The alarm went off at seven o'clock, waking up David Avery with its bothersome screeching. His hand slapped everything it could reach in the hopes of hitting the snooze button. Wildly flailing it slapped his wife, Brenda Avery, causing her to mutter a few cuss words under her breath towards his general direction. Finally he hit something that made the unholy noise stop and the room was quiet again, perfect for sleeping, except for the fact that all the effort he put into slapping things had completely woken him up. He sat up, slipped his feet into his slippers, and let out a loud yawn as he stretched.
“Friday,” he said in a tiresome voice, “let's do this.”
He stood up, shuffled into the washroom, and began his daily routine. Teeth began to get brushed, stubble shaved, and a suit put on. Sometime during his routine Brenda had also arisen from the bed, slipped down the stairs and begun to prepare breakfast. In mere minutes the kids, Claire and Josh, would be up and wanting something to eat.
Sure enough, at almost exactly the predicted time, the children wandered into the kitchen and poured themselves some juice. David wolfed down a couple waffles and followed it up with a glass of orange juice that he snatched from Josh's hand.
“Dad!” Came the cry of protest.
“What? That was for your old man, wasn't it? All right, I need to be heading out, love you.”
He kissed his children and wife good bye and promptly walked out the door to the car. The traffic that morning was fairly bad, cars lined up along the 401, although this scenery was not uncommon to him. He looked out his window, staring at the Toronto skyline with the CN Tower standing tall and proud amidst a sea of buildings.
Finally arriving downtown, he made his way to the office. Walked inside elevator among all the other people, going to their various floors. David pressed the button for the twentieth floor. He listened to the typical small talk, murmurs, coughs, and shuffling of feet as the elevator made its stops and people entered and exited its door. Finally the number twenty lit up and he slip through the people and entered his work place. People were busy as ever. He could hear the fax machines, printers, water cooler chit-chat, and every else that one typically hears in an office. He made his way to his cubicle, greeting people as he walked. Finally reaching it he sat down in his chair, stretched his legs and prepared himself for a day of work.
After only minutes of being in his cubicle he was greeted by two familiar faces. One of the faces was his one of his bosses Jared Walters, the other was another of his bosses Carl Matheson. Jared was a tall man at roughly forty years of age, his face still kept signs of man only thirty five. Carl was slightly shorter and pudgy, his moustache was kept in a constant state of perfection.
“Hey boss,” said David looking at Jared and shifting his gaze to Carl, “boss, what's up?”
“Not much,” said Jared, “except that you're fired, unfortunately.”
“Yeah, it's a real pity,” piped in Carl.
“What?” Said David, obviously mishearing things.
“It's a recession or whatever,” Jared said, looking at his watch. “Business is dropping and the company can't afford to keep you.”
“Yes you can,” said David, desperately trying not to yell. “I'm pretty sure you could afford to pay myself and everyone else in this entire building double.”
“Um... yeah no. Well you see, we had some people, who know money and things by the way, make a chart and it clearly said that we couldn't afford to keep you. You just aren't making the company a profit in the long run.” Jared replied as his eyes followed the ass of Meghan, the new intern.
“Tough break man,” piped in Carl.
“Fuck off Carl,” snapped David.
“Hey!” Carl said, “no need to get angry here, you have your whole life ahead of you.”
“I have a mortgage, car payments, I can't really afford to not have a job right now.”
“You'll find a way, it's a good time to be alive right now.” Jared eyes were again eyeing the ass of Meghan as it walked by a second time.
“Jared, you make twice as much as I do, did. Don't even begin to talk like you know what I'm going through.”
“Uh-huh,” Jared said as Meghan had stopped to pick up something she dropped. “Listen I'd love to continue talking with you but you have two minutes to get out of the building, or something. Have a good one.”
Jared and Carl turned around in almost unison and left in the direction of Meghan's ass. David sat in his chair, shocked and unable to think of what to do. Moments passed and soon his phone rang.
“Hello, David Avery speaking,” he answered.
“Hey David, it's Jared. Since you picked up that means you're still here. I was hoping that you wouldn't pick up. I'm going to call again in three minutes and I'll be sorely disappointed if you answer it again.”
The line went dead and once again David was left with his thoughts. Most of these thoughts, however, consisted of the word fuck.
He stood up, grabbed his briefcase and walked out towards the elevator.
“Hey Dave, going for a coffee?” Said a voice.
“Fuck you,” said David, not looking to see the source of the question.
He left the building and looked out around the city. Suddenly every part of it seemed awful. Garbage blew across his feet, carried by the wind. The sounds of horns honking, people yelling things from street corners, everything normally distasteful but tolerable became a plague to his eyes, ears, and nose. He wanted nothing to do with the city and nothing to do with the tall buildings and the activities going on inside them. He picked a direction and walked.
On a normal day David would be aware and courteous towards those sharing the sidewalk with him but today walk forward with little regard to those in front of him. He bumped people, pushing them aside, not caring about their feeble protests.
David knew he had to find a new job. That would be easy enough he supposed, it was not like finding a job was a totally new experience to him. He knew he would have to find a job quickly, though, as his financial situation was not as good as he would like to admit to friends or family. He never was a very money minded person and knew little of investing and saving. His salary was always good enough to get by despite his inability to budget. It was at this time that he looked back on all his past financial mistakes and as each memory came to him his heart sunk lower and lower.
There was the broken old car that he bought for way more than a sane man would pay sitting in his garage. He thought that he could fix it himself despite not knowing anything about engines, or tools for that matter. Or the time he was drunk and gave a taxi driver one hundred dollars for telling him that everything would work out in the end. Clearly everything did not work out and David now needed that one hundred dollars.
“How am I going to break this to Brenda?” He thought.
His mind raced to find a solution. Nothing came to him. The only thought entering his mind was that he absolutely did not want to go home.
“Only cowards run from their problems,” said his brain.
He knew his brain was right. He knew what he had to do. He had to shut his brain up. He had to make sure that his brain stayed quiet for a while. Luckily his feet were way ahead of him and had already stepped into a bar. His mouth then took the reigns and said, “two beers please.”
1 comment:
I read "He sat up, slipped his feet into his slippers, and let out a loud yawn as he stretched"
as "He sat up, slapped his feet into his slippers, and let out a loud yawn as he stretched"
And I laughed for like ten seconds, you should probably change it to that.
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