I sit in the livingroom watching television, but there’s nothing on. The clock struts rhythmically on the mantelpiece and I can’t help but listen intently, like it has something to say. It’s a little after six in the morning and it’s a wasted night leading into another wasted day. As per usual, I try to write, but the ideas seem dried up, like a reservoir during a hot summer drought. I decide to throw my shoes on and go for a walk to the 24-hour supermarket.
I stroll up and down the aisles, the bottom of my jeans frayed and wet from the cold, hard rain. My socks feel damp thanks to the holes in the bottom of my shoes. It’s just after seven in the morning and already there’s a young mother pushing a pram behind me. She looks about as lost as I do. I decide to leave. It seems like a good idea.
And so to bed.
My eyes won’t close. They can’t. The dull shuffle of the woman upstairs echoes in my head, and I’m pretty sure I can hear my fridge from three rooms away. The mail comes through the door. I have to admit, it startled me. I stand up and look at it. I’m not sure how many letters came today; I haven’t read any in a while. It just sits there, mounting up into a pile of white and brown annoyance. At least a couple are from the bank, I can recognise the postmark from here. I pick them up and walk into the livingroom and I drop them on the table, placing them there like it’s mail purgatory. I doubt I’ll read them.
Still, I guess I’d better go to the bank.
Ordinarily I’d be pissed at having to go back out so soon after getting home, but it’s not like I have anything better to do. I arrive at the bank with an old statement I brought so I can read my account details from it without too much inquisition. A while later the bank manager walks out and we have a frank discussion. He tells me that I’m way behind with my repayments and my bank account is far into the red. I tell him my mother died and I need to pay for the funeral arrangements. Like a sympathetic schoolteacher, he frowns and softly lectures me about how I should’ve mentioned something sooner, but he gives me some more time and an extension on my overdraft. Funeral wreaths are expensive these days.
When I get home, I slump down in my chair and flick on the television. I sit and watch the news, but none of it seems to process. I feel like an island – no, too poetic, a fucking traffic island – the whole world is speeding by, and here I am, sat slap bang in the middle of it.
I go to the kitchen and into the freezer and I take out some quickcook meal. I put it in the oven and consider making something to go with it on the side but I don’t bother. I go back to the livingroom and sit down before leaning over to pick up the mail from the table. I thumb them open one by one, guessing with a strange sense of accuracy as to what lies inside. Two are from the bank, as suspected. One is a telephone bill – next to nothing I assume – and the other is the internet bill. It’s the same company, why don’t they just send it in the same envelope? The rest are an assortment of junkmail, be it car insurance or low-interest loans, and the odd 0% creditcard advertisement. I tear each one twice and throw them in the bin.
Habitually, I throw my attention back toward the television. I flick between the channels like I expect to find something until I land on something random. A cookery show. Two amateurs coached by their professional peers, engaging in some lighthearted competition. I sit and watch the entire show, or at least what’s left of it. The chef with the moustache – I forget his name – wins and the semi-attractive blonde on the other side congratulates him. All smiles. To be honest, the food doesn’t look particularly appetising. Too much presentation. Perhaps if they spent as much time eating it as they did preparing it, they’d get twice as much satisfaction.
Speaking of which.
I go into the oven and bring out my meal. Two unidentifiable slabs of meat. Chicken? Regardless, it looks nothing like the picture on the box. A fair shade blacker. Still, I put it on a plate and take it into the livingroom before switching to the neutrality of the news channel as I eat.
It’s fast approaching eleven o’clock. I decide to go for a shower. It’s weird how you seem to be that bit grimier when you don’t sleep compared to when you lie stagnating for eight-or-so hours in roughly the same position. Maybe it’s all in my head, or maybe I just collect dirt the more places I go, like an overused washcloth. The hot water needles at my face and I scrub at my hair and my feet and everything else in between. When I get out, I put my t-shirt, boxers and still-wet jeans into the washingmachine and I throw on some new things from the cupboard. My socks are still stuffed into the shoes by the chair.
It’s officially afternoon. Guess I better do something. I decide to walk to the cornershop near me to buy some cigarettes. I try to cut back as best I can but, to be honest, there’s a time and a place for self-preservation, and this isn’t it. I pay my dues and nod a thankyou and I light one up at the third attempt as soon as I leave the store. I probably should’ve bought a better lighter, but it’ll do. It takes me around two cigarettes to walk back home.
I decided to go to my bedroom rather than the livingroom as a change of pace. I pick up my book and I start reading under the lamplight. I could just as easily open the curtains, but I can’t seem to read when I know it’s daytime. It’s a Murakami shortstory collection. One of them is about a guy who goes back to his apartment in Tokyo to find a giant frog – Super Frog – waiting there for him. Before long he accepts his existence and agrees to help Super Frog defeat a giant worm that’s causing massive earthquakes around the city. Typical. I read that and the rest of the stories in the book and I start one of his novels but I start to feel hungry so I go back to the kitchen.
Cornflakes seem like a good mid-afternoon snack. It’s too early to make anything bigger and to be honest I can’t really be bothered. Granted, it’s arguably too late for cornflakes, but who’s here to argue. I sit with the bowl cradled to my chest as I open my laptop to check the news. I could just turn on the TV and do the same with the addition of moving pictures and stern correspondence, but this mixes it up a little. I go to the website and open some anonymous headline article and I read the few paragraphs that fit on screen as I eat my cornflakes before scrolling down and eating some more. The bowl lasts for around two-and-a-half articles, and so do I. I close it over and slide it underneath the table before opening the back door and having a couple more cigarettes. I can see the trees blowing in the wind and the birds diving like trombone slides and fluttering their wings like the plucking of a harp. I shift focus to the end of the cigarette hanging from my mouth. I only notice the light rain from the wet paper hissing as I inhale. I rake it down the wall and toss it before closing the door and going into the fridge.
What to have? I take out some bacon and rip off four sheets of kitchenroll. I put the bacon on top of two sheets and I rest the other two on top and I put it in the microwave for three minutes. Quicker than frying. To fill the time I take out some bread and spread ketchup on them and, noticing I still have a minute-or-so left, I take out a plate and rip off a fresh sheet. I open the door before it beeps and I grab the browned and steaming sheets by the edge, ferrying it over to the tabletop. I take off the top two and dab at the bacon to rid of the excess and I put them on the bread and take the plate through to the bedroom.
I take around three bites before putting it in the bin.
I scan my bookshelves for something else to read but nothing catches my eye. Then I look at my DVDs and it’s much the same story. I pull back the curtains slightly and look out the window. It seems to have stopped raining, but the wind isn’t letting up. I take out a fresh pair of socks and put them on before taking the old ones out my shoes and heading out the door.
Off the top of my head, there’s absolutely nowhere of note to go. I walk to the shop and buy a new lighter, one that won’t give up at the slightest wisp of air. I throw the old one in the bin and decide to walk toward the trainstation. I have absolutely no intention of getting a train – in fact, I don’t even have enough money on me even if I wanted to – but at least it’s a destination. I get there, scan the area, look at my watchless wrist and then start to head back.
I sit down in the chair, kicking off my shoes. I slide open the drawer and take out a small black phonebook. I scan through it, wondering how many of these numbers must be defunct. I spot at least two people who I’m sure are dead, and the rest I haven’t spoke to in the longest time. I catch sight of a name I consider calling but in the end I just put it back on the drawer and I look up at the clock. If it’s any consolation, it’s already half seven.
I pick up my laptop from under the table and I open it up again. I decide to go onto a music website to see what’s new, but I’m not sure why I bothered. After that I decide to open up Winamp. I consider Mogwai but I can’t put on an album without something heavy startling me halfway through. Sigur Ros is overlistened, and none of the movie scores seem appropriate. In the end I settle on some Radiohead, but I can’t seem to enjoy it. Nothing seems to fit.
As certain as eight leads into nine, I find myself once more at the back door, smoking a cigarette. The sky is much darker than it was earlier, but there’s certainly more signs of life. It’s too miserable for anyone to be out, but I can hear TVs blaring and stereos pumping inane tunes from more than a few places. The sound of cars driving to and fro seems to permeate the wind and the rattling of the trees sounds almost violent. I’m surprised my cupboards aren’t shaking.
After a while I realise that I’m merely hanging my head out the door without a cigarette in sight, so I close it and sit back in my chair. I turn on the TV and turn on the news. It’s a couple of minutes before nine, so the headlines should be on soon. The weather says that the wind is only going to get worse and that lightning might be brewing.
Finally, some excitement.
It’s a shame the same can’t be said for the news itself. All the stories are positively parliamentary, and not one part of it scandal or upheaval. The headlines lead into business then entertainment into sport, then it goes back to weather and the circle is completed.
Once again I hop from channel to channel in the hope of something worth paying attention to, but nothing springs to mind. It seems to be a strange time of year, somewhere in the no man’s land between sporting events and new seasons of worthwhile television.
I go back to my bedroom and pick up my book. The story seems to be switching from one person to another and then back again, but I don’t see how they’re linked. I guess that’s the point. In fact, I don’t know why I mention it, because I know they’ll cross paths somewhere down the line. They always do. Irrespective of their job, their race or their gender, they always meet up. Or else, what’s the point? Still, I can’t be bothered finding out at this time, so I only read a couple of chapters before giving up and lying down.
I’ve been lying in bed for around an hour. I don’t have a clock in here, so I can’t be sure. Either way, my thoughts have drifted from one thing to another, and not once have I had any respite. Even concentrating on the sound of the weather outside like it was The Sounds of the Rainforest on CD doesn’t seem to do the trick. But then I notice something. Silence. Total, unerring silence. I stand up and walk over to the curtain and I peer out the window. The rain has stopped and the wind has calmed to a gentle breeze. At least, as far as I can tell. I go to the back door and I open it up, and sure enough, the night is as still as bottled water.
I slip on my shoes and I sit on the steps before lighting a cigarette. Suddenly this lighter seems like a waste of money. Still, the wind blows gently and as it passes my ears it sounds like the gentle rumblings of a miniature earthquake. Moonlight reflects off the wet grass and glistens like a chandelier left at the back of a cave. I look up toward the sky and there’s a break in the clouds, letting a blanket of dark blue creep along my eyeline. I sit back and put my weight on my elbows as I dip my head back and listen to the sound of near-nothingness.
As my eyes feel heavy, I finish my cigarette and head back in the door. I read a few more chapters before turning off the lamp and laying my head against the pillow. A warm feeling starts to swell in the back of my mind. Outside, the wind starts to whip and the trees begin to buckle and I can hear the rain dancing upon the window.
But that doesn’t matter.
