Commute

Summer is long gone and the sun is lacklustre in its efforts. A choking lightbulb casting a dim halo in a liquid sky. Shivering, he climbs into his car. Starts the engine before using the wipers to remove a veil of tears shed secretly overnight for a world that no longer cares. 

The road is damp and grey. A ribbon of rotting meat observed from the false safety of a tin can hurtling from pointless A to pointless B. He sighs a begrudging breath, the stock of which is in short supply.

There was a time when he would deploy an auto pilot to take him to his monotonous destination. Absent himself in a depressive flow state. Abandon his responsibility at the wheel. A casual act of failed suicide which saw him deposited at his desk to serve a sentence for crimes he was unwilling to commit.

Never was he lazy. The damned are a busy lot. He smiles ruefully at the futility of a life he was deprived of. Spat from the womb in a cycle of anger that he was too afraid to break out of. Choosing instead to disown himself so that his children would follow in his angry footsteps, shaking their fists in ferocious fear at a world they had no intention of being a valid part.

His cars seldom let him down. He whispers sweet nothings to their dashboards as he uses them up. Pays lip service to their maintenance always knowing that he will deny their existence once a newer model takes his fancy.

The car park is dead. Lost its looks and ceased performing its function. Death is an altered state beyond use. He defiles its sanctity. Carefully trundling over burst tarmac wounds and crushing wildflowers adorning the fallen.

He thinks twice about shutting the car door. This pause for thought is a novelty that shames him. Thousands of acts of thoughtless repetition taken for granted. An ongoing hammering of nails in the lid of his own coffin.

The drunk rear door is leaning askew. Puking its glass at his feet. He walks through the glittering vomit. Doesn’t bother wiping his feet.

The aroma of decay spreads dissonance, blocking the recollection of a time when this place adorned itself with the perfume of new carpet and artificial lemon. A sterile environment gone septic. His hand goes to his throat to check for the noose he was obliged to wear every day that he served his sentence here.

Stepping upon rags he rises to the first floor. Contemptuous familiarity is painted in dirt and dust and he is more at home here than he ever was. Swing doors bar his way and complain with a high pitched squeal as his shoulders separate and divorce them. They eye the prospect of a new life for a moment before noisily returning to their mundane arrangement.

Breathing in the cloying air he cannot help smiling, but does not attend to any message his upturned lips may carry. The doorways that open to his left and right are the tombs of memories he cremated long ago. He does not bother to reach for the names they once wore.

At the end of the corridor is another pissed door. Dry heaving in the non-existent breeze. Gagging on the shame of antics past. Heralding the carnage that greets another tight-lipped day. 

The other, sober door is silent now. Observing his progress into the large room that was once a hive of circular activity. Chain sawing through sinew, bone, heart and soul.

As he wanders this lifeless room he marvels at the desks sitting obediently in place. Sorrowful order in a world of chaos. His demeanour slips into a long abandoned reverence. Wiping a finger this way and that in the dust on the desks as he meanders through a space of rote mourning. Drawing ancient runes that summon a feeling of false camaraderie. Brothers and sisters in arms all intent upon cunning treachery. Warring with themselves even as they exchanged false smiles.

Looking about him, he remembers the rats racing all about him. How he baulked at the prospect of cannibalism to become top dog. He finds a seat and in an act of blind faith he uses it. Gives it purpose once more.

The ghosts come then. They fill this empty, yawning place and crowd around him. He gazes upon each and every face. Strangers every one of them. The populous of his personal planet. A personal hell that he inadvertently created as he adhered to the job description provided him.

Reaching out he attempts to obtain the unobtainable. Old habits die hard. Yet he knows he will die easily with barely a whimper. Coming back to where it all started. The unravelling of him. This was where it all went wrong.

She is there amongst them. The one that got away. But then they all got away. Because they were never there. Running. Always running towards the promise of a dream that was only ever a paper mâché carrot blowing in the wind. 

A dream that was the Devil’s own trick. Running away from what counted. Busy fools making a future for no one. A future shaped in the sky and burnt away by the harsh, unrelenting reality of a callous sun.

A callous son. 

All he wanted to do was prove himself and gain the approval denied. Too late did he see the same desiccated carrot dangling impotently. A dead heart imprisoned in a cage of bones. An impotent sick joke that sucked the fertility out of him before he was ready to sow the seeds of his true birth.

Barren, he sits there and slumps his aching head into dry, uncaring hands. Unable to discern a further course of action. Breathing in the dust and ashes of the grave. He never wanted to be here and yet this is the place he returned to.

His pilgrimage complete, he expels a breath that burns him from the inside out. A long extinguished fire flickers and emboldens as it explores the mummified remains it has been dwelling within for too long. 

A last hurrah.

A phoenix from the flame of him.

Rising.

Witness to a life wilfully wasted.

Dying in birth as the umbilical cord of his fear wraps around the fragile throat of his fleeing spirit. Unable to let go even at the very last.