Work.

A heartwarming narrative of my pre-work, morning routine.

It’s 4 am: Cue Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Smile’ alarm tone. As the flesh cavern that houses my thoughts resonates, the decaying remnants of a beautiful dream are liberated into the atmosphere in ethereal wisps. The physical mulch that remains inside feels as though it is little more than lukewarm porridge oats. I don’t remember falling asleep. Retching ventricles command the only limb of mine that isn’t numb to flail around aimlessly in the dark to put an end to the misery (a metaphor for my life if ever I heard one), and the day has begun.
   Ten snoozes later, as I trudge down the stairs like a drunk, newborn foal, there appear to be more eyelashes in my eye than there are attached to my face. As I prod fecklessly at my crust-engulfed eyes, something brushes against my leg and then purrs. A thousand violins play backwards in unison in my head as I try and reasonably piece together what the hell is touching my leg. It’s just a cat, boy! Pull yourself together. If I haven’t already voided my bowels by this point, I will do so out of sheer rage when I inevitably discover that no milk has been left for my morning coffee (As a side-note, it’s sometimes fun when a red-herring milk is left. This is when a partially consumed bottle of milk is left in the fridge by thoughtful housemates who know full well that said milk is several days out of date and, coincidentally, tastes very much like a herring.) Ok, black coffee is fine. I scrape the remains of a bean out of the jar and concoct a slightly opaque water-brew. Tastes like dust.
   It’s 5 am: I make it back up the stairs. Small mercies. I haul my sorry frame into the tub, turn the shower on, and lie down. I am David Attenborough, and this is the rainforest. I frolic jovially with the toucan, the howler monkey, the humble googly-eyed tree frog and the magnificent giraffe. I soak up the negative ions produced by the waterfall under which I conduct my soothing narrative of the scene, breath deeply and relax into the contours of the Amazonian (wash) Basin. Never was there a better example of the theory of relativity than when you consider that twenty minutes lying down in the shower sobbing and pretending you’re David Attenborough versus the first twenty minutes of being in work.
   It’s 5.30 am: I was nude and covered in shower gel ten miles from here ten minutes ago. I take a few long, deep breaths before reluctantly stepping out of my warm car into an arctic gale coupled with torrential sleet. Trudging scornfully towards the grey brick enclosure that I will be doing things that I would rather not be doing for the next nine to ten hours, my boss greets me with an encouraging “Welcome to hell!” before swiftly retreating into the tropical climate of his office. Through his surveillance window I witness him rub his hands together as a symbolic gesture of pity, before presumably knocking up a Pina Colada for himself. I make a beeline for the industrial fridge, calculating that it would be a few degrees warmer in there.
   9.00 am: Any will to live has long since diminished. In this moment I am a caffeinated vessel, kept afloat singularly by the buoyancy of red bull cans in the double figures. I rise up out of my body until I am looking down at myself from above. I am swept by the wind to the centre of the warehouse, where I meander gently to the ground like an autumn leaf. As I lie there, gazing up at the thin artificial light strips hung from the corrugated iron roof, the four surrounding walls make themselves present in my peripheral vision, colourless and foreboding, unchanged for almost a century. At once I sense a trembling motion, from the ground perhaps. It begins to hum and I become anxious, though the sensation is in no way unpleasant. The humming gradually becomes all encapsulating, until with an almighty roar, the iron roof bursts forth into the blackness of the night, and the walls extend infinitely upwards to the heavens. A force unlike any other propels me from the dusty floor upwards into the unknown, and before I have chance to catch my breath, I am narrowly avoiding crashing into galaxies at breakneck speed.
   It’s 4 am: Cue Charlie Chaplin’s ‘Smile’ alarm tone.

Reviews

[Naomi Bloom]

It takes you an hour to go downstairs and make/drink coffee? And no breakfast? Why are you sobbing in the bath/shower? Why can't you afford coffee if you can afford an alarm clock and large amounts of shower water and you have a job?

Although this piece is very vivid and descriptive, I still don't have a very good idea of who you are and what is happening. It is revealed that you work at a warehouse but there is no indication of what job you hold. This piece is very vague and mysterious; you reveal your morning routine but it doesn't reveal who you are.

I have several interpretations of the ending; (1) this was all a weird dream based on your real morning routine and the alarm at the end wakes you up, (2) you faint at work due to exhaustion and over-consumption of caffeine or (3) you die somehow.

Interesting piece. It was vague but overall I liked it.