by Alden, Luke
We’ve seen all the colors that there are to be seen. We’ve thought of all the ideas. We’ve written all the melodies. We’ve danced all the dances and we’ve heard all the secrets.
There is nothing we haven’t experienced.
The comedy is that we’ve only perceived and imagined the smallest fraction of that which is out there.
The tragedy is that when we live forever, we come to the point where we don’t care if there is anything else to life. We don’t care if there are new things to experience and new perceptions to realize.
I believe there are emotions that no one has felt.
I believe that there are perceptions of time and space that we simply haven’t understood yet.
I believe that we are all ignorant of our own stupidity. Like the barking dog that assumes it is a genius.
At least I think I believe these things.
I just never seem to realize or remember them.
They keep getting lost in the day to day.
My hand is on a table. Clenching the wood grain. I can feel the bumps and grooves and imperfections. They feel perfect and real. My thoughts feels damp with exhaustion. Drowned and pained and labored to the point of disappearance.
I’m at home.
Looking at the wall.
How is it that I’ve done nothing with my life in the last two thousand years?
I fell in love.
I forgot about love.
I got a job.
I fell into routine.
Part of me remembers an echo of a dream that used to exist in my head. Thoughts of changing the world. Thoughts of revolution. Important ideas. Ideas that moved me forward in life.
I haven’t moved forward in centuries.
Perhaps the concept of relativity is right.
Perhaps we all move in a relative stance to the time in which we exist.
Perhaps human beings are fated to only experience so much before they die. Maybe we’ve just stretched and torn the boundaries so badly that eighty years of experience is now stretched out into infinity. Maybe when you’ve experienced all that you can, maybe everything just starts to repeat.
I look at Evaline’s note.
Maybe she’s right.
With her scrawled out handwriting.
Scratched onto the paper in a fit of passion. Her handwriting is alive more than anything else in this house.
Crinkled and pulled back to the brink by a second thought and a shaking hand.
There are only a few words, but they make more sense than anything else in my life. An indictment of my routine. An indictment of my complacency. Now I wonder if these words will change me.
Can I change the course of a river that has dug its bed for the last 2000 years?
Every day I would wake up with Evaline’s hand on my chest. She would make a low grunting noise when my alarm went off. I’d be gone to work before she even got out of bed. I’d kiss her forehead as I left.
After work it was back to home. Evaline would sit in her chair directly to my right, we would watch TV. We would fix dinner. We would talk about nothing in particular. We’d already talked about everything there was to talk about, at least it was assumed that we had.
Occasionally I’d try and kiss Evaline.
She was bored with sex.
I’d take care of my business elsewhere.
After that we’d both go to bed.
I don’t remember ever doing anything else in life. My past is a blur.
There’s a dull ache in my chest where she’s missed, it’s under my ribs and to the left of my lungs. I miss kissing her forehead when I leave to work. Her pouting lips and conversations about nothing, there’s a strange emotion where these things once were.
I try calling her cell phone.
It goes straight to her voicemail.
This is only the third time I’ve tried calling her in the last two days that she’s been gone.
‘Evaline, it’s Ellis, please call me and let me know that you’re ok.’
I have no clue if she’s getting these messages. If she even knows that I’ve been calling. Does the fact that I’ve been calling her prove that I love her?
Routine and love. Were they ever separate? I’m told that it takes us a while to experience romantic love, we have to build up a neurotransmitter in our head called oxytocin. It allows us to long for someone in a way that transcends lust.
It takes several years for us to build this chemical up in our head.
Most people just assume that lust is love.
Some people simply do not have oxytocin neurotransmitters.
Some people take drugs that replace the oxytocin. Drugs so that they can feel ‘True Love’.
Perhaps I was just never meant to love.
Perhaps love is unnatural.
Perhaps love is illogical.
Perhaps love is like driving or watching television; conveniences created by modern society, just another vice to keep us in check, to keep us from getting too bored.
My phone rings.
The caller I.D. says that it’s Evaline.
I hold my breath.
There’s a gentle sobbing on the other end of the line.
I look at Evaline’s note. I listen to her soft weeping.
Her note: ‘You forgot how to love me.’
‘Evaline?’
And then there’s a dial tone.
9
I sit alone at home.
Things feel empty.
I can still smell her perfume.
A few stray hairs are still lying in the bed.
It’s Thursday night.
We used to go dancing on Thursday nights.
10
‘She called you?’
‘Yeah.’
Franklin looks curious. Intrigued. He’s getting sucked into the drama.
‘What’d she say?’
I’m hesitant to tell him. My lip pulls between my teeth in a sort of nervous tick. My fingers are tapping my desk. My feet are tapping the floor. There is no discernible rhythm, but it’s not for lack of trying.
My only response is ‘Don’t worry about it.’
‘Why’d you tell me about this if you don’t want me to worry?’
There’s no real answer. Why does any human being spill emotions out into the open air? Perhaps it’s just a basic cleansing ritual; perhaps it’s just habit and routine. Perhaps it’s biologically imperative that we feel understood by those around us.
Feet tapping.
Fingers tapping.
My stomach has a dull ache. A sort of ache that I’m not familiar with. It pulls at me.
‘Ok, you can worry about it. Just, fuck, I don’t know. I’m sorry.’
And so Franklin goes back to work. I sit at my desk. From the corner of my eye I’m watching him walk away. He seems frustrated. Agitated. Perhaps it’s because I’m not telling him everything. Perhaps it’s because he genuinely cares about me.
That’s what friends do.
Right?
Work moves on. I catch snippets of conversation. None of it seems interesting. Every conversation seems to blur together. Every conversation seems the same. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard them all.
People are still talking about the same things they talked about 2000 years ago.
There has been no real progress in the art of talking.
My boss stops by my desk. He’s smiling. He’s wearing a tweed jacket. He looks the same age as me, he could be my father. This isn’t something I consciously think about. Everyone looks the same age. We all might as well be the same age.
‘Did you hear?’
‘Hear what?’
‘We’re having a meeting at the end of the day. It’s mandatory.’
We never have meetings.
Everything runs smoothly.
There is no need for meetings and pep talks when everyone that works here is considered a senior employee. We’ve all danced the same dance in this office for longer than we can trul
y remember.
We’ve all settled.
We’ve all moved past the inherent boredom.
We’ve all accepted our fate.
And so we work.
Day in and day out.
Getting lost in your job is the easiest thing in the world when you don’t actually think about it. Eventually when people ask what you do in life, all you have to do is answer with what you do for a living.
The lines get blurred.
We become our jobs.
We are efficient.
No one quits because no one cares to change. We have forever to change, why worry about finding a new job just yet?
That vacation to Hawaii? It can wait another ten years. Maybe one hundred. Maybe one thousand.
It’ll happen eventually.
My boss leaves after spending a moment hovering over me.
My fingers feel awkward.
I finish typing a memo.
My back feels rigid.
I’m slumping in my chair.
Something is off.
And so the day continues to pass. Electric lights and phones ringing. The faint sound of typing. I think about Evaline. I’m not thinking about her enough. It’s become a vague pulling. Complacency has settled in like it so frequently does. Why worry when everything works out?
Evaline, Her picture isn’t even on my desk.
On my desk are meaningless trinkets.
The day nears an end. The shadows in the office stay the same; outside they’re growing longer. It’s Friday. A weekend. Fifteen minutes before the day ends and everyone’s jamming into a conference room. We’re sweating. We’re confused. We’re not used to this interruption in our tightly scheduled lives.
Someone whispers a joke to someone else.
There’s laughter.
It’s because we’re nervous.
The management team walks into the office. Tweed jackets. Stern faces. It’s an awkward sensation, and my already pained stomach tightens even more. My body is acting strangely. The walls pulsate and my head throbs.
‘As you may or may not know by now, the company has been bought out.’
There’s a rustle. Gasping. People are realizing what’s happening. The whole room vaguely resembles cattle on the slaughterhouse floor.
‘And so effective today, you are all terminated. I’m sure you will find the severance packages more than generous. We thank you for your years of hard work, and wish you all well in the future.’
Someone throws up.
Someone starts crying.
Someone falls to the ground.
This is as close to death as things come.
11
At the bar with Franklin.
We’re both drunk.
We’re both depressed.
We’re both in shock and jobless and wondering what the future means when you can no longer define it.
Things are supposed to remain static. It’s why we bothered to live forever in the first place.
The guarantee that we’d always be comfortable.
It’s the reason for all these botox injections and chemical peels and endless trips to the doctors where we get fed pills with names we can’t even pronounce.
‘What am I going to do?’ Franklin is worried and sweating.
Franklin’s face is red.
Franklin’s face isn’t red because he’s drunk.
‘What am I going to do?’ My lips feel chapped.
And then it’s a shot chased by a beer chased by a wandering eye chased by a furrowed sense of desperation chased by a lusty dick. In the end all we want is to escape from something.
From death.
From sobriety.
From monogamy.
We all want to get away from something.
Tonight it’s from everything.
I’m still feeling sick. Still feeling the odd weight in my gut that just won’t leave. The pain in my gut that reminds me of Evaline.
The alcohol isn’t helping.
I’m aching worse than before. With a hint of nausea and an overwhelming sense of confusion. This is me without anything at all. This is me without a love and without a sense of security and without a job and without a smile.
Franklin is mumbling.
‘Who am I without my job?’
I’m mumbling:
‘Who am I without Evaline?’
Cue the dramatic music.
Cue the desperation.
Franklin has been my friend since I started this job. We’ve rambled our way through the last millennia. I’ve never seen him cry. He’s never seen me cry.
It’s an odd thing. The way that we befriend co-workers. The way that a shared experience can bring together two radically different people. The way that shared time tends to define a relationship more than anything else.
And Franklin is rocking back and forth.
Panicking.
Mumbling.
Like ivy on a fence, given enough time two things will become so entangled that you cannot see the ending of one and the beginning of another.
We rely on comfort with the hope that we will not have to deal with anything earth shattering. Comfort becomes real. Destruction, rebirth, reality, they scream from a distance and hover right beneath our noses.
People don’t think of the future because they can’t comprehend it.
We pay attention to the pavement under our feet and the food in front of us.
Tomorrow is a cable news broadcast.
Tomorrow is a screaming alarm clock.
Tomorrow is work in the office.
The smaller our vision, the bigger the world. The bigger the world, the more scared we become. The more scared we become, the less we look around.
A shot.
A beer.
I’m drunk.
Angry.
Belligerent.
My fist is shaking and my teeth are grinding.
‘Franklin, what are we?’ From tongue to teeth to lips to air, my words are as nebulous as they are real, spoken like a drunken asshole.
‘What?’
‘We’re nothing. We’re simply existing.’
There’s a pause. Music plays in the background. People chatter. Someone laughs. A light flickers. A beer is poured. A shot is taken.
Franklin looks ready to pass out.
I’m sure I look just as bad as Franklin.
We’re in our own little world of drunken idealism.
Rambling with a nihilistic sense of self-satisfaction.
‘I don’t even dream of the future. I don’t dream of anything and nothing ever happens. I’ve simply existed day to day for the last two thousand years. I’m not sure if I appreciate anything. I’m not sure if I even care about anything.’
Franklin perks up.
Head wobbling.
Spinning.
Cross-eyed.
His ears are red.
‘We all have.’
Then the night gets fuzzy.
Things come in flashes.
We’re kicked out of the bar.
There’s an undeniable adrenaline, like falling with no end in sight.
A broken window.
A broken bottle.
A thrown fist.
An aching jaw.
Then I wake up in a field.
12
Aching.
Lost.
Confused.
I walk a few miles until my nose starts to bleed and my feet start to ache. The air is fresh and feels good so I sit on a tree stump.
I try to recall how I got here.
Nothing.
I keep walking.
Logic dictates that if I walk long enough I will get somewhere.
My mouth is dry.
My gut is aching.
Birds are flying overhead.
The grass, the trees, the fresh air. I forgot that they existed. I haven’t been out of the city in two hundred years.
A car drives by.
I’m waving and yelling.
They don’t slow down.
Eventually I come to a run-down shack of a house at the end of a driveway. The windows are opaque with mold and my hands are aching for reasons that I can’t explain.
No one seems to be home.
I knock on the door.
Another knock.
No answer.
All I want is water.
All I want is food.
All I want is the easiest path back to the way things used to be.
Around to the back of the house. There’s no one, only an open field. Only two cars that are so old they may actually still run on gasoline.
‘Hello?’
My voice barely registers as a yell. My throat is aching. My teeth are grinding and causing my gums to bleed.
Around the house is nothing. Fields. Empty fields where animals used to graze. Empty fields where children used to play and people used to harvest. Now there is nothing but overgrown foliage. Wheat that has grown past its prime. Weeds that have long since taken over.
The air. The grass. The pollen.
I sneeze.
Another sneeze and it turns into a fit and my eyes get red and my throat starts to itch.
Still itching, I knock on the door again, pound, plead, yell. Nothing. No one is going to answer.
Maybe there’s a phone inside.
I turn the knob. It’s unlocked.
Inside the house is a thick layer of dust. Cobwebs. This house is old. It’s been a long time since anyone has lived here.
‘Anyone home?’
The floor creaks beneath my feet.
Evaline and I used to watch ancient scary movies. The kinds with ghosts and cobwebs and special effects that seem scary when you don’t think about them at all.
My heart tumbles as I take another step.
Another creaking sound.
On the table is a picture of a family. It’s old and there’s dust so thick that I can barely even tell it’s a picture at first.
In my hands and after I’ve blown the dust off of the picture, the family is smiling and looking happy. Four people. Two girls and two boys. They all have brown hair and big smiles and tan skin and they all look vaguely the same age. It’s a family.
You can’t tell they’re family by looking at them, because everyone has the same sort of surgical glow to them. You can’t tell they’re family, so I’m just assuming that they are.
I’m studying who I assume to be the parents. They’re holding hands, they’re smiling. They look ideal. They look like the map that’s in my head, the map that tells me what a happy relationship is.