Atlas, Broken

by Jeremy Tyrrell

roken

  By Jeremy Tyrrell

  Copyright 2014 Jeremy Tyrrell

  Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  Henry

  “Damn you, Henry,” Loretta whispered as her slumber was rudely disturbed, “Damn you!”

  It is said that the most annoying noise in the world is an alarm clock. This is true, and was true for Loretta, and it was especially true for Henry.

  As his eyes shot open and blinked wearily, searching for the snooze button, he discovered that there was a noise more annoying than the buzzing of the infernal device, and that noise was the buzzing of his wife's voice.

  “Henry!” she hissed, rolling over, “Henry! Turn that bloody alarm off and get up!”

  “I'm trying to find the stupid button,” he moaned.

  The new gadget, designed specifically to irritate, was a gift given to him by his co-workers at the behest of his boss. The button to turn off the alarm was one of several that would glow briefly only to change quickly, keeping him guessing where it would glow next. He had to press it three times to get it right.

  “If you'd just get up when you're supposed to you wouldn't have to have that stupid thing.”

  He yawned, “I'm so tired. So damn tired.”

  “You sit around on your arse all day. How can you possibly be tired?” she muttered through a pillow, “Just get to work and let me sleep.”

  With a crackling back he straightened himself up. He was dog tired. Given the chance he could easily have slept another hour or ten, and maybe then he would have a chance of feeling refreshed. There was no point trying to get any more sleep. He was awake, and he had to get to work, and that was all there was to it.

  His neck popped a little as he rolled his head. The scratching sound of his palms on his stubble filled the room as he rubbed his face. The hairs on his face were at that itchy, scratchy, annoying length; too long to be ignored, not long enough to be soft and smooth.

  He could have shaved. He really should have shaved. In a perfect world he would be clean shaven, would wear crisp pants and have a nice shirt with a tidy collar. In a perfect world he would bound out of bed, kiss his wife goodbye, check in on the kids and march out the door with a good breakfast in his stomach.

  He would drive in his shiny car down the clear streets, waving to his neighbours and find a good park at work with twenty minutes to spare before he had to start.

  But Henry didn't live in a perfect world.

  Instead his world showed him, in the dim, grey light of the bathroom, the image of a run-down face, puffy around the eyes, and puffier around his stomach. He looked down at his spare tyre, squished it a little in his hand and tried to flatten it down. It stubbornly bounced back.

  He opened his mouth and smelled his breath. His tongue had a thin, white coating on it. His eyes, bloodshot, were underlined by dark patches. His muscles were flaccid. He pushed the front of his pyjama pants forward to check out the contents. Also flaccid.

  Screw shaving.

  He stumbled into the kitchen, muttering and cursing to himself, making a bee-line for the coffee machine. By an absent minded command his hand opened the pod jar and gripped empty air. Groaning, he opened his eyes to confirm what his hand suspected. No coffee pods.

  “Great,” he grumbled, checking the container again, and then behind it, in case one had fallen down the back.

  He could make an instant. He could boil the kettle and get a cup and get a spoon and get the milk and muster up enough concentration to assemble it all.

  He stifled a heavy yawn. It was unsatisfying, stifling a yawn, especially one so large. The tremulous energy put behind it demanded an ear piercing bellow as the air was exhaled, a mighty roar that would let everyone know that he was awake and alive. His ancestors would have welcomed such a thunderous yowl. His family, though, would not.

  So, instead of an earth shattering cry, it came out as a protracted peep, a whistling sigh, ending in a quiet breath.

  “No coffee. Bugger. I'll pick one up at Di Mattina's,” he said to himself, trudging back to the bedroom to get dressed.

  He solidly stubbed his toe on way through to the bedroom. The timbers in the house laughed at his antics, then at his bent digit, then at his twisted face. Pain shot up through his leg and did its best to work its way out. The yelp within him was suppressed. He bit his lip, closed his eyes and let the natural response play out in his mind.

  In that expansive world he was hollering and yelping, clutching his foot and dancing about, making a scene to express the pain and embarrassment he was suffering.

  On the outside, in the real world with its many concerns and social taboos, he merely let out an exasperated breath.

  Loretta rolled over, mumbling, “Clumsy oaf. Be more careful! And pick up some milk and bread on the way home.”

  The pain continued, albeit at a lesser intensity, so he stopped prancing about inside his head and took a second to look at the damage. His toe was pointing out at an awkward angle from its peers. With an effort he tried to move it back into place, but that only made things worse. With a subdued pop it flipped back in the opposite direction and pointed down.

  After a bit more grunting and pushing, he worked the toe to be roughly aligned with the others. Somewhat satisfied, he put his foot down, but the toe stubbornly flopped down again.

  Frowning, rubbing his foot and poking in the closet, he got dressed in yesterday's suit. It was a little crinkled. It needed ironing. There was a stain on the leg from where he spilled yesterday's coffee, but apart from that it was fresh enough.

  Back in the kitchen, he fished out the crusts of bread from the packet and inspecting them for mould.

  Not that he expected to find any. It was just that he had found some in the past. And a few times since then. But there was nothing to suspect that this bread loaf might have mould on it.

  It was a habit, was all it was, that he had picked up along the rickety, unsealed road that had been his life. The same as sniffing the milk, or checking his shoes for spiders, or making sure the fly-screen door was closed before going to bed.

  After making his toast and taking a couple of minutes to scoff a slice over the sink, he grabbed his satchel and slung it over his head. The strap nestled neatly into the groove that had been worn into his shoulder over the years.

  He put on his hat, even though it was going to be a hot summer day, double checked his pockets for his keys and wallet, patted his shirt to confirm his phone was in there, and hustled out the door.

  “Bye, Love,” he called out.

  “Bye, Hon,” came a muffled reply.

  Traffic, that great Titan, was abominable. It always was. He had experimented leaving earlier to avoid the rush, taking alternate routes, adjusting his driving style to be more aggressive or more passive or more assertive. Nothing seemed to work.

  Traffic was Traffic, and it ruled the great, bitumen scarred savannah that lay between his home and the office. Traffic, the Great Invariant, the Almighty Constant, could not be conquered by the pathetic attempts of a man. Come what may, he would arrive at work at precisely the time Traffic deemed it was suitable, and not a moment earlier.

  Every day he tortured himself over it: Surely, he reasoned, by leaving five minutes earlier, it should be possible to arrive five minutes earlier. It didn't add up. He had done statistics in High School, and he had done it again in University. He had learnt that such a matter as the time taken to get to work will distribute itself about a mean, and that mean can be influenced by starting values.

  If, for example, he had left at one in the morning, it only made sense that he should get to work only a brief period after. The way the Universe was configured clearly demonstrated that these assumptions were absolute tosh, for as he moved his sta
rting time toward the morning rush, a stranger, stronger force, stronger even than mathematics, took over and well behaving statistics went out the window.

  Whether it was raining, or sunny, or if there were school holidays on or not, or whether there was a crash on the South Eastern Arterial, or if the Lygon Street festival was on, no matter what, he would arrive at work, without fail, at twenty five past eight.

  It was a combination of traffic lights, of course, and freak incidents, and trucks performing complicated U-turns, and taxis stopping to pick up people on the side of the road, and nannas heading off early to get to the bank, and morons on their bloody mobile phones.

  Like the one in front. He could see him clearly in the mirror, head down, reading some text or fiddling with Facebook. He blasted the horn and swore out the window. The blue Toyota in front lurched back to life as the driver within quickly tossed the phone to one side.

  It sped through the lights, leaving Henry stuck at the red to wait out another cycle. He was grinding his teeth; another bad habit that Henry had