Fallen Arches
To say that the man woke up on the wrong side of the bed today would be a drastic under-statement. All the events that had been taking place, were not going in the man’s favour and today, of all these bad days, today he would find himself at the lowest point in his life.
She was gone. That was the first thing for him to notice. As soon as he opened his eyes he could see the closet had been emptied. The entire closet was always her, as she was a high class girl and he was a stay at home writer. The most pairs of anything the man had were pyjamas, closely followed by socks. All of his clothes fit, neat and nicely in a dresser at the opposite end of the room. He first words out of his mouth that morning, lying there on the bed, his eyes adjusting to the image of the empty closet, was “fuck.” It was the first of over 100 times he’d say the word throughout just the morning alone. Every time, saying it exactly the same, soaked in self-loathing and pity.
In the bathroom, to his surprise, his now ex-girlfriend had taken everything that she had bought herself. That meant everything in the bathroom, including the toilet paper. As you could guess, this is when he said the word again. Everything from the shampoo to the towels in the cupboard were all hers and so she had taken them.
In the kitchen it was the same scene, if not worse for she left all the emptied cupboards open, something the man had always been irritated by. Open cupboards. He screamed obscene words as loud as he could and it felt good. It felt so good he continued to act on this rage and began punching all of the cupboards. Some were hit so hard they busted right off the hinges and fell to the floor. He then continued to kick the lower drawers left open in front of him, busting them into pieces. With long, hard, deep breaths he let himself begin the process of settling down, though the fire was still lit behind his eyes.
He had a routine, you see. A special schedule that he and his body followed every single day. Over the years of learning to deal with himself and his unique ability to turn into nothing more than a beast, he knew he had to follow the routine in order from hurting those around him, or even worse, himself.
#1. Wake up when the body feels it’s been rested and only then. This meant turning off the phones, keeping the specially made blinds closed, and after a particular incident, buying his girlfriend her own bed to sleep in. The bruise healed quickly and thankfully she was a forgiving woman.
#2. 100mg of fluoxitine, 1mg of clonazepam (every four to six hours) , and a cup of cold coffee or an espresso and chocolate shake for caffeine intake. Of course, he still had his pills but they seemed pointless to take without the caffeine. Everything in the kitchen was hers, he did not even have a pot to boil water in.
#4. Morning bowel movement. Impossible without any toilet paper.
#5. Breakfast. Bread and Nutella sandwiches were his favourite. With a side of milk, of course. If not Nutella, then peanut butter and honey and if not sandwiches, then pancakes or French toast. There was only an empty carton of milk left in the fridge, not even a drop left in it.
#6. Tea while he turns on his computer, checks his e-mail and begins to write. The computer was his and had been untouched from the night before. He turned it on but was unable to connect to the internet. “That bitch!” he said to himself.
He opened a blank page and stared at it. He had 72 hours before the short story was due and had not found anything to write about, as of yet. It did not take him long to realize that he couldn’t write without some sort of inspiration. He talked to himself, “I need something… I can’t handle this. Not on my own. I am fucking miserable here.” he thought for a moment and it was interrupted by a growl coming from his stomach. “I need caffeine and I need it now!”
The man hated many things. Other than cupboards and drawers left open, one of them was having to interact with other people. What he found over time was that, as much as he disliked having to do it, these people inspired characters for his stories. He would usually take 2 clonazepam and bring the bottle with him, just in case. This was his ritual every single time he left his house. That morning he had not bothered to take any. As he was putting on his shoes and jacket, he thought about the pills waiting for him to take. He then remembered the state of the kitchen. Not even a drop of milk. Another one of the other things this man hated, was water. Yes, he hated water. Everything about it, every aspect of it. Lakes, the ocean, swimming, being on a boat, beaches, even drinking tap water that had not been boiled and flavoured; all these things he had went out of his way to avoid, all of his life. There was not even a second thought about his pills after he got over the disgust of realizing he would need to use water to get them down his dry throat. He slammed the door behind him to let the world around him know, he was pissed off.
After getting outside he was shocked to find that is was cold. He was not very good with time and dates but was sure summer had just ended, the cold outside made him even more angry. He began walking towards the store, something he had not walked to in about a year or two. He had fallen arches along with a hip alignment problem from a drinking and driving accident he had been blamed for. This was when he was seventeen. He had only been driving a year but the judge made sure that he would never be allowed to drive again. It also didn’t help that the 70 year old woman who had suddenly stopped her vehicle in front of him, died in the accident. He was sure that the doctor’s purposely left his legs unaligned in his hip when they were operating, as their own punishment for killing an old woman. They told him they wanted to break his hip to re-align his legs, which would cost a lot of money for the surgery and leave him in a wheel chair, until he re-learned how to walk. At first, he thought they were joking. In the end he told them were they could go and ever since has avoided walking long distances.
The store was at the end of the street, about two blocks away. He did not think this would be too much of a problem but after one block the piercing pain began running up through the arch of his foot, around to the back of his knees. Only half way and the pain had already started. He still had to walk back with the groceries. He did the only thing he ever knew how to avoid feeling the pain, as he walked, which was to smoke a little marijuana. He began to puff but the end of the joint came loose in his mouth and soon had inhaled crumbs of weed into the back of his throat. He coughed and spit and coughed and spit. Swearing all the while. Kids out in their yards with their parents, raking leaves, running and playing, laughing all the while the man is coughing, swearing and spiting on the side walk.
He continued on walking but could not keep spiting. He tried to fix the end of the joint but by the time he took a second toke, he was so desperate to get the smoke into his lungs, he pulled back too hard and resin began to leak out the end, covering his lips. This is another thing the man hated. A perfectly good joint ruined by resin leaking out the back into the mouths and onto the lips and teeth of the smoker. He threw the joint away and began to continue to swear and spit.
When he arrived at the store, the pain had lead him to walk quite strangely. To others it looked as though he was walking with shit in his pants. Some people laughed at him, others frowned as he wreaked of pot and had resin smeared over his lips.
Grocery shopping was exactly how he remember it. The same as it was five years ago, the last time he had done it. He took his time to get the things he needed. The floor of the store had much more mercy on his feet than the pavement outside. When he got to the cashier, he saw a sign he has never seen before, ‘One Bag Per Customer.’ As the cashier rang in his things he had to quickly re-evaluate what he really needed and what he was just buying because he wanted it. This was one of the most hardest things he had ever tried to do. People were lining up behind them and the pressure was on. So he gave up. “Only one bag, come on, could you spare two just this one time, I am walking and never been to this store before.”
“Sorry sir, but if I allow one person two bags then everyone will ask and expect me to give them two bags. There’s a reason there is that big sign up there.”
“I know, I am sorry, but I need all of this stuff, my girlfriend-”
She cut him off, “I’m sorry sir, one bag per customer, that’s the rule, were trying to save the environment you know.”
Her tone set him off. “Fuck the environment, I need two bags, all these other assholes are probably driving 4x4 trucks around, they only deserve to use one bag! I, on the other hand, walk, by choice, because the last thing our environment needs is another vehicle polluting up our air, so if anything I deserve one extra fucking plastic bag to walk my groceries home. Is one simple little plastic bag going to really cause that much more trouble for this fucked up world of ours?”
Security escorted the man and his one bag of groceries to the exit after the cashier began crying and everyone behind him began yelling at him. He had brought up one too many sensitive issues at the cashier at that particular grocery store, especially for a Sunday.
If you guessed that the bag broke on his way home, you are right. It did. And, of course, it was followed by foul words echoing through out the neighbourhood.
The enemy was close, the child could sense it. He pointed his gun in the air and looked over at his brother. Before he could say a single word, a bullet hole was made between His brother’s eyes and blood began to pour out all over his face. The boy fell to the ground, grasping his gun like it was an extension of himself. His brother, like everyone else in his family, was dead. he had seen them all die, with his own two eyes. the images never to leave him. He knew these events would haunt him for the rest of his life, which he already knew, would be a short one.
One by one, every single ally he had, fell dead around him. This was not a battle, it was a massacre. Within moments he knew he was the only one left alive. The shooting ceased and silence fell over the field.
He listened closely. The enemy was slowly making it’s way across the field, towards him and his dead allies. Once in a while a shot would ring out followed by the enemies laughter. The child began grabbing the dead bodies that surrounded him and buried himself underneath them. Soaked from head to toe in blood, he held his hands over his mouth trying not to breath. He could taste the blood that had made it’s way into his mouth and the smell of the corpses under the heat of the sun caused him to gag.
It seemed like it was taking forever but he could hear, the shots and the laughter from the enemy, getting closer. He had two options: Stay and hide or wait until the enemy were in close enough range and shoot as many of them as possible, before they shot him. This was a hard choice to make at seven years old.
She was gone. That was the first thing for him to notice. As soon as he opened his eyes he could see the closet had been emptied. The entire closet was always her, as she was a high class girl and he was a stay at home writer. The most pairs of anything the man had were pyjamas, closely followed by socks. All of his clothes fit, neat and nicely in a dresser at the opposite end of the room. He first words out of his mouth that morning, lying there on the bed, his eyes adjusting to the image of the empty closet, was “fuck.” It was the first of over 100 times he’d say the word throughout just the morning alone. Every time, saying it exactly the same, soaked in self-loathing and pity.
In the bathroom, to his surprise, his now ex-girlfriend had taken everything that she had bought herself. That meant everything in the bathroom, including the toilet paper. As you could guess, this is when he said the word again. Everything from the shampoo to the towels in the cupboard were all hers and so she had taken them.
In the kitchen it was the same scene, if not worse for she left all the emptied cupboards open, something the man had always been irritated by. Open cupboards. He screamed obscene words as loud as he could and it felt good. It felt so good he continued to act on this rage and began punching all of the cupboards. Some were hit so hard they busted right off the hinges and fell to the floor. He then continued to kick the lower drawers left open in front of him, busting them into pieces. With long, hard, deep breaths he let himself begin the process of settling down, though the fire was still lit behind his eyes.
He had a routine, you see. A special schedule that he and his body followed every single day. Over the years of learning to deal with himself and his unique ability to turn into nothing more than a beast, he knew he had to follow the routine in order from hurting those around him, or even worse, himself.
#1. Wake up when the body feels it’s been rested and only then. This meant turning off the phones, keeping the specially made blinds closed, and after a particular incident, buying his girlfriend her own bed to sleep in. The bruise healed quickly and thankfully she was a forgiving woman.
#2. 100mg of fluoxitine, 1mg of clonazepam (every four to six hours) , and a cup of cold coffee or an espresso and chocolate shake for caffeine intake. Of course, he still had his pills but they seemed pointless to take without the caffeine. Everything in the kitchen was hers, he did not even have a pot to boil water in.
#4. Morning bowel movement. Impossible without any toilet paper.
#5. Breakfast. Bread and Nutella sandwiches were his favourite. With a side of milk, of course. If not Nutella, then peanut butter and honey and if not sandwiches, then pancakes or French toast. There was only an empty carton of milk left in the fridge, not even a drop left in it.
#6. Tea while he turns on his computer, checks his e-mail and begins to write. The computer was his and had been untouched from the night before. He turned it on but was unable to connect to the internet. “That bitch!” he said to himself.
He opened a blank page and stared at it. He had 72 hours before the short story was due and had not found anything to write about, as of yet. It did not take him long to realize that he couldn’t write without some sort of inspiration. He talked to himself, “I need something… I can’t handle this. Not on my own. I am fucking miserable here.” he thought for a moment and it was interrupted by a growl coming from his stomach. “I need caffeine and I need it now!”
The man hated many things. Other than cupboards and drawers left open, one of them was having to interact with other people. What he found over time was that, as much as he disliked having to do it, these people inspired characters for his stories. He would usually take 2 clonazepam and bring the bottle with him, just in case. This was his ritual every single time he left his house. That morning he had not bothered to take any. As he was putting on his shoes and jacket, he thought about the pills waiting for him to take. He then remembered the state of the kitchen. Not even a drop of milk. Another one of the other things this man hated, was water. Yes, he hated water. Everything about it, every aspect of it. Lakes, the ocean, swimming, being on a boat, beaches, even drinking tap water that had not been boiled and flavoured; all these things he had went out of his way to avoid, all of his life. There was not even a second thought about his pills after he got over the disgust of realizing he would need to use water to get them down his dry throat. He slammed the door behind him to let the world around him know, he was pissed off.
After getting outside he was shocked to find that is was cold. He was not very good with time and dates but was sure summer had just ended, the cold outside made him even more angry. He began walking towards the store, something he had not walked to in about a year or two. He had fallen arches along with a hip alignment problem from a drinking and driving accident he had been blamed for. This was when he was seventeen. He had only been driving a year but the judge made sure that he would never be allowed to drive again. It also didn’t help that the 70 year old woman who had suddenly stopped her vehicle in front of him, died in the accident. He was sure that the doctor’s purposely left his legs unaligned in his hip when they were operating, as their own punishment for killing an old woman. They told him they wanted to break his hip to re-align his legs, which would cost a lot of money for the surgery and leave him in a wheel chair, until he re-learned how to walk. At first, he thought they were joking. In the end he told them were they could go and ever since has avoided walking long distances.
The store was at the end of the street, about two blocks away. He did not think this would be too much of a problem but after one block the piercing pain began running up through the arch of his foot, around to the back of his knees. Only half way and the pain had already started. He still had to walk back with the groceries. He did the only thing he ever knew how to avoid feeling the pain, as he walked, which was to smoke a little marijuana. He began to puff but the end of the joint came loose in his mouth and soon had inhaled crumbs of weed into the back of his throat. He coughed and spit and coughed and spit. Swearing all the while. Kids out in their yards with their parents, raking leaves, running and playing, laughing all the while the man is coughing, swearing and spiting on the side walk.
He continued on walking but could not keep spiting. He tried to fix the end of the joint but by the time he took a second toke, he was so desperate to get the smoke into his lungs, he pulled back too hard and resin began to leak out the end, covering his lips. This is another thing the man hated. A perfectly good joint ruined by resin leaking out the back into the mouths and onto the lips and teeth of the smoker. He threw the joint away and began to continue to swear and spit.
When he arrived at the store, the pain had lead him to walk quite strangely. To others it looked as though he was walking with shit in his pants. Some people laughed at him, others frowned as he wreaked of pot and had resin smeared over his lips.
Grocery shopping was exactly how he remember it. The same as it was five years ago, the last time he had done it. He took his time to get the things he needed. The floor of the store had much more mercy on his feet than the pavement outside. When he got to the cashier, he saw a sign he has never seen before, ‘One Bag Per Customer.’ As the cashier rang in his things he had to quickly re-evaluate what he really needed and what he was just buying because he wanted it. This was one of the most hardest things he had ever tried to do. People were lining up behind them and the pressure was on. So he gave up. “Only one bag, come on, could you spare two just this one time, I am walking and never been to this store before.”
“Sorry sir, but if I allow one person two bags then everyone will ask and expect me to give them two bags. There’s a reason there is that big sign up there.”
“I know, I am sorry, but I need all of this stuff, my girlfriend-”
She cut him off, “I’m sorry sir, one bag per customer, that’s the rule, were trying to save the environment you know.”
Her tone set him off. “Fuck the environment, I need two bags, all these other assholes are probably driving 4x4 trucks around, they only deserve to use one bag! I, on the other hand, walk, by choice, because the last thing our environment needs is another vehicle polluting up our air, so if anything I deserve one extra fucking plastic bag to walk my groceries home. Is one simple little plastic bag going to really cause that much more trouble for this fucked up world of ours?”
Security escorted the man and his one bag of groceries to the exit after the cashier began crying and everyone behind him began yelling at him. He had brought up one too many sensitive issues at the cashier at that particular grocery store, especially for a Sunday.
If you guessed that the bag broke on his way home, you are right. It did. And, of course, it was followed by foul words echoing through out the neighbourhood.
The enemy was close, the child could sense it. He pointed his gun in the air and looked over at his brother. Before he could say a single word, a bullet hole was made between His brother’s eyes and blood began to pour out all over his face. The boy fell to the ground, grasping his gun like it was an extension of himself. His brother, like everyone else in his family, was dead. he had seen them all die, with his own two eyes. the images never to leave him. He knew these events would haunt him for the rest of his life, which he already knew, would be a short one.
One by one, every single ally he had, fell dead around him. This was not a battle, it was a massacre. Within moments he knew he was the only one left alive. The shooting ceased and silence fell over the field.
He listened closely. The enemy was slowly making it’s way across the field, towards him and his dead allies. Once in a while a shot would ring out followed by the enemies laughter. The child began grabbing the dead bodies that surrounded him and buried himself underneath them. Soaked from head to toe in blood, he held his hands over his mouth trying not to breath. He could taste the blood that had made it’s way into his mouth and the smell of the corpses under the heat of the sun caused him to gag.
It seemed like it was taking forever but he could hear, the shots and the laughter from the enemy, getting closer. He had two options: Stay and hide or wait until the enemy were in close enough range and shoot as many of them as possible, before they shot him. This was a hard choice to make at seven years old.
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