The Moment

Bells. The alarm. With the opening of the eyes, the light is seen through the window of the adjacent wall. Illuminating what is already known. In the closet, the few clothes neatly on hangers while the rest are not so neatly bundled into piles of long procrastinated tasks. The Bedside table, two…no. Three glasses of water are half finished with the phone fighting against gravity, with only the slight support from the table’s side preventing its fall. Jane stares at her alarm. Half knows she would need to move, and half is fighting the rebellious side of just saying fuck it all and going back to bed. The deprivation is definitely a giant hurdle, but the feeling of the mundane. That is melancholy.

A breath. Counting down. Four. I could just say fuck it. Three. I hate this routine. Two. It would be so easy to just throw my phone. One. Okay. Jane gets up and breathes for another moment. Today, like the day before and the day before, starts exactly the same.

Getting up. Morning Shower. Morning Coffee. Clothes and then rushing to work. The routine that exists with 5 days of the 7. One would think a college degree would open doors to a life of comfort or at least interesting passions? Instead, it only led Jane to debt and mediocrity. What a scam right?

On the way to work this morning, Jane couldn’t help but wish she could go back in time. Maybe major in something else? Maybe say screw it and follow her passion for the arts? With a

sigh, an affirmation to oneself, “I made the right choice. At least, I got food on the table.”

It is approximately 0930 when Jane got to work. She’s basically a number monkey for a big-time distribution business. A small business that started out of nowhere, is now valued at billions of dollars. Now employing what basically seems like half the world. Most of its employees barely make ends meet with little pay, all while working in deplorable environments. For a country that loves freedom, Jane cannot help but find it ironic that it keeps going for the indentured servitude route. Thankfully, Jane’s position is not the lowest of the totem pole, albeit still relatively low. There are plenty of people like Jane doing the same shit different days. But what this means is Jane does not go hungry. While it doesn’t mean a steak dinner, a burger from a fast food joint can be easily purchased, well for about 10 dollars now.

Jane has a small window in her office, that she would occasionally stare outside for about 10 seconds before having to go back to work. But for those 10 seconds, Jane cannot help but fantasize about a different life, a different path. But the older she gets, the more she wonders if all the hopes and dreams one gets taught to have as a child were simply to keep them pre-occupied from the actual monsters that live under the bed. She cannot help but think back to her parents who worked hard but were still able to enjoy themselves. Now it feels like all she can do is work hard and then sleep afterward. People talk about the advancement of society and technology, but did they actually improve anything? Sometimes, one cannot help but think the rise of anxiety and depression was due to everyone being forced to live paycheck to paycheck. There’s all that talk about mental health awareness, but once again is it just a ploy to keep others preoccupied. You are depressed, that’s why you are sad. You have an illness and it needs treatment. Never mind the void situation people are finding themselves in more with each day. The situation of servitude, slavery, entrapment; whatever you want to call it placed by those above them. Sometimes, quite frankly, Jane is surprised there isn’t a movement to fight the royalty like the French did, but then again there’s also more dangerous firepower and a shit-ton more distractions present. Everyone is glued to their phones, trying to become a celebrity, in hopes of escaping from the shackles made by the people who are trying to keep them distracted.

Sigh.

Jane, now in her workroom, looks at her watch. Only 10 minutes have passed since her shift started. She sips on the cup of coffee she bought and focuses her attention on the computer.

Work to survive.

After a couple of nonstop work, the clock struck 11. Only 2 hours. Fuck. Then Mr. Taligan walks by her office. “Jane! Good Morning!”

“Good Morning Mr. Taligan.”

“Do you happen to finish the numbers from last month?”

“Not yet, but I should have them by the end of the day.” Jane hates where this conservation is heading towards. Jim Taligan, one of the creepiest person she has ever met, somehow got promoted to a manager role, and now she lives day by day trying to avoid him and his blatant HR violations.

“Still? Anything about it difficult?” Jim leans towards her, basically shoving his coffee breath down her nose.

“No, there’s just a lot of numbers to get through” Please leave. Please leave. Please leave.

“Oh, okay. Well, if you have any questions regarding it, I wouldn’t mind sitting down during the lunch break to go over it with you”

What a fucking creep

“Thank you, but I don’t have any questions though, I will get it done by the end of the day”

Jimmy Boy, who definitely needs to get HR called on, nods and leaves.

Jane takes a deep sigh and looks out of the window for the 10 seconds of reprieve she finds herself needing more and more with each day.

Noon is the lunch hour, and thankfully to relieve stress, Jane usually eats with her colleague and friend, Tif.

“Do you think you will finish by the end of the day?” Tif is clearly worried about Jane. It is never a good thing to be targeted by creepy Jim.

“I don’t know… I just don’t want to talk to creepy Jimmy if I can help it”

“Must be nice to be in a higher paying position with a company with enough money to hide all the shady shit”

“Sometimes. I wish I could just go back in time?”

“Girl? Don’t we all?” “Do you think we grew up wanting to be number monkeys for a company who can give a fuck less?”

“Creepy Jim probably did” A short chuckle and then silence.

All of a sudden to change from the depressing topic, Jane asks, “Hey did you hear about Max?”

“Yeah, apparently he turned in his two weeks today.” Tif slows down and starts picking at her sandwich.

“Where did you hear that?”

“Not everyone is a quiet introvert like you. People talk”

“What is he moving on to?”

“Apparently, the boy’s been side-hustling a small Youtube channel, and I guess it finally blew big enough for him to say fuck it”

“....Good for him…”

“Wanna start a channel together?”

“Yeah, and why don’t we start an OnlyFans too while we’re at it”

“Girl, don’t tempt me…Getting out of this hell hole is a nice thought though.

”

“It is tempting”

“Yeah, but we know your flat ass won’t make a lot”

Lunches usually go about that same pattern. Some jokes, some gossip, venting about work. A time of reprieve from the mundane into….well more mundane but at least it’s fun. Like so many in this world, Jane does not remember ever wanting to be whatever her position title is when she was little. Like so many, she wanted to change the world. To Inspire hope, and simply to have fun and love what she does. But then reality struck. Bills started to arrive. The need for survival and the ever-increasing difficulty to do so. Who has time for fun world-saving activities when one has to worry about food? Shelter? Fuck, even water costs money. And as Jane walks back to her cubicle after lunch, she starts to feel melancholy. Max is able to leave this place. Would she ever be able to? If so, what would she even do? It would be nice to have something she’s passionate about. She used to have it….so very long time ago. She studied art while majoring in accounting in college, and for all intensive purposes she was fairly good, but she stopped after graduation. For the lack of a better word for it, she felt like there was nothing for her to draw anymore. And now she is here with a brainless job and she wonders if she could find the passion back. To find inspiration. She feels she’s living but in a way that she’s not living. What happened to all those youthful days of wanting to be someone known, someone special? Did her life really lead up to this, being someone who simply exists?

The scary part is this thought pattern. The one that Jane desperately tries to avoid. Is there meaning in life? If there is, what is it? Some may say love or happiness. But what exactly is love or happiness? And if Jane doesn’t feel it then does that mean her life is not worth living? Would the world really be any different whether Jane existed or not? If she doesn’t then at least she wouldn’t have to battle between these dark moments.

All these thoughts spiraling into the cyclone it is. For a moment and only for a moment, Jane seeks out reprieve. To escape the circling darkness, she looks out once more out her window and stares at the clear blue skies and the tree with the birds.

Work went on and on as it always does. The time is now past 3pm, and relief is in sight. Jane is going through her emails real quick when she receives a newsletter email she had signed up for a while ago. Her current job isn’t meant forever, she signed this up as a means to find artistic jobs elsewhere. Except email, after email, she never applied. Yet she could not find herself to unsubscribe, as if unsubscribing would extinguish the only thing that seemed like a possible door.

The email was another submission and potentially working for a cartoon currently being in the works of by an Indie company. Maybe it was Max quitting or simply just being tired, but Jane stares at her dimly lit screen. The possibilities…

What if she tries it? What if she goes for it? What if this doesn’t work out then maybe something else will? What if maybe a different accounting job can be obtained later and then right now she needs this? What if life, while not fair, is for some to bake their own cake instead of receiving it? Of course, the question is what if it all fails? What if nothing is to happen? Financial debt, further being enslaved to a life of mindlessness. Yet what if she is already enslaved. Enslaved by the same system with fear as the shackles?

As Jane hovers over the email title about to click it open, she stops. She sighs. And closes the email window. She resumes her work. And then 4pm came around as it always does…There is one exception. Jim is there.

“Hey did you get the report done?”

“Sorry Jim, I am going to need an extra day, but I will get it done, I promise”

Jim looks at her worried, and quite frankly condescendingly.

“Jane I really needed this done….”

“Sorry Jim, there’s just a lot of data to swift through”

“Maybe if you spent less time gossiping, and more time working, we wouldn’t be having this issue?” Clearly a jab at her lunches with Tif.

“Jim, If you are referring to my private conversations, I only have those on my allotted breaks and I will not work through them”

“See this is why we cannot promote you. You are not a team player.” Jim then reaches down. Hand on Jane’s shoulder. As if it is meant to be comforting, yet anyone can tell there’s something else going on. Something far more sinister.

“...Maybe….maybe if you were willing to show in other ways how you can be a team player…We can work something out”. Jim starts sliding his hand centimeter by centimeter downward.

“I…ugh?” Jane is dumbfounded. And she is searching for the right words to say other than Go Fuck yourself. But like a teakettle, the water is boiling and starting to rise. It doesn’t help too that Jim is basically about to grope Jane at this point.

And Burst.

In life, there’s a moment. A moment people face down two paths. There’s a poem that would talk about going down the one that most people won’t go down. Ironically most people would use it as inspiration to justify whatever crazy fuckery they want to pursue. That somehow, they’re different from others. They’re “special”. They don’t think of what that path actually means. Simply ask, Why does no one take it?. Probably because the roads are slicker, less clear, and full of creatures you don’t want to run the risk of facing. By all means, then it probably would be the smarter move to take the path most people take right?

But then there is the question of where do the paths take a person? Do they all lead to the same location? Maybe it does, but what about the stops along the way? All in all more questions and more reasons to ask, why the fuck not? Especially when the path that most people have just been evaded by a creepy ass bear.

You know that moment when everything changes? Like your whole world just shifts into something else? It’s quiet and time feels strangely slow and you feel, even more strangely, calm? Voices dim and all your thoughts dim. All except one, the one that says spring to action and take charge. In this moment, Jane is in this moment.

Jane rises up to her chair and slaps Jim’s hand out. Now Jim is found dumbfounded. “Go fuck yourself!” And Jane turns to leave but before taking two steps in, she turns again and says “Don’t follow me or I will report all this to HR you fucking creep! And Also, I quit. Again, go fuck yourself!”. Jane turns and leaves.

This story’s end is definitely not a David vs Goliath. The ending is not satisfying. On the contrary, it is terrifying, for Jane does not know what her next steps will be or what the outcome will be. But one thing is certain, Jane for once in a long ass time, feels alive.