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Self-Indulgence
Sirtu desperately wanted to ruin his life.
He didn't have the guts.
He lay in his bed, or he shuffled about his house, or he stood in front of the fridge for three minutes staring at the cheese he wanted but didn't want to eat, and he knew: he knew he was sick. And a rat.
He wasn't a rat in a cage, oh no, no songs for him. He was a rat who had climbed up a little red chute and could now look down on his cage.
Inside there were rat droppings and little shreddings his master had put there. Also play things and chewables. They were all in his cage which was all he had in this magnificent world proclaimed to be utopia and hell at the same time. He knew people were sick; he just wasn't sure who was more sick, people or himself.
He wanted to hurt himself, but how could he. Possibilities ran through his head.
A car accident, while easy, really was much too random. It would probably appear obvious, and he wanted little to do with suicide. He didn't want to die at all. He just wanted a large dosage of pain and bitterness to relish. Was that too much to ask?
Not that he was asking. He tried not to ask for anything, that way when he got nothing, he couldn't complain. For Christmas he asked for nothing and got very little, and that very little usually amounted to a few trinkets and some cash, which was nothing. He couldn't be happier or more displeased. He was a firm believer in random acts of kindness, though he initiated none. It was the only way he could truly be happy.
Happy, he thought?
If so, then why won't someone come in here and ruin my life. It would make things easier.
He regarded the front door. The frame was broken, as all his doorframes had been, from some friend senselessly and pointlessly kicking it.
Since his childhood and even further back, he was sure his door frames had always been broken. Like some rain god in a Douglas Adams book. He didn't mind the rain or the door frames.
He heard a noise outside.
It was nothing. Or it was something he couldn't see. Which really was nothing at all anyway. He couldn't believe in things he couldn't see.
His mom called him an atheist -- but a devout one. His friends who were women called him numb. His friends who were guys laughed at his blindness and told him he was blind. But he didn't listen. Later they would leave and he couldn't see them. Sirtu walked back to the fridge. Nothing in here at all amid the junk and filth and milk and eggs and cheese and bread, and why was bread in the fridge. Bread didn't need to be cold. It tasted worse cold. Why was it there? He looked away and the bread was no longer there. Numerous other items littered the empty fridge. If only there was something there.
"If only..." he started to say, but realized there was no one to talk to. So be it.
Sirtu closed the fridge and walked to the living room. There was no one to talk to there either, but it didn't matter. He circled twice like no particular bird, then walked to his room. His computer sat frozen on off.
He had nothing to write or read or play on it. Stagnating on the floor were many clothes of different make and style, all not attracting him in the least. He stared around at his empty room. Posters, drawers, pants, a bed, sheets, shoes, desk, pens, paper, etc., dirtied what would otherwise be a perfectly clean room, then the record starting skipping...
A perfectly clean empty room.
He thought mebbe he was running low on gas. He needed more fuel. He needed to eat something. But nothing sounded good. Was he spoiled or not hungry or sick? Sick conjured other sicknesses that he was probably full of -- his body seemed to store up sickness and save it for rainy days.
Some sickness was probably busy messing with his mind right now. So he wouldn't eat, he changed the record and sat on the couch. The couch faced out the main window of the living room. There was nothing outside. It was cluttered with quiet trees and rain and snow and purple and white cars and streets filled with people, who were all filled with idle chatter and warm breath.
"The world is such a big place to be so empty," Sirtu thought.
Was that a thought worth writing down? He hardly thought so. He doubted he had any paper or anything to write it with anyway, so he didn't bother looking.
An interesting device sat beside him. It was a device used to communicate with others; oddly enough Sirtu tried to stay away from this device. It only communicated with him while he was sleeping, and most often all it said was, "Get up get up get up." Three times and then it would stop. Devices were like that. They hardly existed in reality. Take it apart and look at its insides. Put them back together. Hardly existed.
Sirtu thought about atoms and how they were made up mostly of nothing at all. What was that nothing? It had to be something, didn't it? The building blocks of life were made up of nothing, and nothing was everywhere. How quaint that when he really tried, he could see the nothing there. Squint, imagine, let his eyes bleed, and nothing would appear. It got so that less and less appeared everyday.
He wasn't trapped anywhere like in a cage because when you're in a cage, it means someone put you there. He was not trapped.
He walked into the bathroom, looking at the toothpaste on the ground and the razor by the bathtub and the shaving cream beside it and the useless comb on the sink and the mess of hair and the dirt and scum building up all over the place. Junk magically appears, if left to itself, according to Phillip K. Dick, so he hears.
He can smell into the past, drink into the future, and ignore the present. He can swallow his pride if asked, he can eat his own ego, he can drink to everyone but himself, he can take notes for a friend, he can lecture on the importance of anything, but he knows that nothing is important. He can talk and think and write in circles, with the full knowledge that nothing he writes matters now or yesterday or tomorrow's tomorrow. He can put hyphens where he likes and develop tastes for 13-year-old girls, or he can sleep with whoever takes the clothes off nearest him and has size D breasts. He can fool around with girls who are friends and he can fool around with girls he fools himself into believing he likes; he can use drugs and fool himself into thinking he is thinking original thoughts, or he can hear his own mind raking against itself and wish it would stop.
He wished, somehow, his life could just be bad.
Is that too much to ask?
And if the tower falls down and the cage is whisked away, what then?
What to do?
Find God hidden in the rocks?
Get $10 seats to an NBA game?
See the truth hidden in the lies?
Breed his own contempt?
Shrug his shoulders.
He looks forward and closes his eyes.
It's all not there now, evaporating in colors psychologists assure him he cannot see.
It's all not there now.
If only he had the guts.