Droning electronic noises. Indigestion. Mechanical thoughts. Mechanical meanderings mumbling passively pass puritanical purpose.
Odd sensation. Sparks. Coarse edges of adrenaline. A continuous drip speeding up.
The next page. Blank.
Follow up.
Fiery explosions. Death stare. Moribund snacks on the table. Left stale. Hopelessly romantic.
2am.
I don’t trust the time. I don’t trust anything that tells me who and what I am at any particular juncture in my life.
The strobe lights of consumerism whiz through the room. I scroll through Amazon. Window shopping, of a sorts. I’ve been at this since 8pm the previous night.
In 2 hours I will need to be at work. I work as a welder for a steel company that employs almost a third of this town. This godforesaken town. Nah, it’s not that bad.
I honestly have no idea why I constantly scroll and scour the internet, especially Amazon. Mostly Amazon. I spend about 5hrs on average per day looking at a wide-range of products on Amazon that I have no intention of buying. It’s not that I couldn’t afford them. I have a fairly decent-paying, union job and no dependents in my mid-20’s. I’m certain I’m the ideal demographic for most retail companies wanting to peddle their crap to some unsuspecting turd.
I might just be that turd.
But I end up never buying anything. I guess I like the idea of buying crap more than actually dealing with that crap. It’s more romantic that way. Scrolling through Amazon, imagining what my life would look like if I had an Oklahoma Joe meat cleaver with accompanying holster. Maybe I could be a butcher. Perhaps I could be the type of guy that would grill out every weekend and make my friends and neighbors green with envy from the rich aromas billowing from my backyard’s grill. Which of course would also mean that I would need a grillin’ apron that had some clever catchphrase printed on the front, like The Grillfather, or Chillin’ to be Grillin’, or Grillin’ Singer, or How’s it Cookin’, Good Lookin’. I don’t know what apron I would actually buy. I’ve envisioned myself with almost over 300 different grill aprons, and I still honestly couldn’t say which one looked better on me in my mind.
A jolting buzz rings across the room. My phone’s alarm notifies me that I need to be up, to be alive, so I can go to work. I briefly contemplate calling out so I can scroll through Amazon some more, but quickly scrap the idea because if I didn’t have any income then I wouldn’t be able to imagine my life better with all the stuff on Amazon.
The sound of a guitar echoing down the corridor. An ominous draft spelling out the chill of the night.
If only I could tap my heels a few times and let movie magic so its thing.
I can hardly hear my steps going down the unforgivable, unending, unapologetic subway corridor. I’m floating somewhere near one of Jupiter’s moons.
The guitar keeps changing tune. The rhythm of my insecurity. A crowd has gathered.
I try to hurry past. But there’s no escape. The geometric shape of the crowd is too oblong, too awkward to maneuver around. I contemplate whether I should pay the toll of a few undisclosed dollars to move past. But I have nothing.
I always seem to do this. I never have what I need. The screech and miasma of the upcoming train settles into the station. The once synchronized heads of the crowd disperses.
I feel a stupid freedom greedily feasting.
Fred Aiken Writing 