‘What am I going to do?’ My lips feel chapped.
And then it’s a shot chased by a beer chased by a wandering eye chased by a furrowed sense of desperation chased by a lusty dick. In the end all we want is to escape from something.
From death.
From sobriety.
From monogamy.
We all want to get away from something.
Tonight it’s from everything.
I’m still feeling sick. Still feeling the odd weight in my gut that just won’t leave. The pain in my gut that reminds me of Evaline.
The alcohol isn’t helping.
I’m aching worse than before. With a hint of nausea and an overwhelming sense of confusion. This is me without anything at all. This is me without a love and without a sense of security and without a job and without a smile.
Franklin is mumbling.
‘Who am I without my job?’
I’m mumbling:
‘Who am I without Evaline?’
Cue the dramatic music.
Cue the desperation.
Franklin has been my friend since I started this job. We’ve rambled our way through the last millennia. I’ve never seen him cry. He’s never seen me cry.
It’s an odd thing. The way that we befriend co-workers. The way that a shared experience can bring together two radically different people. The way that shared time tends to define a relationship more than anything else.
And Franklin is rocking back and forth.
Panicking.
Mumbling.
Like ivy on a fence, given enough time two things will become so entangled that you cannot see the ending of one and the beginning of another.
We rely on comfort with the hope that we will not have to deal with anything earth shattering. Comfort becomes real. Destruction, rebirth, reality, they scream from a distance and hover right beneath our noses.
People don’t think of the future because they can’t comprehend it.
We pay attention to the pavement under our feet and the food in front of us.
Tomorrow is a cable news broadcast.
Tomorrow is a screaming alarm clock.
Tomorrow is work in the office.
The smaller our vision, the bigger the world. The bigger the world, the more scared we become. The more scared we become, the less we look around.
A shot.
A beer.
I’m drunk.
Angry.
Belligerent.
My fist is shaking and my teeth are grinding.
‘Franklin, what are we?’ From tongue to teeth to lips to air, my words are as nebulous as they are real, spoken like a drunken asshole.
‘What?’
‘We’re nothing. We’re simply existing.’
There’s a pause. Music plays in the background. People chatter. Someone laughs. A light flickers. A beer is poured. A shot is taken.
Franklin looks ready to pass out.
I’m sure I look just as bad as Franklin.
We’re in our own little world of drunken idealism.
Rambling with a nihilistic sense of self-satisfaction.
‘I don’t even dream of the future. I don’t dream of anything and nothing ever happens. I’ve simply existed day to day for the last two thousand years. I’m not sure if I appreciate anything. I’m not sure if I even care about anything.’
Franklin perks up.
Head wobbling.
Spinning.
Cross-eyed.
His ears are red.
‘We all have.’
Then the night gets fuzzy.
Things come in flashes.
We’re kicked out of the bar.
There’s an undeniable adrenaline, like falling with no end in sight.
A broken window.
A broken bottle.
A thrown fist.
An aching jaw.
Then I wake up in a field.
Aching.
Lost.
Confused.
I walk a few miles until my nose starts to bleed and my feet start to ache. The air is fresh and feels good so I sit on a tree stump.
I try to recall how I got here.
Nothing.
I keep walking.
Logic dictates that if I walk long enough I will get somewhere.
My mouth is dry.
My gut is aching.
Birds are flying overhead.
The grass, the trees, the fresh air. I forgot that they existed. I haven’t been out of the city in two hundred years.
A car drives by.
I’m waving and yelling. They don’t slow down.
Eventually I come to a run-down shack of a house at the end of a driveway. The windows are opaque with mold and my hands are aching for reasons that I can’t explain.
No one seems to be home.
I knock on the door.
Another knock.
No answer.
All I want is water.
All I want is food.
All I want is the easiest path back to the way things used to be.
