Blown Chance

Before my mind can be filled with thoughts of him my brain is filled with new responsibilities at work to sap me dry of all emotions. My boss chooses me as the new project lead for the systems reassignment because I’ve been there the longest but I've been there the longest because I like how it is.

The change is exhausting from the moment it's forced on me, a weight sewn into every fibre of my shirt, my hands move slow, my eyes slower, black and white pixels blur; emails from people I've never met but am now in charge of.

I miss lunch to send messages to people to send messages to other people, a chasm opens up under my keyboard; a maze of hundreds of people scurrying around under my fingertips. Like pins and needles I press my fingers against the edge of the table to make it stop.

The day evaporates into mist, my checklist is longer than when I began the day so I have more of the same to look forward to tomorrow. My bed is so soft under me, it eats me, I dream of nothing.

The next day I just about check my phone on the train; I see his messages in time to lose signal in the tunnels.

I should be working but all I can think of is you.

How do I reply to that? I have no answer that could compare to the way it makes my heart flutter in my chest.

“Meeting right now in room C.”

My boss’s demands force me into another wave of work and conversation and work and emails and all of it is so much, I feel filled with cotton wool; a doll made of patchwork fabric. By the time I can take a break, over half the day is gone and I barely have time to eat and check my phone.

Haha sorry if that was coming on too strong…

Let me know when you’re free next!

I start typing out a reply; Don’t worry! I should be free soon…I hope.

“Hey, do you know where we’re supposed to be for the afternoon meeting, boss?”

I slip my phone into my pocket out of social shame, having only typed out the first word. My phone buzzes against my leg and I have to ignore it for the small hell that is meeting room C.

Hours of overtime later and I’m on the last train home, I think, I could have passed out in the gutter outside of work and I’m not sure I‘d know the difference. The world is more abstract; shapes and colours I don’t recognise, it’s all just one big oil painting and I‘m too close to see anything except the brushstrokes.

I wake up before I notice I’ve fallen asleep. Days flicker by in a haze of trains, desks and my bed. I can’t tell Wednesday from any other day of the week, a short walk from my office to the museum feels like a marathon, my body an empty battery before I even leave in the morning. Promises it's just a temporary promotion feel like water on a bug bite as I drift from moment to moment, each second achingly long but over instantly.

Sunday finally comes and I can barely move from the sofa I collapsed on the night before, my shirt is half undone and the buttons press into my skin at an angle. I think I have limbs still but they don’t respond without prompting. I manage to wiggle my fingers and then move my hand enough to push myself onto my back.

Something digs into my hip; my phone is somehow still alive even though it's nearly noon. More texts, more calls, it feels heavier in my hands, a brick shaped brick, I can barely hold above my face to read it. Only the last one breaks through the fog;

Please can we meet up?

I muster all the effort I have in my body and reply;

Too tired sorry

I hope he understands is all I can think as I drift back to sleep, my body too won down to exist as anything other than the shape of a man. An outline.

Weeks, maybe months exist all at once, spilling into each other like oil on the side of the road, shimmering, beautiful, deadly to small animals that try to approach. I feel like I'm forgetting something but remembering is more energy than I can spare. The days when I could take a weekday off for personal matters seems a daydream created to keep me sane. Do other people live like this?

Wednesday…Something important about Wednesdays, what am I forgetting. My feet remember for me, I look up to see a painting I recognise, the world snaps like a rubber band into my eyes; sounds come back, sights come back, the smell of must and other people’s cologne, the taste of my own saliva like blood on my dry lips.

I stare at the painting of the café like it's an anchor not a building; equal in weight but different in function, i build up the courage to message first;

Are you free?

I hold my phone like it’s the only thing in the world, and at that moment it is, but no buzz, nothing. I stare at the screen until it burns into my eyes; expectation fills my brain.

Sorry working :(

I don’t want to be in the museum anymore but I came all the way here so it feels a waste to just go home but what else can I do? What else is there to do?

There is a coffee shop in the museum, I hope I can get something to eat, I don’t remember the last time I had real food.

Floor to ceiling shutters fill the space where the entrance should be, like little grey-silver rain drops suspended before my eyes only broken by an A4 sheet of paper;

Closed on Thursdays, Sorry!

The train home is a bitter loss, a tube filled with misery taking me from misery to misery, the location is irrelevant, it's all so empty, i’m the only person in the world, in this train carriage, the rest of the people left and now it's just me.

The food I ordered tastes like nothing and I can barely bring myself to eat more than a bite, it's only the ache of my cold bones that pushes me to finish the hot soup and soft dumplings inside.

I fall asleep in my bed, wrapped up in a duvet like it can crush my soul back into my body, as if it can hold me together, as if it's worth it just to wake up for another round of other people's work and other people's responsibilities.

But morning comes no matter if I want it or not, a dead bird on my doorstep brought by the cat that lives in the sun and bats the moon around like a ball of yarn leaving trails of clouds in the red light of dawn.

Those morning meetings, more promises it will end soon but I think that if they learn you can do it once they’ll think you can do it forever. I don’t think I could breathe forever even if I thought about it. But I can work 12 hours a day and run back and forth across the city as if my body means nothing to me, just a mass of flesh to fill with other people's expectations. In the moments I have to myself I dream of collapse, standing in front of them all and collapsing, maybe they’d worry or they'd push me out the door for someone more resilient.

I think more weeks go past or maybe it's just 1, time is a line, a long long line, no one ever sees the end of, I want to wrap it round my hands and pull it like the emergency cord on a train. Or wrap it round my wrists so I have an excuse to stop, a way to stop. I have been blessed with a day off tomorrow but what does that even mean?

Did I even have a day off? Maybe I got the dates wrong, maybe it isn’t real, a dream, a nightmare, I’ll wake up and find that I can barely remember what happened, I can already barely remember but you never notice things like that in dreams, it's all at once, making sense in the moment and then nothing at all when you look in hindsight. Am I alive? Awake? Asleep?

What would I even do on an off day anyway. I lift my head from its podium of my pillow and look to my phone; I’m awake before my alarm just enough to suffer in the blue light of morning with no time to enjoy returning to sleep. I have missed calls and texts but my eyes droop before I can read them. They’ll wait for me until I have time. I hope