9743

2.//

consumer, mass driven,
when crossing the street make sure to look in both directions. t in the back seat, the window opened slightly, wind pouring in and covering the ears so that one still has the ability to hear but is unable to understand phrases. didn’t i tell you that already? couldn’t you hear me the first time? what was that you said? i said that... when the car parks t gets out and walks to the front door with an extra step in his beat. something has changed him again. this was when he was fifteen, when he still had the ability to feel. a moment in time to be remembered the second before death. scene 19: a shot of t’s innocent eyes while hideously soft music plays in the background.

but that’s what he was trying to escape, the monotony, the laziness, the sheer boredom of it all. t in a parking lot suddenly feels the need to loudly sing the first words that come to his mind. he picks up the telephone and dials a random person collect, they were not home so he left a message on their machine. the operator told him that if he left a message the company would call the random stranger back fifteen times a day demanding payment for the collect call. he did it anyway, a story for the random stranger to tell when at parties and drunk, the message went something like "hi, i’m missing you and wishing that i could reach out and touch someone. so i found a telephone in a parking lot and i dialled a random number. i found a stranger. i’m sorry i hurt you."

t was twisted sometimes, but everything changed after he went away to school for business.

i never missed you really,
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3.
with thought, head down clutching the chair with all ten digits like a life raft on the cold ocean. body floats above. t at work. t rocks back and forth. t ignores the typing on calculators, the pie chart on a projector screen, his mind on his secret escape; scuba-diving in the tropics with colourful fish withing the touching of the tips of fingers. suddenly a day dream ends; t for transactions, t for transfer of funds, t for taxable sevices, t for a steaming pile of trite on the table during a team-meeting. no more life raft, no more scuba-diving. reality forces smoking, on a cigarette break t walks in lines along the curb of a street -- one foot in front of the other -- trying for balance -- for anything really -- just not to focus on the smell of newly laid manure. "nothing like the smell of shit to wake you up."

it occurs to t that this is the first person who has talked to him since he stumbled out of bed this morning. in the bathroom washing his hands with water while watching in the mirror he considered just saying something out loud. just to hear the sound of his own voice, just because it seemed like a good idea, just in case he forgot how to speak when he was sleeping. he didn’t though, instead shaving at and cutting through skin and bleeding on shirts and tying a tie and out the door before not even an angry fuck or disapproved shit could pass the lips.

he struggles to find something to say, anything to say,