Perditus

I woke up to the sound of my alarm on my phone going off. I hated that noise. I hated what it represented. I hated it. I laid there. In my bed, staring up at the ceiling, letting the alarm continue to pierce my brain. “Ring! Ring! Ring!”

The ringing became more and more faint the longer I let it continue. The deeper it traveled into my mind the less I could distinguish where the ringing ended and my thoughts began. I wanted to go back to sleep so badly. Sleeping was the only thing that felt real to me anymore. It was the only place I could go, and get away from all the falseness of outside, and even then the falseness made its way into my dreams sometimes.

I grabbed my phone to turn my alarm off. Pulling it closer to my face to see the silence option. The light from the phone was blinding. I hated that light more than anything, more than the ringing, more than the falseness outside. The light traveled into my eyes, going deeper and deeper into my brain. Even further than the ringing did. It was blinding, but I could still see. I put my phone back on my nightstand, and figured it was time to get up, and start my day.

I sat at the edge of my bed, began to stretch my body and let out a long drawn out sigh of relief. I looked around my room, staring at the way the sunlight bounced off the corners of the room and furniture. The way the light hit the room you could see little specks of dust floating in the air. In a way it was beautiful.

I made my way into the hallway towards the kitchen, and saw my roommate Keith sitting down eating breakfast. His back was facing towards me, so he didn’t see me come up behind him. “G’morning Keith, how’d you sleep buddy?” I asked. No reply of course. Keith always had his headphones in. He never bothers to take them out, so I figured he’d say hi whenever he felt my presence. I continued into the kitchen and started making breakfast for myself. “Hey Perdi! How’d you sleep?” there was Keith noticing me whenever he stepped away from his phone again. It annoyed me to no end, but what annoyed me even more was how he abbreviated my name. I can’t recall how many times I’ve told him I prefer Perditus.

“Good.” I replied abruptly. I could tell Keith knew I wasn’t in the mood, so he walked away towards his room. Maybe I was too cold towards him, but the idea of talking to someone who is just going to want to hurry back to their phone once I opened my mouth didn’t necessarily make me antsy to keep a conversation going.

If you ask me, I think it’s colder to pretend you want to talk to someone. At that time I heard my other roommate Luis just come home from his morning shift. He went straight to his room like always. Luis hardly ever bothered talking to us if he didn’t have to. In a weird way I respected that, at least he didn’t try and pretend to be interested. There was a level of realness to him, which you couldn’t find in most people.

I finished eating, and started to get ready for work. Once I finished getting ready I headed for the door, and out I went.

It was a beautiful day outside. The sunlight felt as if it was covering my whole body in a warm blanket, and the breeze of the wind felt as if I was being caressed. I began to wonder why Luis and Keith still wanted to keep the A/C running. I hated how stuffy the inside of the apartment felt when we had that fake air running. I guess it didn’t matter too much now that I would be gone for a couple hours. I walked to my car, and the closer I became, my chest grew heavy and my mind became clouded. How depressing. I had just been able to stand outside and I was already having to sit back down.

I always felt uneasy driving. Something about the activity just felt dangerous. I trusted my life in the hands of strangers where almost all of them are looking at their cellphones, talking on them or daydreaming their lives away, because no one wants to be hunched over sitting down driving to their next programed destination. I guess it didn’t matter though. Either way I had to get to work.

I had arrived at the office a couple minutes before my shift so I could go to the breakroom and grab some water and acclimate to my new depressing grey environment. I didn’t have too many friends at the office. Not for lack of trying either. I really did try and initiate a conversation, but no one ever wanted to talk, and when they did, they mostly talked about nothing. Memes, twitter drama, personal drama that they shouldn’t be sharing anyway, celebrity drama. Eventually I grew tired of it. I was never going to care about that stuff or understand why everyone else did, so I kept to myself. I wasn’t going to pretend. There’s too many of those kinds of people already.

The day progressed, and every hour felt as if it had three in it. Thankfully the one friend I did have in the office, Eiddwen, showed up. He came in less and less these days. Always called out of the office to take random trips out of town, and sometimes calling out just because. It was admirable. I wish I could do that. “Perditus! What’s going on man, how’s today?” Eiddwen shouted as he walked towards my desk. Everyone in the office looked annoyed by how loud Eiddwen was. I doubt he cared, I know I didn’t. It was nice to see and hear from someone who genuinely seemed happy to talk to another human and connect.

“It’s going!” I said. Eiddwen locked eyes with me. He could tell I was feeling down today. “What’s going on Perditus? You seem down.” he said. “You know Eiddwen, I really couldn’t tell you. Just woke up in a mood I guess. Maybe Im working too much” I replied. “We’re all working too much” Eiddwen said. He shifted his eyes around the room for a second and said “You know, a couple of friends and me are going camping out in the woods this weekend if you want to come and join us. There’s plenty of room in my car” I sat there thinking about what I should do. “I don’t know man, I have work I need to get done, and the boss is going to get onto me if I don’t finish up..”before I could finish my sentence, Eiddwen interrupted “WRONG! Let me stop you right there. You’re going with us, and that’s that!” Eiddwen exclaimed with excitement. “Okay okay! I’ll make sure I pack my stuff by Friday.” I said.

A couple of days passed by. Nothing happened in between them. Just the ringing, the light, the falseness and going to work. Come to think of it, all my weeks were this and I hated it. And as the days progressed my head began to clutter. You’d think the same routine everyday would make you think clearly about the next task, but for me it felt as if my mind was fighting the routine. Everyday until friday, the wanting to fight back made its way deeper and deeper down into my core.

Friday was finally here. I had taken Eiddwen’s advice to call out of work, so we could get a head start on the trip, miss a day of work and get an extra day of camping. It felt good to call out. It felt good knowing it annoyed my boss and it felt even better knowing I was going to be doing something that was real instead of wandering aimlessly around in the falseness of the world.

“She’s a beauty isn’t she Perditus?” Eiddwen asked as we approached his old volkswagen van. I replied “Absolutely Eid.” and I truly meant it. They don’t make them like this anymore, I thought to myself.

“What did you just call me?” Eiddwen asked with a serious face. Taken aback for a moment, I looked towards Eiddwen and said. “I’m sorry Eiddwen, I shouldn’t have just assumed it was okay to call you that. I hate when people abbreviate my name too.”

“yeah, you should have asked me. Eid is what they called my father, and I hated my father” I felt the tension, and the regret of what I said. A short drawn out silence filled the area while Eiddwen and I made eye contact until Eiddwem burst out into laughter. “Ahahaha! Oh man, you should have seen your face you looked like you were about to shit yourself!” He continued laughing for a couple more seconds. I joined in on the laughter, but only because I felt so embarrassed by the situation.

“I don’t mind if you call me Eid at all” he said slightly chuckling still. “A name is just that, a name. It’s not who I am.” We loaded up our bags and equipment up into his van, and shortly after we rode off towards our destination. It was an interesting ride. Eid listened to many different types of music. We had a few conversations here and there about our favorite bands and stuff we enjoyed to do from time to time.

A couple of hours passed by and as the morning progressed, the sunlight that started shining through the clouds was hitting the trees surrounding us. The trees glistened in the morning. It was breathtaking. I loved being out from the city and further into nature. It reminded me of my childhood, when my family and me lived out in Virginia.

“Beautiful isn’t?” Eid asked. “Yeah.” I said, still mesmerized by the view. “Can I ask you a question Perditus?” Eid asked. “You just did.” I replied sarcastically. Eid proceeded with his question. “Do you believe in God?” “Of course I do. How could you not?” I replied. “Oh don’t think I don’t. I absolutely do too.” replied Eid. “I just figured I’d ask, because it sure feels like the whole world has stopped believing.” he added with a slight sigh.

“In God?” I asked. “Hell, in anything.” Eid said. I sat and thought for a moment, and reflected on the city. It sure does seem that way. I thought to myself. “I mean look around Perditus. The whole world has lost its soul. Every damn day people want to explain our world and answer questions with science, but none of those answers explain us, and I don’t mean our bodies. I mean our nature. Everybody just wants everything explained like a goddamn math problem, and if it can’t be explained like that, they think the answer isn’t worth looking for.”

The conversation was extremely out of left field, but yet extremely welcomed at the same time. “I know what you mean.” I replied. “Sometimes it feels I have no place back there Eid. like I’m the solid color moving along the grey.” I added.

“Exactly.” he replied. “I don’t know what it is Perd, but people just aren’t people anymore. They just wander aimlessly through their lives waiting for the day the excitement of life falls into their lap, and what’s worse is, they don’t even care if it comes or not!”

“The world isn’t made for people like us anymore. The world just doesn’t live with that passion anymore.” I added. The conversation stopped for a moment…. “You know what Perd? Were taking a little detour.” Eid said.

Eid pulled off to the side of the road and got out and gestured me to get out of the car too. “There’s a lake about a mile up the way here, and we’re going.” said Eid. “What about the rest of the group? Aren’t they going to wonder where we are?” I asked. “Those bums decided to sleep in late. Were hours ahead of them, so we have plenty of time to take a break.” he replied.

We walked into the woods about a mile, and there it was, the lake Eid had mentioned. The sunlight hit the water’s surface causing the lake to glisten brightly against the morning sky. I noticed for the first time in a while my head felt clear of noise completely.

Eid and me made our way down to the lake shore and took a seat by a couple rocks sticking out of the sand. “I don’t understand it Perd.” Eid said. “Understand what?” I asked curiously.

“We drove four hours Perd. four hours only, to get here and experience this. No noise, no phones, no false lights and four hours back is a city that makes people forget that this is here. It is sucking the soul right from people’s bodies and they don’t even know it. I’m telling you Perd, It’s starting to suck mine too.” Eid sat quietly after that. He looked distraught. I had never seen him like this before. Eid was always in good spirits, hopeful and always smiling.

“There’s no place for the spiritual man anymore Eid.” I said. “They think we’re idiots clinging to something that isn’t there.” Eid added. Eid stood up abruptly and picked me up with him. “Alright, that’s enough ponderance over society. There’s still a whole weekends worth of wonder ahead of us” Eid said.

The weekend passed by fast, and even if we had all the time in the world to spend camping, none of it would have made going back the city any easier. The closer we got to the city, the more I started to worry that clouded feeling would come back. It didn’t really. The thoughts of everyday life were there, but I felt myself a little better equipped to handle the falseness. It felt even better knowing I wasn’t the only one who had my view of the world.

Eid dropped me off at my apartment, and got out of the car to give me a hug goodbye. In a weird way I felt more connected to Eid now than I did some people I had known my entire life. I made my way up the stairs and through the door of my apartment. I was greeted by Keith, who saw me and asked “Hey Perdi! How was the trip?” I looked towards him, let out a smile and said “It was good Keith, thank you for asking.”