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See, that’s what the app is perfect for.

Sounds perfect Wahhhh, I don’t wanna

Early morning. Uncaffeinated.

I am texted by an unknown number. Apparently my name is now Mark, I bought “scarp” from Jackie, and I am cute. She informs me that all her numbers are available. She asks me where I work. She spells a kiss with double Js. The message, short as it is, registers in my brain like a puzzle that the keypad spewed out after a night of binge drinking. I wonder if the sender used her forehead to type instead of her fingers. 

I run to the kitchen, relieved to find that coffee is already brewing. Perhaps the caffeine would help me cope with these little intrusions from the outside world. I take the first sip, feeling a bit closer to finally becoming human for a time. But someone sends me a chat message with another stupid question, and I wonder which vortex this person’s common sense has been irredeemably sucked into.

I wander off into the veranda, which is perhaps the farthest I could get away from my tiny space, my office, my room. In the distance, I could hear old songs drifting from a radio. A thin sheet of white noise and bad signal breathes over the wind. Other sounds make it into my bubble of existence: Cars, motorcycles, people walking their dogs, dogs walking their humans, humans talking in a volume best suited for conversation across mountains. There is so much turbulent wakefulness around me that I feel as though the weekday has never left. 

I envy our cats lazing about in the garage. Nothing excites them at the moment. They sprawl themselves over the ground with nary a care for the world. Later on, when my grandmother comes home from the grocery, I discover the scene of a recent murder: A small rat lies dead near our gate. 

The world goes on without stopping. 

(Part 2)

theorchestraofmadness prose writing journal musings