(no subject)
I had a routine every morning. It was just like the routine of millions of other people. It consisted of waking up to the drone of the alarm clock, slamming the snooze button, eventually getting up, brushing my teeth, getting dressed, and heading off to whatever it was I had to do. One day I decided that following that routine, day after mundane day, was something that I was not going to anymore. So I engaged in my form of passive resistance. I didn’t get up. I let the phone ring.
I listened to the messages with a forced kind of apathy, except for that message on the third or fourth day of my self-confinement, in which my boss explained to me that I was fired unless I promptly provided a legitimate explanation for my absence. I called my boss and told him I had no legitimate reason. He seemed almost apologetic about letting me go. I got up only to take a piss, a shower, and to open the door for food. I was going to bore myself to tears; I was going to drive myself insane. Deliberately.
My dad would call me several times a week. Usually I wouldn’t pick up, but he knew I was there and left extensive messages on my answering machine about the pain that I’m causing my mother and how he believed that somewhere, deep inside, was the girl I used to be. Sometimes I’d even pick up the phone. I’d pretend to listen to him while watching a special about wild ducks on the Discovery Channel.
My father came to visit me after a week. He said it hurt him to even look at me. He said he made an appointment at the “doctor” and that I’m going, and he won’t hear me arguing. I didn’t argue. I went to the doctor, sat on the couch and all the customary shit, and talked to him about the weather.
“How do you feel about that?” he asked me.
“About what?”
“About the rain.”
“The rain is an external manifestation of my collective unconscious.”
He smiled, trying to figure out if I could really possibly be that deep as to psychoanalyze my own philistine self; it was a sort of dumb, pedantic smile that I’ve learned to expect from many people, especially the ones we refer to as Doctor.
He ushered me to the car, whisked my dad aside and told him I was a complex girl, and sent us off with a wave of his hand.
Some time later on a sunny day, I got a phone call from the doctor. He asked me to look outside the window and try to connect the blue sky to a deep part of my soul. I countered him with some philosophical shit, something about being emotionally fragile. For an extra fee he drove to my house and saw me.
“You need these,” he said, handing me a prescription. I promised him I wouldn’t abuse it. He insisted on me walking him to his car and told me something powerful, but I don’t remember what it was. I returned to my apartment and stood in the doorway for a while. The room looked like a dump; the restroom even more so. I used the prescription as toilet paper (I was running out), pulled the blinds on the blue sky, and sank into the unmade bed. A special about geese was on at eight o’clock.
I listened to the messages with a forced kind of apathy, except for that message on the third or fourth day of my self-confinement, in which my boss explained to me that I was fired unless I promptly provided a legitimate explanation for my absence. I called my boss and told him I had no legitimate reason. He seemed almost apologetic about letting me go. I got up only to take a piss, a shower, and to open the door for food. I was going to bore myself to tears; I was going to drive myself insane. Deliberately.
My dad would call me several times a week. Usually I wouldn’t pick up, but he knew I was there and left extensive messages on my answering machine about the pain that I’m causing my mother and how he believed that somewhere, deep inside, was the girl I used to be. Sometimes I’d even pick up the phone. I’d pretend to listen to him while watching a special about wild ducks on the Discovery Channel.
My father came to visit me after a week. He said it hurt him to even look at me. He said he made an appointment at the “doctor” and that I’m going, and he won’t hear me arguing. I didn’t argue. I went to the doctor, sat on the couch and all the customary shit, and talked to him about the weather.
“How do you feel about that?” he asked me.
“About what?”
“About the rain.”
“The rain is an external manifestation of my collective unconscious.”
He smiled, trying to figure out if I could really possibly be that deep as to psychoanalyze my own philistine self; it was a sort of dumb, pedantic smile that I’ve learned to expect from many people, especially the ones we refer to as Doctor.
He ushered me to the car, whisked my dad aside and told him I was a complex girl, and sent us off with a wave of his hand.
Some time later on a sunny day, I got a phone call from the doctor. He asked me to look outside the window and try to connect the blue sky to a deep part of my soul. I countered him with some philosophical shit, something about being emotionally fragile. For an extra fee he drove to my house and saw me.
“You need these,” he said, handing me a prescription. I promised him I wouldn’t abuse it. He insisted on me walking him to his car and told me something powerful, but I don’t remember what it was. I returned to my apartment and stood in the doorway for a while. The room looked like a dump; the restroom even more so. I used the prescription as toilet paper (I was running out), pulled the blinds on the blue sky, and sank into the unmade bed. A special about geese was on at eight o’clock.