Genesis

Chapter 2 OR An Evening Expedition with a Daily Destitute Debaucher

Chapter 2 OR An Evening Expedition with a Daily Destitute Debaucher

I ended up talking to Kristie, that bartender chick, for a while after I got home that morning. She was pretty bubbly considering my usual type, whatever my right-hand counts as. She told me some funny things that happened that night after I left. I told her absolutely nothing about myself. She actually asked me on the date, her one stipulation being no bars. I have to admit, that panicked me at the time. The thought of willfully giving my inner thoughts to a complete stranger was a waking nightmare. Though, it was nice to have a woman trying to court me for the first time in my life.

One positive thing I can say about the information age is, literally everybody puts every fragment of themselves on social media. It took a simple search by phone number to find Kristie's Facebook, which was linked to her Instagram and Twitter accounts. Countless pictures, all the movies and novels she "liked", memes she felt expressed her innermost thoughts. Nothing shocked me, she was going to Stony Brook for a B.A. in English lit. She graduated from Julliard with a diploma in performing arts. Four siblings, only girl. She followed an abnormal amount of piercing and tattoo pages, but everyone has something sort of kitsch that enthralls them. Mine is '20s era pulp comics, you know, like Dick Tracy or Zorro? Eh, maybe you are too young for that. Damn, am I old enough for that?

Can't even remember anymore.

I remember some of her pictures being quite impressive, a few of her travels in Asia. Pura Lempuyang, Indonesia being one of the ones that stood out because she used this reflective tool to make it look like she was standing on the edge of the actual Elysium Fields, instead of what it actually was, or rather became in modern times, a monument to upper-middle class white people wanting the best Asiatic tropes on their social media. She had traveled to The Forbidden city in Beijing for research, apparently, the caption was "#StudyingAbroad, I have loved my time with the Zhao's, who showed me the ins-and-outs of their immaculate culture." She uploaded a few of her outside the Padmanabhaswamy Temple in India. I was falling down the rabbit hole of her sensationalized life, the life that she has put up on display for the rest of those hollowed insects. I couldn't figure out if she was just a very convincing husk or one of us who just wasn't afraid of the attention. Either way, I envied her travels, despite my extreme fear of other humans, husks, the unknown, and the fear of joining in. In the past, my ideal self had been a traveler of the world, learning to use his mask as a tool to deceive and participate, but, ya know, my anxieties got the better of my adult life and now I am this exquisite specimen before you.

Her Snapchat, which was linked to her Instagram, revealed some rather, how do I say this, risqué pictures of her in the bathtub. Nothing nude, mind you, but you could see bare legs. Her Snap count was in the millions if memory serves, so she talked with pictures a lot, which isn't uncommon in my generation. Admittedly, I watched her Snapchat story a few times, hoping that maybe she would talk about some mild-mannered, perfectly tanned complexion guy she met at her job last night, but there was no mention. Her location was on, and it showed her in Staten Island, near their mall, probably buying something, or things, for the date.

After thoroughly vetting her online, I just slouched lower into my couch, slinking back into the shrouded sarcophagus that serves as my oh so humble abode.

Walking through my apartment is a maze. Every step you take runs the risk of tripping a landmine that is fragments of glass and shards of CDs. Not to mention the clothing that is strewn about with no particular order, wall to wall, of course. Not that the walls were any better, dotting the already hideously done wallpaper were stains, both from previous tenants and me. I typically only opened the fridge when I couldn't afford to bug-bomb the apartment. The coffee table is covered in decades old science magazines, fresh and not so fresh cigarette butts, and video game controllers from every previous generation. I also remember there being a hidden bedroom somewhere, though that could be a narcotic induced misremembering. The only clear path is connecting the couch to the door.