HELENA (Chapter Five)

Chapter Five

It had been two weeks since my mother's death, and nothing had changed. Life trudged forward, dragging its heels in the mud of monotony, as if time
itself was caught in a loop of indifference. The world, it seemed, had no interest in change. It was the same as it had always been, with people waking up each day only to go through the motions, drifting through their routines like the walking dead. Nothing truly shifted, nothing truly mattered.
The air in the kitchen still smelled of grease and despair. It had a way of clinging to everything--the countertops, the walls, even to my skin. I had been gone over the past few weekends, and it was obvious in the state of things. The absence wasn't marked by a gap in the work but by the sheer neglect of it. The night staff, as usual, had done just enough to keep the wheels turning. The plates were left in their usual disarray, smeared with remnants of forgotten meals--scattered like the debris of some half-hearted attempt at living.
I stood over the sink, armed with a rusted knife, scraping at something that might have once been meat or sauce--or maybe it had been both. The sound of metal on ceramic grated against my ears, cutting through the stillness of the room. After a while, the anger subsided into something more resigned. I
gave up and filled the sink with scalding water. Let the dishes soak. Let the time and the boiling heat do what I no longer had the patience to do myself.
And then there were the boxes. Piles of them by the back door, stacked high like cardboard monuments to human laziness. Someone had started it-- one genius who thought, I'll deal with this later, when I have the time. But later never came. No one ever has the time. That's how it works, isn't it? Someone cuts a corner, and then everyone else follows suit. Monkey see, monkey do. The whole world is a race to see who can slack off the hardest, who can get away with doing the least.
The pile pissed me off, but I knew what would happen if I cleaned it up. It'd send the wrong message. If I did it once, they'd just expect it every time.
And why wouldn't they? That's how it always goes--one person picks up the slack, and everyone else sits back, relaxing in their laziness, thinking it's acceptable. But the world doesn't change if people don't change. Not as long as we let them get away with it. You always hear that crap about "kill them with kindness." Fuck that. Honestly, genuinely, truly--fuck that. As long as you let shitty people get away with shitty things, nothing ever changes. Why should I let them insult and degrade me and still grace them with my pearly whites? Why should we let ourselves get worn down by human garbage? It doesn't work that way. It can't. It mustn't.
I still broke them down despite it all, flattening each one with an inner frustration that almost felt righteous. I carried the mess outside and dumped it in the bin, but as I straightened up, a sharp, painful ache hit my chest. I collapsed against the brick wall, hands on my knees, gasping for air. Was it from the physical effort, or was it just my body screaming for a cigarette? I squinted at my leather-strapped watch, struggling to make sense of the time, desperate to figure out how long I had left until my break. Just a little longer--just enough to soothe the ache in my chest with a quick, calming burn.
"What are you doing out here?"
I straightened, turning to see my manager standing in the doorway. His stance was stiff, his expression blank but loaded with judgment.
"Where were you all weekend?" he asked. "We needed you."
"I had a death in the family," I said, keeping my voice even. "The funeral was last week. I told Sue."
He looked me over like I was something he'd found under his shoe. "Just get back inside."
I did. Not because I wanted to, but because I didn't have the energy to argue.
I still had an hour left, and not much to do, so I did what every employee does when they're desperate to leave--I mopped the same floor a hundred times over. There was a sticky spill, probably just a slight nudge away from being gone, but I rubbed it again and again, as if somehow it would magically disappear. The motion was mindless, almost hypnotic, a way to kill time, but in the back of my mind, I knew it didn't really matter. I wasn't cleaning because it needed to be cleaned. I was just stalling.
Kyle was at the register, counting the till in slow motion. His movements were deliberate, exaggerated. If you didn't know better, you'd think he was incapable of counting in multiples. And maybe he was. Kyle was the type of guy who could stretch a five-minute job into an hour without breaking a sweat. He was also the kind of guy who laughed at all the manager's jokes, no matter how tired they were.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye. He was laughing now, nodding along to something our manager had said. Didn't even matter what it was. Kyle knew the game, and he played it like a pro. Meanwhile, I was still mopping a floor that didn't even need mopping. That's the difference between us. He kissed ass, and I worked. And in this world, that's what gets rewarded: not effort, but obedience. Not integrity, but submission.
By the time my break was ten minutes away, I was already wearing my coat, itching to get out. I planned to slip out early, head to the coffee shop at the top of the town. I needed to breathe. I hadn't had a cigarette yet today, and I could feel my hands shaking.
Just as I reached for the door, Kyle threw a cardboard box in my direction, nearly decapitating me. It landed with a thud, inches from my feet. He didn't even look at me, just tossed it like it was nothing. Like I was nothing.
In that moment, I realised I wasn't just mad at the laziness, or the disrespect. It was something deeper--another cycle had started, yes, but
More importantly, I realised the world would be better off without those who only know how to make a mess of it.