Here is the short story I cite in my last blog … not one of my best, but I still dig it.
everyday
Everyday his alarm goes off at 5:36 am. He hits the snooze button more than once and eventually wakes up at 6:24. He swallows a handful of supplements and a high-tech protein shooter he discovered online. He rubs deodorant under his arms and sprays leave in conditioner to take the sleep out of it. He never has time to take shower. He gets in his truck and drives to work. Everyday he is late.
Everyday he wears clothes that are clean but which always look dirty. He stops at the Starbucks for a Latte, but never goes in; instead opts for the drive-thru. He believes there is honor in all work, but he’s afraid that someone he knows will see him in old sweatshirts and dirty pants, and have less respect for him. Everyday he contemplates getting a pastry, but he decides his 6’-1” / 185 lbs frame is too fat, and skips it.
Everyday he gets out of his truck to weather he is not ready for. He stands up only to feel the coffee stirring inside his bladder; he then makes his way to the blue outhouse to urinate. When he gets in there, he may or may not be able to lock the door which is always little broken. He marvels at the juvenile genius of the poems, drawings of vaginas and penises in various positions, and racial and sexual slurs while he’s digging through his layers of clothes. There are always wads of toilet paper in the urinal since the immigrant labor pool puts it in there. They are conditioned to not flush it down due to inadequate sewer systems in their own countries. He notices his color is a pale yellow on the white paper. He tries to think how his father felt when he did that very same thing five years ago and noticed not pale yellow, but rather, pink caused by the blood. Other guys think the wads of toilet paper are gross and use it as ammunition for their existing racial intolerance, but everyday he’s grateful for it, because it saved his father’s life; although it changed his forever. He’s not a good martyr though.
Everyday he works with people who don’t get him. He sticks out in the crowd of the mostly uneducated, defensive, and inarticulate skilled and unskilled labor. He puts on his tools, and goes about his work, and tries to look interested in discussions about NASCAR racing, the previous night’s football game, or loose women (who probably don’t exist), but he’s not a good actor, and even these people see right through him. Most people think he’s a dick. He will, however, laugh at most of these guy’s ability to turn any innocent statement into some sort of sexual reference. It serves him well since they think they’re laughing with them but he’s only laughing at them. Everyday he works through lunch, and leaves early.
Everyday he gets home, pulls off the dirty clothes he had been forced to wear all day, leaving them lying on the floor of the living room as he makes his way to the sofa. He turns on the Television, and grabs his laptop to check his email. He falls asleep about a half hour after he gets home, and sleeps for at least four. He gets up, takes more than a couple supplements, and a protein shooter that he found online, and sits down again to watch television. He chats with people online he doesn’t know, buys underwear he doesn’t need, or supplements to add to his daily routine, and half heartedly watches television shows about people he can’t be; whose live lives he’s not allowed to live until late hours of the night. He pops an Ambien to sleep because he’s slept too much during the day and he’s not tired. A half hour later he blacks out for about twenty minutes before he goes to sleep. Every day during those black outs he writes emails, and says things to strangers online that he never remembers.
Everyday his alarm goes off at 5:36 am. He hits the snooze button more than once and eventually wakes up at 6:24 …
