I lie in Madaline’s bed and stare up at the poorly plastered white ceiling. The room is no bigger than the one I’m borrowing from Steph, but unlike mine, this one is filled to bursting with clothes, bottles, photographs and cheap memorabilia from holidays abroad. Madaline is laid next to me, her back facing me and a good foot of bed between us.
The night had been purely business. It usually is. People crave emotional connection and often try to fill that void with physical intimacy. That’s my theory anyway. A moment of pleasure to ward off the numbness of life for a few blissful minutes. I know it, and Madaline knows it too.
My head is pounding and my throat’s dry. I groggily weigh up my options. Water is priority one. Slowly, I slide from the bed and scan the gloom of the room for my clothes but can’t spot them in the sea of Madaline’s clothes. It looks like she could wear a different outfit every day of the year and still not have worn everything she owns.
I decide that it’s likely still too early for any of her flatmates to be up, so I risk opening her door and, after seeing that the coast is clear, stride stark bollock naked toward the kitchen. The place is a tip. Cans, bottles, and half eaten food litter every surface. That’s not my problem though, so I pay it no mind. It takes me a while to find a clean glass. I pour myself a drink from the tap and sip the water reflectively.
Gradually, I begin to feel more human, not that that’s a good thing. Now that higher brain functions are returning, I have to consider what my plans are for the rest of the day. Drinking is out of the equation, so I’m left with the prospect of wandering around the city or returning to Steph’s to sit alone in my room. That’s the option I should choose. To get back on the writing horse and be productive. To start a new story or something. Neither option fills me with much joy. On the other hand, I’m currently in a moderately attractive young woman’s home. It could prove to be a pleasant enough morning, if I play my cards right.
Playing my cards right means being kind to others for entirely selfish reasons. The thought triggers my inner gamer. That’s all role-playing games are: Solve puzzles to help people help you. Thankfully, this is much easier than fighting through a dungeon or the like. Today’s quest: Breakfast in bed.
I’m no cook, but I do like to think that I’ve mastered toast. I look around the kitchen until I finally find everything I need. It’s a good thing that I don’t want to try anything fancy to impress Madaline because there’s jackshit in her cupboards or fridge. Student life is a glorious thing.
My secret is to butter the bread before putting it in the toaster, then make sure that the heat isn’t set too high. The results are usually a warm, soggy slice that slides down your throat like fresh escargot. Perfect for dealing with that dry feeling you have just after waking. I slap on some Nutella, since it’s the only spreadable I can find, pour out two glasses of orange juice, load them all up onto a tray, then begin a careful walk back to Madaline’s room.
She’s still asleep. I clear enough room on her bedside table to fit the glasses then waft the plates near her nose before gently rubbing her cheek. Mascara has run down her face during the night, giving her a dark eyed appearance and black tear steaks that look reminiscent of the tryhard emos of my youth. I’m somewhat partial to the style. Maybe it’ll help me lie to myself that she’s somebody else.
She stirs, makes a cute little grunt, then slowly opens her eyes. I watch the subtle stages of her thoughts through her bloodshot eyes. First there is pain, the pounding head and jumble of scant consciousness, compounded by a complete dryness of the mouth and eyes. Then comes the understanding. Memories of alcohol, that this is the price paid for a good time. The eyes focus, looking past the inner thoughts to the outside world, and to me specifically. A moment of softness, replaced almost instantly with fear, then a jolt of memory as my identity is pieced together. Finally comes acceptance. This is her life. She is here, I am here, and more importantly, food and a soft drink is here too.
We eat without much talking, and once the toast is gone we just lie there and dwell in our own private thoughts as the breakfast works its way through our abused system. It isn’t an awkward silence, but neither is it a comfortable one. It just is. After a while I turn to her with a smile.
“I’ve got to head off soon. If you’re feeling up for it, fancy another round for the road?”
Her eyes assess me and she shrugs. She doesn’t speak, but her answer is clear enough as she slides under the covers and I feel her warm breath against my inner thigh.
We share half an hour of fun, then I dress and leave, jotting my number down and handing it to her before I hop through the door into the pissing rain of another grey day. I wholly expect to never see her again. That’s the way things usually go. We’re all just passersby on the oppressive motorway of life, everyone looking for the first convenient pit stop to refuel at before continuing on to the inevitable cliffedge that awaits us.
I notice that greyness keeps popping up in my thoughts and I can’t tell if that’s the way the world is, or if my jaded existence simply casts everything in dulled tones. You’d think that being jaded would be to see the world in green, not grey, but here we are.
It’s not been twenty minutes since I had a pretty girl wrapped around me and I can already feel the misery bleeding back in with every step closer to Steph’s house. I take a winding path since I’m already soaked to the bone, but I can only delay for so long. Eventually I bite the bullet and trudge up the gravel path to her front door, unlock it, and step inside.
There are voices coming from the living room, one belonging to Steph while the other was the deep voice of her current partner, Pete. It sounds like an argument that trails off as heavy footsteps approach the living room door. I try to speed past to the sanctuary of my room but don’t make it before Pete steps out into the corridor.
“It was too much to hope you’d decided to grow up and stop pulling your family down.”
“And it’s too much to hope that you’ll drop dead.”
Pete represents everything I hate. He’s tall and tidy, his expensive clothes always neatly ironed, his designer glasses always smudge free, and his hair styled like a movie star. He’s a manager at the accountancy firm where Steph works, and is the type of person that can’t function unless he has control of every little detail in his life.
“Stephany has more sentiment than sense, putting up with you. Can’t you see the blight on her life that you are? When are you going to grow up and move out?”
“Fancy giving me a job, or offering a place with reasonable rent? No? Then fuck off.”
I edge past him and retreat to my room as fast as I can without running. I’d long since learned not to push past him, as he always pushed back harder. Despite the suit, Pete was a man always looking to lash out. I’ve spent time with a lot of rough people in my life, and found myself face to face with guys who’ll beat you half to death for a pack of cigarettes, but something about Pete scares me.
Even before my door closes I can already hear his raised voice berating Steph to kick me out. I try to ignore it, sitting down at my desk to distract myself with some work. My laptop is old but it’s my most valued possession. Inside that plastic shell are all my hopes and dreams given form within the digital pages.
As always, my first step is to open up my emails. There’s the usual bundle of spam, and buried amongst them are the kernels of hope that I cling to. Three emails from jobs I’d applied for and two from literary agents. I’d seen more than my fair share of these emails recently and had learned to tell the tone from the preview sentence alone. I still check them on the odd chance that I’m wrong, but I’m not.
Rejection. Rejection. Rejection. Rejection. Rejection.
The word echoes through my head. I’d like to say that I’m numb to it, that my carefully constructed cynicism shields me from any emotional backlash. It doesn’t. Neither does it shield me from the following spiral into misery that is scrolling through pages of recently listed jobs. This is the point that I usually turn to the spirits to help, but I’m all out.
I know I should start writing, but there’s something haunting about the blank page I load. I try to think of words and anxiety hits me like a truck. Writing used to be my escape but now even just the thought of it reminds me of all the rejections and wasted time. I’d never admit it, but I realise I’m scared. Scared to open myself up to the creativity and effort only for it all to hurt me again in the end. Each time chips away at my sanity, at my soul, and I don’t know how much more I have to lose.
Eventually I can’t take any more and tab onto a porn site instead. I click through a few pages to try and find something that catches my eye but I’m not feeling it. I realise that I’m going through the exact same motions as on the job site, and don’t know whether to laugh or cry. I’d blame the morning’s activities, but in reality it’s an ever more frequent occurrence.
In the end I close the lid and collapse onto the bed to watch shitty Youtube videos on my phone until I inevitably passout. Even such a simple plan as that is ruined though by the appearance of a rhythmic thudding noise punctuated by muffled groans from the next room over. I turn up the volume but the sheer knowledge of events is enough to traumatise me. The crashes of the Blitz would give me a better chance of sleeping through it.
True to form, two minutes hasn’t passed before the nightmare ends with a shrill noise reminiscent of a stuck pig. I long for a large amount of whisky to knock me out.
Matthew Roys 