Luke Alden: Happy Birthday Eternity

That’s what friends do.

Right?

Work moves on. I catch snippets of conversation. None of it seems interesting. Every conversation seems to blur together. Every conversation seems the same. Maybe it’s because I’ve heard them all.

People are still talking about the same things they talked about 2000 years ago.

There has been no real progress in the art of talking.

My boss stops by my desk. He’s smiling. He’s wearing a tweed jacket. He looks the same age as me, he could be my father. This isn’t something I consciously think about. Everyone looks the same age. We all might as well be the same age.

‘Did you hear?’

‘Hear what?’

‘We’re having a meeting at the end of the day. It’s mandatory.’

We never have meetings.

Everything runs smoothly.

There is no need for meetings and pep talks when everyone that works here is considered a senior employee. We’ve all danced the same dance in this office for longer than we can truly remember.

We’ve all settled.

We’ve all moved past the inherent boredom.

We’ve all accepted our fate.

And so we work.

Day in and day out.

Getting lost in your job is the easiest thing in the world when you don’t actually think about it. Eventually when people ask what you do in life, all you have to do is answer with what you do for a living.

The lines get blurred.

We become our jobs.

We are efficient.

No one quits because no one cares to change. We have forever to change, why worry about finding a new job just yet?

That vacation to Hawaii? It can wait another ten years. Maybe one hundred. Maybe one thousand.

It’ll happen eventually.

My boss leaves after spending a moment hovering over me.

My fingers feel awkward.

I finish typing a memo.

My back feels rigid.

I’m slumping in my chair.

Something is off.

And so the day continues to pass. Electric lights and phones ringing. The faint sound of typing. I think about Evaline. I’m not thinking about her enough. It’s become a vague pulling. Complacency has settled in like it so frequently does. Why worry when everything works out?

Evaline, Her picture isn’t even on my desk.

On my desk are meaningless trinkets.

The day nears an end. The shadows in the office stay the same; outside they’re growing longer. It’s Friday. A weekend. Fifteen minutes before the day ends and everyone’s jamming into a conference room. We’re sweating. We’re confused. We’re not used to this interruption in our tightly scheduled lives.

Someone whispers a joke to someone else.

There’s laughter.

It’s because we’re nervous.

The management team walks into the office. Tweed jackets. Stern faces. It’s an awkward sensation, and my already pained stomach tightens even more. My body is acting strangely. The walls pulsate and my head throbs.

‘As you may or may not know by now, the company has been bought out.’

There’s a rustle. Gasping. People are realizing what’s happening. The whole room vaguely resembles cattle on the slaughterhouse floor.

‘And so effective today, you are all terminated. I’m sure you will find the severance packages more than generous. We thank you for your years of hard work, and wish you all well in the future.’

Someone throws up.

Someone starts crying.

Someone falls to the ground.

This is as close to death as things come.

At the bar with Franklin.

We’re both drunk.

We’re both depressed.

We’re both in shock and jobless and wondering what the future means when you can no longer define it.

Things are supposed to remain static. It’s why we bothered to live forever in the first place.

The guarantee that we’d always be comfortable.

It’s the reason for all these botox injections and chemical peels and endless trips to the doctors where we get fed pills with names we can’t even pronounce.

‘What am I going to do?’ Franklin is worried and sweating.

Franklin’s face is red.

Franklin’s face isn’t red because he’s drunk.

‘What am I going to do?’ My lips feel chapped.

And then it’s a shot chased by a beer chased by a wandering eye chased by a furrowed sense of desperation chased by a lusty dick. In the end all we want is to escape from something.

From death.

From sobriety.

From monogamy.

We all want to get away from something.

Tonight it’s from everything.

I’m still feeling sick. Still feeling the odd weight in my gut that just won’t leave. The pain in my gut that reminds me of Evaline.

The alcohol isn’t helping.

I’m aching worse than before. With a hint of nausea and an overwhelming sense of confusion. This is me without anything at all. This is me without a love and without a sense of security and without a job and without a smile.

Franklin is mumbling.

‘Who am I without my job?’

I’m mumbling:

‘Who am I without Evaline?’

Cue the dramatic music.

Cue the desperation.

Franklin has been my friend since I started this job. We’ve rambled our way through the last millennia. I’ve never seen him cry. He’s never seen me cry.

It’s an odd thing. The way that we befriend co-workers. The way that a shared experience can bring together two radically different people. The way that shared time tends to define a relationship more than anything else.

And Franklin is rocking back and forth.

Panicking.

Mumbling.

Like ivy on a fence, given enough time two things will become so entangled that you cannot see the ending of one and the beginning of another.

We rely on comfort with the hope that we will not have to deal with anything earth shattering. Comfort becomes real. Destruction, rebirth, reality, they scream from a distance and hover right beneath our noses.

People don’t think of the future because they can’t comprehend it.

We pay attention to the pavement under our feet and the food in front of us.

Tomorrow is a cable news broadcast.

Tomorrow is a screaming alarm clock.

Tomorrow is work in the office.

The smaller our vision, the bigger the world. The bigger the world, the more scared we become. The more scared we become, the less we look around.

A shot.

A beer.

I’m drunk.

Angry.

Belligerent.

My fist is shaking and my teeth are grinding.

‘Franklin, what are we?’ From tongue to teeth to lips to air, my words are as nebulous as they are real, spoken like a drunken asshole.

‘What?’

‘We’re nothing. We’re simply existing.’

There’s a pause. Music plays in the background. People chatter. Someone laughs. A light flickers. A beer is poured. A shot is taken.

Franklin looks ready to pass out.

I’m sure I look just as bad as Franklin.

We’re in our own little world of drunken idealism.

Rambling with a nihilistic sense of self-satisfaction.

‘I don’t even dream of the future. I don’t dream of anything and nothing ever happens. I’ve simply existed day to day for the last two thousand years. I’m not sure if I appreciate anything. I’m not sure if I even care about anything.’

Franklin perks up.

Head wobbling.

Spinning.

Cross-eyed.

His ears are red.

‘We all have.’

Then the night gets fuzzy.

Things come in flashes.

We’re kicked out of the bar.

There’s an undeniable adrenaline, like falling with no end in sight.

A broken window.

A broken bottle.

A thrown fist.

An aching jaw.

Then I wake up in a field.

Aching.

Lost.

Confused.

I walk a few miles until my nose starts to bleed and my feet start to ache. The air is fresh and feels good so I sit on a tree stump.