If you stare at something long enough, it loses definition; physically and mentally. It expands, consuming your vision, a featureless nothingness. It was an experience John Bradford was entirely familiar with, and one in which he participated every day, from nine to five. He sat in his cubicle, staring at the grey walls that enclosed him in a monotonous cage of sameness, lost. Sometimes, they became more then walls, more than mere boundaries with a beginning and an end.
On those occasions, he could drown in a sea of grey. And his was but one small box, among thousands of interconnected yet completely isolated bubbles of modernity.
He wondered absently, who it was that neighboured him in this uniform building, and if they too suffered as he did, losing themselves in their walls. Did they, then, all occupy the same sea of escapism? Or were they all separate? He leaned back on his swivel chair, pen tapping chin thoughtfully, a lock of brown hair gently curling over his forehead. It was idle thoughts like these that had earned him many a smack as a child or a disapproving sigh from his father, teacher, and mother.
‘Won’t you get your head out of the clouds boy?!’
‘Won’t you do something productive?’
‘You mark my words lad, you won’t get nowhere with this lay about attitude of yours!’
John inhaled sharply at this recollection, eyes fluttering closed at the sights and smells it brought back: the thick, manly smell of his father, tinged with tobacco. His bristling, ginger beard, small dark eyes narrowed in disapproval; the earthy smell of his mother, lightly dusted with flour and the thick twang of true bred Irish voice raised in anger. It wasn’t the type of recollection he’d welcome normally, but now he breathed it in, immersing himself in something new and fresh in this stale, sterilized environment. The house he grew up in came to life in sharp focus, still dark and grey. He almost felt he could hear the ghost cries of laughter and play from the back, as he and his brothers rollicked around.
Over this, the darker, menacing yell of his father; the shrill of Mama’s voice cut short by a sharp smack. The ball thudding to the ground as the boys looked away guiltily, as if it were their fault. His father’s drunken rages only got worse as time went by, and they suffered it in silence. He shook himself out of reverie; such thoughts were dangerous. Sometimes he didn’t like what he found within the walls of dream he’d built around him.
On the darkest of days, John wondered if anyone would even notice if he stopped working, stopped showing up, or even died. Somehow, he doubted it. Another recruit would be shuffled in, trained, and then be left to flounder in obscurity.
Still, he did add some homey touches to his cell, as he liked to think of it. It was his way of stamping the mark of his presence, of creating difference. There, beside the computer, was a beautiful silvery portrait of him in his childhood days. And on the desk, he had a running catalogue of stick figure marks, one for each hellish day. He’d have placed them on the wall, but to make a blemish on them was akin to sacrilege; nothing must stand in the way of his day living. Through this wonderful portal of imagination came experiences he would never have—the salty taste of the sea on his lips, the boom of crashing waves, the warmth of another to curl around. ‘O God, I could be bounded in a nutshell and count myself a king of infinite space, were it not that I have bad dreams.'
He went for months—years sometimes, not even knowing the name or physical appearance of the occupant in the next cubicle. People were only shadows here; they flickered briefly, flowing over walls and desks without ever leaving a sign of their passing. The click and clack of typing, the beep and shrill of faxing machines, and the susurrus of shuffled papers was unceasing. It would forever be so. He stared at the dull glow of the computer, wishing he could fall into the unknowable depths of cyberspace. Even oblivion would be better than this slow erosion of identity and spirit.
Tick, tock; he didn’t even glance at the clock. He’d come to know this hour of the day so well, his body instantly reacted to it: lunch break. It was one o’ clock. A strange feeling came over John then, one of excitement and near hysteria, his lips trembled and his hands shook and he shot to his feet. All around the room, hundreds did likewise. Unanimously, an army of individual mediocrity rose in tandem, all of average or lesser height and appearance; nobody’s of this world.
Their small eyes gleaming with excitement, noses twitching in anticipation, they rushed outside. All wearing the too-smart business suit, a desperate last-ditch attempt for attention, advancement, delusion.
John was different though. He wore a threadbare suit, tie loosely drawn, shirt un-ironed and scruffy. His messy brown hair was an irritation to all who saw it, an affront to the tightly drawn no-nonsense bun, and short, sharp crop of combed hair. He lumbered over to the stairs, and flooded down with the rest, to the café on the first level. His lanky frame protested sharply at this unusual amount of movement, still accustomed to the cramped cage that was his cubicle.
John quickly ordered a steaming hot coffee, taking it over to the window seat, the same one he occupied every day. As he approached, the sense of excitement that had overtaken him moments ago rose again, higher and sharper.
He sat down. He stared out the window at the rushing crowd; sighing in relief as one satiated. His eyes devoured the people; the tall, the fat, small and tall, dark and fair, blond and brunette, the poor, the rich—all rushing away, jabbering and talking and jostling and laughing, all undoubtedly…alive. It was lunch hour in the CBD, so the majority of people were office clerks, business and bank managers but pushing hastily through them was the odd courier or fluro clothed labourer, and always there was the presence of the destitute, begging and pleading and dancing for money.
Oh, but he longed to join them. To be one with that mad rush of talking, feeling, and rushing people, to truly experience something so rich, exotic and wonderful; that would be living. Even as he strained toward the too clear window, he felt the invisible chains tighten around him and the small light of hope was doused by reality. It was money that bound him so, the need for it which slotted him into this hellish existence, which even now bound him to the chair. John stood, eyes alight with an odd madness—he’d had enough.
The next hour passed in a blur. Contacting his supervisor, and calmly informing her he was leaving, the surprised lift of her eyebrows giving him an unexpected rush of satisfaction, the somewhat emotional packing up of his photo. It all led to one glorious, magical moment of immersion. The sweet chink of automatic doors sliding open chimed in his ears as a refreshing breeze blew his hair back, carrying on its back the scent of urban life; exotic spices and foreign food, tinged with perfume and under this, the fetid stench of garbage and the poor. Then he was in, swept along the tide of humanity in an ecstatic, stupefying wave.
He loved it: warm hands, gruff voices, the push and pull of the crowd against the chafe of rough fabrics, or silken cloths. The experience of feeling, so different to his previous non-entity existence (which seemed to fade further and further away with each passing moment) enlivened him like nothing he’d ever known. His gaze ranged far and wide, absorbing everything, his stride was long and strong, his back straight, his movements graceful.
The day passed, whether slowly or quickly, he couldn’t tell; but he did notice when the people around him were tinted by crimson gold hues. Night descended on the world and brilliant cold stars glared down on the city. The hectic rush of man and machine slowed as lights and nylon signs burst into life.
Slowly, as the people came few and far between, and the murkier nocturnal types rose from the city’s subterranean depths, he came to. He was vaguely aware that he should go home, that perhaps he didn’t belong. But overriding this, his new found self surged in protest, demanding more, craving extra, as if once deluged in variety, his identity could dissolve and oneness be achieved. It harkened to him of his days with grey walls, of the times when lost, that definition faded. So he ventured on, for days or weeks, he knew not how long, he lived as the crowd.
He lived!
**
People.
Everywhere.
The thrum of voices.
The rhythmic pounding of feet.
Cold concrete kissed his cheek. Stale breath, reeking of beer, issued out from behind yellowing teeth and diseased gums.
He lay in a tunnel, brazen orange light bathing it and him in colour, as an oven would a chicken. He stared out from crusted eyelids, at the people walking by. The crowd, he realized bitterly, no longer existed. Oh it had seemed so, and for a remarkably long time he had believed it, losing himself in its allure. In its depths, at the best of times, he became nothing; there were limbs moving, flashing, jerking erratically and noise and smells and sounds, but no thought… or any recognition of self.
He could see now, from the side. You had to skew the vision to see the truth. Front on, or from behind, it appeared to be an impenetrable migration of humanity. Lying as he was, a pitiful bundle of bearded nothingness, he saw the great big gaps between people. Each straining their hardest to maintain their distance, and it was painfully apparent that what existed here was exactly like that of his workplace. Only, the people had brought their cubicles with them, maintaining their silent bubbles of cursory modernity. He didn’t know why, couldn’t see the reason behind this absurdly lonely existence, he knew only that it hurt. Some small part of him, distantly lucid, whispered thanks that it was he alone in pain. He had no family to terrify.
It was in this tunnel, walls filled with frozen instances in time that the poor sang and danced, to no avail. They couldn’t see the cubicle walls. But he could, and tears slid down his worn cheeks, as their mournful music echoed.
