Back To Normal

So today was a return to normality where you try to get back into the routine of waking up, getting ready, going to work and attending it for the duration of the day. For me in order to complete this process I need a routine that needs to be followed explicitly, even slightly deviating from it means I’m going to be late. So I guess, sometimes I am late. This routine involves being woken up by the Saved By The Bell theme tune at 06:45 that’s set on my mobile. A hand will squirm out of the duvet and scuttle around until it finds the mobile and presses the snooze button. The snoozing will continue until 07:00 where getting up is imperative in order to stay on time. I fling my body out of bed and make my way to the shower. That’ll take about 10 minutes in which upon my return my mobile alarm would have gone off again making it extra annoying as I start throwing my duvet and pillow all over the place trying to search it. Once that’s turned off I’ll start putting on my office armour (shirt and trousers) and then have some breakfast. I’ll arrive at work around 8:30 and start checking my emails.

Now as it stands this is going to be the routine for the rest of my working life, certainly the best years of them. It’s difficult to swallow when it’s thought of like that, it sounds restrictive without accomplishment. Going to an office for another forty or fifty years preceded by the same thing as I mentioned above almost makes me shake with fear writing it. My only solace is the imagination and ideas that frequently pop into my head. The most recent one being should I find a leprechaun and mug him of his pot of gold I’d leave England now and go somewhere hot. Maybe Oz, maybe Thailand or somewhere in South America, either way I just want to skip winter. I’d love to wake up with the heat of the sun licking my face instead of a mobile ringing out aloud in my ears. The idea of drinking a rum and coke and sitting in some place that has a view of how beautiful earth can be, really appeals to me. Then, when summer returns to England so would I. I’d visit a few people go see a few places and wait for the incessant rain to begin once more.

I guess this keeps me motivated from falling into some sort of mild depression at the thought of going to work in an office for decades upon decades. I’ll always keep an eye out for ‘the exit plan’ but for the time being and like most of us I’ll be doing my own morning ritual to get me to work on time.


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Then it started trickle down more faster as more tears appeared, so much so that they kept rolling onto his lips, allowing him to taste them. Soon his vision started to blur with the tears pouring out. He stands up and screams. He screams loud and hard, with passion. He can feel himself shaking now, he can feel the tears burst out freely. His mouth starts to dry but he doesn’t care, he can’t feel any pain when he is screaming so carries on. His body doesn’t hurt but his mind is damaged. He sucks in breath wipes his eyes quickly and then screams again.

His body tingles all over with little sharp jolts of pain so he lets himself fall on the ground. The cries are almost silent apart from the need to inhale, he can’t understand why he’s crying but he can feel pain. It’s not the little jolts circulating around his body, it’s his head. His head is hurting inside. He feels that his emotional box has been shattered and every emotion is free to go wherever it pleases confusing him. At first he thinks it’s funny what’s just happened. Going to work, getting robbed by a man with a gun, chasing him and then being questioned by the police, that’ll be a nice tale to tell. He smiles, as he imagines telling the tale to Keith today in the pub. Keith wouldn’t believe him at first but when the news came out publicly he’d be the first round his flat banging on the door demanding a more in depth version. How would Tommy react? Probably as always, with an occasional nod but an intense looking gaze letting you know although he’s in between two states of consciousness he is still fully aware of what you’re saying. Yannish almost feels what happened to him is ‘cool’ but as he turns his head round to stare at the sky he feels another wave of emotion ride over his body. What had happened to him was very serious. He was a young man, trying to achieve success in life by studying and paying his way through the present by working. Why should someone who has to work so hard be a victim of armed robbery? That’s what it is, armed robbery. A serious crime had been committed leaving a middle aged woman in a traumatised state and a young man confused. If this criminal is caught he is facing years of imprisonment. The police should consider this an extremely serious case. His life is going to change for a little while because of this. Attention will be focused on him, unwanted attention. No one of his age should have to endure the experience of feeling threatened with the termination of their life.

Yannish is now staring at the sky but not looking at anything, the seriousness of the crime is seeping into his mind causing more confliction with his emotions. It was only a few moments ago he was laughing about the whole things and now he’s starting to understand that this was the sort of thing you would read in the local if not national newspaper and think ‘shit’. Even though this feeling seems more realistic and a better description of the impact of the crime it sits uncomfortable with him and he closes his eyes as another surfaces to take control of his mind. He remembers the feeling of humiliation. He’d already felt it once already when he thought he was killed. No one had the right to kill someone else, let alone for a couple of thousand pounds stashed in a safe. This arrogant human, thinking that he had the right to end life with a gun should be caught and tortured. But why torture? He briefly thought. And then he realised that what he was feeling now was torture, his mind in utter torment and scared. He doesn’t know when he’ll feel truly safe again, he knows that his shell is hard on the exterior and that he’d be able to talk about it to friends and the authorities but inside he can feel the fear. The fear of death, the fear knowing there are people that will end life for the sake of a percentage. Something so bland as money makes them prepared to kill in order to get it. And for what? A new car? A house? And now he’s feeling a mess on the ground rolling around with the slugs and snails trying to work it all out. What about Clarence? How must she be feeling, she urinated herself during the whole ordeal, she must be a wreck. When he last saw her she shivering and silent. But Yannish can only think about settling himself down first before trying to help others.