Kal name: Rudy
Way of life: Breathe in.
Wake up. Is that your alarm going off? No, it's your room mate's; you could have slept for a while longer. Oh well. Stretch, get up, eat breakfast, brush teeth. Shake crumbs out of fur and shower. Head out to work- wait, no, first grab your keys and then head out to work. That was close.
(It's always close.)
Work. Plaster that customer service smile on your face and steel yourself to face the day's pandemonium. An old lady wants to take out a book. What's the title? She doesn't remember. Author? Well if she told you that, you'd be out of a job! You laugh, awkwardly, and curse, inwardly.
Faces merge together; the baby looking for romance novels, the teenager who can't find her parents, the boy who cannot believe the language they put in kids books these days. Maybe that's the wrong way round, but it doesn't matter. They're all the same, in the end.
Shift over; walk to the station. Enter the coin into the ticket machine.
The machine rejects it.
Enter the coin into the ticket machine.
The machine rejects it.
Enter the coin into the ticket machine.
The machine accepts it, and you board the quietest carriage on this ten coach train. There's a mysterious stain on the seat you try not to think about.
(Great, now you're thinking about it.)
Home. Kick off shoes, feel the soft carpet beneath your tired feet. Eat dinner; probably some flavourless pasta mix. Something easy and numbing.
Ignore the dishes piling up in the sink in the kitchen and the dirty washing on stairs and the creak in the bedroom door.
Collapse into bed.
Shut your eyes and hold your breath, because maybe then you'll break the cycle.
It doesn't work. (it never does.)
Breathe out.
Breathe in.
Wake up.
Closest companion:
Had Rudy been an edgy thirteen year old aspiring philosopher-poet, he might have described his closest companion as "loneliness" or "exhaustion" or "the constant monotony of the modern young adult's life".
Fortunately for us, Rudy is an adult and so has neglected such woeful fantasies for a person-friend, and trust him, they are so much more interesting than anything inside his head.
His closest companion is the library secretary he sees twice a day; once on arrival and once on departure. He's not entirely sure what her name is, but she looks like she could be called Emileigh or Ashlynn, if that helps. They don't talk much (don't talk at all, if Rudy's perfectly honest), but what they lack in conversation they make up for in looks. Like the 'oh God not that patron again please save us' look or the 'I like your sparkly pen where did you get it from?' look or the 'you have tippex on your nose again are you aware' look. It's easier, somehow, to exchange side glances and raised eyebrows than names or smiles; its both entirely impersonal and thrillingly intimate.
At once both the watched and the watcher.
It helps, knowing that there's someone in the world who sees him. And not just sees him but sees him; acknowledges in his glances his pain and his triumphs and his too-oft tippex-flecked nose.
He cannot be sure, because of many factors (the uncertainty principle he learnt about in physics, the uncertainty principle he learnt about in chemistry, his own poor self-esteem... many factors indeed), but he likes to think he helps her, too.
Because to be watched and to be helped is easier to bear when you're watching and helping, too.
[583/600 words]
Rudy giving the
'oh god not that patron
again please save us'
look to his equally
world-weary companion
'oh god not that patron
again please save us'
look to his equally
world-weary companion
