[Contest Entry 2011] Untitled

My eyelids, weighted down with fatigue, open and I focus upon the blue synthetic fabric of my pillow case and then my right hand. I lethargically turn onto my back and witness a scene that is simultaneously nostalgic and painful in its familiarity. The room is bathed in the illustrious golden providence of the late afternoon sun and everything is coated with a film of melted brass. At my feet, light blue transparent curtains cascade from a metal rod nested in 3 metal brackets evenly spaced over the span of my windowsill. Through the curtains, through the closed sliding window, through the barren, dead branches of a mature tree: the winter sky.

Without formality, I swing my legs over both the precipice of both the bed and slumber, I officially begin my day. As I stand and look out the window I’m flooded by light and needles pierce my skull. Instantly, I close my eyes to have a moments reprieve from the brilliance of the sun. My eyes adapt and the world decreases in its intensity. I gaze upon the horizon where snow, trees, and buildings become sky. I look as the sun lowers in the sky and sunset gives way to evening twilight which, in turn, gives way to dusk as the day begins to transition into another. The room is no longer bright. In its stead the muted yellow glow of street lights plaster along the right wall of the room. On the floor, a single blue LED indicates the location of the volume control for my speakers. Instinctively, I step over of an almost forgotten xbox 360, various clothes, dishes, and cords as I cross the room in darkness using the ambiguous shapes as guidance. The door opens without protest from the hinges and I listlessly shamble through the darkness into the bathroom.

The cold fluorescent bulb fills the bathroom with a dull impersonal white light. Truthfully objective and exact we see each other: me and I. Me’s world exists only within the borders of the wooden frame. Together, we brush our teeth; wash our faces, and our hands. Before our time together passes, we inspect each other’s neglected facial hair and conclude that a shave was unnecessary. From the bathroom into the hallway I cross the threshold from light to encompassing darkness. With the aid of a wavering banister I descend the wooden stairs. The creaks mark the incremental descent and no creak means that I am at ground level. There is no sound, just silence, occasionally broken by tires rolling along the wet pavement. Then, the closely intimate cacophony of my departure begins: the sliding of skin and nails against the nylon of a winter jacket, a zipper, a tuque onto the head, feet into socks, feet into boots, more zippers, and hands into gloves. The arrangement crescendos with the sound of boots against tile, the movement of denim, the movement of nylon, the jingle of keys, the turn of the dead bolt, the turn of the handle, the swing of the door and the rush of air. The swing of the door begins the decrescendo, followed by the jingle of keys, the insertion of the key and the turn of the deadbolt. The removal of the key signals the al niente and the end of the arrangement.

The suburban sky was clear with a single bone-white crescent and the porous snow muted the world. An audible compression of snow accompanied each step, erratic at first as I descended the inclined drive. On the level sidewalk the crunches became less random and more ordered.....crunch........crunch...crunch...crunch...crunch. The methodical frozen metronome was hypnotic: I became entranced. Enveloped in a selectively-permeable, self-contained, solipsistic world I continued to the local shopping mall oblivious of everyone but aware of everything else.

As the muted rhythmic crunching of snow gave way to the rhythmic crushing of rock salt, my world dissipated and the mall parking lot appeared fully. As I traversed the sporadically populated lot I thought of nothing else, but to be home. Suddenly, I questioned why. Why home? There’s nothing there, I’m tethered to this town by a fraying rope in the form of a flat panel TV, a rented room, books, a bookshelf, a second-hand bedside table and a computer desk. It only gets weaker with each casual browse of plane ticket prices, every glance at greyhound tickets, and every single bicycle ride to the edge of town.

Through the three sets of glass double doors I observe a line outside the LCBO. I go through the first two sets of doors. Past the third set of doors, I’m greeted by the same intruding white light, except this time with a greater intensity. The line is moving relatively quickly, by the time I cross the foyer and join the line I’m allowed to enter the store. I grab a 1.41 L bottle of a 151 proof vodka, a 750 ml bottle of Smirnoff vodka, a 350 ml bottle of finlandia vodka and carry them to the cashier. As I rest the alcohol on the conveyer belt, he looks at me. I avoid his eyes and he cashes my order in silence. In that single moment, in the context of everything we understood each other without openly expressing anything.





As the door swings shut and separates me from the outside world, In the darkness, I disrobe. I realise that the house is still sitting in darkness and that, maybe, all the other residents must be out for news years. I walk to the coat closet with mirrored sliding doors, slide my jacket onto a hanger and put it on the hanging pole. I check my designated cupboard, nothing but a box of half-finished rice krispies. I take the box of rice krispies, a pot spoon, the half-empty four litre bottle of milk, the alcohol and go to my room. Haphazardly, I toss my gloves, socks and jeans about the room. I rest the alcohol, milk, cereal, and spoon on the desk. I connect my laptop to the flat panel TV via a hdmi port. I turn on the TV, set a playlist that consists a French movie and Spanish movie. I lean against the wall opposite the TV on my bed. I pour most of the milk into the rice krispies box and eat the cereal as I watch the two films. I decide to drink the finlandia tonight, every thirty minutes I take a shot. When the finlandia vodka finished I turned off the TV, turned on the stainless steel reading lamp on the bedside table and read Tess of d’Urbervilles until the morning twilight. I brush my teeth and then decide to visit fakku before I go to sleep. The lamp is switched off as lie in bed with my laptop. At the homepage, I reflected on my day, most particularly the thoughts of other towns.



8 minutes come and go; I’m still looking at the homepage, but at the same time, not seeing it. I fumble in the dark in the general location of the jeans. My fingers recognise the fabric and I retrieve the black leather wallet from the pants. In the dim light of the LCD laptop screen and early morning twilight, I search for a folded weathered piece of paper. A familiar texture meets my finger tips, a texture similar to that of an old dollar that has passed through many hands in its lifetime. I found it, an old piece of paper with ragged, torn edges. Dirt lines the sharp creases in the paper and smudges impart an off white colour onto the paper. I carefully unfold it and read it. On this ancient sheet, with faded font, my favourite poem: How To Like It. The poem is read. In the imperceptible brightening of morning sky, carefully, the poem is returned. I close the laptop screen and stare at the very scene that began my day. My eyelids close with the hope that maybe tomorrow will be different.

Lol, sorry. I was just trying to express the lonely monotony of the protagonist's life. He is depressed, but doesn't realise this and occasionally he has thoughts of leaving familiar places and going to new ones. Conversely, He also is aware that he lacks the courage to leave and so his life grinds slowly; hence the alcohol. The cashier at the liquor store meets his eyes and they both realise that they are both physical representations of each other at different points of their lives.

The cashier represents the protagonist's future. To the cashier, the protagonist represents the vague familiarity of his former self.

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Your prose is a bit purple. Having to wade through all those long descriptions makes reading your work really slow. I suppose that style does capture the monotony and tedium of the protagonist's life if that's what you were aiming for.

Awwwwwwwwww!! I felt like you gave everything away D:, takes away some of the fun ahah.

Anyways, honestly, I think this would be a very hard read for many people. Only after several rereads was I able to really understand the work. Not only does this look like a giant wall of text, but upon reading it it looks like a giant wall of fancy text. Only when you realize how monotone the story is and how the ridiculous vocabulary is carried throughout the entire story do you start to understand the story's depth. It's like the literature you read in college/highschool; shittons of meaning weaved into what seems to be a bland story.

Not only is this depressing and inlaid with layers of meaning, I had trouble reading the choice/style of paragraphing

Slice of life, anyone?

I like this one. It's almost a shame that you're in the pool you're in becuas, I like your story, as well as two others, more than any of the ones from the first pool. XDD Ah well. I'll read through all of them before voting.

I figured it would. I tried to change it on the board but the format was lost and I didn't know the board that much.



lol that's exactly what I was going for.

Thanks, I didn't really write this for the contest. I mostly wrote it to find the general opinion of the piece.