"Ok."
"Fuck," I lean back on my pillow, grab my pack, fish a cigarette and my lighter out. "This shit is getting old, man, I'm not even surprised anymore." That gratifying snap of the flint wheel as I press down. "Every night, every god forsaken night," The flame takes as I breath in heat and smoke. "All I ask is one night!" My exclamation falls around my head just as listlessly as the dust coming off of the rafters. I exhale.
Let me explain. This is a story of nihilism, degradation, and worlds separated by wood beams. My life five months prior to writing this was innocuous. Passed by with the same excitement as the drive to work that you've made daily for twenty-two years, wait, that's too uneventful. Maybe it's a little more like having your teeth cleaned, that may be more apt. You knew when it was happening, showed up, had someone painfully jab at your gums while you tried to mumble polite conversation past the awkward amount of foreign objects being shoved into your face, lied about flossing, made another appointment and showed no actual attempt to have the next one go any better. Yeah, that'll do much better.
Now, in those twenty-two years, I'd fallen into one of the cracks of society that so many of my generation do. These being filled with ennui, vices, and mediocrity. How could I not after following same path as nearly everyone else. Graduated, moved out, went to college, started working at a medial job and trying to finding something to stave off tedium when Netflix didn't have any good suggestions and you'd already binge-watched all of your favorites. I've found that bourbon helped immensely for me.
I actually took it in stride even if I might frame it darkly, I fit the role of the forgotten quite well. My ancestry being best described as mutt. My features are a hodge-podge of western European hum-drummery, dark blonde hair in a trendy, short cut and a pretty adequate "dad bod." I was happy to just fade into the background of where ever I was, a seat filler, a quite life. My job, a 24/7 Laundry mat, also was perfect trimming to the bland feast of my early adult hood. Countless days spent, slightly hung-over, listening to the constant pwush-cachunk-pwush coming out from the walls of beaten, pea soup green washing machines. The soft tumble and buzz of dryers finishing up their tasks. That unique thunk as the customers pushed the coins into the machines' innards and inadvertently my paycheck. I would often lose myself for hours listening to my mechanical colleagues in between smoke breaks and the occasion of customer interaction.
My life was metered out in cigarettes and loads of wash. I was ok.
