One: down-down-down.
It is a cold, but sweet night. Jaime is sleeping by
my side, her hair falls in front of her face, caressing her plump cheeks,
making her features undistinguishable. This, sometimes, scares the crap out of
me. It makes me feel confused and lonely. To have this thing, breathing and
alive, beside me, that I can’t recognize. Like she can wake at any moment,
faceless, a creature of the night, and jump right into my aorta. Bite and tear
my skin and leave me to bleed to death. But then, she moves, her face
reappears, and I remember who she is and why I love her.
I haven’t been able to sleep through the entire
night as long as I remember. Even as a little boy, nightmares would wake me up,
or the “meow” of a street cat would rip me of my dreams. Or I would stay up
reading under the covers so my parents would not find out I was awake. My mom
would make a big drama out of my sleeping patterns. She took me to see a lot of
doctors. No one could ever find out what was wrong with me. They prescribed me
sleeping pills and anti anxiety drugs. Nothing really worked. At one point of
my life, the medical bills where pilling up, so, my mom gave up and decided I
could live with my sleeping disorder. That is wasn’t a life and death kind of
situation. And it wasn’t, I indeed could live with it. I was functional, to a
point. But it wasn’t always easy.
This I do a lot. Reflect on my past, present and
future. My issues with life and people. Nighttime is the perfect moment to
submerge yourself into your own darkness and ponder upon it. Hell, what else am
I supposed to do? Sure, I read, watch TV, eat my sixth meal of the day or work
out. But there is only too much you can do with that much free time in your
hands.
Sometimes I feel like a vampire. And believe me
when I say this. If vampires truly do exist, I pity them. An eternity of this?
No, thank you. Sometimes, I really feel like I’m losing my mind. But then, the
morning arrives and I feel safe and complete again. This is every day. Imagine
that. Yes, you can pity me. I pity myself.
Many people say that freedom is a state of mind,
well, I have something to add. Be careful, because when you free your mind
completely, you can lose yourself in it and never come back.
Jamie stirs beside me, which means it is time for
me to get up before I wake her. She hates to lose her “beauty sleep”, what girl
doesn’t? I carefully remove myself of our bed and walk to the bathroom to
splash my face with water. I look at my reflection closely in the mirror. This lost eyes that stare right back at me, and the blackness that surrounds them, will never go
away. I carry them with pride, like a war wound, as if I am a survivor. But the
truth is that no one really cares if you have sleeping issues. We live in a
time where everyone is an “insomniac”, or whatever, but I really doubt that. I
mean most people sleep at least 4 to 5 hours a day, and they dare to call themselves
“insomniac”. Dude, try sleeping one hour a day, maybe two if you are lucky. And
throw in there a 15 minute nap. Yes, it can be done. You can survive this; I am
a clear example of it. I am a survivor.
The sun gently rises and I start to make breakfast
for my girl and I, she will be up in about half an hour. I know this because
timing things is something I do a lot; obviously, this is another effect of my lack
of sleep and free time. Eggs and bacon, and coffee, of course I can’t forget
the black liquid that saves my life most days. I guess after all this years of
a very close relationship we can call ourselves best friends. Not Jaime
and me; coffee and yours truly.
I hear the shower running. Jaime is up; I think it
may be a good day for morning shower sex. So I leave the kitchen and join her,
making her come before we even manage to speak a word. As she dries
herself, she looks up to me and smiles. I love this girl, we don’t even have to
talk to make each other happy.
It’s time to work, work, work. Yes, I am one of
those millions of fools who hate their jobs, but do not have the gut to quit.
First of all, it’s because of the money. It’s very good money. I can afford a
beautiful condo downtown because of this stupid ass job. And second of all, I
am really good at my job. Really good. I have managed to upscale myself in my
career very easily with my charm (yes, I can be very charming) and my way with
words. I can convince, almost, anyone about, almost, anything.
My boss calls me into his office and starts talking
about the new guy. He wants me to state my opinion about him. Is he good? Will
he make it here? Bla, bla, bla. I’m not really paying attention. What really
caught my eye is this framed picture of his wife and kids he has on his desk. I
have spent so many hours just staring at this picture while my boss talks out
of his ass.
He has a very good looking family. All of them are
very neat. Clean. Blonde. With fake smiles plastered in their faces. Sometimes
this faces sooth me. They make me feel like someday I may achieve something and
be able to have that fake family. It makes me feel like a normal guy. I imagine
myself 50 years old, with a hot wife (that is secretly cheating on me) and my
“perfect” teen children (who secretly do drugs and sleep around with everyone
so they can establish themselves as teen royalty). And me, very well dressed,
with perfect grey hair, coming home after cheating on my wife and kissing her
in the mouth good night without any regret. Isn’t that your normal family? It
may be twisted, but it’s something to look forward to. I aspire to that normal,
but very dysfunctional, life.
But sometimes, sometimes that stupid frame and
stupid picture makes me so angry. Why are they smiling? It’s fake. Like
everything in this messed up world. Fake, fake, fake. The anger starts to build
up on me; I take several short breaths to contain it. Mostly I can, but today,
something inside of me is firing up. Burning.
Before I know what I’m doing, I’m standing up. My
boss looks at me puzzled and says: "Are you ok?, we are not done yet"
And for some bizarre reason that brings me over the edge. I take his stupid
frame and I throw it trough the crack in the window. I see it fall
down-down-down, 24 floors. I can’t hear when it finally crashes at the bottom.
For a moment I hope it fell right into someone’s head and left him bleeding
with a terrifying open wound.
I turn and see my boss staring at me, mouth wide
open. Shit. What did I just do? I give him my best apologetic smile.
"Sorry. It had a bee".
To be continued...
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