Fading Out

The light is always crazy bright in this place. You have to be able to see, but this is so intense, it burns my eyes and hurts my skin.

There is an intensity to my surroundings that has always pressed in upon me, but more so here.

Everything about this place hurts. 

I try to focus on the job in hand. Chopping and chopping with the knife and piling the cut vegetables into large metal bowls so they can go to the next station. I work tirelessly and although I am now used to the work, I can feel the aches and pains that I will suffer later.

I will suffer later.

I finish the pile and take the bowls across to where they are needed. 

There is a buzz in this kitchen. Frenetic movement. On the face of it there is chaos, but under that there is a finely calibrated machine. Everyone has their place and they know what is required of them. Timing is everything. Do the work, do it well and do it in time.

I have done my bit and now I have a moment to attend to my surroundings. I can at last look up, and this I do. The effect on me is dizzying. I recall a game with a broom. A game where I span and span around the broom and then I looked up and I felt exactly like this. The world fell away from me or maybe I fell away from the world. Either way, there was a separation and I was temporarily lost and afraid. 

This did not stop me from playing the broom game.

There was no one to stop me playing the broom game.

I have five minutes before I am expected to do the washing up. I stagger from the room filled with the hustle and bustle of the living and make my way outside.

The outside space at the back of a kitchen is in stark contrast to the too bright and overly clean kitchen. As you escape the glare that pierces you, you enter a murky, forgotten space. The aroma of fermenting bins wafts into your nasal cavity and dares you not to gag. This is a smell that you will never get used to. It is a reminder of death, corruption and decay. The light here is filtered through that filth. The Styx is an underground river that snakes its way along the backs of all the kitchens of this world.

Now I have four minutes. The act of escape consumes one of the minutes I have left to me. Really, I only have three clear minutes as I am expected to be back at my station and working as my break ends. Those are the rules, but no one ever explained them to me.

No one ever explains the important things in life. These things remain a mystery. A mystery that hurts. It hurts if you don’t unravel it. It hurts when you do.

I seem to be unpicking the biggest of mysteries right now. A mystery that feels like it belongs to me, but I’m not so proud to think I’m the only one. There will be others, but we will never meet to share our shared plight. That’s the nature of this one. It can never be shared. It is mine to bear alone. 

I feel it dragging me down.

The door to the busy kitchen is propped open. I have wondered about this a number of times. Everything is just so in the kitchen except this door. The door opens onto another world. A world that the kitchen shuns. And yet it remains open. Propped open by a piece of folded card that has been torn from a box that once carried fresh produce. Those contents the box carried have been brought forth into the world and they are only so much waste now. One way or another, the fresh, vibrant produce has become just so much shit.

The door is propped open even though it yells to everyone that it must remain shut. Upon the door is the legend Fire Door. Keep shut. The only time this door is shut is when the whole place closes. Four hours of respite from being disrespected and defiled by the worker ants fulfilling their purpose in this life but preventing the door from fulfilling its own purpose.

I rest against the cold, metallic side of the large bin and I stare back into the kitchen via that sorry and slighted portal. The bin is cold, but I imagine its contents are warm as they generate heat, breaking down and decaying. I watch the activity in the kitchen and I solve my mystery.

I am fading away.

I have felt it for some time now, but I have denied that feeling words. In there, in that hive of frenetic activity is where I feel it the most. I’m surrounded by people with powerful purpose. The kitchen is awash with energy. But none of it touches me. I move amongst those people as they create meaning via the food they work upon and they no longer see me. They avoid me without acknowledging me. 

Does the river bother with the rock in its midst? Does it understand? Does it understand that it is forced to part in order to continue to flow? Does it care as it takes that rock apart granule by granule until the rock no longer exists as a rock and is instead suspended within a billion droplets of water? Water that travels hither and thither in a way that a rock never could.

I stare into the midst of the flowing kitchen and I no longer want to be there. I am adrift in a sea of people, and lonely as can be. 

I no longer belong.

I no longer am.

I have ceased to be a part of what lies before me.

Lies.

It’s all lies and I am the biggest lie of all.

With a force of will, I push myself away from the bin and I walk away.

I walk away from it all with no care as to where it is that I am headed.