December's End

The bitter cold was starling that year, coming out of nowhere and biting those in the ass that still remembered the weather of only a week before. Jennifer was probably hit the hardest with her landlord on her tail about work, her bills putting her nearly in debt, and trying not to lose her sanity in the mess called her mind. Lately the clock on the wall has been her entertainment, falling in and out of sleep every other hour trying to forget about her problems. Trying to forget about the man that yells for her to get money, just so that she can give most of her paycheck to him so she can simply live another day in a bed that is cold, uncomfortable, and lonely. She still has a month's worth of cash in the bank, but her anxiety is killing. Christmas and gifts are worrying, with travel taking a chunk of the money, the gifts for the friends and relatives taking another chunk. Then there's food, water, and the heat that take another chunk. And her college takes another decent chunk. Ignoring it all leaves her mind empty and tortured, as if she was in solitary confinement. Remembering it all makes her feel as if she's being drowned in molasses, unable to move to safety.

“Jenny, can you hear me?” politely asked her mother, being drowned out by the ticking of the clock on that empty wall. The blue wall was soothing, and the steady rhythmic ticking was somehow beautiful. It filled the rest of the empty space around her, painting the wall in subtle abstract works that could be stared at for hours. 

“Jenny?!”

“I'm sorry, I didn’t catch that last part?” She tried to not let on how much of the conversation she had missed.

“Are you coming back home for the holidays?”

“I don’t know if I can afford to. Not only that but this year barely any of the family is showing up. Even Bobby isn't coming, and he only lives an hour and a half away, so how much would I even be missing?”

“We were planning to go see the lights and go downtown a couple days before.”

“And I can walk ten minutes and I’m in the middle of Times square. The downtown back there is literally a street with a bar and a couple shops and maybe a Christmas tree.” Her defensive statement was unwarranted, but her pride stepped in. There was a silence.

“Ok Honey, well if you ever change your mind just tell us, ok. We can get you a plane ticket and-”

“I’m fine mom, I don’t need your charity.”

“Ok Sweetie. It’d just be nice to see you in person again”

“It would, it just doesn’t look like it’ll happen this year”

“That’s alright. There’s always Easter”

“Of course.”                    “I’ve got to go, I have work in a few”

“Alright Honey, talk to you la-”

Jenny lied. She wasn’t going to leave. There was no reason. She quit her job and was unemployed. She wanted something other than a back breaking 9 to 5, that if it was described honestly was an 8 to 6, six days of the week that was going nowhere. She had five and a half years of that soul crushing job on her resume, and hoped that her degree could get her somewhere. Hoped that there was something that wasn’t putting items on a wrack and telling people the same shit over and over and over again. Something that she could appreciate in her life. Clearly in the past couple months she hadn’t found that when all she could find any pleasure in anymore was the passing of time, the ticking in the background, the minute hand telling her she had managed to exist on her own for about 6 years, 4 months, 12 days, 17 hours, and 47 minutes. No. make that 48 minutes. Now 49.  50. 51.   52.        53.  

The blue wall was now swirling around in circles, the clock in the center, ticking away. She can live for only a month. She had a month to find something to put effort to, something other than a monotone room with boring walls, a closet full of things that remind her of a life she once had but can't afford, and a bed that can only fit so much pain and baggage onto it. She could go back to a job that is mindless, full of people that suppress her talent, suppress her growth, and shove her into a corner where she feels small and worthless while she thinks people judge her for not being able to become successful. She could go into the job where her body is worn to the bone, where at the end of the night all she can do is spend the few hours she has left to lay on the lonely bed and not move till the alarm goes off and tells her to leave. Leave to the same back breaking, mind numbing work. To a job where her mind wanders into those dark places, those places where she's so lonely and distant someone could be screaming at her and she wouldn’t be able to hear it. Those places where she can’t breath, where she's suffocating in so many ways that all she can manage is to survive for another day of the same shit. 

Or… She could spend her final days hoping for a job that she can call meaningful. A job that will give her the opportunity to obtain what she thinks will be happiness. Work that will actually use the education she had spent four years gaining. A career she believes will bring her closer to success and will stop people from thinking she is small, worthless, and a waste of space. Whether or not that is what she is actually accomplishing, she’ll feel like she’s moving somewhere better. But to do that she has to invest. Invest time. Invest her energy. Invest money. Money that could cost her her home, her bed, her blue walls, her closet of memories, and her clock. Her final bit of sanity. 

Or… she can distract herself with fleeting happiness, or at least that's what she believes it is. She could take that ticket and go home to people that love her and help her get to where she wants to be. People who will give her something better than those blue walls and want only to see her happy. But Jennifer doesn’t see that. Anxiety corrupts her perception of the world, turning love into hidden judgment and hatred, and her pride blinds her from thinking that she even has the opportunity to accept unbridled, unconditional love. If she could muster up the courage to accept this as an option and take it, she’ll eventually regress to the same thoughts she had just escaped a couple months ago. That dark, small place. That place where she’s drowning. 

This all circled around on that blue wall in front of her, around that clock, each one taking a moment to become the center piece. Jennifer was tired of it for the time being. There was another day to come. Another day to stare at the wall with the clock. Another day of merely eating food and drinking water so that she can make it to the next day of staring at the wall, listening to the ticking of the clock.

Then there was only only 8 days left to continue this cycle.

Then 7. 

Then 5. 

Then 2. 

Then the bank statement rolled in. 

$57.34. All the bills had been paid for. Except for rent. 

The landlord came the next day furious at the lack of a job and the lack of a check. It didn’t matter how much he was yelling at Jenny though. She had ran away from her body. To her he was yelling at someone else about how they aren’t allowed to sleep for days on end and be a lazy bum. She couldn’t hear the eviction that was coming, or see it the next day for herself. She was off in a void away from this world. She couldn’t feel any struggle that was down below away from her. She was simply observing the world from a safe place, watching a girl cry for days on end, watching a girl sell her last possessions, her clothes and memories, giving her bed away, lying on the cold concrete ground in a puddle of frozen tears and a pile of blood from the cuts. A girl trying to keep warm from the litter off the streets and away from the snow under a traffic light. But this couldn’t be Jennifer. Last she remembered she was in her bed, hearing the ticking of the clock pass the time away. No. This couldn’t be her. 

This couldn’t be what happened to Jennifer.