amazonwarehous

I don't believe I've ever had a genuine conversation with another human being. When I'm speaking to somebody I cannot muster the energy to give a fuck about what they're saying. I have a couple prefab responses programmed to move things along as fast as possible, beyond that, I haven't got a clue what to say next, how to carry a conversation or how to genuinely feel something when somebody tells me something that doesn't directly impact me. This is a common problem for me, I work in the service industry and come face to face with nearly a hundred people a day. I don't know if I've always felt so negatively towards others, or if years of retail have worn me down. I can't do it much longer, and yet I don't have a choice. I work forty hours a week to bring home just enough to scrape by with whats necessary left over to pay for my grandma's subscription to the afterlife. I wouldn't be able to live with myself if they pulled the plug on her. It's come close a few times already. I had the flu once, I dragged myself across town so feverish I could hardly stand. The bus driver had to pull over and help me out of the vehicle. It was raining, the coldest december had been in a few years- just above freezing. My grey tartan jacket was saturated with the cool rain, I stumbled through the front door, and my manager sent me right back home. 'I can't have everybody get sick, then what are we gonna do? Go home, rest and take the weekend off.' I felt better the next day, she still wouldnt let me back. I tried my hardest to accomodate the cut to my pay check. I skipped most of my meals that week, and still when rent and my grandma's subscription came due both bounced. The company offered a one time grace period, miss another payment and that would be it. Her consciousness would lose its server space, and be overwritten.

Rent was another story. My shithole bachelor on the city limits still cost nearly two thousand satoshis a month. The landlord, an evil woman named Ana would aparate into the buildings lobby the minute a payment became overdue. How such a young woman came to own several city blocks of housing was beyond me. Nobody seemed to know much of anything about her. She always wore the same clothes, kept the same straight bob cut, and always stood with her back to the elevators, staring into the large, ornate mirror in the lobby. She was so slim and a few inches shorter than me. I always wondered how easy it would be to strangle her to death, and if anybody would give a fuck. Like every other time I missed rent I stayed holed up inside as long as I could manage hoping to miss her on the way to work, and like every single other time when the elevator doors slid open on the morning of my first day back at work there she was. Standing, for god knows how long, with her back to me glaring at some indistinct point in the mirror. And the her eyes met mine. Blue and empty. She'd always begin to speak without turning around, just staring through the mirror, maintaining a buffer so as not to endure directly speaking to some shitscum tenant. 'This is becoming a pattern.' I had nothing to say to her. No excuse would satiate her. I just stared at her until my eyes started drying out and my vision grew increasingly distorted. I don't think I've ever seen her blink. 'You're going to work? That's fine. When you're back I'll be here waiting, and we can arrange a payment plan suitable for a recidivist such as yourself.'

I spent another nine hours of my one life on earth waiting on shit smelling animals. The way people enter a store, and just gaze around like baby birds. Every single one of them is the same. We had a break in once, and the door was shattered and replaced with plywood. Without fail every single person would enter the store and ask 'What happened to the door.' And again I would have to waste my breath on pointless small talk. The role of a cashier serves no greater purpose than to be a humiliation ritual for people who lack other options. I clocked out and returned home, sitting in a crowded bus. There was smog outside and a high pressure system had trapped us in an unusual december heatwave. The bus reeked of sweat. I was pressed between two other miserable wage slaves jossling eachother at every stop and never speaking a word. I stoof just outside the automtic door to the lobby of my apartment. There she was, ogling the mirror. I knew she could see me, there was no use in hiding or sneaking by. Even when she wasn't looking she could see you. 'Let's talk in my office.'