Grit
12-20-2010, 09:03 PM
Sardines in the can, Japanese work sleep containers, crowded elevator. My shoes clack off the marble floors that prop up the front entrance of my building. I walk half a block down the street, and jog quickly down the stairs towards the sky train.
Jam-packed, stuffed, clogged, enclosed. When Peaches are forced into a jar, they become peach jam. What happens to a man when he is jammed? There is a crowd waiting for the City Line, as always. The tiles of the floor are 8x8 inches, cream colored, like sour milk and honey.
To my right, a homeless man is smiling with a sh*t-eater grin and holding a sign he made with sharpie; “Smile if you masturbate.” I don’t smile and stare into this man’s eyes, into his soul. His smile fades and he turns around.
I hear a mechanical moan and realize the train has arrived. I hold the carrying case, which contains my life, a 24-inch high-powered laptop computer, with both hands.
I am the first to be neatly packaged into the steel container, so I seek the farthest corner to efficiently use the space. Warm bodies are piled in on top of me quickly, and then the train begins his lonely journey home. In front of me is a thick man who has the genetic gift of neck hair. I imagine a crash, my face pressed firmly against the unshaven prickles, which populate the back of his neck. From my right comes to unmistakable sound of music; bass, rhythm and melody.
A seat becomes available to my right as an old woman begins to stand. I launch myself between her and the seat, causing her to lose her balance. She regains it by clinging onto neck-hair. She glares at me but I ignore her and rest my head against the window.
I wake with a start, an annoying beeping fills my senses. I raise my head and the beeping stops.
I’m looking straight into the face of my laptop computer at work. A blue error message with nonsense white writing fills the screen. Just another meaningless error message, I simply have to stop watching porn on the computer or it will stop working. I read the message as I close the screen. “Rat in a cage” jumps out at me when I snap the screen shut and I rip it open again. I read the message carefully this time, every single, consumer management line that was designed to keep you happy computer or not. Not a word about Rat’s or cages. Why had I fallen asleep?
I look over at my desk and read the clock’s ever changing face “3:21 AM”. I know what had happened. I had been working hard on the new project, what’s it called again? For the life of me, I can’t remember now. Oh well, I know it’s the bosses pet project, and I’ve been working extra hours with no pay to get it done better than anyone imagined. To get that promotion; move up to a corner office maybe. Get a company car, no more transit. I smile but then I have a troubling recollection. A homeless man with a dirty sign and the smile of a fifteen year-old-boy who just sh*t in the urinal.
I pack my laptop into its case, slide my body into it’s jacket and stand, taking mental inventory. Do I have everything? Yes.
I walk through my office when I am struck with a sudden and severe headache. I scream in anguish and fall to my knees, holding my head with both hands. My computer falls with a heavy clunk to the carpeted flooring. My mental inventory is calling me out. I have forgotten something, of course, my release. Just like Dr. Davidson said to me, I need my release, everyone does.
I stand and stalk towards my desk. Dr. Davidson’s release is going to the films by himself once every so often. I grasp my desk’s sides like hips and shift it. He’ll see a film and leave the wife at home with the two kids. Dr. Davidson time. A comedy to feel joy, an action to feel like a man and a romance to feel love again. I wrap my flesh around the metal handle to my special drawer and pull. It rattles, dammit, locked. I pull out my keychain and flip through; house key, garage key, office key and mail key. Where’s the damn drawer key?
I turn and am punched straight in the face with visions of ugliness. My fat, ugly under-achieving co-worker Colby and his wife smile sickeningly at me from the framed portrait on his desk. Disgusting Colby with his sickening eating habits. He’ll never get one meal anywhere, always two. Chicken nuggets with the burger, two-foot long subs, a box of donuts and a cake. I’ll fire him when I move up.
I know he took my key, know he’d just get a look of pure jubilation at being able to take away my one happy time, my one happy moment, my release. I rip open his drawer, which is filed literally to the brim with fast food wrappers. I part my way through the garbage and clutch something small, sharp, metallic. Precise. My key.
I spin quickly, wipe a aged caramelized onion from the key, and slide the metal piece delicately into place. I turn and wrench the drawer open.
Inside, leaning against the wall of its container, is a faded wooden baseball bat. I chuckle, reach down and grip passionately, twirling it familiarly in my hands. Take up a sport Dr. Davidson said. Nothing symbolizes the feeling of success, and happiness like hitting a home run, he suggested.
He’s damn right, nothing like a home run. I wind up and swing. Tinkle, and goodbye portrait. Grit my teeth, swing, thunk, and dented desk. Grit my teeth, swing, and shatter of glass. White-knuckle grip, overhead swing, and computer explodes.
After returning my bat to its place a half-an-hour later I feel high, my eyes are dilated, or at least they feel that way. I walk through my floor and notice it feels spacious, generous. I exhale slowly, savoring the moment. I enter the elevator and press 1. The door close and again, I am enclosed.
Sardines in the can, Japanese work sleep containers, crowded elevator. My shoes clack off the marble floors that decorate the front entrance of my building. I walk half a block down the street, and jog quickly down the stairs towards the sky train.
The light’s are off, and I hear the slow drip of water elsewhere. I walk down the stairs with ease though; I’ve walked them a million times. I drop my foot, expecting a stair and instead I find empty space. I tumble forwards and after an excruciating descent, find myself staring up at the shadow filled station’s stained ceiling.
The lights flicker on and I shift my weight, attempting to sit up through groans of pain. A gritty, calloused hand grips my collar and lifts me to my feet. I am taken aghast; it’s the homeless man with the sign. He’s smiling like the sh*t disturber he is and says nothing.
“Thanks,” I say, while avoiding eye contact. He flips his sign up. I smile and his smile grows. He pulls an emptied pop can from his pocket with a rattle and offers it to me, pleading. I decide to give this beautiful soul a bit of change, I have some left from lunch. I check my pockets, searching but find nothing. I pat my pants and they are silent in response.
I turn and make eye contact, all I see in this man’s eyes is helplessness and I’ve nothing to cause him hope. Maybe, just this once, this could be all right. Like the stories we’re sold from adolescence.
I hand him my computer case and looks at it in confusion. I hear the wistful call of the train’s arrival and turn from this man and board. I take my seat, then look out the window at the man I just gave hope. He is barring his sign like a label and it now reads “I'll be honest, I want $$$ for booze and drugs.”
I stand and try to run to him, to explain, to apologize but he is gone now and I am hitting the windows with my palms in vain. I turn to see if anyone has seen my plight but there is no one else aboard my container. Seven seats a side and only one passenger. If there’s only one sardine in the can, does it make the sardine any bigger? Does it change the sardine and can’s relationship?
Six seats now, one for every drunk at Christmas in the average family. My computer, it’s gone now, wasted on a stupid, foolish poor soul. A soul lost, confused, a cog in the wheel. His cog was among the dirt and the mud, propping up the rest of us. What he does not have, gives us more. I turn and with a frightening realization notice that there are only 3 other seats besides the one I am sitting on. I stand to explore and my seat disappears, behind me is not only wall. Three seats left. I straighten up and my head hits the roof of the container, aching with a pang. I throw myself on one of the two remaining seats in hope it will stay around awhile. The trip is an awfully long one to stand. My neighbor seat is gone now and the roof is just above my head while I’m sitting. Well, I think, at least I have my seat. This seat is mine and mine alone, no one elses, my piece of self. It means all the more because when the other passengers board, I will be sitting on prime real estate. The man with the power, the bar with the leverage. The more I have the less others have, the less other have, the more I have. My container, my space and nothing can take it.
With a shout, I am propelled from my seat and I fall messily to the floor, now sweating and breathing heavily. My seat retracts into itself, perhaps it needs a release, and being sat on all day can’t be such a favorable position. Maybe it’s going home to beat it’s wife and drink a fifth. Not all releases are healthy, Dr. Davidson told me so. He also said the more the stress, the more severe the release needs to be. That’s why we see people with terrible lives blowing up buildings, robbing banks, doing ice and smack, murdering co-workers. They have the most stress. Stress is an unhealthy, inhuman thing and ought to be avoided. My container, my little plot of land, my lot in life is now the size of a dog kennel. It has a cage like a kennel, I hear barking around me, so much in-satisfaction, so much restriction. Stunted growth, runted hopes, terrible lies and snap on ties.
I feel something very animal moving from within me, something primal and angry. I open my canine jaws and howl, I rip and tear at my cage, I bite gnash and scream. All around me, other do the same, our cries for something, anything human blend together into a symphony of madness. Sardines in the can, runts in the kennel, berries in the jam, infirmary, bunkbeds, traffic, tunnels, transit, chains.
My eyes refocus. The office lights are on, my clock reads 4:35 AM and I stifle a yawn. I take another drink of black coffee and hunch over the report I’m working on. “Yearly projection on sedimentary and forward-moving investment management report.” I open the first page lazily, in a haze when I hear the squeak of an office chair beside me.
“How’s the report comin’ hey?” Colby asks through a mouthful of corn starch and oil. He sucks each and every single one of his fingers now, slurping happily. Everyone needs their release. The more stress, the more the release. Otherwise it explodes, like a propane tank. All those particles can only stay constricted, contained for so long before they make like a volcano and blow their top.
“The report’s comin’ hey,” I say as I cycle through my key chain. “Time for a break though.” I find my drawer key. I slide the precise piece of metal in, one tooth at a time. A dog fighting for something to hold onto. I turn the key and with a pop, the container is unlocked.
Jam-packed, stuffed, clogged, enclosed. When Peaches are forced into a jar, they become peach jam. What happens to a man when he is jammed? There is a crowd waiting for the City Line, as always. The tiles of the floor are 8x8 inches, cream colored, like sour milk and honey.
To my right, a homeless man is smiling with a sh*t-eater grin and holding a sign he made with sharpie; “Smile if you masturbate.” I don’t smile and stare into this man’s eyes, into his soul. His smile fades and he turns around.
I hear a mechanical moan and realize the train has arrived. I hold the carrying case, which contains my life, a 24-inch high-powered laptop computer, with both hands.
I am the first to be neatly packaged into the steel container, so I seek the farthest corner to efficiently use the space. Warm bodies are piled in on top of me quickly, and then the train begins his lonely journey home. In front of me is a thick man who has the genetic gift of neck hair. I imagine a crash, my face pressed firmly against the unshaven prickles, which populate the back of his neck. From my right comes to unmistakable sound of music; bass, rhythm and melody.
A seat becomes available to my right as an old woman begins to stand. I launch myself between her and the seat, causing her to lose her balance. She regains it by clinging onto neck-hair. She glares at me but I ignore her and rest my head against the window.
I wake with a start, an annoying beeping fills my senses. I raise my head and the beeping stops.
I’m looking straight into the face of my laptop computer at work. A blue error message with nonsense white writing fills the screen. Just another meaningless error message, I simply have to stop watching porn on the computer or it will stop working. I read the message as I close the screen. “Rat in a cage” jumps out at me when I snap the screen shut and I rip it open again. I read the message carefully this time, every single, consumer management line that was designed to keep you happy computer or not. Not a word about Rat’s or cages. Why had I fallen asleep?
I look over at my desk and read the clock’s ever changing face “3:21 AM”. I know what had happened. I had been working hard on the new project, what’s it called again? For the life of me, I can’t remember now. Oh well, I know it’s the bosses pet project, and I’ve been working extra hours with no pay to get it done better than anyone imagined. To get that promotion; move up to a corner office maybe. Get a company car, no more transit. I smile but then I have a troubling recollection. A homeless man with a dirty sign and the smile of a fifteen year-old-boy who just sh*t in the urinal.
I pack my laptop into its case, slide my body into it’s jacket and stand, taking mental inventory. Do I have everything? Yes.
I walk through my office when I am struck with a sudden and severe headache. I scream in anguish and fall to my knees, holding my head with both hands. My computer falls with a heavy clunk to the carpeted flooring. My mental inventory is calling me out. I have forgotten something, of course, my release. Just like Dr. Davidson said to me, I need my release, everyone does.
I stand and stalk towards my desk. Dr. Davidson’s release is going to the films by himself once every so often. I grasp my desk’s sides like hips and shift it. He’ll see a film and leave the wife at home with the two kids. Dr. Davidson time. A comedy to feel joy, an action to feel like a man and a romance to feel love again. I wrap my flesh around the metal handle to my special drawer and pull. It rattles, dammit, locked. I pull out my keychain and flip through; house key, garage key, office key and mail key. Where’s the damn drawer key?
I turn and am punched straight in the face with visions of ugliness. My fat, ugly under-achieving co-worker Colby and his wife smile sickeningly at me from the framed portrait on his desk. Disgusting Colby with his sickening eating habits. He’ll never get one meal anywhere, always two. Chicken nuggets with the burger, two-foot long subs, a box of donuts and a cake. I’ll fire him when I move up.
I know he took my key, know he’d just get a look of pure jubilation at being able to take away my one happy time, my one happy moment, my release. I rip open his drawer, which is filed literally to the brim with fast food wrappers. I part my way through the garbage and clutch something small, sharp, metallic. Precise. My key.
I spin quickly, wipe a aged caramelized onion from the key, and slide the metal piece delicately into place. I turn and wrench the drawer open.
Inside, leaning against the wall of its container, is a faded wooden baseball bat. I chuckle, reach down and grip passionately, twirling it familiarly in my hands. Take up a sport Dr. Davidson said. Nothing symbolizes the feeling of success, and happiness like hitting a home run, he suggested.
He’s damn right, nothing like a home run. I wind up and swing. Tinkle, and goodbye portrait. Grit my teeth, swing, thunk, and dented desk. Grit my teeth, swing, and shatter of glass. White-knuckle grip, overhead swing, and computer explodes.
After returning my bat to its place a half-an-hour later I feel high, my eyes are dilated, or at least they feel that way. I walk through my floor and notice it feels spacious, generous. I exhale slowly, savoring the moment. I enter the elevator and press 1. The door close and again, I am enclosed.
Sardines in the can, Japanese work sleep containers, crowded elevator. My shoes clack off the marble floors that decorate the front entrance of my building. I walk half a block down the street, and jog quickly down the stairs towards the sky train.
The light’s are off, and I hear the slow drip of water elsewhere. I walk down the stairs with ease though; I’ve walked them a million times. I drop my foot, expecting a stair and instead I find empty space. I tumble forwards and after an excruciating descent, find myself staring up at the shadow filled station’s stained ceiling.
The lights flicker on and I shift my weight, attempting to sit up through groans of pain. A gritty, calloused hand grips my collar and lifts me to my feet. I am taken aghast; it’s the homeless man with the sign. He’s smiling like the sh*t disturber he is and says nothing.
“Thanks,” I say, while avoiding eye contact. He flips his sign up. I smile and his smile grows. He pulls an emptied pop can from his pocket with a rattle and offers it to me, pleading. I decide to give this beautiful soul a bit of change, I have some left from lunch. I check my pockets, searching but find nothing. I pat my pants and they are silent in response.
I turn and make eye contact, all I see in this man’s eyes is helplessness and I’ve nothing to cause him hope. Maybe, just this once, this could be all right. Like the stories we’re sold from adolescence.
I hand him my computer case and looks at it in confusion. I hear the wistful call of the train’s arrival and turn from this man and board. I take my seat, then look out the window at the man I just gave hope. He is barring his sign like a label and it now reads “I'll be honest, I want $$$ for booze and drugs.”
I stand and try to run to him, to explain, to apologize but he is gone now and I am hitting the windows with my palms in vain. I turn to see if anyone has seen my plight but there is no one else aboard my container. Seven seats a side and only one passenger. If there’s only one sardine in the can, does it make the sardine any bigger? Does it change the sardine and can’s relationship?
Six seats now, one for every drunk at Christmas in the average family. My computer, it’s gone now, wasted on a stupid, foolish poor soul. A soul lost, confused, a cog in the wheel. His cog was among the dirt and the mud, propping up the rest of us. What he does not have, gives us more. I turn and with a frightening realization notice that there are only 3 other seats besides the one I am sitting on. I stand to explore and my seat disappears, behind me is not only wall. Three seats left. I straighten up and my head hits the roof of the container, aching with a pang. I throw myself on one of the two remaining seats in hope it will stay around awhile. The trip is an awfully long one to stand. My neighbor seat is gone now and the roof is just above my head while I’m sitting. Well, I think, at least I have my seat. This seat is mine and mine alone, no one elses, my piece of self. It means all the more because when the other passengers board, I will be sitting on prime real estate. The man with the power, the bar with the leverage. The more I have the less others have, the less other have, the more I have. My container, my space and nothing can take it.
With a shout, I am propelled from my seat and I fall messily to the floor, now sweating and breathing heavily. My seat retracts into itself, perhaps it needs a release, and being sat on all day can’t be such a favorable position. Maybe it’s going home to beat it’s wife and drink a fifth. Not all releases are healthy, Dr. Davidson told me so. He also said the more the stress, the more severe the release needs to be. That’s why we see people with terrible lives blowing up buildings, robbing banks, doing ice and smack, murdering co-workers. They have the most stress. Stress is an unhealthy, inhuman thing and ought to be avoided. My container, my little plot of land, my lot in life is now the size of a dog kennel. It has a cage like a kennel, I hear barking around me, so much in-satisfaction, so much restriction. Stunted growth, runted hopes, terrible lies and snap on ties.
I feel something very animal moving from within me, something primal and angry. I open my canine jaws and howl, I rip and tear at my cage, I bite gnash and scream. All around me, other do the same, our cries for something, anything human blend together into a symphony of madness. Sardines in the can, runts in the kennel, berries in the jam, infirmary, bunkbeds, traffic, tunnels, transit, chains.
My eyes refocus. The office lights are on, my clock reads 4:35 AM and I stifle a yawn. I take another drink of black coffee and hunch over the report I’m working on. “Yearly projection on sedimentary and forward-moving investment management report.” I open the first page lazily, in a haze when I hear the squeak of an office chair beside me.
“How’s the report comin’ hey?” Colby asks through a mouthful of corn starch and oil. He sucks each and every single one of his fingers now, slurping happily. Everyone needs their release. The more stress, the more the release. Otherwise it explodes, like a propane tank. All those particles can only stay constricted, contained for so long before they make like a volcano and blow their top.
“The report’s comin’ hey,” I say as I cycle through my key chain. “Time for a break though.” I find my drawer key. I slide the precise piece of metal in, one tooth at a time. A dog fighting for something to hold onto. I turn the key and with a pop, the container is unlocked.