The Crunch Point

The Crunch Point

Frank left his house feeling remarkably confident that morning. Although the shrill tweeting of his alarm clock had roused him in his usual stupor, a strong cup of dark Columbian coffee had provided the chemical stimulation his body had grown to require over the years. He pottered around the flat for a while, tidying up bits of clutter that had accumulated over the weekend, and checking through his emails. Then, when the urge took him, he grabbed his jacket and headed out the door.

On stepping out onto the pavement, Frank immediately regretted taking his jacket. The sun was out in full force, the heat prickling the back of his neck even that early in the morning. He set off down the road, feet pounding the pavement with a purposeful stride.

Make today the day he told himself, not for the first time.

For many weeks now Frank had been walking into the same shop, every morning, on the way to work. Some days he didn’t even really need anything, he would just pick up something cheap; an extra packet of chewing gum, or a can of sugary, caffeine-filled fizz.

But it wasn’t for the items that Frank had been repeating this seemingly senseless action.

It was for her.

Standing behind the counter each morning was a vision of loveliness the like of which Frank had never encountered before. Many would perhaps have described her as homely or plain, but to Frank she was the embodiment of everything he had ever hoped for. The first time he saw her in the shop he was awe-struck. He stood in a daze staring at her for a while, until the others ahead of him in the queue had been served and left. It took a sharp jab in the kidney from a deceptively frail-looking old lady behind him to snap his mind back into action. He moved forward toward the counter, heart rate increasing exponentially with each step. He gravitated towards the plywood barrier, trying to formulate some incredibly witty remark. He was sure that if only he could find the right combination of words she would be equally as taken by him as he was by her.

But they just wouldn’t come. He stuttered, stammered and (as the icing on the cake) dropped his change. He left that first day having made no greater impression than maybe making her think that guy was a little odd.

He had spoken to her since, many times. Through the course of those awkward exchanges he had managed to eke small morsels of information from her. She was called Eleanor, she liked rock music, and she had problems sleeping. Each little piece of her he discovered simply added to the tension inside him, that gut-wrenching feeling of I should be doing something.

It only grew louder the closer he came to seeing her, building up into a screaming agony as he approached the shop door each morning. Then he would step inside the cool interior; packed with fresh fruit, vegetables and various other household essentials, and all of the tension would be gone. In its place he found himself immersed in a stupefying delirium.

Sadly for Frank, although this delirium was infinitely more pleasing than the usual groaning tension, it served no useful purpose at all. It fuzzed his mind so completely that Frank was lucky if he could mumble a few incoherent sentence fragments without descending into a gibbering, giggling shell of a man. It was only through Eleanor’s naturally easy-going, talkative nature that Frank managed to hold any kind of a conversation at all.

For that was one of Frank’s big problems. He had never found it easy to talk to girls, and as such he never had a girlfriend, in all his 22 years on the planet. He wasn’t quite sure why, although there were a number of factors he imagined may have contributed. None so hideous or soul-destroying that they would excuse his missing out on such a huge part of life, but he supposed that perhaps he was simply weaker than most in that area.

The spots were probably the beginning of it. Striking hard at the age of 13, they had blighted first his face, then spread across most of his body like some vicious biblical plague. They had grown into boils on his neck and back, looking like someone had sewed golf balls under his skin. Through his school-years the problem was bad enough. At a time when his mind was already so fragile, any minor deviation from normality was enough to totally crush the spirit. But after he left school his will to interact with the outside world disappeared altogether. He wallowed in his pain and misery, revelled in his isolation, drowned in self-loathing.

Throughout this dull and seemingly infinite period of his life, Frank spent a lot of time on the Internet. Over time he realised that, in the current technological climate, almost all reasons for venturing outside the masonry box he called home had been erased. He found websites that would provide him with many services; from food delivery, to electronic components for his computer, even through to the delivery of illegal drugs to his doorstep. He became locked in a cycle of growing magic mushrooms, surfing the Internet and hiding away.

He was an intelligent and opinionated young man, and he began to be absorbed by spreading his views forcefully throughout many different forums. He would seek out neo-nazi sites, or anywhere he didn’t like what was being said, and subtly begin to assess the weak points in their arguments. Then, once he had gathered enough information, he would break his silence and attack mercilessly. Frank found his words flowed far better through this unnatural electronic medium than they ever had in reality. Somehow the extra moments of consideration, that lack of urgency, transformed Frank from a stuttering moron into an eloquent, passionate and focused debater. He would take on all comers, varying his tack, approaching arguments from differing angles from one moment to the next, increasing and decreasing the intensity as he felt necessary.

It was these little challenges that eventually pulled Frank back out of his hole. He began to see that he was really achieving very little despite all his efforts, and realised he needed to develop a different way of life for himself. After a time of mulling over nonsensical and unrealistic options, he finally had one spectacularly bad mushroom experience.

It was a Thursday morning and Frank, as usual, had very little planned. He went to the fridge to collect some semi-skimmed milk to accompany his bland (but allegedly healthy) wheat-based cereal. Sitting on the top shelf were the last few sprouts of his most recent grow kit. They sat, drawing Frank in with their cool, calm appearance. Their glowing red and orange caps seemed remarkably cheerful, and unavoidably enticing. Frank made a snap decision, took the plate from the fridge, and stirred the mushrooms into his cereal. He finished his breakfast quickly, wolfing down his wheat, dairy and fungi concoction, and headed upstairs to the bathroom to clean himself up before the inevitable madness overtook him. As he stepped out of the shower, he had already begun to salivate wildly. By the time he had finished brushing his teeth, white points of light were making their way across his visual field, like snakes from a game that had glued him to his mobile phone in his younger years. He wandered back through to his room, patterns beginning to engulf his home like some maniacal, ever-changing Persian rug. He lay down on his bed and looked up at the ceiling, breathing deeply.

Bloody good batch he thought to himself.

Then it happened.

The swirling geometric madness grew more and more intense, far beyond anything Frank had ever experienced before. A strange whining drone began, followed closely by an odd ripping, crunching sound, like a child attacking a present on Christmas morning. Finally, the world literally dissolved around him. His head was invaded by the piercing laughter of some unseen banshee. Then the taunting started, and all Frank could hear was a mocking voice telling him how useless he was, what a waste of space he was. At first he thought it was some time-travelling mother-in-law, come back from the future to haunt him for ruining her little girl’s life. After a while though he began to see that the voice, although undoubtedly female, was coming from within his own mind, that it was a part of him.

Frank spent most of that and the following day sobbing, curled up on his bed.

The feeling of useless disappointment followed him for several days. Then, in order to cope and move forward, he developed a new focus. He became more prepared to accept the ordinary rather than the extraordinary, as we all must do sometimes. Particularly at our darkest moments.

Frank had finally realised he needed to get back to grasping the nettle. That day he left his house for the first time in a couple of months. He headed to the local job centre and applied for various menial, uninspiring jobs. Eventually he got an interview with the local council, that paragon of compromise and poor management.

Remarkably, the interview went rather well. Frank, for a change, felt well within his comfort zone talking to the nervous and neurotic figure on the other side of the desk. Mr Kidd was his name, and he certainly seemed childlike in his humour and attitudes. A few forced laughs later and Frank was on his way out the door, feeling sure of himself for the first time in a long while.

Several weeks later, and Frank had settled happily into his new job. He was still resting comfortably in the middle-ground between knowing what was expected of him, and feeling tired and trapped.

The one thing that still niggled in his mind was that plywood barrier.

As he reached for the handle of the familiar glazed door with its tattered blue paintwork, the usual stupefying delerium began to flow through his mind. He stopped and steeled himself.

Make today the day. Another self-affirming repetition.

He pushed the door aside, the clarity of his mind clashing against the dirty haze of the neglected glass panel. As the odour of slowly-decaying consumables licked around his nostrils the delerium threatened again. He pushed it aside, refusing to be swept away.

He strolled confidently through the aisles, mind focused far more sharply than he had ever felt before.

What to buy today he asked himself, absentmindedly.

He reached the final shelves before the till and glanced down to his left. His eyes rested stick of chocolate-slathered honeycomb in a gaudy foil wrapper.

That’ll do he mused, knowing full-well he didn’t even like chocolate. He could always give it to one of the cackling sprites at his work.

He moseyed up to the counter, a slight swagger to his walk. She stood there, looking glorious as ever in the vibrating light of the fluorescent tubes above.

“Hi Eleanor,” he spouted.

A confident start, nice work. Keep it up

“Hi Frank, how are you this morning?” Polite disinterest exuded from her every pore.

“Beyond excellent, my dear,” Frank replied with a movie-star smile.

Eleanor’s eyes widened slightly, faint amusement skipping playfully across her lips.

“Really?” She glanced at him coyly, adding “and what could possibly make anyone so happy this early on a Monday?”

“Oh, I dunno. The sun’s out, the birds are tweeting away. I guess I just have a good feeling about today.” The toothy grin returned momentarily.

“I see. Well, I do hope it works out for you. Never a good idea to assume a day will be good this early in the morning,” she looked back towards the till, slowly counting his change with a perplexed frown.

“Ah, I’m all about optimism these days Eleanor. No sense in dwelling on what could go wrong.”

“Yes, perhaps you are right.” She finished counting his change and handed it to him.

He took a deep breath, and laid his neck on the block.

“Eleanor. I’ve been meaning to ask you this for a while, and I know I’m maybe overstepping a boundary here. But, are you single?” The delerium again swam into focus, only to be smashed back to oblivion by Eleanor’s words.

She looked at him contemplatively for a moment.

“No sorry, I’ve actually just moved in with my boyfriend.” A melancholy moment wandered across her visage.

“Oh.” Frank deflated for a second, then puffed back up, “shot down. Well, never mind”

“No, not shot down at all. Just unfortunate timing.” Her eyes bored through him, drinking in his disappointment.

“Yes, yes. All good things come with time, I suppose. Perhaps circumstances will change.”

Frank knew from the look that crossed her face he had pushed too far. He decided that it was time to sever his losses.

“Hi ho, then. Off to the grind. I’ll see you later.”

He flashed his best attempt at a confident grin, and walked out of the shop.

As soon as his feet hit the pavement, the groaning tension returned. The conversation flickered through his mind in a perpetual rotation, his mind trying to unravel the point where he had gone wrong.

As he approached the large glazed frontage of the council offices, he made a decision.

You got it all right. You couldn’t have played it any other way.

The rotating thoughts began to recede.

At least you put yourself out there. That’s the best anyone can ever do

He strolled into the building, the confident swagger back in his stride. As he walked past the reception desk, for the first time he noticed a subtle glance over the top of a monitor from a blonde woman in a floral dress. He caught the gaze, and a faint smile spread across both their lips.

What a day, what a day Frank murmured to himself.