Chapter 2
I open my eyes, and to my relief, I am safe under cool, white mattresses and my limbs are still intact. The living, shining sun casts its light through the halfway-open blinds of my bedroom window.
The pale rays land on various points of the white room, illuminating in flat streaks of yellowish splendour my wavy sheets and the hard bed-side table, upon which stands a bottle of blue pills and another, larger bottle. The larger bottle is halfway filled with a clear purple liquid, vitamin water, which tastes terrible but I choose to drink anyways because it’s cheaper than regular water and apparently substitutes in nutrition for all the food that I can’t afford to eat.
The pills are a monthly gift from a source which I wholeheartedly trust not to kill me, named Tom Hansen, who I’m scheduled to see at ten today.
The real truth is that my life is good. Despite the sleeping pills on my bedside table which I rarely use and loathe with a passion, and the fact that I’m a guy who lives alone at seventeen due to ‘unresolved legal issues,’ my life is good. To be very honest, I’d rather be here than in an orphanage or some Government youth care centre where I’d spend my dreary hours kicking dirt and wondering; ‘What next?’
The truth is that I’m grateful.
And as much as I may hate to admit it, I’m damn lucky to be where I am.
I heave off the light covers and sling a dry towel over my shoulder. I trudge through the bedroom door leading to the connecting bathroom. Grey tiles, a mirror, a toothbrush. How fun.
After brushing my teeth and attempting to utilize my hairbrush with no avail, I decide to try water treatment, or in other words, I take a shower. I’m not one of these unhygienic live-alone dirty people who never shower and watch unfunny TV shows for hours while eating greasy chips and crap. No, although I am guilty of wearing sweatpants more than I should and I hate doing my own laundry. Also, Netflix is tempting enough to give up breakfast for, something that I am repetitively guilty of.
When I open my closet, the first—and only—thing that I see is a wall of cotton sweatpants and T-shirts, positioned where I would expect them to be in my closet, all of my important-going-outside clothes having been pushed away to the back a long time ago.
I open the wall dramatically, triumphantly, and I image the Berlin Wall being torn down, many, many years ago, and the liberation of thousands. I push apart two pairs of blue sweats and create a gap in-between the cotton wall, making room for me to reach to the back of my closet and liberate a pair of unworn dark jeans and a white dress shirt.
I button it up check the time on my bedside alarm clock; the digital face tells me that it’s nine fifteen in the morning and I have forty-five minutes to get some coffee in my system. Wait, no. I have five minutes to get some coffee into my system, I’ll need the remaining forty to take in the day ahead. Maybe a little extra to mourn my loss of sleeping-in time, although I doubt that I’ll be blessed enough to acquire the needed time to partake in such a serious grieving ritual activity.
There are a few things that people should know about me, if they are all that I should ever reveal:
I’m not mysterious at all. I’m very blatant in my actions and I doubt I could ever stand not to be,
I believe in God and hope through all things that would take me from them,
And last of all, my name is Wesley Everett Thatcher, I am not a sentimental person, and I am independent. I suppose that last point could count as three separate points, but I believe they all belong together.
I grab the bottle of pills on my bedside table and bring them downstairs with me. I chuck them into the garbage can and get started on warming up two jugs of water, one for the coffee filter and the other for tea for when Tom comes and demands his morning needs met.
Just to put me into a state of reality before facing the world, I open the calendar in the kitchen and turn to today’s month. I don’t use the calendar at all anymore... yet, I made the effort to write a memo in the small box marking the last day of July.
If a person were to walk into my house, they would probably think that nobody lives here. Nearly every loose object has been put away. Every picture, ornament or decoration hanging from the walls of my sterile abode has been taken down and put away, somewhere out of sight or mind. There is only one comb in the bathroom, one toothbrush, and one towel hanging from the rack. In the kitchen, there are still four seats surrounding the dining table, and there are still three unused beds in the now spare bedrooms of my house which I haven’t been inside in months. I pretend to live simply, although I'm just trying to move on--something which I've admitted to. I Leave only the things that I use laying about in various places of my home, and I only ever go in the kitchen, living room, and my bedroom (plus the connecting bathroom, of course). I put my past behind me, trying my best to pull up a wall between it and my current self. Sometimes that’s the most effective form of liberation, walling yourself in.
I flip to the box marking the last day of July. “COURT DATE” is written in bold, black letters.
