Breathe

I woke up late again, and got up out of bed. It’s always raining outside these days, it’s like heaven’s got a bone to pick with the rest of us. I slowly made my way to the bathroom; to get the water started before I went to make breakfast. Bagel and cream cheese, before I always head out to the coffee shop across the street and buy a large cup to get my day started. But something was different today, and I could feel it. I made my way into the bathroom and looked in the mirror, I didn’t recognize myself anymore.

This is the face of man who’s broken every which way from Sunday. I stop for a second and try to catch my breath, look around and then down to the sink, rinse my face, and try to wake up. Slowly my eyes make their way back to the mirror, and I see myself, comfort in that reflection. I turn on the shower and make my way to the kitchen, pop the bagel in the toaster and head back into the bathroom. Strip down and make it quick, I shouldn’t forget that I’m already late.

As I shower a thought hits me, I’m 27 years old, no kids, no family, an urchin raised in an orphanage. I’ve got nothing, and I know it. My girlfriend is sleeping with my lesbian boss, and my life should have been an abortion. But then again, I shouldn’t be thinking about this now, it is Thursday, and I’m already late.

So I get in the shabby elevator and ride down fourteen miserable floors filled with screaming kids and violent couples, all the way to the ground level of this miserable city outside my apartment walls. From there I usually walk about a block to the coffee shop and pick up my usual large cup of black coffee, no cream, and no sugar, but not today. Today I make my way straight to that miserable office, to deal with miserable people and the sterility of the light. Hell, I don’t even know what I do there; I put up with shit from that stupid lesbian bitch and then get to go home. As far as I’m concerned, I’m just there to get yelled at, beats working for a living.

As I get off the subway some jackass pushes me and I drop half my bagel down the shaft between the subway and the station. This is a miserable fucking city. The whole station smells, it smells like people, I hate people. As I walk by the street performers some cholo fuck and his homies make fun of my old school Reebok’s. ‘Straight stone age homes’. Yeah, I’m cool. Like the miserable fuck that I am I just walk away quick. Trying to get lost in the throng of human beings, I notice. A slight pressure on the wrist and then nothing, some fuck just stole my watch.

By the time lunch rolls around I can’t even breathe anymore. Jenna calls and tells me she loves me and all that nasty emotional shit couples do. ‘Honey is something wrong?’ Is something wrong she asks. HA! I don’t even know what to say, I just want to scream but I can’t. She tells me something came up at work and she might be home late. I hang up. I can’t believe it, they’re practically fucking right in front of me, and I can’t even say anything. I go down to the diner and get my usual grilled chicken wrap with chili pepper sauce and mayonnaise, with a little bit of avocado to spice things up.

As I finish my sandwich, I look at the clock. I’m late. Again, I’m late. I’m going to get more shit from that bitch, and she’ll threaten to fire me, and I’ll just sit there and smile like I always do. I grab my drink off the table and head back to the office, where I’m most definitely going to get yelled at.

As I make my way to the 27th floor of that horrible place, I’m lucky to catch the bitch on floor seventeen, and she gives me the dirtiest look you can muster. Today must be her lucky day, I’m all shits and giggles to hear her latest rant. As I head back to my compressed cubicle, nothing matters except her yelling in my ears. I notice that ‘Wow, I deserve this,’ I’ve got a fucking Lego poster in my cubicle. All I hear is the word useless, over and over. It’s no wonder my parents gave up on me, they must have instinctively known they gave birth to the most useless asshole on earth.

I sit there, smiling like a jackass, while she humiliates me in front of everyone, and I can’t do a damn thing. So I sit there, and listen to this bitch as she goes on and on, confirming every thought of the value of my self worth. I’m useless. She gets fed up with yelling at me and the clock slowly trickles the seconds away. I don’t even know what I do here.

The clock finally hits 5 and it’s time to go. And as I get back on the subway and start to head home, every bitch, bastard and goddamn critic on the street makes fun of me or harasses me. I get mugged by some little guy with a gun, looks like I won’t be eating lunch till next week. And I’m pissed off.

I get off the subway back where this whole trip to hell began and ride up those fourteen miserable floors. The elevator stops on the eighth floor and some fat Mexican bitch and her 4 kids cram in with me. Screaming kids, crying and sniveling, snot ridden, ugly, fucks. But I just sit there and ignore it all hoping the elevator will speed up, but it doesn’t.

I walk in the door relieved, finally home, and the fucking scrap eating shit of a dog pisses on my shoes. I knew I should have thrown the little shit out the window when Jenna brought it home. I don’t even like dogs. I pick it up and put it in the closet, wishing I had a gag for its mouth. I walk over to the answering machine, and look for the blinking light, there’s a message.

As the automated voice comes on and tells me the phone rang nine minutes ago, I’m wondering who it could be. And then I hear Jenna’s voice telling me she’s going to be extra late because she’s going out to dinner with her boss’s client. Yeah, right, and Jesus bagged Mother Teresa’s soul last week. That slut, dirty fucking bitch, she acts like I’m oblivious.

I walk into the living room and turn on the TV, the news is the same, and it’s all shit about death, dying, and how not to die. I want to order a pizza, but then I remember; I got mugged today. Fucking kid, he’s probably using my cash to go get high right now. I haven’t smoked in years, and right about now, I could use some weed to calm me down, and take my edge off.

The dog’s still barking in the closet, and I’m just about ready to kick it out the window when I hear a knock at the door. It’s the cops and I think I know why they’re here. So I grab my computer’s hard drive and chuck it in the secret compartment I made shortly after I moved in. I grab the CD’s and put them at the bottom of the dog’s litter box, yes, the dog’s litter box. Fucking sad.

I open the closet door and let that little fuck faced Chihuahua out before I open the front door. The cop takes a look around and asks me if I know anything about my neighbors that live three doors down. I tell him I got nothing. And he asks me a bunch of questions anyways. I tell him everything I know about the Mexican fucker down the hall. Tell him all I know is what I saw, and that the guy was loud. I ask why he wants to know, and he says the guy jumped out of his window and left me a couple of things from his apartment.

I ask why, and he says he doesn’t know, all he knows is that I have show up to a meeting with the other inheritors on Tuesday. I ask if they have any reason to believe it was foul play, he says he’s not at liberty to discuss, but I can look up the case number when the case is closed. I tell him to have a good night, and I’m relieved that he wasn’t there looking for me. Prick. That’s all I have to say. I hate cops, and I hate how they’re never there when you need one. Prick.

So I grab my hard drive, and put it back in my computer, turn it on. I guess I’ll write a new program tonight, maybe even two. Jenna’s not going to be home, she’s off with that blonde bitch who calls herself my boss. When another knock comes at the door and I look to see who it is. It’s Marvin, my neighbor from the next shack over. These people try to pass these things off as apartments. Fucking Miserable. He lets himself in, the old fart. Sad thing is I probably take more pills than he does. He tells me some gossip around the apartment, and about that fuck head that launched himself out his window three doors down.

As Marvin yaps left and right about what’s going on, I just want to grab something big and heavy and beat him in the head with it. I’m starting to think that the guy three doors down had the right idea. I wonder if he wants any company, fuck head. Marvin goes on and on, and before I know it, it’s been 45 minutes. I tell him I need to shower and Jenna’s going to be home soon, and that’s when he says “Cheer up, kiddo, there’s always tomorrow.”

I just want to tell him to stop calling me that, the old fuck. I have a name, but he doesn’t care, and neither does that bitch at the office, or the kid who mugged me. I decide to go for a walk, clear my head. I leave Jenna a sweet note saying I’m going out to walk. Bitch. I tell her dinner is ready and on the stovetop, fucking slut.

So I grab my laptop before I leave and head to the coffee shop, where Susan works. Susan’s this girl I’ve known since I was about 19, we met at college. She was the kind of girl all the guys wanted, and I was the one who tripped into her and made her spill her coffee all over me at the library one day. She still talks to me now and again, Jenna hates her. Susan is the sweetest thing you’ll ever meet, and twice as sexy. But I’m with Jenna, and Susan is engaged to some guy with an architecture degree. That’s life.

So I head in and Susan takes one look at me before starting to make me my usual, I walk up to her and tell her I got mugged, and she gives me one look and says, “It’s on the house.” With that pearly white smile that could make angels jealous. So she comes and hand delivers me my cup of coffee and says I should be more careful. I just more or less agree and listen to her talk about anything and everything. Cutest redhead I ever met.

She gets up and heads back to the counter and I sip at my coffee and pull out my laptop. I guess I’m just trying to escape all the bullshit of the day. I get a free internet connection from some Johnson guy who must live somewhere near, because I’m using his internet and I doubt he even knows it. But that’s alright, what he doesn’t know can’t hurt him. I browse around aimlessly killing time until I can go home and catch Jenna tired enough to not continue last week’s argument.

It gets late, and I’m tired enough to head home. I stop by the counter and tell Susan thanks for the coffee, and she smiles at me. Bitch. She doesn’t know the half of what’s going on. And she tries to act like she’s a good friend of mine. She only talks to me when she needs something nowadays, or when I’m at the coffee shop.

I get home and I lay in bed, this is me not having sex. Jenna started shit as soon as I walked in the door about how the dog is whimpering, and I don’t feed it enough. Fuck the dog. She bitches about how my boss called and wants me in an hour early, so that I can write her a speech for a meeting at 11. She yells at me for leaving the house without telling her, and how our communication is shit. But I can’t even get a word in. She complains how I’m reclusive and unresponsive. This is me hating life. This is me not getting a blowjob tonight. She smells like my boss, I get up and go sleep on the couch.

I wake up in the morning, and it is Friday, My neighbor Marvin is back, smelling like cabbage and ointment, old fuck. He says Jenna told him I needed help with something, and I have no idea what she meant. And then I remember, I’m supposed to be at work early. This is Jenna trying to get me fired; I just walk out of my apartment dragging Marvin behind me. I lock the door and tell him I’m late. I tell him I’m going to catch up with him later, and he just nods in his old uncomprehending way of listening to everything. I swear a golf club splattering his brain all over the place wouldn’t be so bad, would it? He’s lived a full life. But the sad thing is; I probably take more pills than he does.

I say fuck the coffee and fuck the bagel; I’m not losing my job over this. I make it to the office early, for once, and the bitching begins. I hear it all, and I’m supposed to put together a speech for a meeting in three hours. I wonder if this bitch likes the taste of my girlfriend more than I do as I start to get to work. And then I’m pissed. But I’m not going to say anything. So I get the speech done, perfect, and she comes out bitching at me how there were so many errors and that many mistakes. I just tell her I’m going to lunch smiling like the insignificant bastard that I am. And as I walk away I notice; she’s wearing my girlfriend’s lipstick. Fuck you Jenna.

I make it to the diner, and it’s packed, but I’m going to wait in line and get the same sandwich I’ve gotten for the past seventeen weeks and counting. Joey at the counter is already on it, and I pay him for the large soda and sandwich, this time with white rice and a California roll on the side. I remembered my rainy day money that I stash from my other job. It comes in handy after a long day like yesterday was. I eat as quickly as possible and head back to the office, late, again.

I take everything quietly the rest of the day as the bitch moves me down to filing and has me work the pits. She’s wearing Jenna’s lipstick. Bitch. I should cut off her clit, and make her eat it. But I’m not going to do that, I’m going to work filing with a smile, and wait till the clock hits five.

I make it home and Jenna says she’s going to be late again; she’s got to close a deal with some big shot downtown. Yeah, I believe that. Marvin hears me moving around and knocks on the door, I tell him to fuck off; I wish. I let him in, and he asks me what I needed help with, and I tell him I’m fine now, and that everything got settled. He tells me more shit about the guy who lived three doors down, come to find out that his name was Emanuel. Some people say that there was a woman at his place earlier that week, and some say she was around the day that he killed himself. I say if this chick existed she was probably a whore, tried to take more cash than she was allowed to, came back and got caught, shoved him out a window for it. Marvin says he had a TV guide in his hand. I wonder what that has anything to do with anything. He just rambles on aimlessly asking about Jenna and that rat bitch of a Chihuahua we call a dog. I tell him I have things to do and that I have to go out, and he leaves, coughing slowly and exiting methodically with his feet shuffling as he leaves.

I make it down the street and buy some more ammunition for that gun I have, I feel tonight’s going to be a rough night. The store keeper looks at me and asks chuckling “Are you expecting in-laws or something?” I answer him with some random comment as I pay in cash. I know I don’t really care what he thinks. Tonight’s going to be rough, and Jenna calls my cell-phone probably ready to complain again. I hear something in the background, it’s probably my boss. Bitch.

I catch the subway since it runs 24 hours a day, and I ride downtown to the middle of the city, I know Times Square is an unforgiving place, and I need to be as ready as it is unforgiving. As I begin to walk around, some guy in a sweater makes fun of my Ghetto pumas. I tell him to fuck off and he gets in my face. I take it nicely and just apologize like the sniveling dog that I am, he knocks me to the ground and walks off. It’s no wonder my parents bailed out on me.

I walk around aimlessly and end up in a strip club somewhere I’ve never been before and I don’t care. I get some attention from a girl here and there, until they see I’m not coughing up any money. Then they casually let themselves walk off. It’s business after all. I know how it is. I just order a few drinks and let the flashing lights take me away to somewhere nice. I guess I can’t remember where I was by the time I get home.

I eventually make it home and Jenna is waiting in the living room waiting for me, she doesn’t even turn off the TV before she starts yelling about how irresponsible I am. I take it like she expects me to, and she eventually wears herself out to the point where she can fall asleep. I look into the bed and see a vision of my skinny, blonde, bitch, boss lying where I’m supposed to be. I can’t even look at my own bed anymore. I hate you Jenna, like you wouldn’t believe.

So as time goes on I think to myself as I toss and turn on the couch. I can’t help but feel disgusted by the shit going on in my life. I’m everybody’s bitch, and I know it. I hate my life, but I hate my girlfriend even more. I can’t think straight, and I’m reduced to going to the bathroom to grab pills, fucking Marvin, I take more pills than he does. I feel the effects now, and I’m slowly drifting asleep as the processes in my body start to slow down. I look at the clock, and the red numbers glow 4:17 and that’s the last thing I remember before I fall asleep.

I fade into dreams, and I’m in a big empty city. It looks like New York, but it’s quiet. It’s all too quiet. I see nothing but buildings and cars, all empty, and it’s like some horrible post nuclear scene. I run to the only place I know where to find comfort, under the bridge, and that’s when the dream shifts. I hear it, and it’s the same dream more or less that I’ve had for the past nine days, zombies. Next thing I know I’m running for my life as masses of zombies run at me, they’re all deformed and hungry looking. I run higher and higher up this endless flight of steps. I keep running and it seems like it takes forever, and I’m almost out of breath, I can feel it. And then I make it to the top of the building and look around. I’m surrounded, and I know it. All I’ve got is a ballpoint pen in my pocket, and I know it. I reach in and pick it up out of my pocket and throw it at the closest one before I make a mad dash for the edge of the building. I take one look over my shoulder and see Jenna and my boss there, ready to pounce. I look down over the edge and jump back into the mob of zombies. God, I’m a pussy.

I wake up in a cold sweat and I know I hate my dreams. I hate my life; I can’t stand the person I see looking back at me from the mirror. I go to the bathroom and wash my face before falling back on the couch. It’s daylight out now, but I don’t care anymore. I need the rest that only this tortured sleep can offer me. I try to get up to get something to eat, but my body resists, and I give up. I couldn’t force myself to get up if I wanted to.

Time passes, and I open my eyes, rested enough to go out, and carry out more terrible tragedies of the things we do to ourselves when we’re awake. I head out the door after getting dressed and make my way to the elevator. On the way there some stupid spick fuck asks me about where the guy who used to live three doors down from me went, I told him the guy jumped out of his window as I keep going. He trails me asking for answers and begging me for information, I tell him I don’t know anything more than what he knows now, and he tells me I know more. I tell him to fuck off as I ride the elevator down those 14 floors of hell again. It’s quieter now, just the occasional crying baby.

I get down onto the street, laptop slung over my shoulder, and I’m going to go to the coffee shop. I’ve got the weekends off, one upside of an office job. I’m just going for a relaxing walk; I just need to clear my head. If that was all I needed to do….

Monday rolls around, we had a big fight this weekend, and Jenna went to stay with “Mandy” for a night. Yeah, I really believe that one. I’ve been planning my little “fuck you” to the world all weekend, and I’ve finally got it. I’m sick of humanity, and the world has pissed me off enough for three lifetimes. I’m sick of being everybody’s bitch.

I’m sipping coffee, home made, change things up a little. Jenna walks in and says she’s sorry we fought and some other random bullshit. I don’t even know why I bother. She comes up to me; I guess I’ve got this blank look on my face because she asks me what’s wrong. I tell her nothing’s wrong, I’m just tired.

I head over to the bedroom real quick, it’s time she saw what I’m about. I’m still in my bathrobe, so I’ve got no problems. I make a nice warm bath and tell her I’m treating her before I head out to work. She takes it thinking I’m still the same person I was last week. I’ve got that meeting tomorrow, about that neighbor three doors down, his name was Emanuel. I wonder why the hell I haven’t taken after him yet. He seems to be doing better now. But I’ve got that meeting to go to tomorrow.

The pressures are mounting and I think I’m going insane. Things that shouldn’t ever be moving are moving. I haven’t slept in two days, and usually that’s normal, but I know that this time is different.

I make it to the subway station and some priest keeps yelling random things at people about the end of the world and the end of heartache, and how things will be better for believers. He hands me a mini-bible. I just take it and drop it on the ground behind me. I’m tired of these assholes trying to pawn off some bullshit on me. It’s always the same story, there’s always greener grass on the other side. Whatever.

I make it to the office, and take some spare cash I’ve been stashing away from my other job. I need something to take the edge off. I hit up Johnny Razor, the guy who cuts, deals and dabbles in everything. He sells me some green and I take a self-given break, fuck that lesbian bitch. I need something to calm me down, and Johnny knows exactly what I mean.

I make it back to the office and I’m rather numb by the time I get back. Riding up 27 floors has never been so relaxing. I step out of the elevator, and there’s my boss, with one of those looks on her face. I just take it all like I usually do. But now I’m not holding it inside, it’s just in one ear and out the other.

Finally, it’s quitting time, and it’s all over. I’m just going to go home and kill time, before I have to wake up again. Do it all again tomorrow. Jenna bitches some more, but it’s all just not affecting me anymore. I’m beyond broken; I’m so hurt I’m dead inside. I feel like I’ve been cheated out of everything and everyone. I don’t matter anymore. I’m just the most useless asshole on the planet.

It’s no wonder I’m all alone. I’m 27 years old, no kids, horrible job, and no happiness whatsoever. I think it’s time for a change. I need to do something different. I think among other things, Jenna’s got to go. And I’ve got to go too. I’m sick of being here. It’s not worth it, it really isn’t.

I wake up Tuesday morning and call my shrink “Hey Dr. Locke, this is The Dreamer, you know the most useless asshole on the planet. Thanks for nothing asshole. It’s finally over, and I just wanted to say you’re even worse a fuckup than I am. Psychology:” I start to define “The art of inventing words for shit that doesn’t exist.”

I hang up the phone.

I look around for a while, and nothing is coming together. I can’t seem to find my way out of this goddamn hell hole. I start turning trying to see if there’s a way out. The dog starts barking at me from it’s corner. I kick it out onto the patio, ‘and stay there you dumb bitch.’ I think to myself as the barking grows louder and louder, blocking out my thoughts.

I know that I have to find a way out. I win; I’m done losing. I take the stairs to the outside of the very top floor. I look around and it just seems like the right thing to do. I just look back once more. No regrets, as I always say. I wonder if it hurts, but it’s too late to ask questions, I’m running full speed. I just turn around and run, not like in my dreams. This time I’m jumping. As I look in front of me all I see is a door shining at the end of that pavement. I wonder if it hurts, my heart is racing. Then it’s all dark. I think it’s over…finally.