It was saturday. Another work day. An alarm clock sounded, beeping. A man refused to get up from his half-sleep in his one blanket bed, stretching the blanket over his body again, feet still exposed. The beeping continued for a minute until the man gave up his resistance and got out of bed, turning the alarm off.
He got on the shirt, the pants, the underwear, all of which he had been using for the last three days. He also had not showered in that same time.
The man stumbled slightly to his semi functional refrigerator, there he grabbed a sugar filled donut, the last one. He ate it with displeasure, the after taste like plastic. The another item, a “sports” drink, would replace plastic with sour chemical, it was still better.
His whole room sucked. A rusty sink, didn’t work. The space dimmy illuminated by a hanging, dangling light bulb. His bed, blanket, clothes smelled of weeks old sweat. The walls of faint mold. He has been occupied here for 4 years, used to it for 3. Still brought a bad feeling of disappointment and a little sadness.
But Now, to work. On with the coat, out of the room, onto the bike. This man’s bike, oh he loved it, like a human friend and the thing he had best in shape. Sure the tires needed a pumping and the handle a little too loose for safety. Yet this was still both the fastest and the funnest way to work.
The flashlight badge on the rear brought a Path of light that revealed awfully familiar sights of hills of unbagged trash on both the road and other sidewalk, Ruined, ancient like buildings, and a few filthy hobos sleeping and roar snoring.
Not to mention the smogly air that filled his lungs and released from his coughin mouth. void darkness that made every pitch black 20 feet away from east, west and south. But at least it seemed that the sun was finally making the sky dark blue. The death striking cold came upon the guy like a razor.
He had always hated this winter weather since he could remember. “Damn this cold! damn this weather. He muttered loudly. Damn it damn it…”
On… and on… and on… the sun now hung low amongst a grey and blue tattered sky. The towering towers were now all around him, their height slightly overwhelming him, oh how big they are up close. Then, oh no, the ads.
He could already hear the announcements to buy the new brand of soda, another about candy, oh and a third about the “super duper” soft couch. Bright big billboards of equal annoyance were displayed on every possible space of the buildings. Their screaming voices overlapping one another but still each one made sense clearly.
Just get there, just get there, there there. Only the destination, fuck the journey. Took a turn to the left, away from the voices. Almost there now. Yes yes. He parked his bike, put a lock and key around the nearest rack and headed inside .
“KERK!” A man shouted. His boss, his name. “Your late again, asshole”
“Sorry sorry please I won’t next time.”
“Fuck you won’t, next your god damn fired.
The boss seemingly pulled Kerk by the arm. Guiding him through gray chamber cubicles. Peaks revealed hunched over men, women, typing whatever they were writing like their robotic arms, klacking hands were almost paralyzed with agony. Kerk was pushed in his cubicle, #283.
“Get to work, slow ass” demanded the big boss, walked away grumpily.
Now for the actual work. God he hated it. But, after a short deep breath, began klacking on the keyboard.
Confined to a solid and cold metal chair for 12 hours, a 8 am/pm strict schedule. Held like a tiger, a monkey in a cage. No spectators, only the wall watches. What is the job? Create instructions for buildings. Type the coordinates. Line out the measurements, On to the next, repeat. Such an awful thing. Been doing this as long as living in that shity apartment. Only hated doing this as much as the first day.
And so the time droned on. Itch nail bite Type type nail bite make the occasional mistake, retype Itch. 1 hour. Type mistake nail bite retype. 2 hours. Mistake mistake double retype. 3 hours. Finally lunchtime. He stretched like dough that had been squished, compressed, suppressed, rebel.
“Fuck this, get out of cycle.” To himself. “Break free from this slavery, all of you” To the ones amongst him. None listened. Too bad he had not enough courage to break free again. For Kerk was punished by the consequences. No wonderland to go to. Starved of both food and water. Nearly died til he stepped back in line again. He thought of those things again in his head as ate “Nacho Cheese chips,” their flavor as fleeting as the free break.
Back to the chair for the remaining 8 hours. Type occasional mistake type mistake type mistake type mistake double mistake.
“Ahh” he short shouted. Some might have stopped for a brief look, a guess and wonder who said that. No, only one middle-class supervisor responded with “quiet.” Kerk glumly returned to duty. 4 hours, 5 hours, 6 hours, 7 hours. He stopped, tense with regret, skin felt stretched.
“No more of this please” I-we are better than this. Get out-
“Quiet Mr. Damnington!” Yelled the supervisor with unbearable anger.
The command had enough strike in seriousness to put Kerk down, down and back to the burden known as this labor. 8 hours, 9 hours, 10 hours, 11 hours, 12 hours. Kerk sat with still exhaustion. Another day was finally done. Like going up and down the most boring mountain imaginable, a lot of time and energy for nothing.
Full of a day’s hollowness, Kerk depressingly walked to collect his wage money from one of the supervisors. There it-
“Agh!”
“That’s for your intolerance earlier Mr. Damnington. Here”
Now there it was, 50 bucks. Out to the dark unseeable open, again. The bike was still there. He unchained it and rode, rode on. The light smokey breeze hit his head, wisped by ears. popped. The front tire burst with small explode, almost throwing Kerk off.
“No no no no NOOOO. “He cried with deep sorrow. He stopped and inspected the tire. indeed it had a great wide slash by a random glass shard from a beer bottle. Damn this litter. Kerk had been with this bike for years, since he was seven. And now, it was unusable for good; course people around here are too dumb to fix it. So, like carrying a coffin to its grave, Kerk supported the bike all the way back to his home.
Once there, he set the bike to its proper place then headed and sat on his bed. Why had the world been cruel, not for him, but everyone and him. The parts of the whole answer came floating back into his head, as he tried falling asleep on his bumpy mattress.