Sleeper

I slept after I got home from work yesterday, a good five hours at least. It was filled with the strangest dreams. I’m suspicious that one of the dreams is something that has been going on for a long time, and maybe that is why I feel this incredible sense of de ja vu off and on.

I’m in my old livingroom at the home I grew up in. It has its dingy, dark brown carpet and a couch that curls around most of the room. The television is on, and I vaguely look up at it from time to time. I’m walking a little circuit in the part of the room not obstructed by furniture. I must be pacing for hours, because the movie changes and I keep going. But this is a desperate sort of thing, because I’m taking longer strides and I feel a slight panic in myself that I don’t really understand.

Sometimes when I pace in the real world it is like that. I get very anxious and emotional, and I might be crying or just walking much quicker, not really looking at anything in particular, not really seeing.

This behavior started in the time I used to spend alone. My first year of home schooling was very rough on me at first. My mother had three jobs and was barely ever around, and my father had begun to work long into the night instead of coming home at 5:00 as he used to. I was completely alone. My friends had all gone to the highschool I’d rejected. I’d even gone to the orientation for it, but a few weeks before I was to attend, I had a  bit of a breakdown. I couldn’t go. I’d opted to go on home school, mostly out of cowardice. I was afraid, so very afraid. I knew I would only be bullied and harassed even worse than what I’d already gone through. And…I couldn’t. I knew I didn’t have it in me just then to deal with it all again. I was already having thoughts of killing myself, and had gotten to my highest weight ever.

Maybe it was anxiety that started it. Being alone for so long, for days and days when all I had ever known was a life surrounded by other people. They gave me so much homework I distinctly recall falling asleep on my open textbooks trying to figure everything out without someone there to help me. But regardless, I got up later and later, and tried at my studies less and less. I stopped caring. I kind of went into my own world, and for a time, I felt better than I ever had. I even lost all the weight I’d gained and got to my lowest weight because I started spending a large quantity of time exercising.

The pacing had gotten worse, however, and I’d spend hours and hours at night doing it. I had this insane fear of being caught, and would listen intently for the sounds of anyone coming to check on me at night when everyone would finally get home.

In this dream, the kitchen light is on. I keep returning to the kitchen, repeatedly filling glasses with tea. This thirst is on me and I can’t seem to quench it. Back and forth I go for a while, glancing at the television, before stepping quietly into the kitchen to refill my glass yet again. I look out the window for a moment to see the black of night, and a very delicate light from the moon filtering through the branches of the lone tree out on our lawn. I don’t know why the blinds aren’t drawn, and my paranoia suddenly comes to me. I pull the shades down and spin them until all the light is blocked out. I look over my shoulder to the livingroom, and take off my headphones to listen. Just the quiet drone of the television and whatever is playing. It says ‘IFC’ in the corner, which I notice for some reason.

It’s when I go to the kitchen and come back again, that I nearly let out a sound. My mother is walking over to the couch, and looks over at me.

“You scared me,” I say, taking a deep breath and yanking my headphones off a little too irritably.

“I couldn’t sleep,” she answers.

She’s had insomnia for what must be years now, and it used to be common for her to get up in the middle of the night to watch I Love Lucy or The Brady Bunch while I’d be doing my pacing in my bedroom. Occasionally she’d walk in, I’d get very agitated (at being caught and not knowing how to explain it), and wait until she went to sleep again. Sometimes it would take four or five hours, but I’d wait patiently for the sounds of the television to die out. 

“You should take something,” I advise.

It’s not because I care that she sleeps that I say this, I say it because I want her to go away and let me have my time to myself.

“I just did.”

I nod disinterestedly, my eyes wandering to the television. God how I hate that thing. I only use it to cover up the sound of my footsteps. These days, nearly four years in the future, I use a fan. 

I think we sit on the couch for a while, and I’m impatient as ever, asking her if she feels tired. It takes a bit, but finally she does, and I breathe a sigh of relief when she returns to her bedroom. In this dream she is not injured. Her hands are normal, not curled under, and she walks like she always did, without the shuffle that I’ve finally gotten used to.

I have to go get something to drink. I realize too late that all the tea is gone. I start water on the stove, hurriedly. In the meantime, I grab a soda and start chugging that down. My eyes keep going to the window.

Did anyone see me, I wonder?

It withers.

It wasn’t as bad as it could have been, working the holiday. The crew I liked was there, and we made sure we left the building as soon as we were able. We laughed a lot and joked around, and a few of the guys from the old store I was trained at even dropped by on their way to wherever. We kept talking about turkey and all the shit we were going to do when we got home. I even got invited to someone’s house, but I declined. I have to admit trying deep fried turkey was definitely interesting enough to cause me pause. But I knew my parents were expecting me home, and I wouldn’t have gone anyway, I don’t think. I am almost sure I have never spent a Thanksgiving away from my parents.

With these sort of days that gloom in me always settles down over the world like a fog, tainting it. It makes me forget about the good far too easily. I’m tired and depressed today, but there’s little reason as to why. I even stood in the doorway watching one of the guys smoke and coaxed him into giving me a cigarette. I don’t know why, really. I fiddled with it between my fingers then dropped it in a pocket for later, not quite getting why I asked or why it mattered, or why I didn’t feel a little bad at the look he gave me, one that seemed to say he had just handed over a death sentence.

I ate dinner alone at the table because no one wanted to clear it. I refuse to sit in front of the television with a TV tray with either the news blaring or some low-budget Christmas movie playing. I’m tired of those things, tired of the mundane shit that’s supposed to pass time. In fact, I hate it so much I’d rather sleep. I’m not even sure what it all is supposed to mean anymore. I stay home and do nothing because I have no idea what else to do since nothing seems to appeal to me. Yes, maybe it is sad to say this, maybe it sounds like some seriously pessimistic individual’s point of view, but fuck it. I’ve lasted this long, I think the least I should get out of it is my right to speak of my hatred of it.

They have these beautiful journals at the bookstore. I asked for one for Christmas even though I barely write in mine anymore. I tore out most of the front pages in my oldest one. I recall blood being smeared on those pages, once upon a time. Instead I found what was left: a pressed daisy and lots of ramblings and scribbles. They all nearly got burned not too long ago. I had shoved them into my backpack along with a lighter. I’m still not sure why I didn’t do away with them.

Yesterday was a terrible day. My ritual has started again. I’ve decided that it doesn’t matter anymore since there is no covering it up anyway. I was always so discreet about it. Now it’s blatant and unapologetic. Oh well, I never wore shorts anyway.

Nearly over. Nearly.

Each day that passes is like adding a brick to a building. It has to finish sometime, even if it’s just one brick at a time—it can’t go on forever. I won’t go on forever. It doesn’t matter what anyone says, because in my head it’s already confirmed that I’m not getting whatever it is I want or need, and therefore there’s no point in going on searching for anything. It all gets canceled out in the end anyway. There’s so much bad, it seems, that it drowns out anything that might convince me to keep going.

 I did my time. I made an effort. Sometimes that’s the best one can do is try. I’m sorry if that’s not good enough. I’m sorry if I was weak and gave in, but I’m tired of suffering. I’m tired of putting on a smile that doesn’t mean anything and tired of trying to keep up a better attitude for those that I felt needed it. I can’t. I won’t have myself entirely destroyed before this is over—I would have myself go in one piece, even if it is the worst of things. I don’t have it in me to keep trying. I’ve run on empty forever now, and I have to acknowledge that eventually I do have to stop.

I don’t care if it is wrong or it is selfish, because I deserve my goddamned mistake. I get one, and I choose this. This will be my undoing. I want sanity out the window and hope and all those other fucking things with it. I want to throw them out and not be this anymore. I want to die bound to nothing but myself. I want to die with no guilt on my conscience, no regret. I want this to be clean and easy.

And yeah, maybe I don’t deserve it. Maybe I should be the one that is punished and forced to live. Maybe there are a lot of people out there who are better than me and didn’t get the chances I did. But you know what? That’s not my fault. I can’t be blamed for them, or made to feel belittled because I chose to stop instead of go when someone else would have given anything to be in my place. We play with the cards we’ve got.

I don’t know when, but soon. I’ve promised myself soon. We’ll have to see. I honestly don’t know how much more I’ll endure.  

I had an awful day at work. I guess that sort of thing is something I should get adjusted to, but true to form, all I did when I got home was eat and bake a bunch of sugary cookies that I promptly ate. I know it’s childish, and even when it’s happening I know I shouldn’t be doing it and all of that. But that part of me that sees only doom and doesn’t care, says ‘fuck it’. The one thing though, is that it  is the same part that gets me through the day.

If I cared, if I really did get incredibly stressed like I see others doing (one woman in particular has gained over 50 pounds since coming to work here) I would be much more of a mess than I am. I feel more irritation than anything else. I’m annoyed and not in the mood to perpetually deal with/train new people who don’t even try, then watch the very few good workers have to overcompensate for all the folks that fuck around and do nothing. And they’re cutting hours ever the more, leaving most people with 7-9 hours a week. I am one of the few who hasn’t been cut that low, though I am slightly under 80 hours for my two weeks instead of the 100 and something I was pulling a few months ago.

I’ve been doing almost well. I’ve actually been going a week at a time without a binge, which hasn’t happened in months. But I’m still eating more than I should, maintaining my weight instead of losing anything. I feel horrible as I am, and am leaving the house less and less. The last few times weren’t even willing. And it’s ridiculous, because a few years ago it would have never occured to me that I could even weight anything under 155. Yet a few months ago I was at 125 and thought I was disgustingly, horribly overweight. At 145 right now, I feel like a whale, for lack of any better description. I got to 137 on a five day fast a couple of weeks ago, but now I don’t know if I have it in me to do that again. I do fine all day, but once I am home from work I eat too much because I’m tired and irritable and don’t feel like going without food all night.

Binging is also made more difficult by the fact that we have very little food in the house. Enough for dinner and a few snacks, and that’s it. My mother is skimping so much on the gorceries that half the time I find myself confronted by the fact that I’m either going to have to eat cereal or go to the grocery store myself. She’s been complaining about my eating habits, and finally I have eased off a bit. Every month the amount of money she uses is lessened, and now she won’t buy anything that isn’t essential, and even went to the point of buying nearly everything generic, even things like toothpaste, which she used to never do. I give them money to pay for myself, but it obviously isn’t enough at the moment. Every time I attempt to give her something extra she starts crying and won’t let me. I’ve gotten to the point where I snatch up things from her cart and put them with mine so that I can pay for them, or I buy her dinner if we stop somewhere (always fast food).

My dad won’t even buy his books that he wants. I think the only things we won’t go without are the satellite and the internet; otherwise everything else is more or less expendable. I keep thinking it will clear up eventually, but it hasn’t, it’s worsened, in fact. The economy can blossom whenever it does, but it won’t matter, because we’ll be the same as always. Ever since my mother’s accident it’s been a fairly shitty experience, and working this job is the only real taste I’ve had of being able to buy things on a whim. It’s never really been like that before. It’s amazing to be able to buy expensive electronics and not have to freak out about it because I would have to scrape up everything I’ve got to have it. I’ve probably been spending more than I should, but I use my low moods as an excuse. At least I feel better for a short while, right? Sometimes even buying things can’t do it, though. It’s those times that I get frustrated.  I should use it for things that are important, but I find myself caring little. I’ve even been playing with the idea of not getting the insurance that was offered to me (which is frighteningly inexpensive). I won’t get therapy, and I haven’t even bought myself the car that I need.

I seem to have no problem floating aimlessly, with no plans for a future. Sometimes I think that I am planning my own doom, carefully constructing it in the background, in a place my consiousness can’t quite see.

Bottomless pit.

I went outside this morning to find a foot of snow had fallen in the night and was continuing to flutter down.

I’m not sure what brings on these bouts of bad mood. But yesterday was yet another, one spent crying too much and avoiding sleep. Now I can’t seem to find the rest I need unless I am exhausted. Taking naps is becoming increasingly more difficult. My body no longer wants to humor me, so it is on these 4-5 hours of sleep that I must survive. Today was the first day in about two weeks that I didn’t down caffeine to keep me awake. I endured the sleepiness. I will be sleepy, that is simply the way it is, I guess.

I got an interesting surprise this morning on my way to work. I didn’t know this song could even be played on the radio without being severely edited:

 

I always laugh a little bitterly at “I’m breathing, so I guess I’m still alive/even if signs seem to tell me otherwise”. The video to this song has always bothered me. The way the doll is so helpless, like a puppet to the creature that keeps it, forced to become whatever it wants it to be. Nothing but a slave, but then again, the creature too, is a slave to the doll when you think on it. It goes both ways. It was very odd that it played then, because I had been thinking about how much I feel like I ‘do unto others what has been done to me’. I feel like I turned the tables sometimes, and not always on what the perceived enemy was, but myself. And there is sanity to be found in that, whether I berate myself or the world at large.

I’m nothing but someone stuck on the idea of revenge, always trying to get back at all those injuries that were inflicted on me over the years. It may be a stupid way to be, but I know that part of my soul is dedicated to hating. I will never escape that, and my grudges will last until my death.

To avoid…

Another day off. Yesterday was…interesting, to say the least. I never went to bed the night previous, and all I had done was get up from my computer chair to go shower and get ready. I did my 8 hours, which was chaotic and horrible, naturally; not a good day whatsoever and all the higher-ups magically appeared to criticize everything while we’re trying to swim instead of sink. And there I am barely conscious, which was my own stupid fault.

 I also found out someone called in and made a claim that the morning workers were standing around doing nothing when the store was supposed to be open, to our boss. So being that she is quite nosey, she checked the footage from that day on that hour.

Sometimes you do get revenge.

Apparently on the tape I’m preparing food ten minutes before opening (which is how it is supposed to be), while my coworker and I are having a conversation as she puts on her headset (which she doesn’t have to put on until six; but we always try to be ready ahead of time…). I haul ass in the morning; I have no alternative. I must have all of the food out to last for the entire morning and have it cooked by six. I also have to turn on all the equipment, plug in the freezers, prep all the trays, and get all my supplies. One half hour is all I get to do this in, and I am completely on my own. But I get it done. And then I assemble and cook the food until at least 7-8 in the morning, if not later, until someone comes in to help.

For anyone to even suggest that I would be fucking around, infuriates me. Why don’t you get back there and try to do it, then? Why don’t you run the entire back of a store by yourself for a good portion of the morning and see how you fair? They’ve left me alone until 10 before. You want to talk about having a bad motherfucking day?

Anyway, once that was over I went home for about an hour, waiting for them to get the checks at work. Then I went back, stood around for awhile and got to see one of my coworkers, who was just about to go off to a party and get as drunk as humanly possible. She smoked and I giggled, out in the cold, watching all the people walk in and out of the restaurant. I ran off as soon as I got paid, then went to town, which was another experience in and of itself.

I was standing at the counter of another fast food restaurant around 4, trying to order food. For some reason I couldn’t seem to speak properly. The guy at the register kept getting confused, and I was feeling too anxious to talk at all, but somehow I blurted out something and did get food. I hadn’t eaten all day, so I didn’t have much of a choice; it was either get food or don’t eat at all.  I don’t know why I get so anxious out of the blue like that sometimes.  I can be okay with it one day, then terrible the next.

The same thing happened in Walmart, and then again at another store. I froze when they would ask me a question or try to make typical conversation. I’d mumble something and look at the floor until they were done ringing everything up, then I’d snatch up my things and leave as quickly as possible so I wouldn’t have to say anything else. It got worse when I went to look at some Christmas things. This guy says something about what I’m wearing, which isn’t anything to worry about. I walk away, forget about it. Then there he is again, five minutes later when I’m carrying a few things around. He can’t seem to restrain himself from making a comment about the items, so I say something a little snide, and move to another aisle. But I can see him hovering in the corner of my vision. My lack of sleep has caught up with me by then and I am on the verge of verbally attacking him because I simply don’t want to be bothered. For any reason. Instead, however, avoidance kicks in and I end up on the opposite side of the store.   

Sometimes I feel like this wolf with snapping jaws, then other times I feel like the timid little rabbit that would prefer to run than face something. Sometimes I think suicide would be a rabbit moment, and maybe that is one of the reasons I haven’t gone as far with it as I would like at heart. I am a true avoider; the confrontational person that comes out at times is a temporary side-effect of annoyance and anger. I get fed up and I act. The rest of the time I’d like nothing more than to fade into the background and be unseen because I am too weak to try and the desire to do anything doesn’t really exist.

Finally, for the last round of stores I put on my headphones and blatantly refused to acknowledge anyone, even if they were speaking to me. No, I can’t hear you, sorry.

I’m not sure if I should be angry at myself for that or not. I didn’t want to be out in the first place, and only endured it because there were things I needed to get. I had even weighed myself before I left and nearly not gone because of it. I should have been home sleeping, truthfully. I guess none of it is really an excuse though. What’s funny to me is the more time I have been spending out in the world, the less I wish to see of it, when the words of anyone else are to integrate and try more in order to get better. Why then do I feel like there are even fewer reasons to venture out?

If it was up to me, I don’t think I would leave the house anymore. Regardless of how much I have been panicking in my time off, I would prefer to deal with myself, the real problem, instead of trying to be something I’m not. I feel wrong in the presence of others, more so than when I am by myself. I’m always lying and playing a game that I don’t really want to play. Why play when you care not about the pieces and their outcome, I wonder? The crux of this is that I can’t feel and I have trouble conjuring up any kind of feelings for those around me. And maybe I can’t feel for them because I can’t feel for myself. I can’t even care about my life, so how can I concern myself with theirs?

I’ll go on avoiding. Nothing else but that seems to make me last.

Selfishness is amusing, somehow.

At times I don’t understand myself. I’ve hardly gotten any sleep in the past week, and I suspect that is part of the reason I am having horrendous mood swings. I’m getting three to four hours a night, and whatever nap I have during the day (and those, I have noticed, are becoming shorter and shorter and harder to come by, and do little to provide real rest).

I came home in a bad mood. I worked with good people, but I was too tired and it seemed to drag by (again, almost no sleep) and I found myself standing around in a daze during the short periods without orders, where generally I would be cleaning or stocking more things. I had a stomach ache because all I had was a chocolate bar and a few cookies, and of course to make that better, I bought a sundae at work right after I got off my shift.

I walk into my room, and there’s my cat, meowing and meowing to be fed. So I do that, even though I’m screaming at him to shut up. He doesn’t like whatever canned food I gave him, and begins to stalk off after sniffing it, but stops short. I realize he’s about to have a hairball. Terrific. 

Yesterday he shit in the corner of my room for no reason. He’s just irritating me beyond all belief, and I have to make sure my bed is made, because if it is even a little bit lumpy with blankets he’ll go to the bathroom right in the middle of it. I’ve already made the mistake of getting into bed and finding that cat shit was smeared all over the blankets. That’s a real great feeling when you’re exhausted and only going to get four hours of sleep anyway. I end up having to get all of my blankets together and throw them in the wash at 11 at night and take a shower and dispose of my clothes.

So he’s having his hairball. Well, something goes wrong. He starts convulsing, and actually falls onto his back. His legs go straight out and he twitches. I called myself Lady Apathy once for a reason. I watch, sighing in annoyance. I don’t even move forward to see what’s going on or help him out. For some reason it doesn’t matter and I wonder briefly if he’s going to choke to death while I stand there, contemplating the vomit I’m going to have to clean up.

Events like this are scary to me because of the lack of feelings in me. It’s one of those rare times where the apathy and I are face to face, in a strange sort of agreement. I have no fear of death, yet I know that in a true crisis I would likely do nothing. I’d be disinterested in helping rather than being too frightened to do so. The numbness is so strong there is no inclination to help. I’m tired and don’t feel like it; that is the sum of my feelings. 

I’ve had moments like this with my mother. I won’t go into detail; I have enough left in me to know to be ashamed of my inaction. I was always fascinated by psychology when they try to justify inaction in an emergency. Generally it is thought to have to do with social conditioning, fear, and most often confusion. Many people have trouble identifying an emergency, oddly enough, and in large groups the herd mentality runs rampant. If no one reacts, the chances of one person being different from the crowd and helping are very low (keep in mind this percentage is dependent upon how many people are present; smaller groups tend to be the worst, interestingly). If there is only one person, however, the chances of them getting involved are much higher.

My reasons, again, have nothing to do with fear or confusion. I’ve seen plenty of things die, and did my best to save them—back when I could feel. A family dog once almost choked to death, and I reacted accordingly. My dad nearly had a diabetic seizure when he came home from work once. I immediately figured out that something was wrong when he stumbled and couldn’t speak without stuttering. He came up the walk pale and shaking, bracing himself against the wall when I opened the door. I grabbed handfuls of the sugariest cereal in the cupboard and shoved it into his mouth. 

Things happen, we react. But what happens when you lose the inclination, and it has nothing to do with any of those other things that might prevent others from doing something? Does it make you inhuman? Does it make you evil? I don’t know anymore what to think of this. I don’t believe in good and evil, regardless of what I say. I do what my gut tells me and as far as general ideals go, my choices could go either direction or even somewhere inbetween. At the end of the day, I have very few morals that I strictly abide.

My cat  keeps choking for a short while, but finally stops on his own. I haven’t moved, because he’s got some of his mess on the floor through the doorway I have to go through. He gets up and nearly falls, but begins walking away. He ended up trailing puke all over my bed. I picked him up immediately and put him in the cage and went to do the laundry. In fact, I didn’t think about it until I sat down to type this. I also threw a packet of ranch dressing at the wall. It splattered everywhere. This was after I discovered there was nothing I wanted to eat. Apparently, at the time, the best reaction I could think of was making things worse.

I really don’t know what my problem is. I want to get rid of my pets. I want to quit my job. I want to die. Everything seems to culminate into this existence I don’t want to face or deal with. Everything is too much of a bother, nothing is interesting, and all I can seem to draw out of myself is more pessimism. 

I can see it clearly; don’t think that I can’t. This is full of negativity. I skip over any bits of my day that might have been alright and target the bad, going into much more detail. I consider it to be a character flaw of mine—not to say that I can’t stop—I am perfectly capable of being optimistic just like anyone, but for whatever reason it feels too difficult and I don’t even want to try. I’m lazy and weak and don’t want to make an attempt. I want to just flip the switch and forget it all ever happened. I want my life to be a bad dream and my death to be the waking. That’s what it is, really, I want my suicide to be a quick fix for my problems, a fix for having to be here at all.       

I’m a selfish bitch, and for some reason that doesn’t seem to bother me half the time. Maybe because deep down I see everything as a means of pleasing oneself. I don’t know if that is even slightly objective or another view brought on by my pessimism, but it is slightly comforting. It’s selfish to leave, maybe, but it is also selfish of others if they were to be angry about me not sticking around. It goes both ways, really.

More evil is all it is.

I went to bed shortly after 4:00am last night. It seems like the better the rest feels the more likely it is that it will not last. I’ll wake in the night countless times as I always do (I tend to be a terribly light sleeper), and feel completely at ease because I know that I don’t have to get up—yet I know it is too good to be true. And of course, at 7:00, only a few hours later, I got a call to come into work.

What is sad is that I was suddenly relieved. I hadn’t even realized how much I have been dreading being awake, in having an entire day off that I wouldn’t know what to do with. I felt so much better that I did yesterday when I got up and took my shower and got dressed. I didn’t even feel too terrible at work; I drank down my loads of sugar and caffeine and I was fine. I haven’t been sleeping anyway, and as bad as it is, I’m getting accustomed to being perpetually tired and sore everywhere. Oh well, shit happens.

I went five days without a binge, which is more or less a record for me in the past two months. I binged on my last day off, but not since then. I’m eating absolute garbage for the most part—I even went out and bought bags of candy on purpose, but at least it keeps me from constantly making myself sick by eating so much. I eat so little when I don’t binge anyway, that even with all the high-calorie foods I am losing weight because it tends to be all I eat. Just a candybar and a couple of cookies, and I might pick at some of whatever my parents are eating, or have toast in the evening or something (always with loads of something sweet; either jam or honey). It’s better than eating half the pantry and constantly having to make runs to the grocery store.

The last few days I tried to be better, and had salads from work, which are actually quite nice. But that won’t last, I don’t think. I may go back to shoveling down as many vitamins as my stomach can take without making me vomit. I have to keep buying different brands, because most make me so ill I will throw up right after I try to eat anything. Honestly, I’ve used it as a method for purging on a few very desperate occasions, and it’s not something I’d like to return to, so I tend to be cautious with what I buy since my self-control in that regard is so lacking. Fortunately—or unfortunately, I sometimes think—my gag reflex doesn’t like to cooperate with me. I have never successfully purged, even when I tore up the lining at the back of my throat with a toothbrush by being too forceful about it. No amount of pressure seems to make me vomit; I simply sputter, cough (usually violently), and salivate, but no bile or food rises, even if I spend ten minutes trying.

It’s probably better that way. I don’t deserve an easy out on this one. I don’t want to go that route, I really don’t. I’d hope that I could at least be better than that. I felt so weak and horrible. Eating and eating and eating, then trying to throw it up because I didn’t want to deal with the consequences. It’s a stupid way to be; there are always consequences, and like anybody I should have to face them instead of casting them aside and thinking that doing so somehow gets rid of them. It would only be a trade, and an awful one at that. But that reality is hard to see when you get so low; I’ll have to remember it anyway, somehow. I’ll just have to stop being so weak. It’s not that difficult to diet; I’m being impatient and ridiculous about it.

shift

Yet another memory.

I’m fifteen. It’s a car filled with rage. You can almost feel it; a hostility that is so powerful it’s maddening. There’s a CD in the player, and the volume is a little too loud, but somehow we still talk over it every once in awhile. The windows are down because it’s summer and the heat is strong enough that you can see the waves of it off of the pavement.

We park. Get out. It’s a very slow, measured thing. We aren’t hurried. We aren’t happy or sad. I’m looking around because it is all new to me. I never trail my father; I always walk right beside him. I don’t know if he trained me that way or if it was something I picked up myself. I’ve learned over the years that many of my behaviors are ones that were conditioned. For instance, I never knew why it was that I always shake hands with new people I meet, regardless of age or anything else. Apparently it was something I was taught. Even if I am a child, I show respect and deserve respect. Things like that still puzzle me.

We’re through the doors where we go to the front desk, and ask which room we should head to. She’s been moved, they say, and we’ll have to go to one of the higher floors. We’re both silent, and I’m just taking in the scenery. It’s that aniseptic smell of a hospital, one that I quite like. The scent is a clean one, and it covers that other smell. Or maybe it’s an aura. Depression and death. Maybe I’m imagining it.

Finally we get to our floor. There’s a long winding hallway, then the room we are standing in front of, which is nearly at the center of it. The sign above reads ‘ICU’. We wait awhile, I don’t remember why. Maybe it’s because over the speaker someone says ‘Code Blue’.

“Means someone is about to die,” my father says to me.

“Do they have a code word for when someone has actually died?”

He nodds. We’re cleaning our hands with some kind of foaming hand sanitizer, waiting to be let through the doors. The man who came to greet us lets us inside, through the strange glass doors, and we walk in, none too quickly. It’s almost as if we don’t want to see. I know I don’t.

There’s a angry way about him, and it seems to have intensified from the walk. My heart is, for lack of any more suitable a description, pounding. I’m fear and anger and confusion, and it’s making a coldness creep over my face and prickle at my temples. I always get that feeling when I am dreading something. It becomes so powerful it is physical. Funny thing is, I get the same sensation when I have to walk up to a cash register to buy something.

There are rooms all around, with a desk at the center. To the left there is a room, dark, barely lit. I can see the outline of tubes, like some kind of monsterous tumor of umbilical cords, all leading to a man’s mouth. I frown a little, wondering what will be in the room I am going to. For some reason there is no pang of pity, no feelings of being upset or sad. I am more nervous about being in a stange place than anything else. I’m sticking much closer to my dad than is necessary.

It was the first time I was completely emotionless. I was so confused by it. I couldn’t understand. And in these passing years it has never faded, only grown more powerful, until it left me feeling like something only partially human. But the burning of fury was all too alive in me. It was like the sun of my universe, the one thing that kept me going, the one tool I was left to defend myself with.

She’s in a tall white bed. Her face is marred by bruises and cuts, and covered in a sheen of perspiration. She looks barely alive. And then it begins.

It’s like a dam exploding…without the sound. His voice is always mellow when his is angry, to the point that as a child I would cringe when he took up those tones. It was worse than yelling, it was worse than being punished. It was a sound that always made me want to crawl into a corner and die because it was so frightening. It makes people scared of him. I’ve seen men just back away from him when he goes into that voice, like they know something very terrible is about to happen. It’s like god coming down to scorn you personally, voice almost a whisper yet nothing but vitriol. I think for a time as a child I saw him as something akin to a god. Even now, I still find myself hesitating to stand up to him. And to this day, I am the only person I know that will.

This time I am not the one that has to bear that voice. I feel something reminiscent of glee. And at the time I am not ashamed of it. I am not the one who did wrong. I am so angry that I would give anything to have her feel as terrible as I felt, anything to have some kind of revenge. And I feel justified in my rage, because my dad mirrors it.

I’m almost certain that is what most of the visit consisted of: a threat. A very evil, very horrible threat. Do this or be left behind, he says. Somehow the last few days have shifted my feeling so much that the thought of never seeing her again, or even her death does not even slightly pain me. In fact, many of nights I wished for it, if only to soothe my own wounds. I’ve always been the most selfish of people.

She cries, if I recall. She cannot speak, so the tears are silent ones. I’m standing in the corner. I’m sure I probably joined in at one point, but much of it has been swiped from my memory. I only remember the window, looking down at the cleared patch of orange-red dirt where they were prepping for yet another towering building for the hospital. I watch the Caterpillars crawl over the mounds of freshly-tilled earth, not even sure why I came. To see? To make sure it was real?

But it feels so unreal, standing there at that window looking down. I must not be real. This existence is not a real one. I am not loved and I am not cared for. My father will fade into insanity and my mother will die in that bed. I am doomed. I will never finish school and I will never have a life, because I can’t do it.

For the longest time I could not cry. It must have taken a year for the ability to return. At that window I am nothing but a reflection glaring back. Something monsterous and disgusting, something that wishes death on anything and everything. I know that something is terribly wrong with me then. I know that I have crossed some barrier I wasn’t meant to. But I leaped, I ran. I wanted it. I never stopped to contemplate that I would never be the same and that I ruined what little chance I had at a normal life with normal feelings and normal relationships with others.

I want to be this thing, in that moment I wanted it as much as I wanted revenge. I reveled in not hurting for once, in feeling nothing. It was like a beautiful gift, even if I barely understood it.

I left feeling almost giddy. Was it to be a life free of pain? I was too stupid to realize I had only traded one evil for something much, much worse. The temporary relief was in fact beautiful, it’s what came afterward that was so ugly.

Still can’t find it.

I’ve come to despise getting up early. I can no longer sleep 14 hours as I used to so easily. I miss that now, because when I wake I have an entire day ahead of me, one I never quite know what to do with. I want to feel better. I want to wake up and feel as though it’s a good thing to have hours at my disposal. But now it is as if the hours left over after work are nothing but fillers that I ungraciously want to toss aside and forget about. I keep talking about this, maybe because I am uncertain what it means or what I can do to change it.

Every day off I try. I’ll go through ten different projects trying to find one to keep me occupied, or I’ll play some videogame for a very short while, or I’ll even sit down and make a rather sad attempt at reading something, even if it is a local newspaper that’s more mundane to me than perpetually watching the Weather Channel. Anything. Usually what happens is I eat. I cook throughout the day, and eat, over and over and over. I always end up sick and regretting it by evening, but that doesn’t slow the process. I continue until, finally, I find myself doubled over, my stomach so fed up that it will make quite a valiant attempt to free up space.

I might heave for twenty minutes, but I stubbornly refuse to vomit. No, I get to live with these consequences. I get to spend the night in pain, and the next morning nauseated, and go to work and pretend that there’s nothing wrong with me, even though the upper part of my stomach is so painfully swollen it will literally have gained inches overnight to accomodate whatever I ended up binging on. It takes about two days to return to normal, and by then I either begin again, or don’t eat at all.

Why I do this is still not clear. Stress, I would think, though I rarely show any kind of panic or anger at work. All of it seems to come to me when I get home, like the gates to hell have been opened, and it swarms me suddenly. Our turnover rate is extraordinarily high, particularly in the area I work in, and it’s easy to guess why. We must have begun our original orientation about six months ago with about a hundred people all together, that were spread out over four different stores to be trained before coming to the store we are at now. We have a board the in breakroom with congratulations signs on it for those who made it to the sixth month. There are about fifteen names on it, nearly all of which are those who became managers.

We constantly get new crew, and I find myself struggling to remember their names. Most of them won’t last, I can tell already. They spend their first two weeks being willing slaves, then get lazier and lazier once they get comfortable. I get irritated and will literally walk around them if they aren’t going fast enough for my taste. I’m sick of being blamed for their inability to do a very simple job. All it takes is energy, but they whine constantly about not getting their breaks when all they do is stand around, while I’m busy doing most of their job and my own. I’m lucky if I get two breaks out of three.

I come back from breaks and generally find everything backed up, with a screen full orders, shitloads of empty trays (all of which should be filled with food), and two managers in the front screaming orders at people, trying in vain to sort through the chaos, while their shitty front people continuously hand out the wrong orders. There have been times where they will pull me from my half early because one of the newer crew has gotten too far behind to catch up on their own.

I hate breaks. I hate them. I need to sit down; I shouldn’t be running around for 6-9 hours straight, but because nearly all the crew in the back is new and all of the girls I generally work with aren’t around because of training at the moment, it’s like going into a nightmare. The floor will be a disaster, slicked in grease and covered with bits of fallen food, then there will be a screen blinking, with four orders up and god knows how many pending. The machine that prints out special receipts will have a tail of paper hanging down to the floor, sometimes with more receipts shooting out the top and floating down into a pile. The managers always give me a sympathetic look. And then of course, I have to fix it.

One particular instance, several weeks ago, I finally got so irritated I sent the woman away from the table (I had already been pulled from my break twenty minutes early and wasn’t a happy camper). I wouldn’t even let her work with me, that was how badly it was going. She’s a shift manager (highest you can go unless you are the store manager) who has been working as long as I have, and the woman can barely make a sandwich. To top it off she is incredibly slow about it for no reason other than that she doesn’t want to work. I finally looked over at her and said, “Go do prep”, because she was standing there looking at the food more than she was making it. No one said a word.

And still they have been constantly hinting to me at my promotion as some kind of manager (they all seem to have different ideas…), which I don’t even know if I want. In all honesty, I’m an idiot. When I talk about this job like I’m good at it, all that I mean is that I’m willing to do it. That’s the only problem with employees: they don’t want to do it like it should be done. It’s an easy fucking job. You memorize some shit and make food, how hard can it be? But apparently no one wants to work for their money, or deal with that fact, that yeah, we get screamed at, yeah, there are some angry customers who come in and treat you like shit. I’ve had people standing at the counter give me step-by-step instructions on how to make their sandwiches because they ‘don’t trust the grill people to do it properly’. Yeah, because apparently if you work in fast food you must be a dumb fucking cunt that can’t read ‘add 1 cheese, no mustard’ on a screen.

It’s fucking insulting, the way people will look at me if I walk down to the local supermarket to pick up a few things and happen to be wearing my uniform. At the bank they always ask me, ‘where do you work?’ and when I answer they have to restrain themselves from raising an eyebrow. Yeah, I know, I’m not in the white-collar job my parents wanted me to have, I’m not going to college to become yet another of the supposedly educated masses. I stand over by some grills all day, making minimum wage, then go home and never leave the house.

To be incredibly honest, most days it seems like being dead would be more rewarding. I’m still not sure how to change that perception for myself.