Chapter 1 - Something came up

It took me a while to start noticing the smelly breath that kept tickling my skin and burning my brain from the inside. Looking like a f*****g plague a wild, beastly, predator stood on my chest as if it was posing for the “Stars” magazine. To help you reach the reason of my unrealistic description of a dog that appeared to be a Beagle, picture how I jumped of my bed as if he was biting my arm off while having suspiciously white foam coming out of in his mouth.

It felt like I was miles away from it right now, when in reality, he got thrown of my chest and hit a white wall that stared at my bed. Completely ignoring the mentioned reaction I gave it a sarcastic look and slowly started walking up to it.

For no reason at all I decided to name it “Perry”, after all, I needed a catchy name in order kick him from the porch. As much as I would like for this plan to work, the beast didn’t stay still. It seemed he had sensed my evil intentions and started running around; of course he was much more familiar with evading the pile of junk on the floor.

Now feeling like I was participating on my very own “Cops” show I chased Perry around the house. Naturally, the damn thing wasn’t hangover like me, so I lost by forfeit. It all came down to me walking out the door myself and “accidentally” leaving the doors open. 

Checking my pockets made me realize I had no cigarettes left from last night. And that alone gave me a perfect opportunity to justify this with something other than escaping from a harmless Beagle. The local store was around the next corner, on the opposite side of the bar I was in last night. Being almost there I took a few longer steps towards the “Hasty market”. Since it was summer I could instantly feel the cold air as I walked inside and ironically that reminded me how much I wanted to light a cigarette.

“I’ll have a pack of Peter Jackson please” I told the woman behind the cash register.  “Here you go, that will be 12.50 $” she demanded after handing the pack over to me.  Reluctantly I searched my pockets, and gave her the money. I still kept my eyes on it as she pulled the coins to herself, like I wanted to do some weird wizardry in order to return it to my pocket.

“I hate dogs.” I said to a distant thought of Perry still being in my house as I lit a cigarette and took a huge breath. Thankfully there was a park near my house, and that was just a block away from where I was right now. We didn’t have many children in our street, but since it was the only park in the block, it would mostly be occupied. I looked at the leather watch on my wrist “8 f*****g AM, really!” I yelled, making sure no one heard me. Well that concluded it; I had slept 2 hours because of that damn dog. Revenge time or at least I thought before I saw Perry waiting for me in front of the toilet. “I’m not gonna potty train you a*****e” I told it before I stepped on a filter in order to put it out.

So back to this toilet, you are probably wondering by now why would such a pointless thing be out on my yard. I guess it all started a week ago, when my parents were leaving the town for a vacation, or so they said. I was supposed to keep the house in a non burning state for a whole month. Let’s just say it wasn’t on fire, yet.  So yeah, they were going to Toronto on a vacation. I never got attracted to big cities, or huge crowds, not even by shiny lights that stayed amusing until the dawn came to the party generation of idiots. But hey, my yard stated nothing different about me. I was, at least, an idiot right now.

Them being gone it was for me to continue my streak of being a worthless living being on this planet, who simply survived by eating and drinking. Although I enjoy long walks and thinking of pointless things, I had never really come up with any goal for myself. I guess it’s for the best; I didn’t care much for leading a normal life, having kids and a wife. Too boring, I tried so hard to find something more interesting, and ended up empty handed. But it seems everything this world is brought up to in the end is exactly what I didn’t want to.

I just got out of high school this year and it being summer I still held to the idea that I was free to screw around before the fall. Guess what, my parents of course weren’t too fond of the idea. And they got me a job at this local warehouse. I, as usual, didn’t want to start a huge argument about it, so on the next morning I was off to my new work place.

“F**k you” I spoke to the animal named Perry which stood pissing on my foot; ironically the toilet being few steps away from us. “Like you know anything about problems” I kicked him away and gave him a “I-want-to-stab-you” kind of look. I didn’t actually attempt any of these thoughts of course; it would just end with another pointless chase. Instead I waited for him to fall asleep. Removing the evil expression from my face I closed the front doors behind me and headed for my bed, my eyes were closing and frankly I hoped the dog would go away when I woke up.

I could still feel this mixed smell of chemicals when I entered the warehouse for the first time. Staring at me, a camera, gave an uneasy feeling of being controlled by a group of strings called consequences. I wasn’t even going to do anything unethical, yet the feeling persisted.

“What am I actually going to be doing, sir?” I asked the warehouse manager who didn’t look to be any younger than my father, who was in his fifties. We walked past the crates, which were clearly the source of this smell, before the manager even attempted to answer my question. “Well, each morning you check in, we will find something for you”. He paused for a while, “You shouldn’t over think this, but I don’t want to give you anything specific right now, since you still need to get used to the idea of working”. As of right now I noticed what appeared to be a forced smile.

I was brought to this small room in the back of the warehouse, with bunch of papers scattered around, it looked to be a management room, and also the sign on the door said the same.  The man I was with gave me a sheet of paper and a pen. “You will have to fill this out however, in case something bad happens. Also sign here.” he said while pointing his index finger towards an empty line at the bottom of the sheet.

I gave him a long look only to make sure he wasn’t going to try anything, because from how that sounded he was about to pull out a gun. “Here, sir. Will I be doing anything today?” I handed him the sheet again and got up from a chair which I didn’t remember I ever sat on. “I’m afraid not, we still need to bring this to the head administration office, you are free to look around though”. “Thanks, I might just do that” I said while already thinking about the outside world, and fresh air for that matter.

“Coffee!” I said as I remembered the bar. Unfortunately when my parents left they could have at least paid the electric bill. And I thought this was annoying already, but it turned out it could be worse when I saw Perry waiting for me in my kitchen. “Oh, no you didn’t” I said while watching at a cute Beagle that I wanted to choke. “I’m not cleaning that”, he looked at me with puppy eyes and started walking outside. “Really? Don’t tell me I have to walk you too”.

Did he really leave? Maybe I scared him with my mean face. Anyhow, as I already planned, it was coffee time. I met this cute waitress last night, and really hoped my boring drunk stories didn’t overdo it.

 Leaving that office and hearing the door shut behind me, as if I was cast out, I saw this tall person standing over a huge crate writing on the pad. I remember how I made a weird expression as I walked towards the exit. Pretty much being lost, I had stumbled onto a few dead ends before reaching the exit.

Waiting for me outside was my mother, who got me this job in the first place. As I understood the manager was her long forgotten love from high school, and supposedly she went through hell to get me this opportunity that I didn’t appreciate much. Dad wasn’t so pleased either, him being enough paranoid as he already was. I imagined as he bit his nails in the living room, pretty funny to see him that way though.

He was always a tough figure around the house, while I was young anyway. It’s his word or, if you are lucky, a fifteen minutes argument just to partially prove that you are right. Most of the time I would be too annoyed to even start a discussion. That actually seems to be the exact case with him and mom, seeing how we were now standing in front of this warehouse. 

It was needless to say that my mom wanted to take the advantage of the fact that my father is jealous. We already thought of a plan that I just couldn’t say no to, all things considered this was a unique opportunity. We drove up a few meters away from the house, and I headed for the front doors. “How did it go?” my father asked from the room just right of the hallway I was in. I took off my uncomfortable shoes, which I wore only because my mom insisted I look nice, and stepped into the living room. “It was pretty good, I think I’ll be accepted, even mom decided to stay and talk to her friend and make sure”. “What did you say?” he stood up from a leather chair. “She is still in his office, dad. Didn’t you hear?”. “Son of a…” he mumbled and stormed out of the house. I could have bet he was going to take his hunting rifle with him.

I followed him and stopped on the porch, making it a perfect distance to laugh out loud without consequences; or at least for a while.  As he headed towards his car he noticed mom who leaned on it and couldn’t help but laugh after seeing his expression.

My dad, now knowing it was a joke, put his hands over his face only to attempt hiding how it became red. I of course couldn’t stop laughing; it also appeared that my mom was glad to see him be so protective of her. I guess I was happy back then. And when you think, it’s like, one week ago. Not a lot of time for one’s life to turn to a hellhole.

Come to think of it, the best thing right now in my life was this dog, who I hated for taking a dump all over my kitchen.

I hoped to see the waitress from last night, but it seems she was working only nightshifts. Just because of that I didn’t feel like having a coffee anymore. But since I was already there, it didn’t make sense to go back. I sat in the corner table seeing how the bar was pretty much empty during the day, which was perfect for my needs right now. Even if it wasn’t as bad, I was still hangover from last night.

Waiting for service, I looked outside the window for clues to the meaning of life.  I could only look at a small parking lot with a hotdog stand looking towards the main street. The place wasn’t too populated, which made me look towards two ladies in a deep conversation on the walkway. I found it silly how one of them was waving her arms like she tried to do some dark ritual in order to have the other one brake into pieces. Or at least that was my imagination.

A waitress, no less beautiful than the one from last night, walked up to my table. “What can I bring you, sir?”, ” I’ll just have a cup of coffee, and some water” I said while thinking how polite I was, unusual considering my thoughts. “Make that with milk” I almost forgot.

As I waited I couldn’t believe the level of me being able to ignore my problems. I mean, that toilet was sitting on my yard clearly echoing that something had to be done, and here I was waiting for a cup of warm coffee. Pretty amazing though, how I can always find ways to comfort myself into thinking everything is going to be alright, for no other reason than that I wanted it to be. And here I go again thinking even that was justified, I guess we were all like that, still leaning towards our childhood and dreaming of the same ignorance. Thing is, world doesn’t work that way, you just have to move on. But was I even ready to do so? No, I’m the first guy who would say no to something big happening. Not having control to stop the change is terrifying.

My father is the same; it was just that he holds to what he has much tighter. He tries to control whatever is around him, so he wouldn’t get surprised by life all that often. It ends up being good for him, I guess, but for everyone else it’s a nightmare. I have always hated this way I had of analyzing people, I never used it to my advantage, but it makes my life boring just to anticipate how someone might act in a given situation. It was just this fact that I over think on non-trivial things that was stopping me from doing things that everyone else was doing. Being different is both a curse and a gift. We are good at whatever it is we do, all we miss out on, is everything else. I’m stuck like this anyway, waiting for the waitress to serve me the coffee. The ladies outside already parted, and now it was just a bunch of cars, and the same hotdog stand.

“Here you go”.”Thanks”, I spoke back as I saw my mom put the wallet back in her jeans. “Have fun” she added with a smile. “Sure”.

Even if it was sunny outside the warm cup in my hands was more than pleasing. At least for now, because when I exit this bar, at least something new will come up and change things in some way.