The Perfect Life

Chapter One - The Imperfect World

            The middle-aged detective produced a mangled coat hanger from the confines of his duffel coat pocket and carefully slid it through the letter box of a black woodworm infested door . Whilst gripping the bronzed door knob tightly with his bare hand and squeezing its stubby twin through the slot as far as it would allow, he managed to hook the inner latch with his man made invention.

 Upon flicking his wrist in an anti-clockwise motion, a click echoed from within and the door creaked inwards; to reveal a dank squalid flat which filled him with nothing but despair. Love had abandoned this place long ago leaving only neglect to greet him at the door.

“I’m home,” he announced whilst not expecting a response, as he hadn’t heard one in well over two years.

Upon passing her room, his eyes glimpsed her lifeless corpse, longing for his next visit but instead he quickened his pace to seek the comfort of his own sanctuary.

The detective’s body collapsed into the tartan monstrosity he called his “throne”, which sagged substantially from his above average weight. Now he was alone, guilt targeted him with a few kicks.

You’re useless, if only you had paid more attention to the scene instead of your watch. Sitting around is not going to get the investigation solved, is it?

Guilt was a regular visitor for Divney, but he knew there was nothing he could do until tomorrow since the evidence room was closed due to statutory P.L leave. Anger burned at his insides with its usual unfettered fury. In an attempt to avoid his two unwelcome visitors, he poured himself a glass of his favourite brown liquid. The shape and weight of the glass had become all too familiar to him but the colour of the liquid inside changed dependent on his mood. He grabbed his small silver cigarette lighter, warmed the bottom of his oldest friend and slid a quart of the “remedy” down his gullet before it had time to cool. It passed its warmth generously as it oozed throughout his body and eased his tensed muscles.

He inhaled another two fingers of the liquid, prised his meat-sack body from its perch and headed for the kitchen to prepare her “meal”. His head turned in disgust as he emptied the  P.L supplements into the canister, which he knew were essentially just repackaged dog food but the Genesis Group didn’t care as long as it kept their users alive, long enough to pay the monthly subscription.

“To the users it probably tastes like Steak Diane”, he muttered to himself as he headed towards her room. 

He neared the door and felt the muscle in his gut tighten as it always did, whenever he approached her limp inactive body which laid on his marital bed so comfortably. After exchanging her empty food container with his own, he wondered what it would taste like for her. She wasn’t in the Perfect Life and she was barely in the real world. The doctors had told him it was the result of a brain crash; her mind could not accept a specific event in Perfect Life. Now he was married to a vegetable courtesy of Perfect Life.

Dragging a chair nearby towards her and sat down. Divney doubled over and kissed her opal white skinned cheek and clutched her dainty withered hands in the hope they might one day squeeze his in return. Succumbing to his tiredness and the repetitive beep of the life support machine, his heavy eyelids dropped one at a time.  

                                                                                          #

Divney woke up to see someone staring back at him. A balding, swollen faced man with a crooked nose and a sunken chin. The face looked like Benjamin from ‘Who’s that?’; his favourite childhood game which he used to play with his best friend John. Unfortunately for Divney, that face belonged to him.

After solving the case of ‘Whose face is it anyway?’, he got up from the chair and massaged out the creases it had left in his body. Checking his watch, Divney realised he was over half an hour late for work already. Divney discarded his clothes and left them as a heap on the floor, ready to proceed with daily cleansing ritual which ended with him brushing his coffee stained ‘pearly whites' and re-entering the previously discarded clothes.

Another set of clothes were a luxury he could no longer afford since his wife’s brain crash. When the Genesis Group gained enough money from their excessive P.L subscription, they bought out all the non-renewable energy resources and electricity rights. All power belonged to them. Electricity was only provided free of charge to P.L conduits. Nearly all of Divney’s salary went on his wife’s life support and the remainder on her food. In other words he was the poorest of the poor.

After pulling the outside door shut, Divney stopped to take in the surrounding area. The sounds of kids playing and car engines humming were long forgotten only silence remained. The real world had become the discarded like an unwanted toy leaving only those who couldn’t afford or did not want the Perfect Life. He set off by foot towards his place of work.