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21st Century Breakdown

An Ode to Social Anxiety

By Holly JacksonPublished 3 years ago 5 min read
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21st Century Breakdown
Photo by Dan Dennis on Unsplash

It all started twenty minutes ago, though each minute has, so far, truly felt like a millennium. I was sitting at home, minding my own business (procrastinating), when I was abruptly, and might I also add, terrifyingly interrupted by the doorbell. It’s not a sound I’m very used to, if at all. Who, in all honesty, uses a doorbell anymore? If friends or family plan to visit, they call. Tradespeople, handy people, even the landlord, they all need an appointment and you always, always meet them outside. Even the postman announces his arrival with an unusually specific delivery slot, between 13:47 and 14:23, so you can be at the door, watching the driveway intently for the arrival of whatever you’ve ordered between the assigned hours, opening the door coincidentally at the exact moment they approach, snatching the post directly from the hands feeding you and avoiding any surprises.

So why. Why would someone, somewhere in my intricate web of family, friends, coworkers and acquaintances, send me something unexpected. Nothing is unexpected. Even the unexpected is, to a certain degree, expected. Every surprise has a paper trail of ten thousand searches, eight hundred cookies, fifteen confirmation emails, six reminders and then, the awaited expectation of your delivery. But this, this delivery, it’s just sitting there looking at me. I don’t know what to do with myself. Staring back at me from the centre of my stained and dust-coated coffee table is a dull but crisp, small box, wrapped intently and carefully in brown paper. Addressed, miraculously, to me. I don’t recognise the handwriting. My throat is closing up and the overly worn cushions of my second hand sofa begin to swallow me whole. Who even handwrites things any more?

I daren’t touch the package any more than I have already, I’m pretty sure it rattled, but really, the sound of the doorbell was ringing so loudly in my ears and the horrendously awkward conversation with the, awkwardly short, bespectacled delivery driver was rattling itself around my head in tandem, so I can’t be sure.

“Delivery for you, miss.”

“Sorry, you must have the wrong flat, I’m not expecting anything”

“Erm...it’s definitely for you. Number 34. Right?”

This riveting exchange was followed by the awkward slow turn to check my flat number, fully in the knowledge that my flat definitely is number 34, but hoping against hope that somehow I’ve been living in the wrong flat all these months and I actually, against all odds, now live at number 33. The number 34 gleamed back at me, mockingly.

“Hah...haha...yes sorry. I just, erm.”

“Are you gonna take this? I have about 80 more deliveries to do today”

“Sure...okay”

“Right, well, enjoy opening your surprise”

He plonked it right into my open hands and glided away over the landing, completely uncaring of my clearly very visible panic.

“Yeah, you too”.

Door closed. Idiot. You too?

Walking like I was carrying explosives, I placed it slowly down into the centre of the coffee table and fell into the open mouth of the sofa cushions. Here I’ve been for the last twenty minutes, switching between staring at the thing, or ignoring it and staring into the screen of my phone, slowly being eaten alive by a combination of fake leather and anxiety. Fighting the urge to vomit, leaning forward over the table seems like the next best idea. With the box tantalisingly perched under my nose, I focus in on the barely intelligible handwriting, the cursive script making my head spin. There’s nothing even vaguely familiar about this blue biro sending me spiralling into my own endless chasm of stress.

I’ve called every relative, every friend, every acquaintance. Breaking every unspoken rule and piece of social etiquette by jumping onto every social media platform that I’m a part of to message everyone and anyone who could possibly have any half-arsed reason to send me something in the post. I’ve concocted the wildest stories to engage in conversation with literally everyone I’ve had a half-meaningful conversation with in the last eighteen months. Fake work emergencies, pretend throwbacks, accidental ‘likes’; all in the hopes that some of it will segway the conversation into the truth of the brown paper parcel. Desperate times call for desperate measures.

~

I can’t keep staring at this thing. There’s only one thing left to do: make a cup of tea to calm down. I shuffle through to the kitchen, feeling it's piercing suspect brown paper stare digging into my back as I leave it alone on the table. Maybe this is what it wants. My hands are shaking as I refill the kettle and flick the switch. Perching on the countertop, I let the overpowering whistle of the kettle, once the bane of my life, now my personal white noise machine, calm me down. Rinse teapot. Teabag in pot. Water in teapot. Milk in mug. Tea in mug. Back to basics.

I can barely understand how I’ve been so rattled, and yet a part of me is also completely unsurprised by my apparent postal meltdown. I’m 26. I’m an adult. I live alone. I do scary things every day; I pay my bills, I have awkward smalltalk with cashiers, I make returns...occasionally. Last week I even booked a dentist appointment without asking someone else to do it for me first. I’m clearly overreacting...but there’s still a part of me, a small niggling doubtful nugget that is currently overpowering any and all rational thought. This is a suspect package. If this was the tube, the bomb squad would be here. Anthrax. IED. Who knows.

Okay, okay, I know that’s a little too far.

I’ve made up my mind. I’ll meet you on the other side. Grabbing the luminous green kitchen scissors from the utensil pot, I walk back through to the lounge. Tea in one hand, weapon of choice in the other, I perch on the edge of the sofa and slide the parcel towards me. With a nod and a deep breath, I pull the blade of the scissors along the paper exterior, sharp clean slices, almost performing heart surgery. With my hands gripping the left and right flaps of the box respectively, I need a moment to pull myself together. Another deep breath, my biceps twitch in anticipation, ready to pull the parcel wide open.

Well, here goes nothing.

Satire
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