Blurring Fiction With Reality (1) As I sit at my desk, I stare blankly at my computer, with no real energy. I can’t handle this any more. I need to get out of this job, this materialistic life. I can’t remember when I lost the substance that carried me through the sea of number’s that made my existence seem meaningful. Someone is trying to get my attention but I simply ignore them. “ Seth! ”. I eventually turn around slowly to see Linda standing, frustrated, with paperwork in her hand. “Can you file this stuff for me?” she says assertively. Without a word I take the pathetic pile from her hand and return to my pondering. This freakin’ office, it sucks the life out of you. All these petty little jobs I have to do, they’re so beneath me. I need a challenge, something fun. I just don’t have time to the things I would like. If I’m not working I’m too tired. I need to escape and lose myself. I need my emancipation from all that is physical and mental. I need peace from within. This job, this routine, is some form of invisible shackle with which the key is missing. I’m not in it for the money any more; I don’t need more objects and possessions. You have to be careful otherwise life becomes just a random collection of things in a museum. If you want to get somewhere or be recognised then you have to develop ruthlessness. No one has ever got anywhere without stepping on a few toes. Maybe its time I walked all over this paper work factory and leave it behind. I just don’t want to be here, bottom line. I wish I could quit right now, but instead everyone keeps telling me to “hang in there for a couple of months”. That might not be long but they don’t get it, we spend half our lives waiting for something to happen. I feel like people are just at me all the time with their bacteria like nature. Why can’t I just say, “Fuck you” and walk away? I feel like I don’t know where I am and I have no one to turn to who gets it. Everyday I’m told that you’ve just got to do it for the money. That’s all I hear anymore. No one understands. No one gets me. I don’t want to stay in an under appreciated, un- fulfilling job. My mind is never at rest and I feel as though its this job holding me back from getting anywhere in mind, body and soul. I don’t want a career I want a life. It seems to me that all I come here for is to sit and think. I don’t want to do anything, therefore I’m left with my ideas and contemplation’s. I re-visit every thought and contradict myself in a whirlwind of repetitiveness. But despite all this there is one shining light amongst the darkness. A person. A friend. Someone who helps me to forget. Meet Taylor. Taylor is one of those beautiful blonde girls with a nice figure, but not perfect. She has a piercing through her chin just below her bottom lip, a labret I think is the term. Anyway her brother Moth was one of my best friends throughout school. We all grew up together so obviously we were all very close. Taylor is two years younger than I am but she has had some early growing up to do in a short space of time. Moth died in a car accident on his way to go surfing, he was only seventeen. Actually I was in the car with him when it happened. To this day Taylor doesn’t know. I’m still not able to describe what it was like. But in a weird way that whole experience, the feelings, the sadness strengthened the bond between Taylor and I. We have been extremely close ever since, even bordering on taking it beyond friendship a couple of times. The closest of those would have been four years ago in my last year of school, the year Moth died. From time to time we tend to grow apart just a little but we always end up finding each other again. I remember the time she fell pregnant and then miscarried. I hate that term, fell pregnant, it sounds so negative and it shouldn’t. Anyway Taylor was a wreck for a while, with the miscarriage and then the father of the child walking out on her leaving a trail of abusive scars. So I tried to help pick up the pieces. Turns out she came away with new found energy and enthusiasm. Taylor can be a lot of fun to be around at times. But I have to stop distracting myself by thinking about her. It only serves to compound my ambition to break the shackles. I want to have the free spirited lifestyle Taylor has made for herself. You know sometimes you have to step back from your desk and say, hey my job is in trouble, I’m going for a coffee. Works for some people I guess. I decide to take my own advice and go for a break, not that I need one. I just want to get away from all those office sounds. Pens clicking, keyboards typing, cupboards opening and closing, pages turning, people talking and pretending to be interested. So many fake’s. Why is it that everyone feels they have to be so nice? When I walk into the office in the morning I don’t really want to talk and play pretend with everyone. If someone says “Good Morning” as they walk past I don’t usually give an answer. One, because I can’t be bothered and two because it all feels so manufactured to say, “ Good morning how are you? That’s good.” all bright and bubbly like. It’s not me, I’m just staying real to myself. Usually I’ll just give some sort of hand gesture or grunt to shut them up. On the way to the kitchen my supervisor stops me. He can be okay, I don’t really have anything against him but he does have a tendency to pick on little things and give me pathetic tasks. “Seth, I thought I should mention that your time sheet seems to be a little inaccurate” Huh? Where did this come from? “What do you mean?” “Well I realise the standard starting time is 8.45 am but if you don’t start work until ten to nine then you really need to indicate that. I mean, I’m not sure you actually sit down and start working everyday at exactly 8.45”. He tried to say with it with a little giggle like its no big thing. But it is a big thing to me, this is exactly what I have been going on about. Pathetic crap! Why does it even matter at all? Shouldn’t he be talking to a board room about office policies or something instead of hassling me? Rage, be my friend. “Well, I realise that you are my supervisor and I would like to indicate that I think you are a complete arsehole!” I wish I really had said that but I’m too scared to say what I really think. Instead I give him a frustrated nod and walk on. I cannot believe how small things really are here. It’s all so inconsequential. I want to read the paper but I can’t concentrate. How can I? My head is beginning to swell with screams. I need to lash out, there’s nothing for me here. I will not settle for mediocrity. I will not lower my standards. I have to break through this barrier of disappointment and angst. I feel like I’m on the edge and I’m about to break. The thing is, I’m not so sure why I feel so angry about it all. There seem to be so many cons attached to walking away but maybe this time I’ll be selfish and do what suits me. If I don’t seize the day I could become one of those sad people. You see, for the most part, we are pushed into choosing a career, which eventually dictates your lifestyle. In my opinion the years between leaving school and becoming a young adult are the most fun and irresponsible days of your life. Why don’t we utilise that? As time goes on people become more pathetic. They forget why it is they are doing whatever it is they wanted to do in the first place. That ultimately causes a loss of substance which, is what makes people unique. We may as well stamp a barcode to their head because all they are is just another number. I will do whatever it takes to avoid my life sentence. I walk back to my desk feeling more stressed than when I first left, thanks largely to my own mind. All I hear are constant whispers of instruction. Walk away, you can’t walk away, work harder, just go home, you have a responsibility, I denounce my responsibility, money, money, money, violence, violence!! SHUT UP! I try to calm myself down as I approach my desk and sit down. How is it that being here stirs so much emotion in me? Maybe its because I feel held back from what I’d rather be doing apart from this routine with no future. I’m not cut out for a nine to five job. I need more freedom to live. Right now I am merely existing. I close my eyes in an attempt to pull it together but instead I feel as though darkness surrounds me. As I look around my arms and legs appear to be out of focus and two or three frames behind my initial movement. Everything seems still, but I realise I am actually floating downwards slowly. Fading through the black I can see words coming towards me and floating seductively past like smoke. I always feel strange but nothing bad has ever happened to me, I feel psyched, but always low, I want to destroy something, I want to experience the world, I want the world to experience me, I was in love but now I hate her, I loved my best friend, but she didn’t reciprocate, I’m lucky to have a friend for life, I want people to take notice, I’m up then I’m down, I can’t work out why, I’m easy going and laid back, but I never let my guard down, I fear death at a young age, I will get revenge, I will have vengeance, I will not be fucked with, I did not take her innocence, but she did take my dignity, I have no idea, but I have the answers, Do not tell me to get over it, Do not tell me what to do, Never lie to me, Never take me for a ride, You don’t understand, hey …, Neither do I, I will break through, I will crush this darkness within me, I will be happy, I will make my mark and you will take notice, Then I will fade discretely into obscurity, And you will remember. I open my eyes and look around. The hallucination has ended leaving me with a feeling of uneasy desire. I can’t do this any more, I have to leave it behind………… and so I did. On my desk I left a single piece of paper, which read “Scorpion’s do plague my mind”.
Copyright © 2002 Tim Baker |