Caged Humdrum

Marc grabbed his pack of cigarettes and his jacket and hurried out of the building. The winter air hit him full in the face but he didn’t feel it. His body was still boiling from the stuffy air of the office. In the time he it had taken to light up the cigarette, he had reached the corner of the window-paned building. He was outside, free as a bird, but looked like a caged lion, pacing back and forth. On the other side of the window-panes, bodies were running, cycling, sweating, and putting on a show as if they were in an aquarium. But he tried to keep his back to this new gym, ignoring all these caged hamsters. He knew fine well that one or two of them were judging him just then. He wasn’t bothered by the fat ones; after all, they were in that glass bubble to fight their own vices. But he couldn’t stand the thin or muscled shapes. He imagined each one of them looking at him with disdain, mocking his bad habit. They were as much hamsters as he was a lion... all caged, all held hostage by a life and a world that didn’t think they were good enough or strong enough.

They could all go fuck themselves.

Secretly, he was raging. His angry stubbing-out of his cigarette on top of the bin betrayed a temporary lack of self-control. After a last breath of fresh air, he walked back to the office, a puppet without a smile, a robot programmed only to accomplish the tasks he was asked to do.

“Did you remember to buy the lottery ticket for this week?” she asked when he had just barely crossed the threshold to his own home.

“Yes.”

He went to the kitchen where she was to drop off the tickets before heading to the bedroom to take off his coat and shoes.

“We should put another coat of paint in the hall. I noticed that it’s starting to look dirty.” she shouted from the kitchen. By “we” she meant “you” of course.

“Yes.” he replied, doing his best not to let his voice betray his irritation.

After taking off his shoes, he remained sitting on the bed. He had no energy and didn’t want to move.

“Dinner’s ready.”

“I’m coming.”

The water running in the sink, burning hot, numbed him. Doing the dishes each night provided him with a certain sense of satisfaction. The repetitiveness of it, the cleanliness of each object, the loneliness. It was the perfect moment of calm, a yoga session in the kitchen: his body loosened and finally let go of the stress accumulated during the day. But in his head, thoughts ran wild, a motorway during rush hour. Past mistakes, regrets, disgust with himself, regrets, disappointment, regrets... if he could do it all over again... regrets. Nobody gets a second chance. The worst mistake he’d ever made was not to have seized happiness when it presented itself. By wanting to do well, he had forgotten himself. He knew that many people in this world were selfish and he considered himself to be relatively so too. But when the critical moment had arrived, he had put himself last. That was his death sentence. He had taken himself to death row, toward the fatal injection: a lie. Death had slowly slipped through his veins while he realized, stunned, the strength of this poison, and only left a carcass empty of any will, keeping only as a keepsake the memories buried under a layer of regrets.

Once again, he couldn’t sleep. The stranger by his side in the big bed breathed peacefully. He knew she must be suffering because of what he had become but she was still putting on a brave face, refusing to admit anything. Maybe she was punishing him. Maybe it was only her self-defense mechanism reacting. If he had been able to feel anything, he would have felt guilty. He looked at her for a few minutes before he got up, put on a pair of jogging bottoms, t-shirt and a hoodie, grabbed the new pack of fags that he had bought at the same time as the lottery ticket and headed out.

The air now felt completely frozen, completely different from the earlier stinging freshness. Before even lighting his cigarette, he was already exhaling big puffy clouds. They quickly vanished, dissipating instead of swirling into nothingness. His hands were stiffening from the cold and he struggled with the lighter to ignite it. He didn’t know why he smoked, only that his body seemed to need it. It was a habit taken up to face adversity when nothing else seemed to work. The night seemed dark beyond the light pollution of the streets. Despite the cold, he decided to go for a walk. He might as well avoid when he could, the attitude of the caged lion brought about by the shortness of the break he had at work. Right now, he didn’t have a limit of time to adjust to or a boss observing his comings and goings and taking note of how long he took to go for a piss. He followed the street to its end then headed for the cycle path. The place was most likely going to be deserted, potentially dangerous if some delinquents or other disturbed beings were hanging around the area, but he didn’t give a shit. They might as well stab him in the backside for all he cared, what difference would it make?

He had just crossed the bridge that led to the path when he saw a furtive silhouette disappearing round a corner in the distance. She had long dark hair, was seemingly the same size as her and the same aspect. Natalie? His heart bolted out of his chest and his legs became weak. Without thinking, he started running after the silhouette and saw her again when he reached the corner. She was walking away hurriedly. As he was nearing on her, she started to run. He pushed himself and caught up with her, his lungs and throat burning from the cold. He grabbed her arm, forcing her to turn around and she screamed, clearly frightened. After a second of hesitation, he let go of her arm and she ran away, hysteric. Why did he keep finding this glimmer of hope? Disappointment inevitably followed. Raging, he went back towards the cycle path and lit up a second cigarette. He was now walking as fast as he could, as if trying to escape the mistake he had just made. The shape of the naked trees in the gloomy darkness recreated the atmosphere of a dark novel, the perfect environment for he felt like a specter, floating without any bonds to earthly matters. His mind was spiraling out of control; he wanted to run but puffed on his fag instead. The panic wasn’t subsiding, quite the opposite, it grew stronger with each step, each puff. The regrets came back to the surface with a vengeance. In his mind, he relived the minutes that, if he had acted differently, would have drastically changed his life. A different life unrolled before of his eyes, filled with smiles, happy faces and laughs. The idyll wasn’t very believable but that was all he had left. Just like a film, he could watch some scenes and play them over and over again. They drove him crazy. Third fag. He had reached the train tracks that marked the end of the cycle path. The city was close; he could hear its humming in the distance. His thoughts slowly drowned under the urban noises. Fourth fag. His mouth was pasty but he still puffed on the nicotine with satisfaction. Fifth and sixth followed. The lights of the cars passing by hypnotized him. The voices in his head were gone, the calm, finally back after the storm. His automaton-like state had been reactivated. He slowly walked back to the apartment. In a few hours, the sun would come up, and he would go back to the routine, to a life devoid of any emotions. The one that he probably deserved after all.