So here's the story about this girl who happens to wake up on the wrong side of the bed, screaming, out of a dream, a nightmare, and jumps up and realises that she hadn't even put away her shoes before going to sleep the night before. It had been a long day, she had been working and working and working, and then she'd been out to see some friends, and had two glasses of beer too many, made out with the guitarist from the band that was playing some amazing shit that made her want to stand up and dance. Yeah, that girl could osculate, yeah, and our girl liked how the rock-chick guitarist kissed, the smoochy, slurpy, tongue-and-all kiss, or was it just the beer now? In any case, she managed to stumble back home, threw-up only once, and that was right in front of the gate of that bastard, Maxwell Whateverthefuckhislastnameis, and she really didn't care for those prying, zooming CCTV cameras staring at her. No, she just pulled out a tissue from her pocket, and coolly wiped the bit of puke off one of her shoes, and briskly walked the last two blocks to her apartment building. She shakily climbed up the two flights of stares to her little alcove, of course refusing to take the elevator in spite of the shape she was in, no-no, that wouldn't be environmentally friendly, would it? She got to her door, panting, fumbled in her backpack for her key, which was not so easy to find amongst all those documents she had taken home from work, and had wanted to read before going to bed, but hey, that'll have to wait now.
After what felt like hours, she found the damned key and got the door open and slipped in, turned on the hallway light, which took a few seconds to glow as brightly as it was supposed to, since, again, she only used energy efficient light bulbs. Once her eyes had adjusted to the lighting Adrian dropped her bag onto the floor by the door, and headed straight to the kitchen, all the while thinking again for the umpteenth time that she should get a key-ring but soon letting her mind wander and lips quiver, yes, the memory of that guitarist in faded jeans and tank-top.
Adrian gulped down several glasses of cold water, thinking that she's surely going to wake up at some point to use the toilet. It would have been nice to have something fizzy to drink though. But she didn't have any in the fridge, so water will have to do. Getting herself to her bedroom, our girl quickly undressed and jumped straight into bed - she didn't have the energy to brush her teeth, and she certainly didn't have the energy to anything more joyful either. But that guitarist had certainly put her in the mood, but no, she'll save that for tomorrow, perhaps she'll head out to that bar again, perhaps that girl would be playing with her band again, and perhaps she would recognise her and remember that moment from this evening and that would be nice, absolutely, fabulously, incredibly nice.
The alarm goes off at seven and she jumps out of bed, and out of some weird nightmare and she tries to remember what it was but finds it rather difficult to recollect. Strange. She usually remembers her nightmares quite vividly for days on end. In any case, she can remember that she was scared and she had woken up screaming, almost in sync with the alarm. Head throbbing, she crawls to the kitchen and gulps down a few more glasses of water. Thankfully she didn't have to get into office until 13:00. Damn it, something fizzy would have been great right now, this water tastes like piss.
AND somewhere around this point we are introduced to a distorted version of this story that erroneously talks about a guy who is having a shitty day and how he tries to stay positive and manages to see some sort of proverbial silver lining on a fabricated cloud, and we are walked through his day in a rant of a yarn. But Adrian, our Adrian, yes, she didn't care, they can go ahead and hijack her story, and what the fuck, she could be a guy and perhaps she IS a guy, in any event, it does not matter really, she is a wo-man as far as she is concerned and people can tell her tale any fucking way they want. It didn't matter and it absolutely didn't matter anymore.
If I could have your attention for a wee bit longer so that I could elucidate you, and give you a quick sense of what their version of my day was like, although they refuse to acknowledge me, but rather talk about some Johnny or John or Johan or I don't know - this "he" probably didn't even have a name.
So this Guy Whateverthisoneisnamednow gets off bed, we are told, and finds that he had taken some sort of body cream instead of toothpaste, says fuck it, gargles his mouth without really brushing, tries to make coffee and has some sort of an accident, pours milk on his shoes while taking it out of the fridge and so on it goes.
And I think, OK, I've got about four hours before I need to be at work, and so I decide to take a short walk out to that little breakfast place on the corner of Big Street and Small Street. For a moment I consider changing into a different pair of shoes, but choose not to since the milk had not seeped through and in any case it would dry off soon. Grabbing my wallet and my key, and I should stop by the stationary shop and buy a proper key-ring, I shut the door and rush down the stairs and out on to the street. Wow! there's a lot of people out today, and of course everyone is rushing to get to work or wherever they are headed, trying to catch the bus or I don't know, whatever transport they use to get from their place of origin to their next destination. But really, what is our place of origin? Where are we headed? Is there a final destination? Do we simply wander or is there an end of the line, a terminus? I don't know, but I wonder, my mind wanders, do we all simply wander?
But the town is bustling and the bees are buzzing around the flowers, beautifully arranged in water-filled buckets in front of “Living Flowers” with their slogan:
Your only stop for all your floral needs –
Births, Deaths and Everything in between
And it looks like everyone is walking in the opposite direction as I wade my way through the masses, stomach grumbling, trying to reach the restaurant - I am famished.
As I walk past the large town home of Maxwell Mendis-Thatshisfuckingname, with his newly mowed lawn and trees with chirping birds and crowing crows, I notice that there is no trace of puke on the sidewalk - the pavement is spotless. Of course! Leave that to Maxwell. He had had his slaves scrub the sidewalk clean. I would like to do it again, perhaps I should get myself drunk tonight and throw-up in front of his gate again, and while I'm at it, I'll try to get in and piss in his fucking swimming pool as well. But Maxwell would have his slaves deal with that too, and so it wasn't worth the effort. Arh! It makes me angry. Maxwell, his massive timber factory, the lord of this town, yes, while he went yachting and skiing and bunjee jumping, everyone worked for next to nothing, everyone slaving for him. Tree after tree is felled, wolves and deer and everything else faced with loss of habitat. Yes, Maxwell, with his business ventures all around the world. How could he get away with this? How could they all get away with all of this?
Lost in thought, I reach the restaurant, and step aside and make way for a man and a little girl who were leaving, I step inside and am hit by the wonderful aroma of coffee, yes, that's what I need. I look around the room to find a table, damn it's crowded in here, people talking loud, trying to be heard over all the other conversations taking place around them, eating fast, gulping down tea and coffee and juices, and I can also hear the tinny sound of music playing in the background, fuck, sounds like Duran Duran, yes, it is, yes, lets go retro, woo-hoo! Humming along to Save a Prayer I spot a table and rush to it wanting to take it before someone else gets to it first. I sit down and look around for the waiter, spot one and beckon her towards me by waving my hand high and above the head of all those people chattering and eating. The waitress smiles and comes over to my table and before I could ask for a glass of complementary juice, I am hearing that the table had been reserved for an important and regular customer who should be arriving any moment now and the waiter keeps talking in a matter of fact tone all the while placing the cutlery and setting the table for some fancy customer who happened to call in and reserve a table at an every-day breakfast place.
Upon completing the task at hand, the waitress suggests that I could follow her to another table if I'd like to eat now or I could hang around outside and come in the moment another table become available. Famished, and not wanting to wait any further, I follow her without speaking and sit myself down at a small table towards the back of the room, and no-no, I don't mind that its not too far from the restroom, I would simply like a juice and then, I’d like to order something to eat please. And so when the waitress returns with the juice, my mind had already wondered around the world many-a-times thinking about all those democracy-sponsored dictators and the freedom-produced hunger and development-created slums, yes, the lip-services, if we obey our dictators then "we are stable", if we rebel beyond what they imagined possible then "we have spoken", yes, the so-called democratic-developed-free-powers now falling over each other to congratulate us, and claim that it was their ideals which we wanted for ourselves and it was thanks to their technology that we were able to achieve what we've achieved all the while conveniently forgetting that it was they who ensured that we remained oppressed in the name of their own interests and their concept of stability. Yes, the TV screen shows images of now jubilant crowds cheering the news of their victory while all those messages of support from the wolves in sheep's clothing continue scroll along the news-bar while Duran Duran continue to sing New Religion.
The waitress is now back with my breakfast: omelette, toast and a double espresso, and I immediately tear a piece of the omelette with my fork and put it in my mouth, and awww! that was warm. Taking a sip of my juice, I decide to add a dash of salt, yes, that should do it. A sip of coffee, now that's really nice, really, proper coffee produced by properly paid workers is really something, and the aroma... amazing. Shit! That was salty. Damn, did I take that much of salt? Fuck, I can't eat this now, but then I am reminded of all that food that is thrown away each day and decide to gobble the omelette down fast and wash it down with my juice followed by the coffee. Oh well, there goes the nice breakfast!
By now the restaurant is staring to empty. The stereo starts playing the opening riff of Karma Chameleon as I pay for my food and walk out of the door thinking someone in there must like their ‘80s so much. The bell above the door chimes. Strange that I didn't hear that when I walked in.
As I start walking in the direction of home, I notice the traffic light turn green and vehicles start moving again, and I also notice some crap on the sidewalk, and I step over it, all the while remembering the incident in front of Maxwell’s gate last night, and then I look up and I see a truck heading towards me and I immediately realise that the driver had lost control of the vehicle, oh shit, the sound of the horn, the driver is tooting the horn, I must get out of the way, the truck is going to smash into the window of the restaurant, hurry, now, and I dive, landing hard on the sidewalk I feel the burning sensation on my elbows and my palms as they take the blow of the fall and lie there on the ground, breathing hard, and I hear people rushing around me, voices screaming and the birds are still chirping above the cacophony, and I just lie there on the ground, for a bit longer and I hear someone say that they are going to call the emergency service, and by then I slowly sit up, on to my knees first, one foot, then the next, a bit shaky, I stand up and try to orient myself, yes, I turn around, there’s that truck, and it's surrounded by a crowd of people, so, it didn't really smash into that restaurant, thankfully the driver seems to have managed to stop the truck in time, good job, but the crowd is dense as I try to force myself to the front, what the fuck are they milling about and staring at I wonder as I push myself to the front and then I see the shoes and the legs and the rest of the person on the ground, what the hell now, did the truck drive into someone, and is he or is it she, is this person dead then, I recognise the shoes, the pants, the t-shirt, that person is still, very still, dead, yes, very dead, dead still, but hang on, wait a minute, that person looks like Adrian, yes, that is in deed Adrian, it is Adrian on the ground, white faced and a trickle of blood on the side of the mouth really dead, run-over.
Fuck it, that's Adrian. That’s me. That’s me.
