, then complain at length about the beasts inability to walk, and remark loudly and continuously about how donkeys in his day were made of sturdier stuff. Fortunately, the perpetual oral motion machine is slightly def, and as such, provided I am quiet whenever entering or leaving my room, does not pose to great a threat.
In case there’s any doubt surrounding the issue, I am still at this point staring at the clock. I’d like to close my eyes and have to only listen to the tick of the second hand, instead of witnessing it, time after time after time. Tick after tick after tick, with never an end, nor a tock in sight; but unfortunately closing my eyes is one area of life in which I have real trouble.
I’ve often thought about getting rid of the clock. I’m sure I’d be able to sleep better if I didn’t have the infernal ticking holding my attention. But I need the alarm to tell me when to go to work, and if I don’t go to work society will collapse as I relayed earlier.
I’ve also often considered to merits of going into town to get some earplugs or Jack-Daniels or chloroform to help me sleep better, but I can never muster the energy or the resolve. When I retire in forty-one years, I can get rid of the clock. Then I won’t have to work, won’t have to watch the clock and provided the state pension doesn’t get plundered to pay off mounting international debt, won’t have to talk to Mrs Harris. With those three obstacles overcome, there should be nothing stopping me from achieving contentment, and until then, it’s just a matter of taking life one day at a time.
Then again, I’m not sure if a person can survive insomnia for forty-one years without dieing, or at least creating a second imaginary personality and blowing up some buildings. A doctor’s appointment would probably be a positive move, but according to the NHS website, the vast majority of cases of insomnia are stress related or caused by social environment, and cannot be effectively treated with medication; and as such it seems to hold no more worth than laying here attending to my clock.
As this thought is wandering aimlessly through my head, a sudden, piercing, beepbeepbeepbeep courses through the room, and my body, acting on automatic instructions from my ears, flips over and stifles the noise before it can get through its second nerve jarring bagatelle.
Early morning, rise and shine, time for a new day. Attempting to conjure up some enthusiasm in order to make the transition from a vertical to a horizontal base easier, I finally tear my eyes away from the clock and towards to door. Taking a deep breath I swing my leg over the side of the bed and rise, a heavy sigh escaping as I look at the prospects for the day and lament, on another day’s energy, already spent.
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