And another band once said, “A Band in Hope.”
Morning.
Sunlight.
Movement.
Awa-
Sleep.Sleep Sunlight.
Movement.
Awake.
Morning.
Up. Awake. Up. Okay, maybe not awake. – Have I talked enough about this whole sleeping and waking thing in my writings?
Up. Awake. Up. Okay, maybe it’s time for third person. ttyl
He woke up this morning. At least that’s what his brain told him. At least that’s what he thought to himself. He’d awoken many times before. This seemed like one of those times. And so, he had awakened yet again.
He awakened, he arose, and he made his way to work. There was some struggle between the first and second – and the second and third, for that matter – steps, but he made it. If you want to assign a name to this character, you can, but it doesn’t matter. Like everything in life, the name does not matter, and it will be forgotten. It is not important, and it will be forgotten. Like you, like me, like everything. It does not matter. (One day, at least, probably not tomorrow, definitely not today, but one day, this will be true. And you can hate me, or more correctly, you can hate him – Jonathon, if you will – for bringing this point to your attention, yet here we are and here you are.) But Jonathon digresses. Also, who the fuck spells it Jonathon? But Jonathan digresses.
Jonathan made it to work without much inconvenience. Some mornings he has inconveniences on the road; other times, the road is clean and clear. If only all things in life could be as clean and clear as they were this morning, but like traffic, not many things in life are predictable. Nonetheless, the spontaneity could never beat the mundanity. By the time he walked into the office, he’d already forgotten about whether his ride into the office was botherless or burdensome, and it was another day. He’d experienced them before.
It was time to get to work. Well, he realized he was already at work, but it was time to actually get to work. Open his 15 inch Lenovo Thinkpad and send e-mails like he had a purpose. What more could Johnson want?
“What, what is this little driving edge pushing off into my hand?” John asked himself as he picked up his laptop to move across the office into a meeting room to meet for a meeting [conjuring the colloquialism known as triggered].
Unfortunately for Johnny, one of his coworkers overheard his rhetorical, barely-muttered and not purposely-audible quip to himself. “That’s just motivation right? The driving edge? You’re not talking about that rap song, are you?”
Jon couldn’t think of a response, other than to stare, hoping for the conversation to end, but knowing on the inside, that on the outside, he would have to feign a response with real expression even if it was surreal emotion.
“Oh you know, case of the Mondays,” he replied. “Why the fuck did I say that?” he internally muttered; luckily, this time, he didn’t say this aloud.
“Ha, great movie,” was the simple response prior to the relocation to the meeting location.
“The fuck? Great movie? No shit it was a great movie. Why the fuck do you have to state the obvious?”
Ow, the damn pressing pain again. “What could it be?”
He turned over his laptop and looked. Initially, he couldn’t quite tell. It all seemed so black, so ordinary. He didn’t often look at the underside of his laptop, but this one appeared reasonable, exactly what he’d expect. Below the small battery powering the larger-than-life technology, he hastily examined with his eyes some more, as if he felt it was a waste of time, while slowly moving his fingertips across the bottom, as to not embrace the pain once more.
Then, he felt a sharp indent rise from the smooth plastic, and he proved the search for something there wasn’t pointless.
It was a screw on one diagonal end of the laptop, still tight enough to remain in, but hanging by a thread.
“So, you’ve been what’s causing me this pain?” He annoyingly admired the tiny piece of metal. So mighty in power, but so small in stature. It was created, mass-produced, one of many, more than anyone could ever fathom. Millions – billions, even; 7.7 billion, in fact. This particular part belonged to his laptop; when his laptop would no longer work, it would be tossed aside, but for now, his laptop worked, and he still wanted to toss it aside – except, he couldn’t just easily replace this one, since he didn’t readily have another one available. This was his laptop’s. This was his. With it, he must do what he must. It’s hanging on by a thread. He has only one option.
Now completely zoned out of work, she toyed with the screw – Jan screwed with it, if you will. She fully dedicated herself to this task, knowing she would decide upon finding a screwdriver to screw it back in, as this was her only choice. To leave it there, causing pain, well, that just made no sense. And to take it out, discard it, trash it, and not replace it, well, what if it caused the rest of her laptop to break apart? That, too, just made no sense. It was too big of a risk to take. The fear of something going wrong would keep her from doing so.
Jen went to the office supplies cabinet, and she searched. She didn’t really know what she would find there, but she figured she wouldn’t find what she was looking for. After some glances and digs, she gave up this futile search, fruitless. She’d have to wait till she got home to work on it, and hope the pain didn’t dig deeper throughout the course of the next day – eight hours if she’s lucky, but ten more seriously.
One, two, three hours elapsed. A couple taps here and there. She eclipsed the four, five, six hours mark. A few more pokes and prods. Nothing enough that she gave it much more thought, though. It was time to go.
Jennifer arrived home at a quarter till 6. By the time she entered her front door, she already forgot what the traffic was like on her commute home. By this point, it didn’t matter, honestly.
She went to her closet, partly closed for appearances and partly opened because she either forgot or didn’t care to close it all the way – surely a push was simply enough, and again, what was the point, anyway? Did it make a difference in the grand scheme of things?
J digressed, and schemed on their way to finding a screwdriver, pulling out their $50 Amazon toolkit (150 pieces for that price, how could you not?). This time J’s search was an antonym for futile, and what’s an antonym for fruitless – fruitful? But now came the hard part: finding the correct attachment that would fit the screw perfectly and successfully drive it into its home, tighten it, keep it from hanging by a thread.
She thoughtfully looked at the screwdriver bit set, carefully examining it, attempting to guess the appropriate size and structure to fit the loose screw. She thumbed into one of the holes and pulled one of the 12 out. This is the one she first identified. This is the one for which she would first try.
Like a childhood fairy tale, the first one was too small. But unlike most fairy tales, this story doesn’t have a happy ending, and this story isn’t fantasy.
Throwing the first bit aside, she pulled a second: “This will be the one,” she unconfidently yet somehow reassuredly proclaimed to herself. Even though the adverbs didn’t exist per spell check and Google, she created them.
With the second bit, she found herself peering through a looking glass into a different life. In this life, she watched herself dedicate herself to a life of good works and deeds, attending religious services, abstaining from sin, and not giving into temptation. To tighten this screw,
all she had to,
was follow this path.
Did I say second bit? Clearly I meant second hit. She’s obviously high.
Regardless, this size didn’t work either, so in frustration, she pulled out a third, a fourth, and a fifth. With this varying array of sizes all approximately okay, one of them had to be right.
The third found itself – or rather, she found it – to be too large. As she placed the bit into the driver and the driver over the screw, she recounted a kaleidoscope of memories she never experienced but opportunities that seemed endless in the effort to tighten the loose screw: visits to coffee shops to talk about books, trips to craft breweries to talk about music, and the local waterfront sports bar to be on the water while talking about sports. In other words, the pleasures to be attained that would make her complete… but these words wouldn’t be complete without the diets to give her the correct shape, meditation apps to give her the perfect mind, and self-help meets news meets serial killer podcasts, so that she could speak entertainment, spit truth, and know a lot about a little to seem like she knew a lot about a lot, but per inner and solemn and secret introspective reflection, if she were to have looked hard enough at herself, which others never cared enough to do – look past the superficial presentation of someone else, too involved in subjective relationships with themselves and their own identities and superficial presentations – she would have realized she appeared to not know anymore than just enough to get by, hardly a lot about a lot – although the ten minute meditation she practiced per her handy app would never grant her this unwanted discovery. Yet this all would sound so nice, wouldn’t it, and normal? To tighten this screw,
all she had to,
was follow this road,
and post a picture of herself following this road to her socials.
The fourth bit was the next journey, and it was a journey filled with adventures to the net, google searches for local doctors, ones in-network, ones “ah, fuck it” out-of-network, ones currently seeing new patients, ones with a description that spoke to their finder, and ones with 4-5 stars by their name. It started with this, and it ended with a prescription, probably one for a company whose commercials have presented their sales pitch on your television screen before. In the middle of the beginning and the end, there was never a solid connection, except for more adventures while on the net, to search for someone who might themselves offer a solid connection after a few hundred dollar sessions, a search anchored in online advertisement. To tighten this screw,
she went down this route,
and it didn’t work.
So what did work? She wasn’t really sure, but at some point, for some reason, the fifth bit actually did. It worked the screw back into place, somehow. And for months, it worked fine. Perhaps it was a combination of all of it. Perhaps it was due to the screw’s own natural realignment. Perhaps it was because she just sucked at guessing the first four sizes, and the fifth one was the right one and was so all along, and most other people could have seen that. Except –
Months later, when he found himself at work, pulling his laptop from his bag, he felt a sudden pinch again. This time his memory triggered a reaction and he automatically checked the lower left diagonal of the underside of his laptop, and he quickly found the culprit of the pain. The screw was loose, again. His laptop had a screw loose. It was hanging by a thread. This was its destiny. This was his destiny. He could tighten it each time it came loose, but slowly, and surely, as slowly as the Earth revolved but as surely as it did – maybe 70 times in his lifetime – it would come loose again. This was his destiny. He could not escape what was inevitable. He could only strive to find the right bit each time,
because the alternatives did not make sense.
And so he said to himself, “It’s a metaphor, fool. Abandon hope.”
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