"Brrrrrrnn....!
The alarm rings with its annoying sound. I am neither asleep nor awake… I hear it clearly, yet I don't hear it. I am nothing but a lifeless corpse stretched out on a bed in a room as dark as the darkness of my thoughts.
I stare at my ceiling, as I do every day—
when I sleep, when I wake—
as if I'm waiting for it to speak to me…
as if it's not the same ceiling as yesterday.
The alarm still rings, and I still hear it…
and yet, I don't hear it at all."
My mother opened the door, like a drunk just back from the pub, moving with heavy slowness and a drowsy, broken voice. ' turned that thing off , and get up… there's work waiting. It's five, aren't you going to work today?'
I muttered to her as I stared at that distinctive ceiling:
'Okay.'
I sat on the right side of the bed, as I always do, turned that thing off, and placed my hands over my eyes in a ridiculous manner…
just like a child playing hide-and-seek.
I sat there, listening to my mother's steps fading away as she returned to her room, the sound of her footsteps mingled with her vanishing voice as she yawned
I got out of bed and headed to the bathroom in complete silence, barely hearing my footsteps on the floor, as if I were a floating ghost.
Maybe it was because I hadn't had breakfast yet, or maybe my stomach wasn't actually empty—I don't know… I took a hot shower and had my breakfast, getting ready to go to the restaurant where I work in a job that suits my age but not my mental state.
I think you know what I mean… though I hope you don't. I put on my headphones, took out my bicycle, and lit a cigarette to talk to it along the way. I was listening to a calm, sad song that didn't really affect me, but I kept listening to it anyway. It was almost half past six, the time my shift as a waiter at Allin Seafood Restaurant began.
I still had ten minutes, more than enough to reach there, so I decided to stop by the side of the road to have another cigarette about the same topic I had discussed with the previous one. Talking to cigarettes is forbidden in the restaurant…
I sat on one of the benches by the road and started a conversation in which I said nothing, named nothing, yet both of us understood perfectly what we meant. During that productive conversation, a girl passed by me wearing a black coat, black pants, carrying a black bag, and wearing black shoes. She seemed a bit strange. As she passed, she looked at me with a gaze I didn't understand, or maybe had never seen before…
It wasn't a look of admiration, nor disgust or hostility. It was almost an ordinary glance, yet there was something strange about it. I mean, it's enough to catch a brief glance at a stranger, but staring while walking by—that's unusual. Was she a fan, showing signs of liking me? No, she didn't smile. Was she disgusted? No, she didn't show any signs. Was she someone from high school? I often meet people I don't know who know me from the past.
But they don't know me… and she didn't know me…
As I repeated these thoughts, I remembered the restaurant and the friend I was holding in my hands, and the conversation got lost, and so did time.
Have you ever hated someone you don't even know?
I hate that girl now