Untitled

Untitled Part 1

I've never lived to work. I understand the appeal of sitting in an office, scanning documents, and labelling files and can you tell I've never worked in an office? I only see the appeal however because I tend to see things through the lens of a film, the romanticism of the mundane office work would be the only thing keeping me going. That's why right now being unemployed is practically killing me. I've basically exhausted all the romantic aspects of having nothing to do all day, now its just lonely and boring. I've applied to the fun jobs, now I'm on the rung down applying for the slightly dingy ones, about to hit rock bottom and work in a bar. I'm worried if I start working at a supermarket I'll get as depressed as I was at my last and only job. At least I had money. I'm still living off the two thousand pounds I made (down to my last three hundred), living at home for my first year meant no rent, utility bills and free food all enriched by the constant yelling and fighting with my parents. I tried getting along with them, but some people were made to hate one another, like a true clash of entirely differing people who were never meant to get along, the only issue being I was birthed from them. Things got better when I moved out, though my mother is constantly trying to feign a relationship with me.

I've only ever met one other clash. My downstairs neighbour. Ricky. He stunk, constantly, of cheap beer and cigarettes laced with whatever back alley weed he'd found the week before. He blows the smoke into his fireplace, the man was a chimney himself, the stench floating up into my apartment and worming its way into the shag carpet. I'd been begging my landlord to let me rip out the overdone 80s menace for a year now, she tells me the same excuse every time, "It reminds me of the good old days", load of crap. Ricky and I have our daily screaming match on my way to the job centre every morning. We usually choose our subject of argument the night before, some snarky comment either of us will make knowing the other is too tired to retaliate at that moment. As I thumped down the stairs, I saw the stream of smoke wafting down the hallway before I saw his figure, leaning lazily against the frame of his door. I slowed my steps on the final flight, stretching my neck preparing for the consequences of my sly remark the night before. I couldn't even remember what I'd said. Not to worry, I'm sure he'll delightfully remind me.

"Running slightly late today, Miss ENTERNAMEHERE", I slowed to a stop as Ricky ducked into narrow hall, blocking my path to the door.

"Good to see you too Rick", I struggled to meet his gaze, my mind was elsewhere. He stands a good 6 inches over me, I don't even know my own height to compare it to, measuring tapes are hard to steal and cost a good dinner worth so I didn't see the point.

"I made sure to keep my lousy music down for you last night", he emphasised with air quotes, "Wouldn't want to disturb your much needed beauty sleep", more emphasis, about as subtle as a brick.

'Lousy music'? I'm disappointed that was all I could come up with, must've been a long day. In an attempt to intimidate he straightened his spine as he cleared his throat, his hair brushing the ceiling. If an effort was made, he could be mildly attractive, there wasn't any distinguishable features about him though, nothing remarkable. I supposed that why he drank. Unremarkable people are the most depressed.

"Yes, well thank you Rick that's very kind, have a good day now", I took his surprise at my rolling over as my opportunity to scoot past and end our daily battle. I would usually stick around for a while to enjoy our back and forth of insults sheathed in politeness and false compliments, but today was destined to be bad, or 'lousy' as I'd apparently use now, so I saw no point trying to be clever. I received an email that morning that my mother intended on flying down to see me, arriving that evening. It was an easy way to put a damper on my whole morning. As I said earlier, my parents and I clash like no other. When I was younger, I'd wished on every birthday candle and shooting star that my parents had kidnapped me as a baby and that I wasn't actually biologically linked to them, but unfortunately for me (and my future children) I shared my father's nose and my mothers' eyes and the similarities were too close to feign, so I stopped wasting wishes.