The more things change, the more they stay the same.
The further I dig myself into this, the more it stops
looking like a problem and
feeling like home.
Dig up, I tell myself. Dig up.
...
I don’t know what it supposed to happen next. It always seems like some
grand story, some amazing tale that unfolds itself beneath my feet, never letting me
falter, never letting me
stumble. As critical as things become, it’s all
cardboard sets and
hollywood drama, you know, you always know exactly what’s going to happen in the end. The crisis is averted, the hero is unharmed, the good guys ride into the sunset.
Fade to black.
Except perhaps in
indie films.
...
The prospect of a forced
social life, of
unwanted company bothers me some. I’ve spent the last two months hardly leaving my house, and I don’t see why that’s going to change anytime soon. Money, even for
bus fare to visit a friend, or perhaps a
job interview, is scarce. The
food supplies are dangerously low,
morale is weak.
Napoleon would know what to do, I think. He didn’t make it in the end, though, did he? History does not shine on
little french men with big hats, it seems.
I read somewhere that
scientists had proven that he was, in fact,
poisoned by his own men. No matter how brilliant, no matter how powerful his strategies were, he was doomed from the start. He never could’ve won.
I wonder if he
saw it coming. If he knew, in those last hours, that nothing could do would make any difference. It would end the same.
Fade to black.
...
I am out of
contract work, having expertly
sabotaged my ability to get more, and no
full-time employment is presenting itself. Nothing I consider a job, at least. I might be doing
phone surveys by the end of the week, I think. It’s not quite as bad as
telemarketing, and it may not pay well enough to support
the lifestyle I’m used to, but it might leave me enough money for food, and perhaps a
bus pass. It’d be nice, considering I didn’t have one for
May, nor does it look like I’ll have one for
June. I was stuck inside all month, even on
my birthday. Unlimited travel is necessary. I’d like to see the sun again.
This lifestyle is killing me.
...
I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to.
I don’t want to go back home to
Ottawa and run crying back to
mommy and
my little friends and
my little life I’ve tried so many times to leave behind me. I don’t want to. No.
But still, I tell myself, I can get a lame
tech support job for
decent money, get a
decent apartment in the middle of nowhere, and spend all my spare cash on
coffee in
familiar diners.
It’s seductive, if only because it’s safe. I’ve done it before. It may be passionless, but
it doesn’t hurt, not like this does.
I think if I didn’t have
Jes here to help keep me sane, I would’ve gone back long before. I don’t think I would’ve made it back to
Toronto, to be honest. I would’ve lived a quiet existence, working midnight shifts and playing video games in my spare time. Perhaps I might’ve gone out to see friends too, once in a while.
Perhaps I wouldn’t have even noticed the world swallowing me whole, taking away any light I still have left in my eyes.
I can be so melodramatic.
...
I need to see the sun. I need to go out with friends, smoke cigarettes and argue the nature of reality over a good breakfast, somewhere in the city.
I need to feel whole again.