Short Short Story - One Day

I woke up. I had been dreaming that I was an architect. I had always wanted to be an architect, but somehow in high school I did too well in my science classes, and they convinced me I should go to an engineering school. I hated engineering.

I got out of bed. I walked to the bathroom and took a shower. I let the water wash over me and wondered why I even bothered getting up anymore when every day was the same. I waited until the water ran cold before I got out and dried off. I brushed my teeth. I put on my pinstriped pants. I buttoned my checkered shirt and knotted my paisley tie. I left my apartment making sure I did not look in the mirror. I walked to the subway stop and took the train to work.

I sat down in my cubicle and checked my email. I didn’t think I really wanted free MP3 downloads or pills for erectile dysfunction. I was only thirty years-old anyway. I said hello to my boss. I talked about him behind his back with my co-workers. I said the only possible way he could still have a job was by having “relations” with the president of the company. I tried to get some work done. I failed. I messed around on Wikipedia and played minesweeper. I went to lunch. I got kung pao chicken and greasy lo mein from a food truck. I ran into the bathroom. I finally went back to my desk and finished that presentation about our quarterly electricity usage my boss was on my case about. I told him I was done so he asked me to write a memo reminding everyone that the blue bins were for paper recycling only. I didn’t do it. I sat down at my desk and asked myself, is this what I’m going to be doing the rest of my life, working for a company that’s so big that I don’t even know what they really do, never getting a chance to do any of the things that I had wanted to? I missed my little brother.

I left work an hour early and took the train home. I looked at the people on the train. I looked at the ground. I studied the subway map. I waited for my stop. I noticed how most of the people on the train just looked straight ahead, ignoring the people around them, lost in their own worlds and thinking about their problems, probably never thinking about the big picture, the shared human condition and the roles we all played in it, and I thought, well, at least somebody’s got it right. I was wasting my time thinking about everyone else when my own problems were staring me straight in the face.

I got off the train and walked home. I kicked off my shoes and changed my clothes. I microwaved a ham and cheese Hot Pocket for dinner. I ate it and burned the roof of my mouth. I watched a little TV, some little kid was dying in a hospital. I changed the channel, and a guy was chasing a monkey around his apartment. I wondered why people watched this stuff when real life was more serious and more ridiculous than anything that was ever on TV and usually at the same time. I turned it off.

I got my backpack. I walked downtown to my writing class. I had written a story about a man who had lost his girlfriend in a car accident. I was pretty sure my teacher was going to hate it. I was right. I had to listen to her tell me how the main character didn’t show enough feeling and emotion, his girlfriend is dead for Christ’s sake, and I thought, well yeah, how else is he going to react, how could I possibly show on the page how he feels when there are no words for it, and if you don’t get it, you don’t get it, besides, in the end, he doesn’t feel anything anyway, there’s no emotion left, it’s all burned out. I didn’t tell my teacher what I thought. I just sat there and nodded my head.

I went home after class. I watched more TV. I played video games. I tried to read some Faulkner. I remembered that I hated Faulkner. I picked up my brother’s favorite guitar, the Gibson SG I had gotten when he died, the one I had been meaning to learn how to play ever since, and I strummed a few chords. I thought they sounded out of tune.

I decided to go to bed and put on my pajamas. I set my alarm clock then brushed my teeth. I turned out the light. I got into my bed. I pulled up the covers. I wondered what my brother would’ve thought of me wasting my life when he had always done what he’d wanted to and tried to live his dream. I thought about it. I cried. I fell asleep. I woke up.