What A Pleasant Day

Harper Taylor stared at his phone. He wasn’t playing any games nor was he watching anything on it. He just stared at the empty black screen with some semblance of anticipation. He waited in silence and his patience wasn’t rewarded. The screen still remained black and his day further sunk him into dread.

It was one of his only days that he wasn’t typing away at a computer for a company that couldn’t bother to remember his birthday. The claking of any type of keys now gave him a sharp anxiety, his breath shortening and his eyes slightly watering. He probably could afford to get fired but then he wouldn’t be able to interact with anyone if you could even call it that. Hello. Goodbye. How is your day? How are the kids? How’s the wife? Those 5 phrases percolate around the office like a bee to its hive. They established a bare minimum effort of teamwork needed in a job that didn’t particularly promote individuality but scoffed at the idea of personal bonds. It hurt Harper's heart to know that little bit of interaction was the highlight of his life. His coworkers may have had fake smiles but his was genuine and he supposed that was what turned people off from him. He would rant a little bit further if someone asked him how his day was so most of them just said the first two: Hello. Goodbye. They didn’t need to ask the last two not because it was obvious but because it was unnatural for anyone to like him in any way that wasn’t just barely tolerable.

The screen was still black but Harper couldn’t help but stare. His parents were off dealing with their new families and his “siblings” didn’t care to know him. No one was messaging him so, why did he feel hope? His eyes started to sting, taking him away from his staring. He wiped away the start of the tears but they couldn’t be abated by his pathetic wipes. They streamed down his face like waterfalls but they were noticeably less beautiful and rather ugly. He moved from the coach he was loitering on and rushed for the bathroom. He stepped over strewn about clothes, takeout boxes, and beer cans which blocked his pathing. He thanked his past self for constricting his mess to the living room as his feet now intermingled with the relatively clean wooden flooring. He opened his bathroom with a rush and grabbed a nearby face towel. He cleaned the tears and the eventual snot before he turned on the facet and soaked his towel in the sink. As he let it soak his eyes darted to the front of him and he was greeted with a sight he’d rather not deal with: himself. His hair was unkempt and clumpy, sticking to his head unevenly and tightly. His skin was flaky and placid, trying very hard to slink itself from his bones and then came the face. He could never tolerate that damned face. It was riddled with acne scars from nervous picking, ingrown hairs that couldn’t be erased with even the cleanest of shaves, and eyes that looked on the brink of falling out of their sockets.

Bile rose from his stomach and saliva coated his mouth. He tried to steady himself, gripping the counter tightly and turning off the facet. His cold hands soaked in the scorching hot water but it's been far too long since he had flinched from it. He grabbed the towel and let it touch his face and despite the slight burn he still felt nothing. Harper groaned in frustration and dropped the towel on the counter pathetically before making that same familiar mistake: the mirror. His image was the same with more color to it but it was still such a vile thing. His stomach turned in on itself and the binge of a full day of takeout came climbing up his useless body. He stumbled to the toilet with shame entranced in his every move. The saliva poured out from his mouth, a precursor to the main event and he hurled it all out. It came out in waves as chunks hit the toilet bowl with a sound that made Harper’s ears cringe. His stomach grovelled at its despair as a full agonizing minute passed and the sounds reached its end. Harper sighed with relief and with pain, waiting for his mother to come rub his back and kiss the back of his neck. She would hardly ever act like a mother if she wasn’t having a screaming match with her own parents but sometimes she would and those counted for something.

More tears slipped out from Harper’s face as he came back to the present. His mother wasn’t here and she probably wouldn’t interact with him until either of them had died. He was a stain on her life and the moment he moved out she could finally put all her effort into something she actually cared about: her family. His father most likely thought similarly but Harper could count the number of times they spoke on one hand. He groggily got up to hit the little silver lever on the side of the toilet and his shame was swallowed by the rushing water. He pointedly decided not to look in the mirror, exiting the bathroom and soon coming into contact with the dirtiness that was his living room.

The smell that emanated from the miscellaneous clothes and garbage was finally starting to settle in his nostrils and he couldn’t stand to bear it. He knew that he had to clean it up but the motivation to do so wasn’t present within him at all. Harper barely had any more hours of sunlight left in the day and he wasn’t going to spend the rest of it cleaning. The other option was to go to his room but the confines of that space were similar to the one which currently faced him. He supposed that the only way to go was outside so he shrugged on a nearby jacket, guided his feet into some slides, and headed out of his apartment. The hallway was barren and the broken lights flickered in and out like a horror movie. Harper sighed as he locked the door, placing his keys inside a pocket which shared his phone which still remained ever so black and blank.

Harper went through the casual motions of getting to the elevator, clicking the buttons, and exiting to the central floor. He didn’t spot anyone he vaguely recognized and anyone he did see was either buried in their phone or talking to a partner or friend. As he saw people converse with such familiarity and casualness a dull ache pierced his stomach, trying to force out food that no longer was there. He strained his eyes to keep from crying and he headed outside with no one acknowledging his presence or better yet his existence. The air wasn’t too cold as he walked aimlessly into a darkening sky. He lacked grace in his movement but nobody who passed him seemed to care. It was almost like they walked through him and Harper’s envy of tangibility reared irs ugly head as he purposefully bumped into someone. He heard something drop, perhaps a phone, and guilt filled his being. Harper turned to apologize but in those few seconds of self-pity the person was already gone. They had moved on without question not caring about Harper’s intentions in the slightest.

Harper felt his breath catch and with a finality he took off on the sidewalk. Nobody gave him strange looks as he ran, scrambling to get away from it all. He had no direction nor did he have purpose as his feet bounded across the pavement, carrying him to a place unknown. He felt like he could have kept running for ages but the body could only do so much in response to the mind when it is wildly unathletic. Harper’s side burned rapidly and his movement slowed down to a walk. His body felt like it was going to keel over at any second but to his surprise he spotted a bench nearby and hurriedly collapsed into it. His back lay against the cold wood and as his tunnel vision faded he made sense of where he was. It was a park that seemed to be on the verge of collapse. The swings had rusted and been unchained, dangling without balance. The slide was tilting and the plastic was flaking off of it. The rest of the park was overrun by vegetation growing unevenly everywhere. Not a soul was present and Harper could sense that the park had been abandoned for quite some time. It had been alone for quite some time. The irony wasn’t lost on him. Someone up above was showing his mental state to him live for all to see and a bitter laugh fell from his lips. This had to be the final straw for him, it really should be. Life had become so decreasing in quality that death almost felt like a healthier solution. It wasn’t like Harper hadn’t considered it but he was always too afraid and too hopeful for a kind future. If God was showing him this waste of a park now, then there truly was no way out-!

“What’s funny?” It was a monotone voice bereft of any unique quality. Harper looked up to see a woman who perhaps encompassed what it meant to be emo. Black everything. Makeup, hair, eyes, and clothes. It was all a vivid black which made Harper want to turn away and run.

“What?” He croaked out, using his voice properly for the first time today.

“What’s funny?” She stated, tilting her head to the side in confusion. Harper supposed that he may have been laughing but he didn’t want to explain to a stranger how he was contemplating suicide.

“I-It’s nothing. I was laughing just to laugh.” He said dismissively. The woman hummed with acceptance and sat down beside him like it was the most natural thing in the world. Harper straightened up with surprise and felt tense all over.

“I totally feel that. Laughing sometimes doesn’t need to be directly caused by something. Laughing is for you alone so people’s humor shouldn’t be judged at all, ya know?”

“I..well…sure but–”

“Although, sometimes things aren’t funny at all and laughing is a bit insensitive so maybe that’s not exactly right.”

“Yeahhh…ummm–”

“But overall, laughing is still a positive.” The woman’s voice didn’t change from the monotone but it wasn’t hard to find the passion within her words. It isn’t to say she had any particular passion for laughing at all but rather the fact that someone was interacting with her. Harper recognized the desire for communication and connection and the fact that she latched on to just the smallest of gestures was proof of that. Most people would be turned off and awkwardly come up with a way to leave but luckily, Harper was the loneliest person in miles and even if he was still largely confused he would rather not live in silence anymore. So he let her talk and sometimes he interjected but that was enough for the both of them as he ignored the buzzing which awakened his blank phone.

Two strangers drawn together by a park that is dying yet using its last bit of life to keep them from joining it. What a pleasant day.