"Are you getting up today or what? It's Wednesday you know."
Anatoly groaned. "I feel like shit, I think I'll give it a miss."
"They aren't going to like that. What's up anyway?"
"I just feel like shit, okay?"
Anatoly had been sinking deeper and deeper into a depression over the last week, and the thought of that commute just about killed him. He had been spending more time jacked in, trying to get DENT running, but his head just seemed to get cloudier an cloudier. He found himself more easily distracted by the crap on the public newsfeed - finding distraction in the banal, dopamine inducing dross that came down the feed. But the constant dopamine spiking was taking it's toll on his mood. It made him feel good temporarily, but over time it just made him more and more helpless and depressed.
It didn't help that working at Zygex felt more and more hypocritical with every passing day. "Helping a SILOS company dominate the economy and fuck up the world - way to go against everything you believe in" he thought.
"Fine, well I have to get to work, at least one of us needs to keep our job if we're going to pay the rent!"
And with that she left. Anatoly immediately regretted not getting up to kiss her goodbye. He worried one day she may never come back - his depression had definitely been taking it's toll on their relationship recently.
His stomach rumbled. Rubbing his eyes and yawning, he checked on the status of the kitchen,
Bread: moldy Milk: empty Eggs and bacon: awol
"Great"
Lacking the motivation for further exploration he slumped back to bed, pulled the covers over his head to block out the sunlight, ignored his hunger, and slept.
11:30am
Having tossed and turned for a few hours, Anatoly concluded he couldn't possibly sleep any more today. Hunger stronger than depression, he dragged on some clothes and walked the few blocks to the nearest grocery store. Town was quiet at this time of day, seemingly only populated by the homeless and mentally disable. He couldn't decide whether to include himself in that count.
Unusually he had left his glasses at home. Even on such a short journey, he regretted it. Waiting for the lights to turn at the crosswalk seemed interminable. The real world seemed so dull. Walk, wait, walk, wait, walk, wait. Past identically dull buildings, and equally bored people, to an over-lit grocery store, to buy overly packaged food from the other side of the world, so that he could eat it and shit it back out again a few hours later. Had the world always felt so grey? Even the sun seemed less colorful than he remembered. Was this the meaning of life? Boring, unending survival, for the sake of what? To be fucked over by your own government and overly rich corporate honchos. He felt like screaming, or crying, he couldn't decide. Maybe Natalia was right? Maybe he had forgotten how to enjoy reality.
Back home, he found a message from his boss in his inbox, wondering why he hadn't shown up at the office yet. He drafted a reply.
Dear middle manager,
Don't you get it? Don't you see how fucked up this company is? How we are helping the government control people's lives with bullshit? We convince our "customers" to spend hours scaring them with bullshit news written by one hand, while we sell them the solution with the other. All the while tracking as much data about their lives as we can so we can feed it to governments and sell it to other companies.
We don't give a shit about their lives. We'd happily download their kidneys and sell them on if only we could figure out how. How can you stand it? How can you sit there, earning your dollars while the very company you work for fucks up the world and people around you?
Well I can't do it anymore, I'm out, I'm not gonna play that game any more. It's fucked up. You're better than that, I'm better than that. The world deserves more.
Anatoly
He stared at it for a few minutes deciding whether to send it. Then deleted it all, and tapped out:
Fuck it. Fuck it all,
- A
And hit send.
This was written as part of NaNoWriMo - an attempt to write a 50,000 word novely before the end of November, and will fit somewhere into the novel.
If you enjoyed it, (or if you didn't but want to support me anyway) you should totally sponsor me for charity! It's going to a great cause, the Scottish Association for Mental Health.
<3 Phil