When You Stop Hating To Exist

Capitalism Forces Me To Buy Cereals

It was a Thursday morning when Jessie’s alarm clock rang. She woke up from it, obviously.
The high-pitched sound seemed to bounce back and forth between the walls, making her head hurt. Jessie kicked it down the makeshift nightstand.

Makeshift because Jessie made out of two upside down drink crates that she stacked onto each other. It stopped ringing immediately as it hit the ground. The alarm clock was unbreakable; Jessie had thrown it on every surface, from various heights. She would not be able to afford a new one. It had been a smart investment.

She knew that her apartment smelled like cigarettes but she could not smell it. Her nose had become insensitive to the smell quickly. As smooth as someone could do it in this sleep induced state, she threw off the covers.

However she did not yet rise. Her gaze was on her ceiling. One could think it was fixated on the dark spots, presumably from water leaking somewhere, but it was not. Jessie did not see the dark spots anymore. There was enough light coming in from outside though; she could have seen them. There was no real difference between day and night. Her neighbors always seemed to make noise. To always, create new smells. To always, have on their light on. How they payed their electricity bill was none of Jessie’s concerns. She could pay rent but more than that was out of her league. Not that she really needed anything. She did not buy more than what she needed to survive. That was why she was somewhat thankful for her neighbors to have their light on. It illuminated her apartment, saved her her money.
Money that she could spend on something else.
Money that she would not spend on something else.

Jessie stood up.

She would have heard her bed creaking, revealing its coldness and its need to be changed but she did not. She was used and therefore insensitive to it.

Breakfast was never something special. During last week’s grocery shopping, Jessie found Cornflakes with a reduced price. Therefore, she had bought two pacs. That had been her breakfast for the last four mornings and she hoped that it would last her until next Wednesday. Until she would go shopping again. Under the condition that she had the energy to.

She ate in relative silence. Someone was watching the news. Jessie heard that a famous music legend had died. She did not recognize his name. It would rain. It would be cold. Typical November weather. Later they would play a documentary about the invention of the book press and it’s evolution into what they used these days.

Jessie poured a bit of water in her bowl and put it into the sink. She would clean it later, maybe. She did not need to hurry. She never had to but she still panicked slightly while dressing. The usual thoughts crossed her mind. If the car would break down. If there would be a traffic jam. If there would be a storm.

Her work attire was nothing special. Today she wore cargo pants, the logo of her company stitched on, and a white T-Shirt that she tucked in her pants.
Because she would freeze to death in that outfit, she grabbed a white sweater and put it over that. She tied her hair into a bun. One quick glance in the mirror let her know that it was good enough. For work at least.

Luckily, they would prepare food at work today so she did not need to worry about that.

The bell rang.  She grabbed her Jacket. It was November and in her eyes still fucking freezing. She needed her steel toe safety shoes. As always in winter, she wore two pairs of socks. It would get cold.

The doorbell rang a second time. Sometimes it did not, even if her colleague always rang twice. Jessie guessed that the bell needed to be fixed but she would not, she could not complain about it. If she would, the proprietor could kick her out.
He would kick her out.

Her colleague’s car parked right in front of the door and Jessie silently thanked him as it had already started to rain slightly. She went in the back.
His van could transport up to seven people. Usually they were five. She was the third one in the car.

They greeted each other and started driving. Stevie was the driver as it was his van. He drove the machines in the woods too. Steve was the machine guy and he was in charge of the music. The car had a cassette player and today’s music was Metallica’s And Justice For All.
Jessie did not know it.
She was not a music person, she wasn’t really any special kind of person, she had simply seen the empty case of the album and had put one and one together.

The second person in the car, the person that was riding shotgun was Michael, called Mike. He was Jessie’s most important friend as he was in charge of the security. If he made a mistake, it would be Jessie that payed for it, with her life, which was the main reason why they were friends. Jessie was not overly friendly to him but she would never pick a fight with him, ever.

The ride went relatively smooth. One colleague had overslept so they had to wait for him to get ready but the traffic thankfully had been calm.

They were preparing the next days because today the wind was too strong to work. In these situations, their boss let them leave earlier.
They needed to work more on other days though which dampened Jessie’s mood.

Steve had not driven her home.
Instead, she had asked to be dropped off in the city where she had sat down in a little doner kebab imbiss. It was situated in a little street, apart from the great mass of people.

She ordered a normal menu.
She went there relatively often.
The owner was nice and it was never overly filled.
Their prices were great, a not so unimportant factor for Jessie.

Because she always came alone, she had almost accidentally befriended the owner. It was an elderly woman who loved talking and who managed to make enough money with it to pay rent.
They could talk about anything and everything and sometimes Jessie thought about how much it felt like the other woman was her grandmother. Jessie often came here when she did not have enough energy to make food but still needed to eat.
Other times she came because she liked it. Jessie could cook, yes, but her food was not delicious. She cooked to eat it.
Jessie could not cook to savor, to enjoy, to impress. She could cook to still hunger.

Jessie stayed there until about four pm, talking to Hanna, the owner, before she went home to go to her wrestling club.