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By: Ben (Hmm. I wrote this on impulse. I suddenly launched into this weird style and created this character. It's got a handful of dark humor and my usual surprise 'n disturbing ending. Try it out.) 7:00 am Wednesday Wake up. Daily grooming. Get dressed. It was like some mechanism in my mind now, it was like instinct. I woke up and the three immediate needs hit me. Something else has snuck its way into my schedule. Staring blankly at the ceiling for a while. The time of this varies. On weekends it can last a few hours. I just have to take a moment to remember who I am and that I am. I am. It takes less time on workdays because I know I have a job to go to. That fact alone speeds up the fact that I am. It seems the less I have to do, the less I feel I exist. I haven�t taken a vacation in five years. 7:15 am I always leave some blank staring time for when I face the mirror. I�m not sure whose face I�ll see looking back at me one day, so I always need to check. I always make sure it�s not a mask someone else is wearing. And if it is? 7:30 am Step out of the shower, dry off, get dressed. I�m not even awake and I know these things. What would my last thoughts be if I slipped on the bathroom floor and broke my skull open? �I never got a chance to dry off and get dressed.� Something to regret. 7:45 am Cereal or a bagel. These are the decisions that make men�s lives. I grab my stale bagel and head to my car. With any luck I�ll be part of that percentage of drivers that gets killed while eating in the car. It keeps me going each day. Note: Let me make it clear here that suicide has never been an option for me. I�m too afraid of heights to jump. Too squeamish to cut myself. And my fingers could never manage the dexterity I�d need to tie a noose. As worried about existence as I am, I�d never bring an end to it. It would be concrete evidence that I don�t exist, and I suppose we all need a little mystery in our lives. 8:15 am It takes me thirty minutes to get to work. My work starts at nine o�clock. I could try and leave later, give myself more time to sleep. No, 7 hours of keeping my eyes closed and my body within the realm of the bed is quite enough. I wish someday I could look at the world with my eyes wide open. Maybe the sun would shine brighter. Maybe a single look at that supposed mask in the mirror would forever quell my fear of existence. Probably not, though. I have a helluva imagination. Imagination. Just another word for hopes and dreams. 9:00 am I walk in the door right as the clock chimes the hour. My work? I�m a designer�a sort of proclaimed sellout artist. I sold out my talents to a computer game company. I don�t even remember which games they used my ideas in, but evidently it�s quite a lot, seeing as I haven�t even been threatened with being laid off in my whole career. Or maybe it�s because I come in every work day and don�t care if I�m ripped off in my pay. One of these days I�m going to come to the bank and see I have no money for food. Then I�d have to beg. A man in his work suit begging for money for food. That should work. A man in a suit looks good no matter how much pain they are in. Why do you think they bury dead people in them? 9:10 am There�s a lot of people at my work that act like they know me. I don�t know them. I wave and force a smile at them, but then again if someone pointed a gun to my head I�d probably do the same. It�s my natural reaction to people. Some try and get into a conversation with me. I�m not a conversationalist. My natural reaction to spoke words is an understanding nod and an occasional smile. I�m usually staring at the people�s mouths. If you stare long enough, it seems like the words are speaking themselves, and the mouth is just there for background. It�s like everything they said is being translated. Trapped inside a dubbed Godzilla movie. 9:30 am I�m looking at the most recent sketches I did. Black lines that profane the white paper, somehow forming an odd, grotesque shadow of a thought. The lines seem so dark�I look into them and see that sweat-stained darkness when I lie in bed at night, sleepless. And there are hundreds of those lines. A population of closed eyes in a white world. 12:00 pm It�s about lunch break. I am ready and armed with a small sandwich, still busy coloring the sketches. And, secretly, waiting for her to show up. She always visits me during lunch break. Ah, yes, she. She�s Heather. She�s the only woman I could love if I wasn�t so messed up. It�s depressing in a way. She�s beautiful, black hair with a somewhat fair skin stretched across a slender body. All the curves a woman needs. But I think what attracts me most about her are her eyes, dark, almost black, like the same substance of those lines that spill out on my sketches. Every black is darker for an insomniac, and her eyes seem to bore right into me, touch something still alive in my body. She may love me back. I�ve never really tried to find out. I�m attractive enough, so I�m told. I�ve never really tried to find out that either. I�m too concerned with making sure my face doesn�t fall off when I look in the mirror to worry about the details of the mask. But either way, I love that woman. It�s easier to love someone that you actually know. At least they�re aware you�re there, no matter how acute their awareness of your feelings they are.
12:15 pm She leaves at last. At long last. My drawings become darker, more vicious, more terrifying, my only outlet imagining the fear that would ooze out of the players. The fat, pimply wretches recoiling in horror. Anger was always an emotion I could feel. It was real, it was there. 3:00 pm Another murder is on the television that blares incessantly through the office. And all the pain-mongerers of the office are chattering in front of it. I never pay attention. I have my own depression to worry about. Another expert detective has been dispatched to catch this killer. And what will they do when they catch the murderer? Kill them. Hypocrites. 6:50 pm As I�m readying myself to regretfully leave, Heather comes once again, thanking me again and again for the blessings I blankly gave. I had a sudden idea. �Hey, Heather. Why not come over my place tonight? I can make you a congratulation dinner.� I was a good cook. I never cooked, but I could follow the cookbook unfailingly. �Sure!� The first invitation to dinner from me given to anyone? How could she refuse? �Great!� I give her my address and set up the time for around 8:00. It will be enough time, I�m sure. 7:00 pm I can get from work to home and vice versa in, the shortest, seven minutes. I usually drive as slow as possible. I�m a cautious drivers in a selective sense. I hurry to prepare a meal and await her arrival. I have what I�ll do planned out perfectly. 8:20 pm Her lateness allowed me to put out quite a place setting. I�m not sure where I got such nice dinnerware, but they needed to be cleansed of dust before use. She arrives, cheerful as ever, and full of chatter. Incessant. Like the television. I smile, nod and laugh until the dinner is ready. I serve, with her exclaiming how absolutely wonderful it all is. The cookbook never lead me false. Not once. 9:15 pm We reminisced all through the meal. And once we were full, we moved our conversation along with a bottle of wine to the couch in my living room. I don�t drink any, I would be a fool if I did. One thing I�m not is forgetful. 12:00 am I tie up the burdened black garbage bag, whistling a light tune. I drop it easily into the metal garbage pail. A thud and a small clang of a ring hitting the metal bottom of the can. I close the lid and skip off. I�m happy only afterwards. The anger still in my blood, the adrenaline empowered lightning that flows with the acute rage. I can FEEL it. I feel certain of existence, I feel awake. I smile at those dark eyes, gleaming with a frost of horror as they stain my hand. I kill, therefore I am. <~~Back to Stories |