- Vol. 07
- Chapter 11
Same again tomorrow
Barely awake again, buried six-feet deep a hundred times over, packed between the tin walls of our lightning-powered vestibule, faceless bodies osmosing in and out, breathing in other people’s skin. What a way to start the day, every day. I really should not have stayed up mixing sauce and powder all night again, but such is the life of a baker, and a baker I am. I’m pressed skin-tight between a surly fella with a backpack – they’re one type, tortoise-men I call them – and some suit with a haircut twice as expensive and half as impressive as my watch, speaking of which, where is it? I do hope I just forgot to put it on again, wash-eyed as I was this morning; it would pain me terribly for it to have been relegated to the realms of memory along with so many other misplaced trinkets of mine. I really should pay more attention to them. The case in my hand is heavier than usual today. Fuck knows what’s in it. I never ask. I never look – but this one is definitely heavier than usual. Sometimes I like to imagine it full of something ineffable, something so profound it’d kill me if I stared too long, a dark chasm engulfing everything it touches – except the bag, of course; now wouldn’t that be interesting, to regard such a thing. Anyway, I never ask questions, as I said, and that’s why they trust me to do what I do. Besides, the real chasm’s out here. Sprawling heaps of concrete shit, towering monuments to our lack of imagination, and a million suits scurrying about, all bluster and nothing, all just to make time speed up or slow down, I forget which one. It’s all just painting in the rain. Futile, nonsense. Makes me sick and angry until I remember I’m one of them, too. I miss the days when they’d escort me around by car to do this, but they say it’s all too conspicuous now – better to mix in with the proles, plain sight and all that. I close my eyes and for a moment imagine myself in countless other universes, anywhere but here for a change, but I draw a blank. I try real hard and press myself – think colour and light, like Sondheim said – and a few images come to mind, but they’re all shit, too. Best be happy with my lot, I guess.