Oh, Death

The Story Of My Life

You have finally gotten around to cleaning your old office. It's been two years since you've even stepped foot in the old, dusty room. You wonder, how can such an unused space be so cluttered? You quickly set the thought aside. It matters not how the room became such a mess, but how you shall straiten it.

Now thinking only of how nice and immaculate the room will look when you finish, you pick up your broom and prepare for hours of pain-staking labor for a room that most likely won't be re-entered once exited. Accept for in another two years when you get around to cleaning it again. But here you are, standing on the ugly, haphazardly designed rug you vaguely remember your Mother-in law gifting you on your wedding day. At least it was a better gift than the varying-brand coffee makers you received. To this day, you still poses all ten of them, stacked neatly in your garage, never to be disturbed again. How lazy of those ten people, don't they know? You don't even drink coffee.

You think of the ludicrous act of drinking bitter water as you sweep the carcasses of dead ladybugs and stink bugs away from the window. Once you are certain you won't be hearing the crunching sound of your shoe on top of an exoskeleton, you lean in and open the large, salmon curtains, a wave of dust wafting into your face. You back away, coughing. Only then do you realize the practicality a painters mask would have brought to the process. But you have no time to be preoccupied with such things, as moving the curtains reveals hundreds more dead insects that you have the pleasure of picking up.

After playing grim reaper-exterminator, you decide to tackle the task of placing all the misplaced books back on the shelf. You remember a time at which you read what you wished to read. Now the only literary experience you got was the occasional e-mail from your boss, and of course texts from those you wish to ignore more than anything. You wonder what the use of the sixty seven contacts on your phone is. The only people you contacted as of late were co-workers inviting you to shoddy pubs after long days and your boss on the subject of time off and unexpected work summons. Other than that, you would occasionally make banter with your cat, but she's more of a listener and not really someone to have a conversation. Your spouse was the one for that job, the house feels so empty without them. You almost miss the arguing and constant discord between the two of you.

Speaking of your former spouse, you notice a crudely stapled stack of papers at your feet. Curiously, you pick it up. Instantly, you remember what was written on the first page. Flipping it over, your assumption is confirmed. 'Wildwood' is written in bolded, enlarged text. followed by your spouses name directly underneath in a different, more standard font. Seeing their name makes your heart sting. Its only at times like this when you miss them. You remember their aspiration to become an author. When you weren't at eachother's throats, they would give you the synopsis of all their little plot ideas. They were always so creative. Unlike you. You are extremely boring, come to think of it. All you can do is crunch numbers into a calculator and document them in Google Sheets. That's it. That's your life. You work in a tiny, uncomfortable cubicle. This is what you think about as you clean your large office. You think of your tiny cubicle. The tiny cubicle you would have to return to the next day.

Tired of such depressing thoughts, you toss the booklet in the garbage and get on your knees, proceeding to pick up more books, placing them in an easy to handle stack. When you finish, you return to your feet and begin placing the books neatly on the shelf, covers facing outward. Everything is order. You run your finger across the spine of each book, quickly reading the title of each one. Faint memories pop out of the recesses of your mind as distantly familiar plots sprout from vague titles. But one catches your eye.

It is a small, green book with gold trim across the top and bottom. You pull it down from the shelf, examining it. You do not recall the purchase or reading of a book with such an odd title. 'The Story Of My Life' it reads. How peculiar. You never read books like this one. You enjoyed more technical stories, less characters but more action. A story with such a title had no placing in your literary roster. Yet, it was still there. For a moment, you entertain the possibility that it could belong to your spouse, but such a thought is irrational. When they left, they took everything. Of course, they did leave a rough draft of their story.

As you balance both sides of the internal argument, you flip the book open. On the first page, there is a picture of you. Your only thought on the photograph is that the book was now definitely your spouses, given the picture was of you and you would have no reason to harbor a picture of yourself in a book you never even recalled purchasing. You flip past it and begin reading.

As you read, you notice the peculiarity of the book. Your first instinct is coincidence, but it is eerie how the book states your exact thoughts verbatim. Not a single detail is left out. Every word is your exact action or feeling. You begin to feel uneasy as your turn the pages, the events in the book gradually catching up to the present.

You start to flip though the pages rapidly, but this proves to be a huge mistake. You feel a sudden shift in your thoughts, like everything has suddenly been effected. You have sudden thoughts of things you haven't even heard of in years. Repressed fears and desires take form and your current likes and dislikes take a backseat. You find yourself craving things that you have a distaste for, like peanuts, which you are allergic to. You recall lyrics to songs from your childhood, forgetting the current ones on the radio.

You begin to realize this is getting out of hand, so you do the only logical thing you can. You shut the book and place it on the shelf, the pages facing outward.

You step back and take off your painters mask. You need a bit off coffee before continuing your work on the nursery your unborn child would soon dwell in. You go downstairs, your spouse already putting on a pot of your favorite bitter water.