When You've Only Got 100 Years to Live
Look! Original Fic! *dies of shock*
Criticism and correction greatly appreciated...and it's weird. And the narrator is the first of his kind for me and curses so much sailors would blush.
You have been warned.
The Advice Lady
~Being the First Part (and probably only part) of Stories from an Elevator~
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I will arise now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for a honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
The midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
~”The Lake Isle of Innisfree” - William Butler Yeats
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twelve floors down every godforsaken morning accompanied by stiffs in business suits and fancy ass leather briefcases that whack your knees when the elevator comes to a shaky halt at each floor.
Every damn weekday for the last year.
Twelve floors up at 5 o’clock accompanied by the same stiffs, but with their shirts untucked, ties gone into the crappy leather briefcases, and hair looking as if they had gotten a swirly in some middle school toilet.
Down at the ass crack of the morning, up at 5, the dial clicking at each floor, even though the hands are broken and the management is too fucking cheap to fix them. The stiffs enter and exit, come and go, up and down, 9 to 5. Lather, rinse, and fucking repeat.
But no more.
Fucking outsourcing. Some ass in India can do the same as I can for far less money. So much for 9 to 5 with bruised knees. Fuck.
Now I come and go as I please, although it would please me not to come and go at all. I’m not broke yet, I have enough cash for a while, but fuck, why?
~~~~<@>~~~~
It’s 1 o’clock in the afternoon. No suits, no ties, no briefcases. Only a weird looking woman in a red jacket with thick glasses. She looks really weird. Black dress, no make-up, nose pressed into some random book. Come on lady, the elevator ride isn’t that long. What a whack. No chicks dress like that...who dresses like that? And who the fuck stands in the corner of an empty elevator?
Complete whack.
The door chimes for the ground floor and the freak lurches out of the door, never even moving her book from her greasy little nose.
Fuck outsourcing. Now I’m stuck with freaks.
Thank you, holy fucking God. You’re helpful. Amen.
~~~~<@>~~~~
Twelve more dings down to disappointment, low pay, and another wonderful day of unemployment. I suppose I could consider a career in fast food. My Spanish isn’t that bad. Three weeks of this shit…and she’s back. That weird looking girl in the red jacket, nose pressed into a copy of some fancy ass novel like an ugly tumor growing out of her face. Don’t people like that have a real job? What, does she like, get paid by word?
Standing in her corner, looking so damn smug. Jesus.
“What the fuck are you reading?” I asked, not caring what the fucktard thought of me.
She looked up, not even looking pissed, just raised her eyebrows in an Oh-My-God-I-Am-Oh-So-Smug way.
“Beckett. ‘Waiting for Godot.’”
See? Fancy ass intellectual literature. 11th Ding. So fucking slow.
What the hell, “What is ‘Waiting for Garbough’ about?”
Ground floor at last.
Bitch didn’t even look away from her face plant in the book.
“Nothing,” she said with that smug little smile on her ugly dogface and walked away.
Nothing? How can a book be about fucking nothing?...Bitch. Time for the damn rat races.
~~~~<@>~~~~
One-o’clock. That bitch will be there again. Time to head out. Yep, sure enough, funky red coat and all, there she is.
Always leaves at one.
Always that red coat.
Always nose is some fucking book.
…complete whack…
Wonder what she’s reading now…?
“New book?”
“Yes.” She didn’t say anything other than that. Maybe she finally caught up with Garbough. Maybe Garbough ate it.
“What now?”
She made a funky clicking sound with her mouth and cheek, kinda like that lollipop song from the Age of the Dinosaurs.
You know, “Lollipop, Lollipop, ooooh, Lollipop, insert clicking sound here, be dum dum dum….?” Shit, nevermind.
“Henry James, The Turn of the Screw.”
“Any good?” Damn, that lollipop song is catchy.
The twelfth chime sounds, the doors are opening.
Damn.
“Same as last time I read it.”
~~~~<@>~~~~
One o’clock. I’m gonna get that bitch to talk today. I found the nerdiest book ever, think I inherited it from my mother. Some philosopher dude…Sartre. I think someone talked about him once in college. You know, one of those liberal artsy pain-in-the-ass classes. I probably slept through it or had a hangover. I’ll just pretend it’s interesting. I don’t get his psycho mind babble.
She’s in her corner as usual, new book, old fucking book.
I pretend to read. She’s looking at me, I know and she’s…laughing. That bitch is laughing! That’s not supposed to fucking happen.
“You’re actually reading Sartre?”
Fuck, I don’t know how she defines “reading.” It’s not her “reading” but it’s more than looking at Playboy.
“What, don’t think I’m good enough for your fancy ass literature?”
She put her book in her bag. Her face looked funny without it. She didn’t have as much acne as I had imagined…almost none.
She was looking at me.
“I thought…a person like you would read something…less intellectually stimulating.”
She sounds like a fucking dictionary. Jesus Christ.
“Look lady, I may not look like the brightest crayon in the box, but I can do stuff when I want to.”
Her fucking smug little smile is back. She thinks she’s better than me! Her with her retarded red jacket and twelve syllable long words thinks she’s better. How can that bitch be better?
“What the fuck is a ‘person like me,’” I imitated her irritating nasal voice, “supposed to read?”
Fucking elevator, dinging for the last floor. She practically shoved her ass out of the way. Halfway through the lobby she shouted back, “I don’t give advice.” The doors close. I have no fucking place to go but twelve floors back up to classified ads.
~~~~<@>~~~~
Time to go. Time to go. Time to fucking go.
She’s not here. She’s not even fucking here. Just me and a book by some crazy Russian that I haven’t touched since probably high school and probably never opened then. No crazy bitch. Fuck this, I’ll get off on the next floor and take the stairs back up.
Fuck it.
~~~~<@>~~~~
She’s here today, standing in her corner with her fugly red jacket and a bag full of books. She’s back again, back again with me.
I look at her. She’s reading something called “The Wasteland” or pretending to read it.
She won’t acknowledge that I’m staring at her. I’m the fucking invisible man.
“Why won’t you tell me what to read?”
Stupid move. Now she looks pissed and her book is in the bag faster than it should be.
Christ.
“I told you,” she was looking straight at my face - she was creepy that way - I almost wish she would put the book back up there. It’s creepy seeing that half of her face.
“I don’t give advice.”
“Why the hell not?”
It seemed dumb to me. But she wasn’t looking at me anymore, she’s looking at the broken dial that doesn’t tell you what floor you’re on because the management is still a bunch of fucking tight wads. Now she’s looking towards the door, to the side, done at the fucking floor. The absence of her creepy stare is creepier than I thought.
“Too expensive,” she said flatly, quietly. She took off her jacket and crammed it into her book bag. The damn elevator was a little hot.
She looked all pasty without that fugly jacket.
So fucking bizarre, this girl. Can’t figure her out - her staring, and her weird ass clothes, and her bitchy attitude, and her sack full of books.
So fucking bizarre.
The door opens, and the other ugly stiffs in the lobby swallow her up.
The doors close.
Twelve floors up.
So fucking bizarre.
~~~~<@>~~~~
One o’clock, one o’clock, one o’clock.
I’m fucking dying, but I got here.
Christ, I need water. But she’s there and I need to ask, I need to ask, I need to ask.
“Why the fuck is advice so expensive?”
“Because.” There must be a fucking interesting stain on the carpet.
“Why?” So fucking annoying. It’s not a difficult question. “Because” isn’t even an answer like “screw you perv” that closes the issue that the bitches on the subway sometimes tell you. I know the shit she reads in those books is much weirder. That’s why they have Cliff’s notes, Spark notes…all that shit.
“It costs me too much to give it.”
“Why the fuck would it cost you anything to give me advice?”
“You lose a lot through advice - friends, relationships, trust. Sometimes you gain it too and that may not be as fortunate as it seems.”
Crazy. She’s absolutely nuts. Absolute loon.
“Don’t get it. You can either take it or leave it. That’s why advice is so craptastically beautiful.”
She just gets more fucking bizarre. So FUCKING BIZARRE.
“Advice is always a reflection of yourself. What you would do, be, act. It always costs something to show that to people.”
The damn bell dinged for the last floor. I caught her by the wrist. I don’t know what I was thinking. She looked scared out of her whacked ass skull. Maybe she thought I was going to rape her or something. I dropped her hand seeing that…that look puts people in jail.
“Sorry.” I mumble.
She stopped for a second, just staring at me. She was half out the door just fucking staring at me. The doors started to close and then the sensor that says “move damnit” chimed and then they retracted.
Some frumpy old dame in a hat circa the Stone Age…maybe the Bronze Age came in.
“Fine,” she said suddenly, still with that look. “Read Joyce’s 'Eveline.'”
She all but ran out.
I settled into the corner and the crone with the shitty hat looked at me as if I might mug her. Heh, if I needed cash I could just sell that hat to an antique store.
Twelve floors back up. I didn’t see her for four weeks after that.
~~~~<@>~~~~
Everytime I rode the elevator during those four damn weeks I thought of that Joyce guy’s story. I actually googled him and apparently he was some drunk Irish dude with fucking whacked stories. Know what happens in them?
People stare at things.
Nothing happens.
Nobody does anything.
The world is more shitty then most people would like to think about.
And people just stare at things.
The Eveline chick is outta her skull too. Her boyfriend is screaming out to her and she just fucking stands there and stares. Why? Who the fuck knows. Maybe she thinks he’s actually a psychopath who will drown her. Maybe he gave her that look and she gave him that look. I don’t get it. When she comes back I’ll ask her. Yeah, she’ll explain this Joyce dude to me.
~~~~<@>~~~~
She’s finally there. It’s been a long time. But she’s there, red jacket and all. She’s holding a copy of something called The Bell Jar in her hand.
“I read it…that 'Eveline' thing.”
She nods at me. Maybe she’s surprised. I guess she still thinks I’m a dumbass.
“Don’t get it really though.”
All she did was nod. The stain on the floor must be in the shape of a country or president’s head or something. That’s why she’s looking so hard at it.
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“Why? Expensive again?” Maybe she didn’t catch my sarcasm.
“More than either of us could possibly afford.”
This chick is frustrating.
“Look,” I say as nicely as I can manage. I’m being nice, don’t want to go to jail, okay? As nice as I can be when she’s being whacked and annoying. “All I really want to know is why she stays.”
She does something even more bizarre than usual…she turns around and completely faces the corner.
“Because.”
“Goddamnit, just say why!” I walk towards her and walk as close to her as I dare. I don’t want to go to jail and get it in the ass. No sir, I am a straight man.
“She’s not made for happiness. That’s why she doesn’t fucking go.”
I’ve never heard her speak like that. And she’s not staring. I don’t know how to respond when she’s not being fucking annoying.
“How,” she going on now, really pissed, “does a girl like that manage when happiness comes her way?”
She grabs my arm suddenly. Her face is so close to mine that I can feel her breath. It smells like oranges. But all I can do is look at her.
That hand is holding me in place.
“Now,” she says, and the words are like a fucking orange grove being breathed at me, “do you understand why I don’t give advice? Do you understand the costs?”
All I can see if her face. Her pissed off face. I can see the costs in it. I don’t know what to do though. I have no fucking idea what to do. If I’m supposed to pay something in this screwed up world she lives in, how do I pay? Why am I even thinking about this bullshit. But her face is still there and I don’t know what to do. There’s only one fucking thing to do.
I kiss her.
Now she’s limp, and except for her hand on me where I swear I swear I swear that she’s digging her nails into my arm she’s a fucking rag doll and it’s like we’ve poisoned one another and now we’re kissing and we can’t move or do anything. It’s complete paralysis of everything but she doesn’t draw away and maybe she can’t, she’s not giving in though. It’s like frenching a wall. We’re paralyzed and we’re all caught up in her fucking bullshit costs and prices.
Her hand drops, she crashes into the wall, and her books are flying fucking everywhere out of the bag she dropped. And now it makes sense, that Irish bastard’s story. And I’m the psychopath who’s drowning her. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I realize we’re back at the twelfth floor - fuck, fuck, FUCK. I don’t know what to do anymore. I get out and I’m fucking dying again. I’m suffocating, too.
I don’t even know how the hell I got out or what happened to her.
~~~~<@>~~~~
It’s back to stiffs and bruised knees. One day I’m gonna take those goddamned leather briefcases and cram them down their throats.
But I finally have a damn job. Christ, though, I still get an urge to run out of my cubicle at one o’clock. But it’s stupid, I know, I’ve already fucked up and she’s just some crazy bitch anyways. I sometimes bring the book with 'Eveline' in it in my briefcase. You know, for old times sake. It’s just a whole shit load of Irish authors anyways. I don’t know why, I guess its just nostalgia. But I really don’t know why. I am not some crazy bastard who reads books in elevators for fun. Plus, the only other thing I’ve read in it is something about building a cabin in some place called Innisfree or something like that. I’m not even sure.
It’s kinda fucked up.
Sometimes when I’m hung over and I feel like vomiting up my fucking lungs I think this elevator takes me to Innisfree. Jesus Christ, if I didn’t feel so fucked up I would laugh at myself…but laughing when you’re that messed up is just asking for it. I think that chick’s craziness got to me.
Goddamn Innisfree. What bull.
~~~~<@>~~~~
Fuck it. I called in sick. I couldn’t work today, just wasn’t happening. Fuck it. It’s one o’clock and I’m going. That bitch’s craziness definitely whacked me in the head. Next I’ll be wearing some fuggly red jacket.
She’s there. I haven’t seen her in weeks.
She’s reading another big ass book by a long-winded Russian guy. Probably Dostoevsky. He’s one of those one’s the intelligent people with the glasses that make them look like moles. That’s the only Russian dude people read anymore anyways. The other ones make really effective paperweights…and War and Peace was my mom’s favorite doorstop. The bitch isn’t even looking at me. She’s doing everything in her power to look at the book.
But hey, fuck Eveline, fuck weird ass Irish dudes that don’t make sense. Just fuck all of it. The end. No more. All of it.
Before I know it I’m seizing the book. Fuck disgustingly prolific Russians, too.
Fuck waiting around in goddamn elevators your entire life only to get stuck in a fucking cubicle until your job gets sent to some schmuck in a foreign country who they don’t even have to pay half of the minimum wage to.
We’re getting out oh here. We’ll just hold our breaths.
I grab her hand. But none of this drowning shit.
Nope, fuck that too.
Now, she’s too surprised to be scared. I would be too if I just watched my Russian door stop sail through the air.
“What the hell are you doing?” she manages to stammer. Her eyes are like fricking saucers. Seriously, some little runt kid can swim in them.
But I don’t care anymore.
“We’re going,” I say.
She doesn’t try to break away, her eyes don’t leave me. But at least I’m not suffocating. No siree, none of that crap today.
The bell dings for the last floor and those fricking shiny doors slide open.
“Where?” she says quietly.
I laugh, I know just what to tell her. It’ll be a fucking riot.
“Innisfree.”
~~~~<@>~~~~
Woo..it's about time I posted it.
Criticism and correction greatly appreciated...and it's weird. And the narrator is the first of his kind for me and curses so much sailors would blush.
You have been warned.
The Advice Lady
~Being the First Part (and probably only part) of Stories from an Elevator~
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
“I will arise now, and go to Innisfree,
And a small cabin build there, of clay and wattles made;
Nine bean-rows will I have there, a hive for a honey-bee,
And live alone in the bee-loud glade.
And I shall have some peace there, for peace comes dropping slow,
Dropping from the veils of the morning to where the cricket sings;
The midnight’s all a glimmer, and noon a purple glow,
And evening full of the linnet’s wings.
I will arise and go now, for always night and day
I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore;
While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey,
I hear it in the deep heart’s core.”
~”The Lake Isle of Innisfree” - William Butler Yeats
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Twelve floors down every godforsaken morning accompanied by stiffs in business suits and fancy ass leather briefcases that whack your knees when the elevator comes to a shaky halt at each floor.
Every damn weekday for the last year.
Twelve floors up at 5 o’clock accompanied by the same stiffs, but with their shirts untucked, ties gone into the crappy leather briefcases, and hair looking as if they had gotten a swirly in some middle school toilet.
Down at the ass crack of the morning, up at 5, the dial clicking at each floor, even though the hands are broken and the management is too fucking cheap to fix them. The stiffs enter and exit, come and go, up and down, 9 to 5. Lather, rinse, and fucking repeat.
But no more.
Fucking outsourcing. Some ass in India can do the same as I can for far less money. So much for 9 to 5 with bruised knees. Fuck.
Now I come and go as I please, although it would please me not to come and go at all. I’m not broke yet, I have enough cash for a while, but fuck, why?
~~~~<@>~~~~
It’s 1 o’clock in the afternoon. No suits, no ties, no briefcases. Only a weird looking woman in a red jacket with thick glasses. She looks really weird. Black dress, no make-up, nose pressed into some random book. Come on lady, the elevator ride isn’t that long. What a whack. No chicks dress like that...who dresses like that? And who the fuck stands in the corner of an empty elevator?
Complete whack.
The door chimes for the ground floor and the freak lurches out of the door, never even moving her book from her greasy little nose.
Fuck outsourcing. Now I’m stuck with freaks.
Thank you, holy fucking God. You’re helpful. Amen.
~~~~<@>~~~~
Twelve more dings down to disappointment, low pay, and another wonderful day of unemployment. I suppose I could consider a career in fast food. My Spanish isn’t that bad. Three weeks of this shit…and she’s back. That weird looking girl in the red jacket, nose pressed into a copy of some fancy ass novel like an ugly tumor growing out of her face. Don’t people like that have a real job? What, does she like, get paid by word?
Standing in her corner, looking so damn smug. Jesus.
“What the fuck are you reading?” I asked, not caring what the fucktard thought of me.
She looked up, not even looking pissed, just raised her eyebrows in an Oh-My-God-I-Am-Oh-So-Smug way.
“Beckett. ‘Waiting for Godot.’”
See? Fancy ass intellectual literature. 11th Ding. So fucking slow.
What the hell, “What is ‘Waiting for Garbough’ about?”
Ground floor at last.
Bitch didn’t even look away from her face plant in the book.
“Nothing,” she said with that smug little smile on her ugly dogface and walked away.
Nothing? How can a book be about fucking nothing?...Bitch. Time for the damn rat races.
~~~~<@>~~~~
One-o’clock. That bitch will be there again. Time to head out. Yep, sure enough, funky red coat and all, there she is.
Always leaves at one.
Always that red coat.
Always nose is some fucking book.
…complete whack…
Wonder what she’s reading now…?
“New book?”
“Yes.” She didn’t say anything other than that. Maybe she finally caught up with Garbough. Maybe Garbough ate it.
“What now?”
She made a funky clicking sound with her mouth and cheek, kinda like that lollipop song from the Age of the Dinosaurs.
You know, “Lollipop, Lollipop, ooooh, Lollipop, insert clicking sound here, be dum dum dum….?” Shit, nevermind.
“Henry James, The Turn of the Screw.”
“Any good?” Damn, that lollipop song is catchy.
The twelfth chime sounds, the doors are opening.
Damn.
“Same as last time I read it.”
~~~~<@>~~~~
One o’clock. I’m gonna get that bitch to talk today. I found the nerdiest book ever, think I inherited it from my mother. Some philosopher dude…Sartre. I think someone talked about him once in college. You know, one of those liberal artsy pain-in-the-ass classes. I probably slept through it or had a hangover. I’ll just pretend it’s interesting. I don’t get his psycho mind babble.
She’s in her corner as usual, new book, old fucking book.
I pretend to read. She’s looking at me, I know and she’s…laughing. That bitch is laughing! That’s not supposed to fucking happen.
“You’re actually reading Sartre?”
Fuck, I don’t know how she defines “reading.” It’s not her “reading” but it’s more than looking at Playboy.
“What, don’t think I’m good enough for your fancy ass literature?”
She put her book in her bag. Her face looked funny without it. She didn’t have as much acne as I had imagined…almost none.
She was looking at me.
“I thought…a person like you would read something…less intellectually stimulating.”
She sounds like a fucking dictionary. Jesus Christ.
“Look lady, I may not look like the brightest crayon in the box, but I can do stuff when I want to.”
Her fucking smug little smile is back. She thinks she’s better than me! Her with her retarded red jacket and twelve syllable long words thinks she’s better. How can that bitch be better?
“What the fuck is a ‘person like me,’” I imitated her irritating nasal voice, “supposed to read?”
Fucking elevator, dinging for the last floor. She practically shoved her ass out of the way. Halfway through the lobby she shouted back, “I don’t give advice.” The doors close. I have no fucking place to go but twelve floors back up to classified ads.
~~~~<@>~~~~
Time to go. Time to go. Time to fucking go.
She’s not here. She’s not even fucking here. Just me and a book by some crazy Russian that I haven’t touched since probably high school and probably never opened then. No crazy bitch. Fuck this, I’ll get off on the next floor and take the stairs back up.
Fuck it.
~~~~<@>~~~~
She’s here today, standing in her corner with her fugly red jacket and a bag full of books. She’s back again, back again with me.
I look at her. She’s reading something called “The Wasteland” or pretending to read it.
She won’t acknowledge that I’m staring at her. I’m the fucking invisible man.
“Why won’t you tell me what to read?”
Stupid move. Now she looks pissed and her book is in the bag faster than it should be.
Christ.
“I told you,” she was looking straight at my face - she was creepy that way - I almost wish she would put the book back up there. It’s creepy seeing that half of her face.
“I don’t give advice.”
“Why the hell not?”
It seemed dumb to me. But she wasn’t looking at me anymore, she’s looking at the broken dial that doesn’t tell you what floor you’re on because the management is still a bunch of fucking tight wads. Now she’s looking towards the door, to the side, done at the fucking floor. The absence of her creepy stare is creepier than I thought.
“Too expensive,” she said flatly, quietly. She took off her jacket and crammed it into her book bag. The damn elevator was a little hot.
She looked all pasty without that fugly jacket.
So fucking bizarre, this girl. Can’t figure her out - her staring, and her weird ass clothes, and her bitchy attitude, and her sack full of books.
So fucking bizarre.
The door opens, and the other ugly stiffs in the lobby swallow her up.
The doors close.
Twelve floors up.
So fucking bizarre.
~~~~<@>~~~~
One o’clock, one o’clock, one o’clock.
I’m fucking dying, but I got here.
Christ, I need water. But she’s there and I need to ask, I need to ask, I need to ask.
“Why the fuck is advice so expensive?”
“Because.” There must be a fucking interesting stain on the carpet.
“Why?” So fucking annoying. It’s not a difficult question. “Because” isn’t even an answer like “screw you perv” that closes the issue that the bitches on the subway sometimes tell you. I know the shit she reads in those books is much weirder. That’s why they have Cliff’s notes, Spark notes…all that shit.
“It costs me too much to give it.”
“Why the fuck would it cost you anything to give me advice?”
“You lose a lot through advice - friends, relationships, trust. Sometimes you gain it too and that may not be as fortunate as it seems.”
Crazy. She’s absolutely nuts. Absolute loon.
“Don’t get it. You can either take it or leave it. That’s why advice is so craptastically beautiful.”
She just gets more fucking bizarre. So FUCKING BIZARRE.
“Advice is always a reflection of yourself. What you would do, be, act. It always costs something to show that to people.”
The damn bell dinged for the last floor. I caught her by the wrist. I don’t know what I was thinking. She looked scared out of her whacked ass skull. Maybe she thought I was going to rape her or something. I dropped her hand seeing that…that look puts people in jail.
“Sorry.” I mumble.
She stopped for a second, just staring at me. She was half out the door just fucking staring at me. The doors started to close and then the sensor that says “move damnit” chimed and then they retracted.
Some frumpy old dame in a hat circa the Stone Age…maybe the Bronze Age came in.
“Fine,” she said suddenly, still with that look. “Read Joyce’s 'Eveline.'”
She all but ran out.
I settled into the corner and the crone with the shitty hat looked at me as if I might mug her. Heh, if I needed cash I could just sell that hat to an antique store.
Twelve floors back up. I didn’t see her for four weeks after that.
~~~~<@>~~~~
Everytime I rode the elevator during those four damn weeks I thought of that Joyce guy’s story. I actually googled him and apparently he was some drunk Irish dude with fucking whacked stories. Know what happens in them?
People stare at things.
Nothing happens.
Nobody does anything.
The world is more shitty then most people would like to think about.
And people just stare at things.
The Eveline chick is outta her skull too. Her boyfriend is screaming out to her and she just fucking stands there and stares. Why? Who the fuck knows. Maybe she thinks he’s actually a psychopath who will drown her. Maybe he gave her that look and she gave him that look. I don’t get it. When she comes back I’ll ask her. Yeah, she’ll explain this Joyce dude to me.
~~~~<@>~~~~
She’s finally there. It’s been a long time. But she’s there, red jacket and all. She’s holding a copy of something called The Bell Jar in her hand.
“I read it…that 'Eveline' thing.”
She nods at me. Maybe she’s surprised. I guess she still thinks I’m a dumbass.
“Don’t get it really though.”
All she did was nod. The stain on the floor must be in the shape of a country or president’s head or something. That’s why she’s looking so hard at it.
“I don’t want to discuss it.”
“Why? Expensive again?” Maybe she didn’t catch my sarcasm.
“More than either of us could possibly afford.”
This chick is frustrating.
“Look,” I say as nicely as I can manage. I’m being nice, don’t want to go to jail, okay? As nice as I can be when she’s being whacked and annoying. “All I really want to know is why she stays.”
She does something even more bizarre than usual…she turns around and completely faces the corner.
“Because.”
“Goddamnit, just say why!” I walk towards her and walk as close to her as I dare. I don’t want to go to jail and get it in the ass. No sir, I am a straight man.
“She’s not made for happiness. That’s why she doesn’t fucking go.”
I’ve never heard her speak like that. And she’s not staring. I don’t know how to respond when she’s not being fucking annoying.
“How,” she going on now, really pissed, “does a girl like that manage when happiness comes her way?”
She grabs my arm suddenly. Her face is so close to mine that I can feel her breath. It smells like oranges. But all I can do is look at her.
That hand is holding me in place.
“Now,” she says, and the words are like a fucking orange grove being breathed at me, “do you understand why I don’t give advice? Do you understand the costs?”
All I can see if her face. Her pissed off face. I can see the costs in it. I don’t know what to do though. I have no fucking idea what to do. If I’m supposed to pay something in this screwed up world she lives in, how do I pay? Why am I even thinking about this bullshit. But her face is still there and I don’t know what to do. There’s only one fucking thing to do.
I kiss her.
Now she’s limp, and except for her hand on me where I swear I swear I swear that she’s digging her nails into my arm she’s a fucking rag doll and it’s like we’ve poisoned one another and now we’re kissing and we can’t move or do anything. It’s complete paralysis of everything but she doesn’t draw away and maybe she can’t, she’s not giving in though. It’s like frenching a wall. We’re paralyzed and we’re all caught up in her fucking bullshit costs and prices.
Her hand drops, she crashes into the wall, and her books are flying fucking everywhere out of the bag she dropped. And now it makes sense, that Irish bastard’s story. And I’m the psychopath who’s drowning her. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I realize we’re back at the twelfth floor - fuck, fuck, FUCK. I don’t know what to do anymore. I get out and I’m fucking dying again. I’m suffocating, too.
I don’t even know how the hell I got out or what happened to her.
~~~~<@>~~~~
It’s back to stiffs and bruised knees. One day I’m gonna take those goddamned leather briefcases and cram them down their throats.
But I finally have a damn job. Christ, though, I still get an urge to run out of my cubicle at one o’clock. But it’s stupid, I know, I’ve already fucked up and she’s just some crazy bitch anyways. I sometimes bring the book with 'Eveline' in it in my briefcase. You know, for old times sake. It’s just a whole shit load of Irish authors anyways. I don’t know why, I guess its just nostalgia. But I really don’t know why. I am not some crazy bastard who reads books in elevators for fun. Plus, the only other thing I’ve read in it is something about building a cabin in some place called Innisfree or something like that. I’m not even sure.
It’s kinda fucked up.
Sometimes when I’m hung over and I feel like vomiting up my fucking lungs I think this elevator takes me to Innisfree. Jesus Christ, if I didn’t feel so fucked up I would laugh at myself…but laughing when you’re that messed up is just asking for it. I think that chick’s craziness got to me.
Goddamn Innisfree. What bull.
~~~~<@>~~~~
Fuck it. I called in sick. I couldn’t work today, just wasn’t happening. Fuck it. It’s one o’clock and I’m going. That bitch’s craziness definitely whacked me in the head. Next I’ll be wearing some fuggly red jacket.
She’s there. I haven’t seen her in weeks.
She’s reading another big ass book by a long-winded Russian guy. Probably Dostoevsky. He’s one of those one’s the intelligent people with the glasses that make them look like moles. That’s the only Russian dude people read anymore anyways. The other ones make really effective paperweights…and War and Peace was my mom’s favorite doorstop. The bitch isn’t even looking at me. She’s doing everything in her power to look at the book.
But hey, fuck Eveline, fuck weird ass Irish dudes that don’t make sense. Just fuck all of it. The end. No more. All of it.
Before I know it I’m seizing the book. Fuck disgustingly prolific Russians, too.
Fuck waiting around in goddamn elevators your entire life only to get stuck in a fucking cubicle until your job gets sent to some schmuck in a foreign country who they don’t even have to pay half of the minimum wage to.
We’re getting out oh here. We’ll just hold our breaths.
I grab her hand. But none of this drowning shit.
Nope, fuck that too.
Now, she’s too surprised to be scared. I would be too if I just watched my Russian door stop sail through the air.
“What the hell are you doing?” she manages to stammer. Her eyes are like fricking saucers. Seriously, some little runt kid can swim in them.
But I don’t care anymore.
“We’re going,” I say.
She doesn’t try to break away, her eyes don’t leave me. But at least I’m not suffocating. No siree, none of that crap today.
The bell dings for the last floor and those fricking shiny doors slide open.
“Where?” she says quietly.
I laugh, I know just what to tell her. It’ll be a fucking riot.
“Innisfree.”
~~~~<@>~~~~
Woo..it's about time I posted it.