Bedtime Nightmares

Sophie

It's worse for me, we share the same name.
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Frank’s heart sank as low as it could go before he even finished reading the email. Another job opportunity was out of his grasp before he even had a chance to make it to a second interview. And he knew why.

“It was Rudy. I know it was. That fucking bastard.”

Rudy was his old manager from his old job. The one he had gotten fired from over ten months ago. He pictured the recruiter calling Rudy for a reference, and he could see in his mind the smug look that Rudy must have had as he listed all of Frank’s flaws and expressed in great detail the reason that Frank had been let go.

“It’s bullshit. I didn’t do a damn thing wrong,” Frank muttered as he pulled out a Marlboro from the pack on his computer desk. He lit the cigarette with his lighter as he stared at the computer screen in front of him, his glare directed toward his email inbox as though it had done something bad to him.

After slamming the lighter back onto the table, he took a very long drag from the cigarette. Blowing out smoke, he pointed at the screen. “I didn’t do anything to deserve this!” Frank screamed, the words barely audible with the cigarette dangling from his lips. “Fuck you, Rudy! Keeping food off my table for a couple of pictures? You dirty rotten piece of…”

Frank refrained from screaming more once he realized that it would be pointless to chastise a computer. He only wished Rudy was around so he could punch him right in the nose. The image of a bloody-nosed Rudy gave him a chuckle, which he suppressed with a cough that lasted longer than he would have liked.

Once his lungs were clear, he took another long drag. Then he sat back down at the desk, knowing that he would have to continue his search. He wasn’t sure how much longer he would last. His savings were being depleted slowly but surely. He’d been out of work for far too long. If he didn’t find something soon, he’d be in trouble.

He began to go back to one of the job boards online. As he skimmed down some job listings, he came across the one he had just been turned down for again. Rudy’s smug face popped back into his mind, a little less bloody in his imagination this time. A strong feeling of discouragement came over him like a tidal wave. Frank stood from his desk and began to pace his living room, continually taking drags on his cigarette as tried to walk off his anger. But the anger would not pass. He was really pissed off. At Rudy, at the recruiter for believing Rudy’s horseshit, and at the summer heat that filled his apartment.

“God damn, it’s hot in here,” Frank muttered as he turned his oscillating fan to its highest setting. He stood back and stared at it as it hummed and vibrated, unable to enjoy its lukewarm breeze within the confines of his steamy apartment.

“Forget this,” he said, almost growling his words.

Frank didn’t even bother to turn his computer off as he stormed out of his apartment, slamming the door hard behind him. He needed to clear his head. A walk on a sunny August day would hopefully do just that.
As he exited the front of his apartment building, he took a deep breath and tossed his cigarette butt into the bushes that adorned his building’s front yard.

It was a very bright afternoon and he felt much better just being outdoors. He had been cooped up in the apartment far too long, sitting at his computer, typing away, filling out endless applications. All he ever seemed to look at lately were applications. Each one filled with menial information sent to prospective employees who never even met him, yet had no qualms about turning him down and rejecting him coldly.
And of course it was always coldly. All of them were judging him based on an innocent pastime that had hurt nobody. Still and all, he felt the familiar pangs of guilt begin to consume him again.