FML: A Comedy
I woke up this morning and as usual I went into my bathroom to give myself a bit of a wash off and brush my teeth. But as I entered the rest room I was quite astonished to find a large mechanical rabbit sitting on my toilet seat. The rabbit upon noticing my entrance grinned at me and began to merrily munch upon my tooth brush. "Cease from that at once!", I bellowed at this mechanical monstrosity, "that is very bad form and now I shall have to go with out proper dental hygiene until I can purchase a new toothbrush after work". The rabbit was not disturbed in the least and as soon as it had completely eaten my toothbrush it hopped out of my bathroom window and out of sight. "Good riddance", I thought and grumpily washed my face, dressed myself and went out to wait for the bus.
I thought it was very fortunate that there was no rain today as I got to the bus stop seeing as how I had forgotten to check the weather or bring an umbrella. It was instead of course stiflingly hot. So hot that I indeed did see two kids across the road frying eggs on the pavement. I of course was wearing my wool suit today. By the time the bus arrived, fifteen minutes late I might add. I felt thoroughly cooked. My shirt was soaked through with sweat and I swear even my feet were squishing as I got onto the bus.
There were no seats as usual. So I had to stand and hold on to one of the support poles as we went around the turns. The bus had no air conditioning of which to speak so I took of my suit jacket and folded it under my arm. There was a pretty woman standing next to me and I said hi and smiled at her. She turned to return my smile but froze halfway in the process instead wrinkling her nose and making a noise somewhere between a retch and a giggle. It was then I realized my sweaty arm was upraised and holding on to the pole. Since I had been in such a fluster this morning with my tooth brush being eaten at all I had forgotten to put on any deodorant and there was a large wet stain still growing under my arm and the smell wafting from it was entirely unpleasant. I hurriedly put my arm down, blushing in my embarrassment. The Bus driver at this moment hit the brakes to avoid hitting a car switching lanes carelessly and I was thrown forward into the the elbow of the large gentleman sitting directly across me earning myself a chipped tooth and what I felt to be a minor concussion. "Hey watch it he said shoving me away. The next stop was mine.
After departing the bus and once again putting on my coat I made my way to The Office. When I reached my cubicle my heart sank. There was Mrs. Bumble-sheers standing in front of my desk tapping each of her long and ornately, some would say grotesquely, painted fingernails on my desk one after the other. "You are late Mr. Wilikins", I nodded mumbling that the bus had been behind schedule. "Be that it may you do know the firm has 'views' about tardiness and I shall have to report you. Do not let it happen again." I nodded again keeping my head down and eyes lowered. I knew how much Mrs. Bumble-sheers enjoyed a good tongue lashing and I also knew that complete acquiescence was the best way of getting her to go about her way and cause trouble to some of the other underlings.
Five minutes after she had walked away I heard a very strained parody of her voice saying, "Mr. Wilikins the firm has 'views' about tardiness and if you are late again we shall take you down to the basement dungeon, strip you naked and then beat you about the head and shoulders". This was followed by guffaw of laughter and the appearance of my friend Nate who shared the next cubicle over from me. "She read you the riot act she did", he said to me. I nodded not much in the mood for conversation as I had already had a terrible morning and I just wanted to get on with it. "Don't be such a downer", he said to me, "life happens, just go along with it. " " You know what you need", he asked. I shrugged. "A good shagging is what you need mate. How's about we go out to the bar tonight and see if we can catch some entertainment for the evening. Knowing Nate as I did, I understood that bar meant strip club and entertainment meant either paying for lap dances or prostitutes and seeing as I had been down that road before and ended up with a horrendous rash I turned him down. Then turning my back to him I started to work my way through the pile of forms residing in my in tray. "Well piss off to you too", I heard a few seconds later as Nate sat down in his own cubicle.
I had been working studiously for about 4 hours when a piercing sound started in my left ear and then began to make it's way through my entire head. The sound was not unlike the feedback of a over driven guitar. My ears began to water with the pain of it. I grabbed my head and stumbled out of my seat, going I know not where, just hoping could maybe run away from the pain or at least distract myself from it. As I was not looking where I was going due to the cacophony in my head it was invariable that I was going to run into something. Unfortunately what I ran into was Nate holding a steaming cup of coffee which spilled all over the front of him. "What the fuck is wrong with your you fucking twat!", he screamed as he shoved me. I stumbled and caught the wall of the nearest cubicle to steady myself. Somehow it then occurred to me that this was Nate's fault. Everything always turned out to be Nate's fault. It was Nate who one drunken night had convinced me it would be a good idea to split a gram bag of cocaine and then run around the neighborhood with underwear on our head and no other clothing. That was the first and only time I had been arrested. It was also Nate who introduced me to Susie behind the strip club from whom I picked up the fore mentioned rash. The list continued. Ever since I met Nate he had been on a path of self destruction and somehow he always convinced me to go along for the ride always leaving me to catch the blame and clean up the mess. This was the man who had dared called me a "fucking twat".
I grabbed the first thing in my hand came to on the desk. It happened to be a paper weight my mom had brought me back from her trip to Arizona and it was made of good hard stone. I launched myself at Nate. The noise in my head driving me into a rage that had me pinning him to the ground and slamming the paper weight into his face over and over again. I don't know how long this went on for. I just remember noticing that at some point Nate was no longer resisting, his arms were hanging limply at his sides. His face was destroyed. His nose shattered, his eyes swollen and glued shut by blood. There was so much blood. We were both covered in it. I stood up and dropped the paper weight. What had I done? I just killed a man. I couldn't believe it. The room was silent. I looked around into the sea of shocked faces. "I didn't mean to! Oh my god what have I done, " I stammered. "This was a mistake", I yelled at no one in particular, "you all know this was a mistake!". As the gravity of what I had done sunk over me, my stomach turned over and I vomited all over the floor, some of it I observed, morbidly, splattering onto Nate's dead body.
I have to get out of here I thought. I knew sooner or later someone was going to call the police. They probably already had. As I turned and headed for the stairs I heard someone scream from behind me, "Don't let him get away!". I put on an extra burst of speed and almost reached the doors to the steps when I saw that three of my fellow employees were blocking the door. "Please just let me through!", I pleaded, "I can't go to jail. You know what they do to people like me in jail!" They stood firm, telling me I just needed to calm down and let the authorities sort everything out. I heard myself laughing and my own voice, without my control, saying, "The firm has views on homicide". I laughed some more. I had just decided that I was going to try and plow my way through the lot of them when my vision was suddenly filled with a red hot flash as something hard and heavy connected to the back of my skull.
When I awoke, I know not how much had passed, I found myself in a room filled with sterile white light of halogen lamps reflecting off of sterile white walls devoid of any distinguishing characteristic. The entire world seemed fuzzy around the edges as if my vision was just out of focus. I tried to stretch and found that my hands and feet were strapped down. I also upon further inspection discovered I was wearing a pale blue gown like those given to hospital patients. I began to scream. "HELP, HELP!" I yelled until I heard a commotion outside of my room. The door was soon opened and a small neatly groomed man entered the room with two bulky orderlies. The small man introduced himself as Dr. Mumsford, the orderlies gave me no such courtesy. "Mr. Wilikins or may I call your George?", I nodded, "well then George I am going to try to help you through your little...for lack of a better word episode a three days prior." It was then that my memories came flooding back to me. "Oh my god! Nate", I sobbed, "it was a mistake". Dr. Mumsford patted my shoulder sympathetically and when my tears had subsided he said, "I know you weren't in control of yourself George, and we are going to work together to figure out what happened and how to make sure this type of thing doesn't happen again.
I don't know how long I've actually been at the institution. They days all seem to blend together into one endless cycle of sleep and therapy. I was eventually unrestrained and allowed to mingle with the general population. Everything was going fine until one day at lunch. I saw him sitting there in my bathroom once again munching on my toothbrush! "No!", I screamed running at the mechanical rabbit. Unfortunately, at the very last possible moment he hopped into the mirror which instead ran into face first, shattering it and cutting my face to ribbons. Dr. Mumford looks at me differently now. This is a step back he says. I had shown such promise he says. I have been restrained again. The rabbit still comes around from time to time. Making faces at me or sticking out his tongue; sometimes giving me the finger. I just ignore him now. No one will ever believe me, no one will ever understand. Fuck My Life.