Every Other Day Previous
You're no doubt privy to those rotting carrots dangled before you by a league of self-help hacks proposing, somewhat preposterously, that you can instantly improve your life – at least long enough to purchase their books or subscribe to their YouTube channels…
…Life begins at the end of your comfort zone…
…Don’t let your dreams be dreams…
…Today is the first day of the rest of your life…
I know by your nodding, or slight smirk on your lips, that you recognize these incantations. Perhaps you’ve used one, or a close confederate, before. Perhaps you’ve even been energized, felt its opioid aura navigate your veins, infusing your whole self to rise like Lazarus from your bed; to create that to-do list and start ticking boxes; to buy the book or click the button…
Well don’t fret; I shan’t use any of them here. Why infest your headspace even briefly with such glib conjecture? Besides the inanity, it’s simply not true. Today, believe it or not, is just a day – like any other futile fucking day…
…Peace is broken by my trumpeting alarm…
…I eventually and resentfully raise myself from my bed…
…I fixate on the curled hairs amid the linoleum pattern as I liberate a solid shit…
…I shave my face, avoiding contact with the hollow eyes in the bathroom mirror…
…I stand hung in the shower…
…I battle with a Windsor knot…
…I realize my tardiness and surrender the French Press for a cup of vulgar instant…
…I tip the coffee into the sink, washing it away with a slightly less brown cascade of Thames Water’s finest…
...I miss the bus and pound the pavement, zigzagging the previous day’s plastic bags, dog shit and Big Mac boxes…
…I cram into a train, where I’m coughed and spluttered upon by several sardined somebodies in a tin can containing thirteen thousand assorted bacteria…
But today is different; I have to grant it that…
…Different in the sense that it is the gateway to a fresh path of banality…
…Today I will begin a new temp assignment no less tedious than the last…
…Throughout this induced coma I will be paid the unsightly sum of fifty-five Great British pounds per hour…
…Of course, I could have refused it, taken control of my life, harnessed this great city and galloped towards the career progression I’d once aspired to…
…Though the prospect of answering a phone twice a day between bouts of data entry and Candy Crush, while collecting the pension plan of Malawi as my weekly wage was too much to resist…
…‘That sounds like a challenge,’ had leached from my mouth into the ears of the temp recruiter, who doubtless wakes each day with dread at the prospect of dealing with the undead clientele that I clearly represent…
You’ll note by the surrounding statues, pillars and posts that here, on the Thames, is the heart of the Corporation of London’s banking district. The buildings complement their occupants in grim and grey, seemingly dropped from the dreary skies to sit tightly, politely, in their gloom. Just take a moment to marvel at how this scape is utterly devoid of colour, resembling the pages of a child’s unused colouring book…
…I walk past a faceless young woman with dull brown hair smoking a cigarette and I curse myself and clench my jaw for having given up…
…I walk past the bacon buttie shop, lingering long enough to remind myself that I have senses…
…I walk past the homeless, squatting in their nooks, and remind myself that I come from a land that once had a little more hope and a little more glory…
This fine specimen of sparsely-windowed concrete slab is where I’ll spend my days. You will discern that, despite its brazen unsightliness, it is a building not too unlike any other in this area. No doubt its architect was lobotomised a year before its commission and knighted for services to mundane-ness the year following its completion…
…Mental note: I wonder if Monday and mundane go hand in hand, histo-linguistically speaking…
…So, this is the place, anyway. No colour, no flair…
…No passion, no hair…
…Ugh…
…This is Habib, the security guy...
…Like all job-proud, self-respecting Corporation of London security officers, Habib’ll cock his eyebrow to me as I swipe through the door with the pass my agency gave me. His demeanour will indicate that he has seen me here every other day previous. He’ll only save his more personable welcomes for the pretty Essex girls: The ones that have been here every other day previous…
I call the elevator and, once inside its stainless space, push the button to my floor: 12A. In the speedy ascent that ensues, I examine the OTIS™ car operating panel and its final column of buttons…
…15…
…14…
…12A…
…12…
…11…
…and I’m contemplating the peculiarity of this when the doors open and I see instantly that the security’s a little tighter up here. I stride out from the lift, suitably primed for my day to begin…
…black…
A sameday – a ‘similar too’ day… a Tuesday…
…I make a mental note… is there any linguistic link between the “too” with two o’s and the “tue” of Tuesday?...
…I contemplate this as I roll my mouth around the words, spouting ‘too, tue, too’ over and over like a runaway steam train….
…There are two things that define this day as differing from the previous: the colour of my tie and the date on banner of the already discarded Metro I am attempting to read on the train…
…reading, however, causes a headache to surface. Hell, this thing doesn’t just surface, but sinks me as well. Like a cowboy confronting an injun, I reach instantly for my piece, though I prefer a packet of Marlboro Lights to a six-shooter. Ha!! The Marlboro Man… or is that The Carcinogenic Kid?…
…the train-dead people look up at me in disdain (as though I’ve urinated on their shoes), so I holster my cigarettes…
…and there’s this tiny package in my jacket pocket…
…I dig it out to find that it’s a little flip of folded paper
(a flip? Well, yes… a flip)
…I examine it closer and see that it bears this alpha-numeric:
12A
4NF
…There’s the tiniest logo emblazoned above the code. I’ve definitely seen this before, haven’t I?
(Attempts to recall this memory are met with a sharp headache of unparalleled pain)
…I run my fingers over its edges and, as I look within its folds…
…it is empty, save the alpha numerics it carries…
…I light that cigarette as I alight from the train, completely dumbstruck. I can’t even recall the entirety of yesterday and wonder if I went out and celebrated the first day at my new job. But there’s no hangover, unless this is what this bastard migraine is supposed to be. I taste my mouth; uttering small lapping sounds as I attempt to ascertain any levels of alcohol on my breath. It tastes fine, slightly dry but not experiencing any sour scent nor lingering film of old alcohol. And if I was so trashed as to spurn my memory, then my morning is so far devoid of any post-drunken pre-noon elation. I’m not still pissed, is what I mean to say. My mind continues its probe for yesterday’s set of memories, which simply leads to more powered and persistent thumping from my cranial regions…
…I’m at the foot of the granite tower that awaits me like a headstone marker awaits its names, dates and fanciful verse (should anyone care to add one) and I’m long finished my cigarette, fighting the urge to consume another…
…Habib raises his eyebrow to me and I make my way into the mirrored elevator and up to floor 12A…
…ten, eleven, twelve, twelve A… fourteen is next, or so I’m told…
…black…
Wednesday: My when’s it gonna end day? I make a mental note to get myself a frigging life…
…I have my crap, my shave, my shower, my Windsor knot…
…I have my job…
…at the instant that I give rise to thought about my new temp function this nauseating and scorching pain launches through my head, pounding away until I abandon such notions…
…there is another little flip of folded paper in my pocket. I know this even though the wrapper is identical to the first because the first remains now but a crumpled piece of waste housed in the same pocket. I wonder if this is supposed to make me feel happy. There were early moments of elation on Tues…
…and that headache kicks in again…
…but now I’m left wondering if I can even experience emotion. There’s just this numbness across me (nullified only by those bursts of pain through my mind) and it seems almost an eternity ago that I actually felt anything at all…
12A
4NF
…so saith the package with the miniature logo that I know I’ve seen (ouch, my head!) before…
…Habib’s eyebrow…
…12A… why no number 13?
…black…
My eyes fade in, focussing on the inside of a Turkish bar. How do I know it’s Turkish? It could be the cluttered contents strewn about me (enormous colourful nargiles, rickety wooden furniture, carpets on the walls and sausage-shaped cushions), but I’d be safe to say the half-consumed bottle of Efes, warm in my hand, gives it away. There’s no natural light in here, so I assume I’m in some kind of basement bar. The blonds behind the bar (two Swedish girls, giggling and saying, ‘Titta på honom’) fade in and out of focus until they simply disappear and I suddenly feel alone and vulnerable.
There is movement in my right periphery (from beneath a black hanging) and I swear it was some kind of tail… reptilian – like perhaps there’s an upright alligator lurking in the shadows of this bar. But, it’s gone and I’m alone. This time I feel safety in my solitude…
…I reach for my cigarettes and notice that I’ve changed brand to Camel Lights, which I find bizarre considering how nasty these things taste. The hand that transfers the packet from my pocket to the table has also netted another flip of folded paper with this familiar symbol on it (it comes to me then that this symbol is the logo of the Corporation of London) and the alpha-numeric:
12A
4NF
Two crumpled empty sachets spill out onto the table. What the hell am I doing collecting this? And how? When?…
…oooooooo, Jesus that hurts…
…I’m falling apart… shattered… smashed… scattered…
…my watch is mocking me, suggesting it has gone 11pm. I have a compelling urge to rest and sleep… yet, how do I know I’ve been doing anything but?
…black…
Up at eight… I can’t be late… for number 12A… it won’t wait… he-te-he-he he-te-he he-te he-te-he-he… I have so many questions left unanswered by my thin sleep, yet the one that stains my lips the most is: Who’s the girl? She mocks me constantly in my dreams… I know… for no matter how faceless, voiceless, and featureless she is; I know I have seen her… been her before…
…who was the woodpecker?… who was the squirrel?… am I going bonkers?… my head’s in a whirl…
…the meaning of life? I can’t even recall my life. I’m losing grips on who I am and all I can think about (as if it’s of some paramount importance) is: If I like the cool, sultry funk of George Michael then does that mean I’m gay? If so, then there are thousands of ageing motorheads out there who must face up to the Freddie Mercury question…
…the Greys gather like an army of unquestioning ants; they swarm and scavenge the concrete jungles… a slave to their Queen… yet, unlike our gracious cousins (the ants), the army of Greys have forgotten to help out one another in our hour of need… to disburden the weak of their load, to carry the crippled and the fallen… instead the Greys will trample to get at their promised piece of the pie…
..and yet the pie gets disproportionately smaller and the hours of need elongate… hibiscus hours, hyacinth hours; growing like unwanted weeds on the wastelands of souls; stretching into days and nights, weeks and months, years and aeons…
…Habib… Habib… raise an eyebrow for me…
…12A… 12A… in 12A we play… 12A: A number… an enigma… 12A – unlucky for some…
…black…
Doors open before me…
…I lean through them with uncertainty…
…my arms flail in front of me…
…in search of some stability…
…I almost fall out of the train and my mind laughs heartily as my ears dizzily pick up a call to mind the gap… I reach the safety of a platform seat and grab hold of it for dear life, as though I’m fighting a hurricane…
…I wonder what day it is; noticing that I’m dressed for work and the clock on the platform is a very blurred 19:28. The train groans, clanks, moans, and thumps as it departs the platform – though its rumble is nowhere near the scale of my throbbing head…
…louder than the departing train…
…that’s my head; my departing brain…
…I can’t help but envelop myself in a fit of giggles as I stagger up and down the stairs of the station like some derelict on Tennent’s Super… I have tonight to myself… the first night in… [Ouch! My head!!!]… the best part of this last week… this is the first night I can recall… I feel myself adjusting as the world begins to get lighter and warmer around me…
…I cackle as I walk aimlessly down a cesspool alley… I need some sleep… I need to recharge… Yet I know I have another one of these folds of paper in my pocket… where it’s from is anyone’s guess… but there’ll be another tomorrow… and more… and more…
…that you can bank on…
…am I now a fully-fledged soldier of the Greys? Someone with neither inkling nor aspiration to the knowledge of what is going on?…
…Happy as a pig in muck because I have my distractions and (at least) periodic moments of my life to myself?…
…Who am I questioning? Certainly any answers to what I’ve become can be found squarely in my pocket… or in books of verse and praise and prisons of humanity…
…I cackle again, this time hearing my laugh echo throughout every alley and side-street of Greater London… what have I become?…
…homeless in my neural streets…
…fade to black…