Something new from my dissertation. Somehow this was liked by all. Strange, I only wrote this to let some steam off.

Nigel's life and why he feels so safe in his apartment room

June 5th

You live a modest life.

Today is a Friday, it is the day you go to work.

You wake up, you straighten up your bed, you take a shower. In shower you clean every part of your body, armpits, fingernails, little groove behind your ears, eyelids, then you move down to your genitals. You peel the foreskin off of the tip and gently clean your penis. You are annoyed a bit when you grow semi-erect and hastily finish cleaning yourself. After that you brush your teeth. You lay your suit on the bed, smooth out the crease and put it on. Once dressed, you move to the kitchen and have your breakfast of toast (buttered) and tea without sugar. Radio plays softly in the background as you have your breakfast, it’s the classics, like it was yesterday. You always listen to the classics when you have your breakfast. You take your time finishing your toast, making sure to taste every spread of butter. As you tilt the teacup to finish your drink, you look at the hole in the kitchen wall as you eat. The hole is right over the stove, and because you put your table to face the stove, you can show how you eat to whomever is looking in. Every time you eat you feel like you are on a display, and that give you a comforting feeling. You are nothing more than an example of a human being. The only function you need is to exist. Man eating, they may title you and keep records of it for the future when a person needs to study what humans do. You take particular joy in thinking that you need not think about anything, that you only need to live. You finish your tea, you straighten your tie and wipe any crumb off your shirt.

When you close the door behind you, you give the doorknob a couple of twists to make sure it’s closed.

When you come back to your apartment room after work, you first take off your suit and hang it up. You put your shirt and undershirt into the wicker cleaning basket and see if you should go on a laundry run for the weekend. Then you dress yourself in sweatpants and T-shirt. You usually do not eat dinner. You always have your fill with breakfast and lunch. But when lunch does not feel quite right, like tonight, you buy a sandwich from the cornershop nearby and eat it with a cup of tea without sugar. While you eat you watch the TV with volume turned off. Things are better with volume turned off, you once said to someone. It just lets you bounce your thought off the screen, you once said. You eat without much appreciation for what you are putting into your body. Unlike breakfast you give no thoughts to the sandwich, you just consider it as a mean for nutrition. When you are done, you take a shower.

While you take shower, you think about the hole in the wall just opposite of the shower. You think about who might be looking through that all. The hole is not that big, the size of a peephole on the door. Sometimes you see the hole blacken, so someone might be looking in while you are in the bathroom flossing or taking a shower. When you see the hole blacken, you do not stir. You keep cleaning yourself, then dry yourself and dress yourself. The hole is still blackened as you finish all the steps of taking a shower.

You always go to sleep at eleven, so you spend the remaining time watching TV dramas you recorded from last week. You watch them with the volume off. You try not to move too much because the hole that bores through the wall opposite you is blackened and you know that someone is watching you. It could be just a towel hanging over the hole you think to yourself, but you prefer to think it’s someone behind the wall watching you watching TV program. So you don’t move too much so they can watch you.

When you go to sleep, you first lay down on your bed, stare at the ceiling until patterns start to emerge out of the ceiling and you just let the patterns wriggle and squirm around. You close your eyes when they become too heavy to keep open. And sleep starts to set in. Man on bed. Breathing. Closing eyes. Going to sleep. Breathing. Breathing. Breathing. You think to yourself as you imagine the person or the recording device that is recording your day.

As your mind falls into sleep you think about who is watching you. Could it be a woman? Could it be someone from your work who wants to gain advantage of you? Could it be a random person who takes pleasure in watching the lives of others? Whoever it is, this person has holes all over your apartment room watching everything you do. As you finally slip into sleep, you feel comfortable knowing that someone is looking at you, paying attention to you.

And as you go to sleep the person behind those holes conclude their day and make a note of how you acted in your apartment room. They note that you are acting particularly calm.

June 6th

You live a modest life.

Today is Saturday, the day you prepare for laundry and take a walk.

You wake up and stare up to the hole in the ceiling. You unceremoniously look into that black hole and you think to yourself has whatever existence recording you seen something you didn’t know about yourself. Could that person watched you while you talked in your sleep? Do you talk in your sleep? Could you have done something in your sleep that would disgust whoever was watching? You think on about what you might have done in your bed until you run out of things to wonder about and get out of bed.

You always get out of your bed landing your right foot first. You can never tell why you do so, but you just do not feel right unless you get out of the bed so.

You straighten up the bed once out of the bed. You can faintly smell your body ordor from the bed cover, but you tell yourself that you’ll go to the laundromat tomorrow.

You shower lightly, then brush your teeth all the while thinking about the person who must be looking through the hole in the wall. You clean yourself and dress up.

Sometimes you think that this is what keeps you alive. This being watched and possibly recorded, being taped maybe as an educational film about how a person functions. How he brushes his teeth, how he takes care of bowel movement, how he cleans his room.  

You finish your breakfast and think about taking a walk. You decide that you are going to take a walk out to the park near your apartment. You also decide that you should take a book out with you on this walk. You clean your dishes and put them out to dry on the rack.

Once outside the door, you search for your key to lock the door, but the door closes itself and locks automatically. This is a strange thing to happen, but you think to yourself that maybe you have close the door too strongly and the lock just snapped into action. So you think nothing of it and go out to the park. The walk is a pleasant experience and you enjoy it with all your senses. You hear things around you, people playing soccer, mother with a stroller chatting to her child, elderly couple talking about the weather, a boy and a girl lying side by side and the boy, who seems to be no older than a high schooler, is rubbing upon the belly of the girl. It’s a sight that makes you think to yourself, people in love is a nice sight.

Then how about yourself? You were once a boy in love with a girl, were you a nice sight to behold? You think back to that long gone day when you went out on a date with a girl. You went out to a park, holding her hand in yours, all you did was just walk around the park and visit the zoo that was raised next to it. You were smiling to her, and she smile back to you. You bought a bag of popcorn and shared it with her, sometimes throwing popcorn to the encaged animals. Yes, you say to yourself, that was a nice sight. Fond memories, you think to yourself, I wish they live long, as opposed to horrible memories which should be erased immediately. But they remain with you, they come back to you, sometimes in different shapes. So you try not to think more than necessary. You just keep your mind clear of horrible thoughts.    

On your way back from the walk, you buy a loaf of bread, ham, cheese, and mayonnaise. You remember that you have a bottle of red and white wine in your fridge, and a can of soup in the pantry.

When you get back to your apartment, a voice whispers out of nowhere “Welcome back, was it a good walk?” You think to yourself it must be one of the neighbors who must have seen you walk out the door, and reply “It was a good walk.”

You walk back to your room, put your shoes into the shoebox and change into your in-room slippers. You prepare the sandwich mechanically, and pours the canned soup into the pan, put it over the stove and shimmer it until it’s warm against your fingertips. During preparation you slowly drink a glass of wine and think shortly about your neighbors, whom you haven’t actually seen since you moved in to this apartment but must surely exist because you hear voices talking to you while going up apartment stairs and you think nothing of it because they are probably busy people and they are just lounging around in their rooms. After you finish the soup and sandwich, you move to the living room and finish your wine while watching TV, and you doze off to sleep.

When you wake up you notice that the TV has been turned off and there is a light blanket over you. You think to yourself you must have turned the TV off while you were in that particular state of drunkenness that allows the basic motor skill to control you and put the blanket that is next to you over yourself.

You spend the rest of the day cleaning the apartment room, fold the dirty laundry into the wicker cleaning basket in preparation for tomorrow’s laundry, and take a bath while reading a book. While reading, you think about the hole in the bathroom wall and wonder if whoever watching you is getting a clear view of you.

You go to sleep at ten, and as you did last night you stare up to the ceiling and let patterns emerge. You close your eyes and let sleep come over you.

The people behind the holes take notes of your day and conclude that you were acting normal today as well.

June 7th

You live a modest life.

This is Sunday, the day you do your laundry.

When you wake up at around nine, you first go to the bathroom to brush your teeth and take a shower. The t-shirt and sweat pants you put on over the night are thrown into the wicker basket and you change into a clean t-shirt and sweatpants.

You put the laundry liquid and fabric softener into the basket and walk down to the basement, where the laundry machines are.

There are some machines going already, but luckily there is a machine available for use.

You put the clothing and bath towels into the machine. You deposit a capful of laundry liquid in, and you press start. The machine whines, then whirls into action. The basement is warm because the dryer is going. There are no holes in the basement. Not even a security camera. You wonder why this is not of anyone’s interest. But whatever. That’s their decision, all I need to do is just exist. Recorded subjects need not have any opinion. They just need to move and do things. You sit around watching your clothing being washed. The warmth in the basement is making you a little lightheaded. As you watch the laundry drum roll round and round, you feel drowsy so you close your eyes a little. It is afterall a Sunday and you deserve to enjoy a weekend whichever way you choose.

In your short sleep you imagine that the apartment has turned into a centipede and that its legs are the apartment rooms. When you exit your room, you are inside its stomach which is covered with what looks like velvet. Other residents move from one room to another, never stepping outside of the centipede. That’s why you don’t see any of the residents. They are just something that lives inside the centipede crawling on the laundry room wall.

Then you hear a buzzer go off and realize that your laundry is done.

You don’t fold your clothing in the laundry room. You prefer to do that in your room, while letting the warm air of June in. As rays of sunshine fills all corners of your room and you fold your clothing into its appropriate shapes, you feel like your life is going into order. When you put all the clothing into its rightful place in the closet, you feel like you are perfectly in control of your life. You feel like nothing more can be asked for. Socks in the bottom drawer, t-shirts folded into nice pile besides the underwear, socks rolled into balls and resting so quietly in their drawer. What more of peaceful order can one ask for? No one would dare break such order you think to yourself.

You spend the rest of the afternoon drinking and watching tv program you recorded over the week. Sometimes you punctuate the viewing with reading all the old issues of the newspaper you collected over the week. You feel good and the weather outside is nice.

You go to sleep at ten and look up to the hole in the ceiling until your eyes close.

As you go to sleep, the people behind the holes note that you are acting normal. They even dare note down if observing you is needed anymore.

June 8th

You live a modest life   

This is Monday. You are going to work.

You work at the public record keeping office, and you are always the first one to arrive at the office. When you take off your jacket and hang it over the coat rack, the first thing you do is brew a cup of coffee and read the morning paper that is lying around the office. You browse through and take note of what is on sale at the market over the weekend.

At nine o’clock you go up to the chair behind the counter. Day in and day out people ask where certain records are, and you direct them to where the records are. One asks for the history of the public parking by the pool. You direct them to the shelving on the fourth row. Someone asks for the record of population of pigeons in the park, you direct them to the first bookshelf on the right, nearby the water fountain. This will go on until noon, after which someone will take over. Your office takes rotation in who sits behind the counter. On monday it’s you, on Tuesday it’s some other worker beard and likes to eat his food peppered with crushed garlic.

At noon, you go out to your lunch break. You usually go out to lunch with someone from your office. And usually a female co-worker with timid yet firm voice asks you if you fancy going out to lunch.

Nigel, she usually says to you, do you fancy a sandwich? Sometimes she says Nigel, I made some lunch. I was wondering if you can join me.

Your co-worker and you take a bench in the park. You bought yourself an egg and mayo sandwich, your co-worker brought with herself a bagel. She is a shy person, does not look at you when she talks, and she takes little bites like a squirrel eating a pine cone.

Nice day, isn’t it? She says to you.

Yes, it is a nice day. You answer back. Sun is out, June breeze is everywhere, I think this is my favorite time of the year. It’s just warm everywhere.

Ah, my cats gave birth to four kittens, she says.

Congratulations, kittens must be a nice addition to life. You answer back and take a bite of your sandwich.

Yes, they are these small things, their eyes aren’t open, and they just squirm around their mommy.

Conversation dies after that. You both finish your meal in silence, and your coworker pulls out a thermos and two plastic cups from her back pack. She asks if you’d like some tea, and you answer yes. You both finish tea in silence. After tea you and your coworker walk back to the government official building where the record office is.  

After that it is going to your desk and note down the spending record of each office in the government building. It is not a tiring work. You just need to have eyes and hands to fill out records of how much money is being spent by what office. A dozen or so rubber erasers, 4 packets of A4 sized paper, a new printer cartridge, a new desk lamp for a new employee who has joined this week. Nothing about the spendings catches your attention. Then your eyes glide over an item; a dozen red noses and water squirting flowers. Your eyes stop for a second trying to decipher what they have seen, and after confirming that they have indeed seen the words red nose and water squirting flowers, your mind wonders if this is for a party, and it remembers that the town carnival fair is coming soon. This is how the pension office is going to celebrate it. Your mind thinks about the staff members of pension office in red nose and jokingly squirt water onto each other. Then it remembers the days when you used to go out to the fair in humid june nights. Your mind then goes on to think about the one who always accompanied to those fairs. One with smiles that made you think that this person can comfort you at a busy day’s work. And you shake your head clear of those thoughts and go back to filling the records paper.

What if there are cameras recording this, you think to yourself. That will not look good. Remember, you do not have to think, you remind yourself.  

You get off work at six. On your way to the train station to get back home, your pick up a copy of the newspaper.

“Good day Gov”, a silver haired, portly elderly man handing out the newspaper says to you.

You say good day back to the old man and take a train back to your apartment.

Once back at your apartment you place today’s newspaper in its place on the kitchen table where it will stay until the weekend so you can read them over then. Then you go over to your room and undress, hang your suit up, and dress yourself in t-shirt and sweatpants. You open the window in your room to let the June air in.

You do the same when you move over to the living room. You watch today’s news without any sound. You let the TV play as you recline in your sofa and look up to the hole in the ceiling. You imagine someone is kneeling over to watch you watching TV.  

You stifle a yawn and get up out of the sofa and head over to the bathroom for a bath. At bathroom you read a book from the start to and end of a chapter. When the water turns cold you drain and add more hot water in.

When you are out of the bathroom, you go over to the kitchen and pour yourself a glass of water. After cooling yourself down, you go over to the bedroom and stare at the hole in the ceiling until your eyes close and you go to sleep.

The people behind the watching holes, coming back from the weekend, makes careful notes seeing if you have changed in anyways. But seeing that you are still the docile unmoving person that you have always been since moving into the apartment, you make a note simply saying “same as always”

June 9th

You live a modest life   

This is Tuesday. You are going to work.

Nothing to note. You have lunch by yourself while you watch a dog and his owner play fetch.

At work an elderly lady asks for obituary record from five years ago and you give her old newspaper slides.

You pick up the newspaper and get back home.

You read a chapter in bath.

You lay on your back and your look into that hole.

As you look into the hole, You wonder whoever looking in is doing so because they envy your life. Could they be saying to themselves “My how nice his room looks. How I envy him”? No, you think to yourself. There’s nothing in this life that anyone should envy. No one in their right mind would ever say such nonsense, when one looks into your room they are sure to say “what a waste of life, sperm, money, effort, parental love and time.”

You think to yourself as you look at those holes on the ceiling, “What a boring life I lead. Everyday I wake up, straighten out my bed, brush my teeth and go to work. No pub on the weekend, no one to talk to at work, no TV program that I hold close to my heart, no music to swear by, I wonder how someone like me is allowed to live.”

If only I were born an ant, you think to yourself as the sleep starts to draw down upon you. You think to yourself, working like a collective not having a thought. You close your eyes and think of your life as an ant. You go to sleep and in your dream you carry half a leaf with your fellow ants.

June 10th

You live a modest life   

This is Wednesday. You are going to work.

At work, you direct people to the record they want with mechanical efficiency. Record of sewer content for the past five years? Third cabinet next to the water machine. Decrease of population of head lice in the children for the past six years? Second row behind the vending machine. Record of childbirth since the nineties? Two flight of stairs down, right on the first door.

At lunch a man comes to talk to you. You stiffen a bit when he comes over and says Nigel, I would be honored if you can join me for lunch. You have no reason to say no, so you join him for a lunch at the local diner.

He has a scrambled egg, bacon and hash brown. You order egg and bacon sandwich. Your and the man who asked you over for lunch drink coffee in silence. He takes his time finishing coffee, not bothered by silence. He finally opens his mouth when he calmly places the coffee mug. He says:

So, Nigel, how is, everything?

You answer: Thanks for asking Dave, I’m doing fine.

Dave, your appointed city counselor gives a thin smile and says: We all want to work comfortably, and I believe that knowing what everyone is thinking is a good way to start out from.

You answer: You are a good person Dave.

Dave says to you: Well, besides that you looked real horrible back then, when you were trying to recover from the loss of your wife. You really worried me back then, the way you looked and all, and I want to make sure you are doing fine and taking a good care of yourself.

You were almost going to say You are a good person Dave, but he said something to you that stops you. He said to you “loss of your wife”. That means you were once married. Were you married once? But aren’t you all alone in that apartment? And even beyond that, you were married? When did you get married? Who were you married to?

You obviously have on an expression of confusion, because Dave your counsellor says to you: Nigel, I’m sorry. It’s still too much for you, I shouldn’t have said this. I just wanted to make sure you are okay.   

So out of politeness you say back to Dave: Thank you.

Dave, your counsellor says: Look, it’s hard for you to take this, what with you forgetting the facts about your wife’s death. I know that it’s a tragic death, but I think at some point we should really think about moving on. And I know that your acting of normalcy is just so that you can protect yourself from re-living what you went through, but please know that I am here for you.  

Both Dave and you finish lunch in silence. Whole through the lunch Dave puts on an expression of caring and tenderness.

You finish work, pick up news paper on your way back home, and read a chapter while taking a bath. But tonight no matter how much you run your eyes over them, you can not make out a single word that is on the page. No matter how much you read them over again and again, you just fail to register any one word.

You watch TV, but nothing about the moving pictures on TV make sense. You watch but the images just glide over you. You see images of a frog made out of felt sitting on lotus leaf and saying something to you. But that does not make any sense.

At ten you go to bed. You lie down on your bed, and as you look up to the hole in the ceiling, you think to yourself over and over, was I married once? I was married? Why don’t I remember that? Maybe I should ask someone tomorrow, you think to yourself.

As you go to sleep the radiator you turned off gives a low grumble and shudder that goes through the apartment. You also remember all those times that voice whispered to you about your days, and you think to yourself that voice is a good voice. That voice is a kind voice. It does not hurt you, it does not judge you.

People behind the holes note down that you acted normal.

June 11th

You live a modest life   

This is thursday. You are going to work.

You are not at your best at work today. You can’t make out what the patron is saying to you, you have to ask them twice what they are looking for.

Phone record sir? You ask an old man. No, Loan record about this city’s loan. Oh, third cabinet on right.

Change of sandwich ingredient sir? You ask when an old man wearing a pair of glasses comes up to your desk and asks for Landish gradient. The old man gives a look of slight annoyance and tells you that inattention is not what this job requires, and that answering a question with a question makes you look like a below average person.

A particularly annoyed looking person say to you can someone else help me please? You are not helping me at all. You apologize to her and keep going.

At lunch time you approach your shy coworker to lunch. You tell her that you’ll pay. She comes with you. You go over to the diner just around the corner. You order an onion soup and panini. Your coworker orders a club sandwich.

Alicia, Dave, ah my counsellor appointed by the city government, told me yesterday that I lost a wife, I mean my wife, you say to Alicia.

She looks up like you just reached across the table and slapped her across her cheek.

Was I married? You ask her and look right at her. She looks down immediately after meeting your gaze. You keep looking at her. She looks up, and looks down immediately as soon as her eyes meet yours. This goes on a couple of times more, and she finally looks up and says,

Yes, Nigel, you were married once.

Who was I married to? You ask her.

To Anna, she was one of ours. She worked here with you.

I was married to a woman that used to work in the records office? You ask her.

Yes, she says, you two looked happy working here.

But this Anna and me, how did I lose her?

I don’t know Nigel, you never said anything about it. You only mentioned that she was in an accident. We all presumed that it was a horrible one, and it was because the newspaper reported that a stray bolt from the airplane flying over head buried itself deep inside her skull. We were all devastated by the news, she says to you, and continues. You were understandably devastated, Nigel. You didn’t talk to anyone, and you didn’t take care of yourself. We could see that you were not washing your clothing, and your body order was growing stronger and everyone said that you were not taking a bath. You were growing thinner and you didn’t shave even when you started looking unsightly. We were all worried that you were going to kill yourself. But one day you came in to work clean shaven and with ironed shirt, so we thought you got yourself back together. We just left you alone and waited for you to open up, you know, to let the right moment come.

You can not believe everything you are hearing. Why don’t you remember any of this? You go back to your work and spend the rest of the day in a haze. You don’t care what anyone says, you just listen to them and says the first thing that comes to your mind. Medical practice? Third floor. Electronic record, first floor. Dress material, ground floor. No one came back to complain, they just chose another counter to go up to make their enquiries.

You get off work and walk out of the records office without saying even a cheers to your coworkers. Your coworkers look at you, but say nothing. You pick up the newspaper and say nothing back to the old man handing out the newspaper. Everything seems distance, and people seem to walk into your way and you only manage to avoid them because the people are avoiding you.

When you get back to your apartment, you throw the newspaper onto the sofa. You don’t take a bath, you just move over to your bed and lie down. You don’t even change your clothes. All you can manage to do is look up to the hole in the ceiling. And all you can think is how could I forget the fact that I was married? Who was this woman you were once married to? You think all these to yourself. And as you think about this, another thought comes to your head. Why is this bothering you this much? This woman, why does she make you feel so bothered?

You try and remember this woman, how she looked like, what her voice sounded like, how she looked at you, anything you can remember. But nothing comes back.

As you lie on your back, you feel your eyelids close.

As you go to sleep, somewhere in your mind something tells you, once you were happy. Once you had a wife by you and you both smiled happily. You held her hand in yours, you went on to walks, you had slow sensual sex you were never happy when you has sex in a hurry. you used to watch her sleep. you used to pinch her nose while she slept. you and your wife held hands as you two watched a movie.

You were content to keep this life going, until one day she collapsed in front of you like a marionette with its strings all cut loose. You run up to her and she did not rise up. You held her in your arms and she did not respond to anything. At hospital they announced her dead, and patiently the doctor said that there was a bolt embedded in your wife’s skull.

You first scream to the doctor this is not the time for jokes, tell me what happened.

Then the doctor dropped a bolt from his hand to your palm. You notice some specks of blood. It’s a mystery where this came from, we’re sorry the doctor said. It’s hard to take in, we understand. The only thing that we can suggest is have the city government appoint you a counsellor to talk about your grief. You stared at the bolt in your hand. Then you looked up to the doctor in desperate hope that he would say, sorry we were just pulling your legs, your wife is alright. But the doctor was handing you a number for the branch of the city government that appointed councillors. And like that you were left alone. You were abandoned. And the more you became cognizant of it, more painful it became. You cried until the hospital closed, then you went home and cried more as you looked over all the items that you and your wife shared. So you stopped thinking. And you moved out of that house and into this apartment. When you first moved into this apartment, you took out all the mirrors in your room. You tried taking care of yourself, but you couldn’t remember how. You couldn’t remember how to iron a shirt. You couldn’t remember how to brush your teeth. You couldn’t remember how to watch TV. Yet you were able to come to work and move about as if nothing is wrong. Strange how that works.   

But no matter, you are here now. You are in this place that needs no thinking. You are here and you do not have to think. You are safe here and you can sleep all you want. No one will tell you to move on. No one will tell you to face what is in front of you. No one can ever hurt you here. So you go to sleep.

That night you dream that you are replaying your day while a giant face of a woman watches everything you do. That face sports a smile that can comfort you after a hard day’s work. It floats slightly over your shoulder. It watches how you eat, how you bathe, how you dress and how you work. You lovingly show that floating face everything at night you sleep while the floating face watches your chest rise and fall.

And as you sleep a ghostly shape of a woman watches over you. She looks into your face with a smile.

Next morning you wake up and stare up to the hole in the ceiling. Then you get up, landing right foot first and go over to the bathroom. You take a bath, change clothing and go to work.

The people behind the holes note that you were clearly shaken that night, but you came back in good shape.