Short story: Morning Rush
I wake up with a pain in my ribs. It is so sharp and insistent I listen. I have a coffee instead. The pain is still there when I go about my morning. The usual bull — check e-mail, check news, check weather, send new e-mail. Check weather again. I Google what a pain in my ribs might mean. My search results are not flattering. I check three different websites. Diagnosis is terminal. According to the Internet, I am dying today. This is redundant, I think. We’re all dying every day of the week, it’s a fact. Perhaps today, instead of yesterday, I am merely dying faster. This makes me feel significantly better about myself. Something is happening at least.
The sounds of the garbage truck outside and the gurgling of the coffee maker create an oddly comforting duet that jolts me out of my search engines. It’s OK, I tell myself, life is still going on. The bins will be haphazardly thrown onto the front lawn when I look out my window; the coffee pot will be full once more with a blinking red light of reassurance. I look back to the screen with a sigh of relief. My current health scare suddenly seems secondary. I am reminded I have things to do, plans to make. Coffee and garbage men are, as it turns out, reliable ways for me to see the bigger picture: my computer can be hacked, tracked, cracked. Everything must be by hand, I decide, shutting down the monitor and standing. The pain is still there but the prospect of pen and paper is more worrisome. My handwriting these days is little more than chicken scratch. Before, when I cared about such things, I would have read something about what kinds of psychological hang ups different types of handwriting might reveal about a person. One of those apocalyptic Freudian books found on bargain tables in the self-help section. I used to gobble that psycho-philosophical gloop up as if it was the only thing between me and an existential crisis. These days I am still hoping for the existential crises. It turns out existentialism is far more appealing than reality. You can be anything you want in an existential crisis. Here, things aren’t so easy. In reality, there is a demand for crucial certainty about things. Crucial certainty and paying taxes. Both are painful reminders that I’m getting too old to hope for a revolution from my mind. I’m too stuck in my ways. Now it is only a question of coping, not rebelling. Coping, I’m quickly realizing, is much less fun.
The phone rings for the first time that day and I’m tempted not to answer it. It might be The Man. Or worse, The Woman. They both have the annoying and somewhat implausible habit of keeping me up at night. I have no idea what The Man or The Woman look like. They are only voices, tiny robotic waves of sound, travelling like comets across the galaxy of telephone lines. And yet I see them in my dreams. My imagination, it appears, is at its most overactive yet. It is a good thing too. I was starting to get worried about its dormant status as of late. The phone keeps ringing until defeat forces the caller to forfeit their siege on my landline. No one leaves a message. I pour a second cup of coffee and take a sip. It’s not as good as the first one. It’s just as well—I have too high expectations of coffee. It’s the same type of reliance I have for the weather network. I expect both to get me through the day relatively unscathed. Most times, this strategy works. Other times, I am not as lucky and I have the same conflict of faith all over again—will the caffeine finally kick in? Will the forecast for rain make the trouble of carrying my umbrella all day worth it? It is like the world’s most low risk Russian Roulette. But today, today is different. Today there is a pain in my ribs that is so sharp and insistent I listen. Diagnosis is terminal. Today something is finally happening.
Author’s Note: This story could be about you. It could be about me. It could be anyone who hasever felt trapped by the banality of life and is looking for a way to find some unpredictability in the daily grind. How long until something needs to change?
By Meagan Gove
Please note that opinions expressed are the author’s own. They do not necessarily reflect the views and values of The Blank Page.
