Man Of Few Words

Chapter 3

I used to occasionally find myself looking at myself, and around myself, at everything I am, everything I've earned and achieved, every possibility still open to me, and think that it just wasn't enough. I didn't really want any of it. I had an acute sense of wanting something, but no idea what it was. None of the things I could get – and I could and did get a lot of things – seemed to be... it.

But like I say, it was only occasionally. And it never lasted more than a day or two.

Now though... now that feeling defines my existence. At first, I drove myself mad just trying to get comfortable and satisfied with... with anything. Everything was wrong, and nothing could fix it. Suddenly this perfect bachelor pad, so carefully tailored to meet my wants and needs, was unable to fulfil its function. Same went for everything in it, including me. Especially me.

I couldn't sleep because the bed was uncomfortable, the room was too hot, too stuffy, too cold, too noisy, too eerily fucking silent. I lost my appetite because food just didn't taste right any more. It didn't feel right in my mouth. In fact, the very idea of mashing something up in my mouth and mixing it with my spit started to disgust me. I lost a lot of weight during the first fortnight or so because many of the foods I used to enjoy would make me heave when I tried to swallow them. When I showered, the water either burned or chilled me, and all I could smell was the astringency of the chemicals in the various products I used. I had the same problem with toothpaste. It started to taste toxic and my teeth didn't feel clean after brushing any more. The feel of the hair clippers against my skull made my brain ache to the core, and I decided, out of nowhere, that I hated the shape of my head. My clothes became uncomfortable, unfashionable, unwearable...

Everything about this flat, this neighbourhood, this city, this world, this life... it all frustrated and agitated me and left me craving escape. But there was none. I couldn't relax in any way. I just spent days on end fuming, and cursing everything, and everyone who'd made it the way it was. "If it would just...", "Why can't it just...", "Why can't one thing... JUST ONE THING..."

This, in case you were wondering, is how the office chair got broken. I was trying to make it go up or down or backwards or forwards, or maybe just trying to make it stay still... I don't remember. I just wanted to be comfortable at my desk. And the most expensive, most cleverly designed, most adjustable office chair money could buy was unable to provide the comfort I wanted, no matter how I teased its various levers, knobs and handles.

To be fair, before long I wasn't really teasing them as such. I was grabbing and wrenching and snatching and yanking, and this frustrated belligerence soon escalated into all-out violence. I don't know what snapped first; something in me, or something in the chair. But needless to say, I ended up giving that chair a frenzied yet systematic and very tightly focussed (nothing else in the vicinity was damaged) hiding.

Then I sat on the floor among the debris and broke down.

When I stopped crying and snivelling and sobbing and moaning – a few hours later, I think – I had reached the point of acceptance. Or maybe it was resignation. Or defeat. The unfulfillable want was still there, but the impulses that drove me to try and satisfy it were gone. I could do nothing to get rid of that feeling, so I started doing just that. Nothing.

Not nothing at all, of course. I continued living a basic existence, but I stopped doing anything with the expectation of feeling better, or in any way satisfied, as a result. A relatively comfortable, numb, peaceful few weeks followed, but I started to go crazy in a different, possibly worse, way. Then, one day when I was standing in the bathroom staring into space – not sure why or for how long, but I assume far too long – I hit upon an idea.

I decided to write a book.