*****
8.29 a.m.
Another night of no sleep. And when I say no sleep I don't mean a night where you lie awake for part of the night. I mean no sleep. As in I didn't even bother going to bed because I knew it would be futile.
By one o'clock I just knew it was going to be another night of full on insomnia. I tried reading a book but I couldn't concentrate. The words didn't seem to make sense. I read the same page seven times and it still didn't make sense.
I tried listening to the radio but it was either depressing news or a bloody football phone in that seemed to last for days. Television is always the last resort. I flicked back and forth and up and down and sideways through more than six hundred channels. After a while I was merely exercising my thumbs and staring uncomprehendingly at a staccato collage of lights and sounds.
By four o'clock I found myself sitting in the kitchen with a glass of brandy staring at the toaster. I could see the reflection of a man in the shiny chrome surface but it wasn't me. I didn't know who it was. I didn't recognise him.
And now I'm sitting on the train trying to stop my head from resting against the window because if I allow my eyes to close for two seconds I will fall asleep and miss my stop. That's happened before.
I talk myself through what I absolutely cannot avoid doing in work today. A few people give me strange looks and I realise I'm talking out loud again. No, I'm not mad, I'm just tired. Epic tiredness. Mountainously tired. I'm just tired, alright? I hope I didn't say that out loud. I think I did.
I half fall out of the train because I am dizzy with sustained lack of sleep and narrowly avoid tripping and landing flat on my face. I can see people giving me dirty looks and thinking I'm drunk or on drugs.
The ten minute walk to the office involves the usual trying and failing to avoid bumping into people. As often happens I was just barged out of the way with nothing more than a cursory snarl or muttered obscenity. On the rare occasions where somebody threatened to turn violent my total lack of reaction would usually diffuse the situation fairly rapidly. If you don't follow the accepted script in a social encounter people become very wary of you, even violent bullies.
A man once punched me squarely in the face. I can't remember whether I had done anything to precipitate this but it appeared to me that it was something happening to some other person, not me. I observed the encounter from a far as I had done many times in school – I had no kind of emotional connection to the person to whom this was happening, the outcome was of no consequence to me therefore I felt no impetus to intervene in any way. It was like doing things in school that might get me expelled – I didn't care whether I was expelled just as I didn't care whether or not this man punched me again. It seemed to be happening in another time stream, not the one in which I was observing the event, therefore I was powerless to act even if I considered it worthwhile. The man followed up the punch with a brutal shove to my chest and let forth a stream of words that seemed to echo away into the distance without ever fully reaching my ears. I have no idea whether this event lasted ten seconds or an hour; when I'm in one of these separate time streams chronology collapses in on it self and I remain in a kind of stasis.
Anyway, whatever was happening continued to happen in the other world on the other side of the thick, heavy curtain that blocked out most of the sound and colour and time. Without witnessing the intervening movement I became aware that the man was now holding a small knife of some kind and was saying more words at me. I still couldn't hear him properly and was vaguely aware that I needed this event to end soon because I had to go and be somewhere else. It had been raining earlier that day so I had left the house with my trusty golfing umbrella. After another unknown period of time had elapsed and vanished into nothingness I observed that the man was no longer holding the knife. I was now holding the knife and the man was on the floor with blood on his face. My hands were a bit sore and the handle of my umbrella was smeared with blood.
When I got on the train to go home there was some kind of frantic conversation in the carriage and people seemed to be greatly exercised about something. When I alighted at my stop there was some shouting and two policemen were walking slowly towards me. They were also shouting some kind of words at me but I was so tired by this point that I was micro sleeping, falling asleep on my feet for a few seconds at a time before my head lolled onto my chest and jerked me awake. After a couple of these I looked down and observed that I was still holding the knife and that my hands and shirt were now smeared with blood from the umbrella. The police people appeared to want something from me so I offered them the knife and umbrella but this just made things worse. I normally get home from the train about ten to six. That night I got home at half past midnight. My wife said a lot of words to me but I fell asleep and then in the morning I couldn't remember any of them. She didn't feel inclined to go over it all again so I never found out what she said.
8.53 a.m.
I have two mugs of black coffee on my desk with four sugars in each. I don't even like coffee, it's like drinking a newly tarred road, but I have to stay awake. Seven minutes until I get paid but I start work anyway because if I just sit here and do nothing I will fall asleep and once I start sleeping I'm not sure I'll ever be able to stop. Thankfully my job doesn't involve taking phone calls or dealing with the public. I sit alone in a tiny partitioned corner of the office where hardly anyone ever goes. I stare at pieces of paper and then I press buttons on a computer. That's my job. There's obviously more to it than that but when I'm this tired that's what it becomes reduced to. It has little meaning at the best of times beyond providing food and shelter for my family. Some days it seems positively absurd.
Time drifts by like an abandoned plastic bag floating down an alleyway. I cover up the taskbar on my computer so that I can't see the clock. There is no other clock in view and I don't wear a watch so I'm not tempted to constantly check the time and tick off the passing minutes. The reason I don't wear a watch is that I used to be obsessed with checking the time. One day a teacher called me “The man with the watch” because I was looking at it every thirty seconds. This wasn't any kind of anxiety over time itself or a feeling that I was going to be late for something, it was a compulsion to look at my watch constantly because as soon as I had looked at the time I immediately forgot it. Often I would look at my watch but I wouldn't see the time, my attention was too diffuse and I glanced in a unfocused way at the watch without actually reading the time from it. It was also a nervous tick – if it hadn't been that it would have been something else.
11.26 a.m.
I finish a batch of files and finally allow myself to check the time. Thirty four minutes. I can't start another batch because our archaic software doesn't allow you to save a batch part way through – once you've input the first item you have to finish it in one go. The next batch on my desk will take at least two hours and I can't sit here for that long.
What can I do with thirty four minutes? Nothing that is going to contribute anything to human happiness or make my life any better. A thought enters my head. If my job is meaningless then why bother doing it? The mortgage is paid off, my wife has a good job, my children are in college and don't want or need anything from me any more, so what would actually happen if I just got up and walked away now, right this minute? If I suddenly wasn't here to open these files and press these buttons and crunch these numbers, what would happen? Would the world spin off its axis? No, just like when I stole the library register, nothing will happen and nobody will notice.
Right then, so I will leave. I'll leave at lunchtime to avoid any awkward questions. But what will I do, just go home? Will I mention it or pretend nothing has happened? I saw a TV drama years ago about a man who lost his job and was so afraid of telling his wife that he left the house every morning and pretended to go to work. I don't have the energy for that sort of caper. So I'll tell her then. Will she be angry, disappointed, hurt, ambivalent?
Hang on though. If I'm going to walk
out of my job why not also walk out of my life? I don't mean suicide, that also requires too much energy, and I'm not worthy of such a grand gesture. Why don't I just leave, go somewhere and see what happens, let God or fate or random chance or whatever makes things happen decide my future? I could, couldn't I, just go? There's nothing stopping me. Only my wife and children will notice and I'm just dragging them down anyway with my stupid moods and inability to make any decisions. Maybe this is one decision I can make and actually stick to.
Where would I go?
Somewhere different, otherwise what's the point? I live in a city so I'll go to somewhere with plenty of countryside. I turn back to the computer. I'm not supposed to use the internet but what are they going to do, sack me after I've walked out?
I look at a map of Britain that shows areas of greenery and pick somewhere I've never been that is only about an hour away by train but far enough away from home and this office that I won't run into anybody I know.
I could go home and pack, there won't be anybody there but then I run the risk of one of the kids skiving off college and coming home unexpectedly. Also, what is there at home that I need anyway? What am I going to do with my future except sleep? That's all I want, I just want to be left alone to sleep.
Am I actually going to do this? It would seem so. As with many decisions in my life I don't feel that I have decided to do this, more that I know that this is going to happen and I lack the energy to prevent it.
11.59 a.m.
After tidying my desk and closing down the computer, washing out my coffee mugs and putting them on the draining board, I take the finished batch of files and put them on the shelf where they will be picked up by somebody else and put through the next level of processing. Thankfully this doesn't involve any form of human communication. It is requiring all my strength and discipline just to keep my eyes open and walk upright.
I walk down the stairs rather than queue for the lift with everyone else. I think somebody calls out my name but I'm not sure. I ignore it anyway. I take an inordinate amount of time traversing the stairs so that the others will be out of the way when I exit the building.
I also take the long way to the train station to avoid the busy streets where people from the office will be buying various things and saying various things, none of which I understand. It is sunny and dry and what probably passes for a nice day but I can't feel the warmth or the slight breeze because most of me has shut down, everything diverted to the task of keeping my eyes open and putting one foot in front of the other.
1.53 p.m.
I may have slept briefly on the train but the constant noise of people and the screeching of brakes and throbbing of engine kept waking me up every couple of minutes.
The room in the bed and breakfast will not be ready until four thirty so I have some time to kill. I consider going in a pub but the one I find is dark inside and that will make me go to sleep. I must stay awake until four thirty. Besides, I have to find a shop where I can buy an alarm clock. Normally, of course, I would use my phone as an alarm but I've switched that off because something tells me that I will get into trouble for leaving and that people will be phoning and bothering me. Besides which I haven't brought the charger with me. I haven't brought anything with me because this morning was just another morning where nothing out of the ordinary was supposed to happen.
I find a small radio alarm in a gift shop (can you even get analogue radio any longer? I suppose there must be something being broadcast or they wouldn't bother making the radios any more). Then, although I am not thinking clearly, I realise that I need some other things. The bed and breakfast place provides towels and a dressing gown but little else so I find one of those large discount chemists and purchase a small overnight bag and a pack of razors, some soap, toothbrush, paste and mouthwash and a few other items.
Finally it is time to check myself in; not to a hospital, which is maybe where I should be going, but to a bed and breakfast. Ah well, both afford an opportunity for rest, and at least the people here won't be contacting my next of kin or forcing tablets down my throat.
After an exhausting five minute chat I am finally left alone in my room. I close the curtains, use the separate but private bathroom, undress and get into bed. I set my alarm for eight fifteen, giving me forty five minutes to get up and get downstairs for breakfast.
Time for sleep.
I have more than fifteen hours ahead with nothing to do but sleep.
Brian: Mental Book 1 Page 3