The Hardest Button to Button
A rush of anxiety is rushing over me as I type this. I want to start from the beginning. I want to find the appropriate introduction. I want to lure readers into my current downward spiral. I want to illustrate my demise with alluring style and grace. An elegant fall. A descending feather from a beautiful bright sky into a dark and grimy alley in Tokyo. The white feather stained black the moment it lands on the muddy street. Tarnished, scarred, and ugly. I'm filthy with worthlessness. Filthy of deceit. Some say I've hit rock bottom, others think I'm looking for a way to non-live. A living and breathing zombie. Undead. I've finally forfeited the reigns of my own life. A year spent in existential crisis. Truly feeling the insignificance of living, of life. The pointlessness, meaningless. The search for meaning in nothing. It was always my pursuit. I always needed an answer, a reason to be where I was. I needed a reason for living. A reason to wake up in the morning, or in my case in the evening. Sorting letters in a factory at three in the morning seems purposeless. Futile and trivial. Bed Bath & Beyond sale coupons speeding through machines, rushing to mailboxes across Long Island. 10% off a shower curtain or toilet seat.
I was at work the other night, standing there feeding letters into the machine. Headphones tucked into my ears. I watch an older employee walk past me. He must be from the shift before me because I didn't recognize him. The wrinkles in his face were so severe, weathered, deep. I could barely see his eyes beyond them. His face was lost in the weathering of his face. A man who has probably witnessed a lot of pain in his life. Divorce, death, cancer. Making a mediocre salary pushing hampers and pallets for thirty years. Pushing a pile of communication in the form of credit card statements, phone bills, and charities asking for donations. I wonder what he's walking off the floor to. What thoughts flood his mind when he sits on break with coffee in a styrofoam cup? My empathy runs wild, wondering what his bedroom looks like. I imagine a basement apartment deep within the earth. He lives underneath a young family with three kids running above his head. Each cry and stampede he hears above him doesn't annoy him. It depresses him even further. The audible steps of a child remind him of his son. The son who is now in his late 30s and living in the midwest. The son who only calls on birthdays and Christmas. His ex-wife got the house. Got full custody. She even got Bob, the German Shepherd. From that moment on he was forced to live beneath other people's families for the rest of his pathetic life. He walks so slow. Fatigued and medicated. Pills regulating his blood pressure, his serotonin levels, his overactive bladder. It's an exhausting walk that depresses every onlooker. But I fear I'm the only one who notices. I'm always the one who notices. He's wearing a pair of khakis a few sizes too big and they hang on his body like loose skin on fragile bones.
I want him to walk faster because I can feel my heart thumping through my chest. My empathetic heart is turning self-conscious. This always happen. Empathy turned pathologic. I no longer feel for this random stranger who watches the Game Show Network while sipping a cup of instant decaffeinated coffee to wind down from his day. I begin to worry about aging and death. The bones in my body begin to ache. My heart is palpitating and I swear someone will notice it protruding from underneath my shirt. It burns, I'm sweating. Is this what life is about? Working a job until our faces are carved by pain and disease? Wrinkles that don't reflect wisdom but grief? This terrifies me. I don't want to participate in this demise of the human body, of my human body. The disintegration of a life, I never chose to have to begin with. I really wish there was a button, a simple fucking button somewhere. I remember daydreaming in bed as a child, that I had buttons lined up on the wooden frame of my bed that I could press at any given time. From my bed I could reach down and press a button and a mechanical arm and hand would bring me anything I wanted. A cheeseburger from McDonald's, black cherry soda from the picnics my father took me to, or a teenage mutant ninja turtle action figure from the toy store in the mall behind my house.
But that's not the kind of button I'm talking about right now. I want a button that just makes everything stop. I want a button that will make everything go away. Press. And I instantly fail to exist anymore. I'm no longer a person. I'm no longer living. No corpse left behind. Nothing. Just nothing. Pure darkness. Nothing left of me, not even ashes people can pour into vials, urns, or oceans. I guess you can call it a suicide button and I think we should all have one somewhere that only we can access. We should have a right to forfeit. I'm not saying I'd push this button right now while the sun is rising at 6:30 in the morning, sitting in my boxer-briefs on my friend's couch in their apartment. I probably wouldn't have made it this far if that button existed. 27 is the age of death. American pop culture informs you of this. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain. I don't think it was a coincidence that I dreamed that I was at Jim Morrison's funeral last night either. They all died at 27. I predicted this would be a horrible year. I think I'm reaching my expiration date. I'm not wine or whiskey that tastes better with time. I don't ferment. I curdle. I'm fucking milk. And I'm almost sour. Where's my button? Where's my childhood bed frame? Perhaps I missed a button. Maybe it was on the other side of the frame against the blue wall. Where is it? I can't see. I can't feel it…where…press.
I was at work the other night, standing there feeding letters into the machine. Headphones tucked into my ears. I watch an older employee walk past me. He must be from the shift before me because I didn't recognize him. The wrinkles in his face were so severe, weathered, deep. I could barely see his eyes beyond them. His face was lost in the weathering of his face. A man who has probably witnessed a lot of pain in his life. Divorce, death, cancer. Making a mediocre salary pushing hampers and pallets for thirty years. Pushing a pile of communication in the form of credit card statements, phone bills, and charities asking for donations. I wonder what he's walking off the floor to. What thoughts flood his mind when he sits on break with coffee in a styrofoam cup? My empathy runs wild, wondering what his bedroom looks like. I imagine a basement apartment deep within the earth. He lives underneath a young family with three kids running above his head. Each cry and stampede he hears above him doesn't annoy him. It depresses him even further. The audible steps of a child remind him of his son. The son who is now in his late 30s and living in the midwest. The son who only calls on birthdays and Christmas. His ex-wife got the house. Got full custody. She even got Bob, the German Shepherd. From that moment on he was forced to live beneath other people's families for the rest of his pathetic life. He walks so slow. Fatigued and medicated. Pills regulating his blood pressure, his serotonin levels, his overactive bladder. It's an exhausting walk that depresses every onlooker. But I fear I'm the only one who notices. I'm always the one who notices. He's wearing a pair of khakis a few sizes too big and they hang on his body like loose skin on fragile bones.
I want him to walk faster because I can feel my heart thumping through my chest. My empathetic heart is turning self-conscious. This always happen. Empathy turned pathologic. I no longer feel for this random stranger who watches the Game Show Network while sipping a cup of instant decaffeinated coffee to wind down from his day. I begin to worry about aging and death. The bones in my body begin to ache. My heart is palpitating and I swear someone will notice it protruding from underneath my shirt. It burns, I'm sweating. Is this what life is about? Working a job until our faces are carved by pain and disease? Wrinkles that don't reflect wisdom but grief? This terrifies me. I don't want to participate in this demise of the human body, of my human body. The disintegration of a life, I never chose to have to begin with. I really wish there was a button, a simple fucking button somewhere. I remember daydreaming in bed as a child, that I had buttons lined up on the wooden frame of my bed that I could press at any given time. From my bed I could reach down and press a button and a mechanical arm and hand would bring me anything I wanted. A cheeseburger from McDonald's, black cherry soda from the picnics my father took me to, or a teenage mutant ninja turtle action figure from the toy store in the mall behind my house.
But that's not the kind of button I'm talking about right now. I want a button that just makes everything stop. I want a button that will make everything go away. Press. And I instantly fail to exist anymore. I'm no longer a person. I'm no longer living. No corpse left behind. Nothing. Just nothing. Pure darkness. Nothing left of me, not even ashes people can pour into vials, urns, or oceans. I guess you can call it a suicide button and I think we should all have one somewhere that only we can access. We should have a right to forfeit. I'm not saying I'd push this button right now while the sun is rising at 6:30 in the morning, sitting in my boxer-briefs on my friend's couch in their apartment. I probably wouldn't have made it this far if that button existed. 27 is the age of death. American pop culture informs you of this. Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Kurt Cobain. I don't think it was a coincidence that I dreamed that I was at Jim Morrison's funeral last night either. They all died at 27. I predicted this would be a horrible year. I think I'm reaching my expiration date. I'm not wine or whiskey that tastes better with time. I don't ferment. I curdle. I'm fucking milk. And I'm almost sour. Where's my button? Where's my childhood bed frame? Perhaps I missed a button. Maybe it was on the other side of the frame against the blue wall. Where is it? I can't see. I can't feel it…where…press.