Post by Evan on Oct 12, 2010 22:00:39 GMT -6
This is kind of an... odd story, so I don't blame anyone who reads it for not even liking it. Part of me though has always had a soft spot for the weird/surreal (perhaps psychotic) and this was pretty much me throwing out a bunch of nonsense at full speed without really stopping. Still, I'd like to think there is a little bit of depth within in it that may make you think, "Woah!" if not at least "... Well then."
Anyway, there it is. I haven't proof-read it really so I may have made spelling/grammar mistakes, so overlook that if you have to.
I NEVER REALLY LIKED HER
I never really liked her.
As she lay there in bed, I wondered about the things we had just done. A night of love, tenderly touching each other's bodies, and then a climax of ecstasy and exhaustion. I remember falling asleep. I don't know what she did. But now she was out cold, and the morning's warmth was coming in through the window. I took a brief moment to examine her room - dull reds and pink, a few stuffed animals and a poster of some shirtless twenty-something celebrity staring ominously down upon me. What was this girl? I couldn't remember.
I turned back to her, propped up in her bed, a dirty white sheet covering most of my body. She too was tucked in, having wrapped herself up with a blanket and a small pillow between her arms, the soft blonde curls of her hair idly laying around her head, like a halo.
"She's so ugly," I thought. "Was she that ugly yesterday?" I shook my head, said aloud: "Impossible."
Slowly, she rolled over to her side, her back facing me now, and I felt my heart flutter. For a moment, I imagined myself actually being her, waking up in a bed beside myself, aware finally of the horror and disgust my mere existence was causing.
I thought about killing her. No, a quick slip out before breakfast would do. I grabbed my things, got dressed, and left. I made certain not to leave anything but her morning shame behind.
What was her name again? It was probably something stupid, like Dianne, or Veronica.
"Oh, Veronica!" I imagined. "Aren't you going to invite me up to your room?" Maybe I should just burn her whole building down. That'd look like more of an accident.
I felt a little vomit in my throat. I choked it down and walked the rest of the way home, avoiding other people on the streets as best as possible.
It had always disgusted me to pass by someone and catch a strong whiff of perfume or cologne. It's like someone standing an inch from your face and screaming "I AM NOT UGLY" down your throat. As if dousing yourself in gasoline would make you any more resistant to fire.
Suddenly, it occurred to me I was tearing apart some fat woman's face, digging my fingers into her bloody cheeks while cursing obscenity after obscenity. No, I was just imagining that. She was wearing an ugly hat, though. I followed her for three blocks until she ducked into a small street-side shop. I don't go near those places without a pair of gloves.
When I finally made it home, a nice two-bedroom apartment, the first thing I noticed was the blinking light on my answering machine. One new message, from her. Fuck. Did I actually give her my number? Her voice was like that unbearable whine when you rub two pieces of styrofoam together. Add in the fact that she was speaking intelligible words and it made it all the more horrible. I couldn't help but listen.
"Uh, yeah, hi!" she started. "This is Eleanor, uh, hi!"
I closed my eyes, felt something inside me twisting.
"Eleanor," I thought. It's worse than I could have ever imagined, and now she's calling me after one night stand. I must have been worse than drunk last night.
"Just wanted to call and, uh, see what you were doing today. Sorry I didn't get to see you this morning, uh," she paused. "I'm sure you had something important to do, yeah, it's a weekday after all!" She half-giggled. "Maybe you have time for lunch? Or, uh, maybe another day? Just, yeah. You have my number, just give me a call whenever! Yeah!" Another awkward silence. I imagined her biting her lip, half-embarrassed but fondly remembering the encounter we had the night before. I felt an itch coming on.
"I guess that's it. So, uh, Bye! Bye-bye," she said. There was a brief second of her fumbling with the phone which came through on my end as static and strange beats. I thought I heard her say something else just before she finally ended the call. So I listened to the whole thing again.
By the sixth time through I caught clearly what she had said, her muffled voice on the other end filled with a subtle sorrow.
"I hope he calls back."
I felt like my teeth had just one-by-one exploded out of my head. “Eleanor!” my mind was screaming. I hate her so fucking much.
I woke up in bed about three hours later. I don't remember how I got there. The clock at my bed table read 9:48 AM. It felt more like 9:32, so I slept for sixteen more minutes. It's about then when the phone rang.
Thankfully, it wasn't Veronica, or whatever her name is. This time it was my boss at work, cussing me out for being late again. I don't remember having a job.
"It's 8AM sharp, every day, every damn day, can't you manage that? I want you here in thirty or I'll..."
My mind raced a second. Or you'll what?
He finished, "Just get here. Now." Then he hung up.
I weighed the possibilities of going or not going to work today, but the idea of getting to sit at my desk and check my e-mail won out over staying home and risking a call from Eleanor. I'd take hot-headed boss over styrofoam lady-beast any day.
I put on a tie, and woke up sitting at my desk at work. I vaguely remembered a taxi and an odor that reminded me of the time I dug up my dead cat, just to see what its bones looked like. I thought about keeping a kitty skull on my mantle as some kind of trophy, but it was too full of fur and maggots still.
Did that actually...
It was then I noticed a brown stain on the left sleeve of my shirt. I couldn't remember how it got there, or how long it had been in there in the first place. I tried to brush it off, but it wouldn't go away. No matter how much I brushed, it just sat there, staring back at me, almost... taunting me to destroy it. It felt like it was eating through the shirt entirely, burning its oblong shape into my soft flesh below. I was terrified it would melt into my bloodstream and pump straight to my heart and kill me, but then the phone rang.
It was a normal ring. Nothing strange about that. But still, I refused to pick it up until the fourth time it sounded.
I couldn't control myself. I felt unspeakable words flowing out of my mouth before I had even actually said them. There was no hesitation, like I had said it a thousand times before. My hands were sweating.
"Hello- your call is very important to us- if you have any problems I am here to help you-" it was a single sentence, quick, with no emphasis on any single word. "I'll be your representative today- my name is-" A voice cut me off. It sounded like styrofoam.
"Uh, yeah," she giggled, "It's me, Eleanor!"
I felt my brains coming out of my ears.
She started to talk, like I had any interest in what she was actually saying to me. Was she stalking me? How did she get my work number? Even drunk I wouldn't have given her more than my home one. Was she stalking me? I repeated this thought. Was she that pecking noise at my window I heard every night as I fell asleep? Some nights I would shut my eyes as hard as I could, waiting, feeling for that noise to grow louder, closer. On those nights I thought at any moment I'd look up and see a monster standing over me. Maybe that was Eleanor. Maybe if I just kept my eyes shut...
As her voice trailed on, I couldn't understand what she was saying anymore. I felt my teeth gnashing and the heat of her breath coming through the receiver. It melted in my hands and into my head. A repetitive, screeching pulse echoed around me, leaving an aching tension in my bones. My left hand was shaking uncontrollably, but the right hand holding the phone was eerily still. I closed my eyes and wished it away.
"Listen, honey," I interrupted her. The word rolled off my tongue seamlessly. "I hate to cut you off, but I'm not supposed to be taking personal calls like this at work. The boss is already in a bad mood today, and-"
She spoke up, "Oh! Uh, yeah, uh, sorry! I know how busy you are there. I'll talk to you tonight." I imagined her standing there, holding her cell phone up to her ear, naked and making faces at me. "Bye bye!" she said. "Bye!"
I hung up.
I stared at the desktop of my computer for about twenty minutes, before someone decided to ruin my productivity.
"Hey, man," some guy in a tie said to me. He was tall, with dark hair, and equally dark rings around his eyes. In his left hand was a mug of coffee. I assumed it was black.
I didn't like the color of his tie, though. It was some kind of sick yellow mixed with gold. It reminded me of the time I pissed into a pitcher of lemonade. The neighbor kids at their lemonade stand didn't like that very much.
No, wait, that never happened.
"I saw you were late again today. Did the boss give you a chewin' out?" he said.
"Yeah," I said. "He called me at home, but he hasn't showed his face here at the office yet."
The man nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. It was a sick, slurping sound. It made me want to pour a boiling cup of it down his throat. I still wasn't sure who he was, but apparently he was friends with me. Other than his tie, at least he wasn't ugly.
Like Eleanor.
"Well," he said, "He'll probably be cooped up in the conference room all day anyway. He may have a new customer for us after we finish this web project."
I just nodded.
He hesitated, then: "So you're good today?"
"Real good," I said. I thought about smiling, but I was afraid he'd stare at my teeth.
He nodded back himself, taking another sip. "So, how's Ellie?"
"Ellie?" I thought. Maybe he means Eleanor. Am I the only one who doesn't know what is going on?
"Fine," I just said.
"Well, cool," he said, starting to turn away and head back to his desk. "Oh," he paused, turning back to me. "Do you have any idea when you'll have that spreadsheet done? The girls and I were hoping to get a jump start on next week."
I looked down at my desk, saw nothing, and then to my computer. Did all of my icons just change position?
"No," I thought to myself. "I have no idea what you are talking about."
"Yeah," I actually said. "I'll probably get it done today. Definitely won't be until after lunch, though." I turned back to him, still refusing to smile.
He nodded, "That's fine, that's fine. Rough day already for you, huh?" He laughed. "Yeah, don't worry about it. I'll catch you later." And he was gone.
It wasn't like he had walked away, he just... disappeared. I was surprised a moment not to see his coffee mug still floating in the air, but it had gone with him. I checked a clock on the wall, and double-checked it with the clock on my computer's taskbar. Another hour had gone by.
Next thing I knew, I had a printed out spreadsheet in my hand. The numbers on it were confusing, and it made me feel sick. I thought about what it'd be like to be flattened into the shape and size of a piece of paper and thrown through the process of being printed on. Of all things to have written on your naked flesh, a fucking spreadsheet.
I was on the floor now, seizing uncontrollably. No, I was standing in the break room, a coffee on my hand. Or was that a gun?
"I saw you made a mistake on the spreadsheet," a voice said. It was that same guy from before, his yellow tie still tight around his neck. "It wasn't a big deal though. Once we saw the mistake it didn't take us long to just run down the line and fix everything after it." He took a sip of coffee, so I shot him in the head. He dropped like a brick, bending at the knees and sprawling out sideways, blood pouring from the wound in his skull. It mixed with the spilled coffee, making a weird red-brown color. I watched a minute before putting the gun into my mouth.
"Did you hear me?" he said. I was looking at him and his yellow tie, standing in front of me, and my mug was up to my mouth. I took a quick sip. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, you'll have to point out the mistake to me so I don't end up doing it again."
"It was just a math thing," he said. "You had everything right otherwise. Nothing to worry about."
"Yeah," I said. "But still." My hand was starting to shake, so I put down the mug on a counter.
There was a silence between us, but then he said: "Are you sure you are okay today?"
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah."
"You sure though? I know you've said you get jumpy sometimes."
"Jumpy?" I shook my head, "I'm just tired today. Rough day, like you said before. Rough night."
He nodded. "Well, alright man." This time he walked away, and I watched him the entire time to make sure he wouldn't disappear.
I eventually found my way back to my desk, after making several trips to the bathroom, and sat down. I stared at my computer monitor again for a while and I could feel a headache coming on, but I tried to ignore it. For some reason I kept hearing Eleanor's voice in my head. It made me look over my shoulder more than once, just to make sure she wasn't actually here at the office. Every time I saw no one but my boring coworkers, but I couldn't shake the feeling of paranoia.
"Phil texted me and said you were you looking a little pale today," she said.
It was Eleanor. I was home again and I had a horrible pulse in my head. It took me a second to collect my thoughts but- Wait.. Phil? Phil... Yellow tie Phil.
“You text Phil?” I said, a certain sound of disbelief in my voice.
She ignored my question, “Why don’t you just get a cell phone like everyone else? That way I can actually keep track of you a little better.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Since when do you text Phil?” I don’t know why I cared so much. Did I really even want anything to do with this girl?
“We’ve been going out for over a year, do you remember that?”
I blinked, “You and Phil?”
“No!” she said, sighing. “You and me. I mean... You’re friends with Phil.” I couldn’t possibly be friends with someone who wore a tie like that. “You told me to-”
“Wait,” I said. “I have a headache.” I really did, so I sat down. I felt heavier than usual, like I was sinking into the floor.
She came over to me, put a hand on my shoulder, “Are you alright?” She sounded genuinely concerned. “Did you take your pills today?”
I don’t take pills. “I don’t take pills,” I said. I looked up to demand some kind of explanation, and she was gone. Just gone, like Phil had disappeared earlier today. But that wasn't all that was different. My furniture, my bed, and every stick of anything that I had owned was gone. It looked like an empty apartment, dull a grey, devoid of life. All I had was the chair I was sitting on, and by the sign of the deep indentations around its feet, it hadn't been moved in a very long time.
More important, when was the last time I had moved?
My mouth felt dry. "I don't take pills," I thought.
Suddenly, a fat man in a suit came walking in the room. He had more chins than hair on his head and was wearing a blood-red tie. The stale smell of the room became replaced with his sweaty stench.
"So, what do you think?" he asked, taking a breath. "Do you like it?"
"Huh?" I murmured, "Oh, yeah. It's great." The fat man seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't attach a name to his bulbous face.
"Great!" he said, and another heavy breath. "I have the paperwork in my car. You'll love living here."
I stood up from the chair, looked the man in the eyes and smiled for the first time I could remember smiling in a very long time. "Good, thank you!" My voice sounded sincere, even to me. Suddenly, I was genuinely excited to live in a room I had already been living in for the past year or so.
Wait, no, that never happened.
Anyway, there it is. I haven't proof-read it really so I may have made spelling/grammar mistakes, so overlook that if you have to.
I NEVER REALLY LIKED HER
I never really liked her.
As she lay there in bed, I wondered about the things we had just done. A night of love, tenderly touching each other's bodies, and then a climax of ecstasy and exhaustion. I remember falling asleep. I don't know what she did. But now she was out cold, and the morning's warmth was coming in through the window. I took a brief moment to examine her room - dull reds and pink, a few stuffed animals and a poster of some shirtless twenty-something celebrity staring ominously down upon me. What was this girl? I couldn't remember.
I turned back to her, propped up in her bed, a dirty white sheet covering most of my body. She too was tucked in, having wrapped herself up with a blanket and a small pillow between her arms, the soft blonde curls of her hair idly laying around her head, like a halo.
"She's so ugly," I thought. "Was she that ugly yesterday?" I shook my head, said aloud: "Impossible."
Slowly, she rolled over to her side, her back facing me now, and I felt my heart flutter. For a moment, I imagined myself actually being her, waking up in a bed beside myself, aware finally of the horror and disgust my mere existence was causing.
I thought about killing her. No, a quick slip out before breakfast would do. I grabbed my things, got dressed, and left. I made certain not to leave anything but her morning shame behind.
What was her name again? It was probably something stupid, like Dianne, or Veronica.
"Oh, Veronica!" I imagined. "Aren't you going to invite me up to your room?" Maybe I should just burn her whole building down. That'd look like more of an accident.
I felt a little vomit in my throat. I choked it down and walked the rest of the way home, avoiding other people on the streets as best as possible.
It had always disgusted me to pass by someone and catch a strong whiff of perfume or cologne. It's like someone standing an inch from your face and screaming "I AM NOT UGLY" down your throat. As if dousing yourself in gasoline would make you any more resistant to fire.
Suddenly, it occurred to me I was tearing apart some fat woman's face, digging my fingers into her bloody cheeks while cursing obscenity after obscenity. No, I was just imagining that. She was wearing an ugly hat, though. I followed her for three blocks until she ducked into a small street-side shop. I don't go near those places without a pair of gloves.
When I finally made it home, a nice two-bedroom apartment, the first thing I noticed was the blinking light on my answering machine. One new message, from her. Fuck. Did I actually give her my number? Her voice was like that unbearable whine when you rub two pieces of styrofoam together. Add in the fact that she was speaking intelligible words and it made it all the more horrible. I couldn't help but listen.
"Uh, yeah, hi!" she started. "This is Eleanor, uh, hi!"
I closed my eyes, felt something inside me twisting.
"Eleanor," I thought. It's worse than I could have ever imagined, and now she's calling me after one night stand. I must have been worse than drunk last night.
"Just wanted to call and, uh, see what you were doing today. Sorry I didn't get to see you this morning, uh," she paused. "I'm sure you had something important to do, yeah, it's a weekday after all!" She half-giggled. "Maybe you have time for lunch? Or, uh, maybe another day? Just, yeah. You have my number, just give me a call whenever! Yeah!" Another awkward silence. I imagined her biting her lip, half-embarrassed but fondly remembering the encounter we had the night before. I felt an itch coming on.
"I guess that's it. So, uh, Bye! Bye-bye," she said. There was a brief second of her fumbling with the phone which came through on my end as static and strange beats. I thought I heard her say something else just before she finally ended the call. So I listened to the whole thing again.
By the sixth time through I caught clearly what she had said, her muffled voice on the other end filled with a subtle sorrow.
"I hope he calls back."
I felt like my teeth had just one-by-one exploded out of my head. “Eleanor!” my mind was screaming. I hate her so fucking much.
I woke up in bed about three hours later. I don't remember how I got there. The clock at my bed table read 9:48 AM. It felt more like 9:32, so I slept for sixteen more minutes. It's about then when the phone rang.
Thankfully, it wasn't Veronica, or whatever her name is. This time it was my boss at work, cussing me out for being late again. I don't remember having a job.
"It's 8AM sharp, every day, every damn day, can't you manage that? I want you here in thirty or I'll..."
My mind raced a second. Or you'll what?
He finished, "Just get here. Now." Then he hung up.
I weighed the possibilities of going or not going to work today, but the idea of getting to sit at my desk and check my e-mail won out over staying home and risking a call from Eleanor. I'd take hot-headed boss over styrofoam lady-beast any day.
I put on a tie, and woke up sitting at my desk at work. I vaguely remembered a taxi and an odor that reminded me of the time I dug up my dead cat, just to see what its bones looked like. I thought about keeping a kitty skull on my mantle as some kind of trophy, but it was too full of fur and maggots still.
Did that actually...
It was then I noticed a brown stain on the left sleeve of my shirt. I couldn't remember how it got there, or how long it had been in there in the first place. I tried to brush it off, but it wouldn't go away. No matter how much I brushed, it just sat there, staring back at me, almost... taunting me to destroy it. It felt like it was eating through the shirt entirely, burning its oblong shape into my soft flesh below. I was terrified it would melt into my bloodstream and pump straight to my heart and kill me, but then the phone rang.
It was a normal ring. Nothing strange about that. But still, I refused to pick it up until the fourth time it sounded.
I couldn't control myself. I felt unspeakable words flowing out of my mouth before I had even actually said them. There was no hesitation, like I had said it a thousand times before. My hands were sweating.
"Hello- your call is very important to us- if you have any problems I am here to help you-" it was a single sentence, quick, with no emphasis on any single word. "I'll be your representative today- my name is-" A voice cut me off. It sounded like styrofoam.
"Uh, yeah," she giggled, "It's me, Eleanor!"
I felt my brains coming out of my ears.
She started to talk, like I had any interest in what she was actually saying to me. Was she stalking me? How did she get my work number? Even drunk I wouldn't have given her more than my home one. Was she stalking me? I repeated this thought. Was she that pecking noise at my window I heard every night as I fell asleep? Some nights I would shut my eyes as hard as I could, waiting, feeling for that noise to grow louder, closer. On those nights I thought at any moment I'd look up and see a monster standing over me. Maybe that was Eleanor. Maybe if I just kept my eyes shut...
As her voice trailed on, I couldn't understand what she was saying anymore. I felt my teeth gnashing and the heat of her breath coming through the receiver. It melted in my hands and into my head. A repetitive, screeching pulse echoed around me, leaving an aching tension in my bones. My left hand was shaking uncontrollably, but the right hand holding the phone was eerily still. I closed my eyes and wished it away.
"Listen, honey," I interrupted her. The word rolled off my tongue seamlessly. "I hate to cut you off, but I'm not supposed to be taking personal calls like this at work. The boss is already in a bad mood today, and-"
She spoke up, "Oh! Uh, yeah, uh, sorry! I know how busy you are there. I'll talk to you tonight." I imagined her standing there, holding her cell phone up to her ear, naked and making faces at me. "Bye bye!" she said. "Bye!"
I hung up.
I stared at the desktop of my computer for about twenty minutes, before someone decided to ruin my productivity.
"Hey, man," some guy in a tie said to me. He was tall, with dark hair, and equally dark rings around his eyes. In his left hand was a mug of coffee. I assumed it was black.
I didn't like the color of his tie, though. It was some kind of sick yellow mixed with gold. It reminded me of the time I pissed into a pitcher of lemonade. The neighbor kids at their lemonade stand didn't like that very much.
No, wait, that never happened.
"I saw you were late again today. Did the boss give you a chewin' out?" he said.
"Yeah," I said. "He called me at home, but he hasn't showed his face here at the office yet."
The man nodded, taking a sip of his coffee. It was a sick, slurping sound. It made me want to pour a boiling cup of it down his throat. I still wasn't sure who he was, but apparently he was friends with me. Other than his tie, at least he wasn't ugly.
Like Eleanor.
"Well," he said, "He'll probably be cooped up in the conference room all day anyway. He may have a new customer for us after we finish this web project."
I just nodded.
He hesitated, then: "So you're good today?"
"Real good," I said. I thought about smiling, but I was afraid he'd stare at my teeth.
He nodded back himself, taking another sip. "So, how's Ellie?"
"Ellie?" I thought. Maybe he means Eleanor. Am I the only one who doesn't know what is going on?
"Fine," I just said.
"Well, cool," he said, starting to turn away and head back to his desk. "Oh," he paused, turning back to me. "Do you have any idea when you'll have that spreadsheet done? The girls and I were hoping to get a jump start on next week."
I looked down at my desk, saw nothing, and then to my computer. Did all of my icons just change position?
"No," I thought to myself. "I have no idea what you are talking about."
"Yeah," I actually said. "I'll probably get it done today. Definitely won't be until after lunch, though." I turned back to him, still refusing to smile.
He nodded, "That's fine, that's fine. Rough day already for you, huh?" He laughed. "Yeah, don't worry about it. I'll catch you later." And he was gone.
It wasn't like he had walked away, he just... disappeared. I was surprised a moment not to see his coffee mug still floating in the air, but it had gone with him. I checked a clock on the wall, and double-checked it with the clock on my computer's taskbar. Another hour had gone by.
Next thing I knew, I had a printed out spreadsheet in my hand. The numbers on it were confusing, and it made me feel sick. I thought about what it'd be like to be flattened into the shape and size of a piece of paper and thrown through the process of being printed on. Of all things to have written on your naked flesh, a fucking spreadsheet.
I was on the floor now, seizing uncontrollably. No, I was standing in the break room, a coffee on my hand. Or was that a gun?
"I saw you made a mistake on the spreadsheet," a voice said. It was that same guy from before, his yellow tie still tight around his neck. "It wasn't a big deal though. Once we saw the mistake it didn't take us long to just run down the line and fix everything after it." He took a sip of coffee, so I shot him in the head. He dropped like a brick, bending at the knees and sprawling out sideways, blood pouring from the wound in his skull. It mixed with the spilled coffee, making a weird red-brown color. I watched a minute before putting the gun into my mouth.
"Did you hear me?" he said. I was looking at him and his yellow tie, standing in front of me, and my mug was up to my mouth. I took a quick sip. "Oh, yeah. Yeah, you'll have to point out the mistake to me so I don't end up doing it again."
"It was just a math thing," he said. "You had everything right otherwise. Nothing to worry about."
"Yeah," I said. "But still." My hand was starting to shake, so I put down the mug on a counter.
There was a silence between us, but then he said: "Are you sure you are okay today?"
"Yeah," I said. "Yeah."
"You sure though? I know you've said you get jumpy sometimes."
"Jumpy?" I shook my head, "I'm just tired today. Rough day, like you said before. Rough night."
He nodded. "Well, alright man." This time he walked away, and I watched him the entire time to make sure he wouldn't disappear.
I eventually found my way back to my desk, after making several trips to the bathroom, and sat down. I stared at my computer monitor again for a while and I could feel a headache coming on, but I tried to ignore it. For some reason I kept hearing Eleanor's voice in my head. It made me look over my shoulder more than once, just to make sure she wasn't actually here at the office. Every time I saw no one but my boring coworkers, but I couldn't shake the feeling of paranoia.
"Phil texted me and said you were you looking a little pale today," she said.
It was Eleanor. I was home again and I had a horrible pulse in my head. It took me a second to collect my thoughts but- Wait.. Phil? Phil... Yellow tie Phil.
“You text Phil?” I said, a certain sound of disbelief in my voice.
She ignored my question, “Why don’t you just get a cell phone like everyone else? That way I can actually keep track of you a little better.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Since when do you text Phil?” I don’t know why I cared so much. Did I really even want anything to do with this girl?
“We’ve been going out for over a year, do you remember that?”
I blinked, “You and Phil?”
“No!” she said, sighing. “You and me. I mean... You’re friends with Phil.” I couldn’t possibly be friends with someone who wore a tie like that. “You told me to-”
“Wait,” I said. “I have a headache.” I really did, so I sat down. I felt heavier than usual, like I was sinking into the floor.
She came over to me, put a hand on my shoulder, “Are you alright?” She sounded genuinely concerned. “Did you take your pills today?”
I don’t take pills. “I don’t take pills,” I said. I looked up to demand some kind of explanation, and she was gone. Just gone, like Phil had disappeared earlier today. But that wasn't all that was different. My furniture, my bed, and every stick of anything that I had owned was gone. It looked like an empty apartment, dull a grey, devoid of life. All I had was the chair I was sitting on, and by the sign of the deep indentations around its feet, it hadn't been moved in a very long time.
More important, when was the last time I had moved?
My mouth felt dry. "I don't take pills," I thought.
Suddenly, a fat man in a suit came walking in the room. He had more chins than hair on his head and was wearing a blood-red tie. The stale smell of the room became replaced with his sweaty stench.
"So, what do you think?" he asked, taking a breath. "Do you like it?"
"Huh?" I murmured, "Oh, yeah. It's great." The fat man seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn't attach a name to his bulbous face.
"Great!" he said, and another heavy breath. "I have the paperwork in my car. You'll love living here."
I stood up from the chair, looked the man in the eyes and smiled for the first time I could remember smiling in a very long time. "Good, thank you!" My voice sounded sincere, even to me. Suddenly, I was genuinely excited to live in a room I had already been living in for the past year or so.
Wait, no, that never happened.