Boredom
A series of short pieces by Ms Alisha
The insidious weight of boredom had fallen on him again, laying its icy palm against his brain, and freezing it into utter inactivity.
His bored eyes didn't even flick around the room, searching for cobwebs. They stayed
rigidly fixed on the LCD screen of the laptop. It was a singularly unremarkable display -
a couple of the X-men were demolishing a brick wall with laser blasts, and huge talons -
but it seemed to hypnotise him. His blink rate had slowed incredibly, as the mesmerising
effect of the boredom worked its wicked way on him.
He'd put a poster up in the office - too much oppression can be harmful to your health -
but he'd never bothered to look at it. It was only there to break the monotony of the bare
grey walls. He wasn't even sure what was on it - probably some movie from way back - but
he knew that it was there. A sort of beacon to passing people, that this was his office,
his space - and not to encroach on it.
His day had not gotten off to a very auspicious start. He'd had to untangle himself from
the twisted bed clothes, and Ms. Alisha, and this had taken rather more time than usual.
Alisha had been unexpectedly demanding for such an early hour, and this had set him back
twenty minutes. He'd had to forgo breakfast, in order to once again board the Volvo, and
head into work.
He'd taken her too see Greg Arraki's Totally Fucked Up, and he felt that
something had been lacking from the film. She'd compared it to Reality Bites and SFW,
and talked about it in glowing terms, but his response had been muted. The film was shot
as a sort of "street theatre" piece, and was edited to give it a rough, raw
quality - a hard edge. But it was a brittle edge, that fractured under the weight of the
content.
He was looking forward to When Night Is Falling. Rastous's piece in GT had whet
his appetite, with is promise of a lack of violence. His only disappointment was that
Alisha couldn't make it tonight, and he'd had to call in a "pinch hitter" at the
last moment. Well, at least he'd get to see the film. And he was still taking her to Arcadia
later that week.
He rather enjoyed her company - just having her in the place was enough to take the edge
of any deep seated boredom that followed him home. Although she was unskilled in the
domestic arts, she gave the apartment a lived-in atmosphere - a stark contrast to the
previously sterile conditions. Plants now grew on the balcony, transforming it from a
pale, concrete platform, into a lush forest of greens and reds. They'd occasionally eat
out there, when the weather was kind, surrounded by the succulent foliage.
She was in stark contrast to his previous longtime companion. He'd been a quiet,
unassuming civil servant, who toiled away in the bowels of some office block, shuffling
papers. The guy had about as much personality as a damp rag, but it had been a roof over
his head. He'd finally got shot of the bloke when he discovered that he could turn a
living on his own - and had struck out into media relations.
Which was why he was bored now. He had nothing to relate to the media. No vitally
important messages had hummed in over the fax lines, urging him to share them with all.
The phone hadn't even looked like ringing.
The screen image had long since changed, and toasters flapped lazily across it. He gave
them a cursory glance, noted that the were still flying from left to right, then returned
to gazing at the middle distance.
It was a dangerous habit that he had gotten into - but one which he found all the more
rewarding for its very danger. He'd seen visions of apocalypse play against the walls -
towering pillars of fire that had swept across cities, devastating all in their path.
Images of half formed creatures swam indiscriminately through his field of vision, their
features melting and moulding, mutating into a caricature of familiar faces. At times he
thought he felt their spectral tug, as if they were urging him to join them in the ether.
And then there were the glimpses of the future - or, at least, a future. He'd seen himself
settled down, his life slowed to a snails pace. He'd seen no sign of Alisha, but nothing
he'd seen had come to pass. At least, not in the form that he'd seen it. Some events had
been close to what he'd seen, but they'd been different in small, but crucial aspects.
He stopped speculating on the future. The present was hard enough to cope with at the best
of times - let alone adding any further crap to it.
A glimmer of talent had broken through the thin veneer of shite that usually inhabited the
office. A new copywriter had just started, and his work was rather good. At least, he
thought it was a damn sight better than the usual rubbish that the office churned out. It
seemed to flow, and possess a vivid quality. It had life, a thing not usually imparted in
a piece by just any old hack, a life force that reached out of the page, and engulfed the
reader.
He'd been singularly impressed by the boy's work on interactive media - his technique of
relating the most complicated concepts in a simplified, yet well constructed manner was a
delight to behold. He had hopes for this lad - he should take him under his wing, nurture
him, feed the talent that lay hidden within his breast.
He rose from the chair, and went to work....