Foxtrot

On Monday I went to the Pharmacy. Tuesday I went to the post office. Wednesday the pharmacy, maybe the post office as well. Thursday... All the days start and end the same. Wake up at 9, bathroom, tea, desk. Work, work, work, maybe I go outside, come home, bathroom, dinner, couch, watch, watch, watch then bed. I've made it my goal to watch every single movie ever, (or as close to that as I can get), and rank them. After I finish my work and errands the house is hollow and empty and it's just me, the buzzing and yelling of my neighbors in the walls; movies feel social. The characters feel real, not necessarily like friends or even acquaintance's but just people who pass me by. If I'm watching a drama, I imagine I'm a nosey neighbor listening in, or I place myself somewhere in their home. I'm a vase, a potted plant, A lamp shade. If it's a sci-fi i'm a video camera, or a piece of fancy technology listening and watching our protagonist without them even knowing, or maybe I'm a robot of sorts. I never place myself into the storyline as that's too disruptive, but I'm present in some way. Watching, listening. Last night I watched Alfred Hitchcock's "Vertigo". I chose to stay out of this film, not because I didn't want to be there but because I felt as if I was already there. I wake up everyday,I follow the same schedule yet I still seem not to remember the details, more specifically the "Why". Why the days take after one another so identically, why I'm still here and others aren't, why daily life is so takes so much but never gives, Why. If I should I fling myself into the bay, know that it was because I'm looking for clarity, not an escape nor and end. But the difference between me and Madeline is that she lied. She knowingly jumped in the water, she pretended to be possessed, she pretended to love John. I don't pretend. The days slip by me. I grasp time in the short time by the sun and my circadian rhythm, but the long term is fleeting. My biological clock wakes me up at 9, the rising sun bringing warmth to my face. It takes me an hour to shower, brush my teeth and get dressed. I sit down for morning tea around 10:30, which I usually have outside on the front porch. I finish this at about 11:00, as the sun is almost straight overhead in the sky. I sit down at my desk by 11:30 and begin working, I'm lucky I have the luxury to start so late. I'm a writer, Film critic to be exact. I pick one movie from the six I watch each week, strip it down to the bone, then put it back together through my own lense. I submit it to my editor once a week, Wednesdays usually, but sometimes I'm late. Three days later I get an email with my article, published in the "Movies and TV" collum of the Weekly Times. I take a break at about 2pm, I hear the children get out of school down the street. I usually go for a walk, run errands, grab something to eat. Pharmacy, post office, cafe, pharmacy. I come back around five, the sun is making its way behind the row of houses across from me. I sit back at the computer for more aimless work until 9, I also edit for the rest of the paper, my peers send me rough drafts and I send back polished pieces. Dinner is usually something simple and quick, with another cup of tea. A new movie every night, i spend up 30 minutes just shuffling through options. If I'm not too tired I take notes, but usually I just watch to enjoy and hope I retain all the important information. I'm in bed by 1am most nights, but sleep doesn't come easy. I usually roll around until 3 and finally drop out from exhaustion. If someone asked me what today's date was, I'd take me a few minutes to figure it out but I could tell them. I haven't lost time in the complete linear sense, Monday then Tuesday, April then May, the 8th then the 9th. I could tell you that because I have a phone, a computer and a few calendars posted in various rooms of the house. But to me it's not the same. I've been living my own personal groundhog day for god knows how long. Wake up, wake up, wake up. Work, work, work. Watch, watch, watch. It feels as if the worlds moved on without me. At one point we were walking together-me and the rest of the world-but then I dropped something, a piece of me. I stopped to pick it up and I asked the world to wait but they didn't. And when I couldn't find the pieces of me I lost and the world kept moving ahead I ran to catch up, but I'm not fast enough. I've been running for so long, sometimes tripping and falling and thinking of giving up and then regaining courage but having farther to go. I'm exhausted. My mind is like a treadmill. The thoughts jog on the conveyor belt for as long as they can but when my anxiety turns the speed and the incline up they slip and fall in the abyss. I'm forgetful, I lose track of things, due dates, expiration dates, birthdays, holidays. They all slip and fall.  I try to keep track of things based on work, and when pieces are due for different things, but nothing is definite. "Times are hard right now, take your time! But I do need it as soon as possible", "Don't worry about due dates, just send over as soon as you're done, Thank you." The weather indicates we're somewhere in the transition from spring to summer. May, my favorite season. I've been spending a lot more time outside lately, isolated of course. Having breakfast in my front yard, walks during my break. I love having all the windows open and listening the breeze run down the hallways of my home as I work. Sometimes I wish it would whisk me up and float me down with it. Out my office, down the hall, through the window, along the sidewalk, into the park, past sandboxes, through the tree's as far away from my life I can get. I feel bound to my home, like a spirit that's trapped been in this house for eternity. As if all my past lives lived here, I know the place inside and out. Every crack in the floorboards, every creaky hinge in the door frames, the broken window in the 2nd floor guest room. The house has been here for decades, it rattles when the wind picks up the pipes moan and groan everytime you turn the faucet on. The walls are nothing if not thin, I can hear my neighbors on each side. To the left, an old married couple together of 50 years. They're very nice and quiet. The only time I hear them is when they watch old black and white films on the AMC channel together every night. The booms and pows of cannons and old western pistols. To the right is a complete antonym. An unhappy family of four; mom, dad, and two teenage girls. The dad is a nasty, vile thing. He leaves early in the morning before I wake and doesn't roll through the door until after 9pm, always drunk, always miserable. I can help but listen to the sound of yelling and breaking glasses while I watch my movie for the night. The girls cry and hide, and the wife screams for mercy asking him to stop but he never does. Around 11 I assume he's passed out because it all comes to a halt. And everyday he wakes up and does it again. The toxicity leaks through the walls and into my living room. The home is heavy and suffocating, I can feel the weight of each family member on my chest in the evening. The poor girls just cry and beg and plead but nothing seems to get through to him. During the day they do school from home they play in the yard, like a switch has flipped. When he's not there they're completely different, fun and lively but still a little bit sad. It lingers like a veil they wear over their face everyday. The wife is stunning, hair down to her shoulders, skin deep like wine, sharp cheekbones that could cut ice. But her world stopping beauty doesn't hide the pain underneath. Her only salvation is her garden out front, if she isn't working, cleaning, washing, hurting, or caring inside, she’s outside on her knees in the dirt. Sometimes she'd be out there in the morning while I had my breakfast, I'd watch as she dug up weeds and water greens and wiped sweat from her forehead. If I was feeling social I'd strike up a conversation, which always went something like "Hi, sorry to bother you but do you have the time?". And she'd say "It's quarter to 11" regardless of whether it was quarter to 11 or not. And I'd reply, "Oh jeez, better hurry up so I'm not late to meet my inbox!" My lame attempt at cracking a joke and trying to make her smile. I then start cleaning up my food to go inside and she'd chuckle and say "You have fun with that!" Or "Don't be late." I always leave when she comes out, because I like to think that she comes out there for an escape from her house, a sense of serendipity. But one day last week, maybe two weeks ago, it was different. I start my dialogue as always, she answers always the same, I rebuttal with the same wisecrack. When I start to get up, she looks up and asks "Do you actually have somewhere to be right now?" and I said no and briefly explained my job. She looks at me with a sort of melancholy, loneliness. When I glance back at her I notice a bulging purple spot above her eyebrow, underneath her big gardeners hat. She finally asks "Would you mind sitting out here with me a little longer." Her voice cracked, she was defeated. I silently sat back down and reopened my newspaper, "Do you read the Movies and TV section of the times?", I asked after a tense silence. I sat out front with her for an hour and a half, explaining the plot of "American Psycho", a movie I had watched earlier that week. She thought Jason Bateman was an attention seeking  spoiled brat with no ulterior motive other than boredom. I agreed. In the time we spent together she planted two brand new rows of strawberries. It was the most social interaction I had had in months, and I could tell it was the same for her. She was very funny and strongly opinionated, but also kind and warm, the kinds of person who wraps you up into their energy and never lets you go. A person you think about for days, weeks after meeting. Later that day heard the husband come home. The screaming, the glass, the cries the silence. I felt an urge to knock on the door and do something, anything. But I was paralyzed with fear and I knew it wasn’t my place. The next day she didn't come outside, which wasn't unusual, then the next and the next and the next and the next. I sat outside an extra 30 minutes each day waiting for her to come back again but she never did. Finally the night where silent. No yelling ,no screaming, no glass, just smooth silence. Later that week I went out back to take out my trash and her car was gone. I haven't heard from her since that day in the front yard. I'd like to think she finally left, and fought her way out. Daily I hear shuffles and glass clattering on the other side of the wall, someone is still over there it's just a question of who? I feel so sad that that’s what it came too, having to leave everything behind to finally feel safe and secure in a home again. I’ve watched her plants start to die, every morning when I sit down to eat they droop farther and farther, they wilt like they’re carrying the weight of the world. I’m tempted to turn my hose on and water them from over the fence, to keep the pieces of her she left behind alive. Just in case maybe one day she comes back, but I'm afraid that whoevers inside will see me. As for me I’m still here, reeling from the past and looking towards a dizzy unclear future. My work has taken the back burner, I go outside less, I eat less, I do less. The only thing that’s stayed the same is the quantity of films I watch. The world is moving too fast again, or did it never slow down. Was it me who stopped and let them all run past me? Is it my fault that my thoughts slip and slide through the grooves of my brain like olive oil on a stainless steel pan, was it me? And do i just stay here, sitting at the windowsill watching the world sprint past me from my cold dark home. Close the windows, shut the blinds and let the darkness swallow me down like a pill and dissolve me into its stomach acid. Let it flow through my veins like medication leaving me drunk on my own self pity and disdain. If not that then what? I can’t fight it on my own, I can’t fight it at all, because it’s not a fight it’s a dance. An intricate tango that takes years to learn, to perform, to perfect. And if you don’t know every single step every twist every ball changes every arm position by heart, if you make one mistake the entire routine is ruined. Once you miss one step it's over. I’ve missed too many steps too many times, I don't think I can stand up and brush myself off anymore.