I ran the bottles of coke over the price-scanning machine, my face scrunched up in an ugly frown as the man before me waited impatiently for me to finish. My work was full of these short, ugly, balding men and long, skanky women whom just couldn’t give the cashier a two-second wait as he desperately tried to slide their various, mostly unnecessary items across the surface of said machine.
I stuffed the items into three plastic bags and handed them to the impatient man, whom snatched them from my grip and stalked off with his big lips pulled into a horribly revolting grimace. The usual trolls, I thought to myself, frowning just as much. This was my entire fault in the first place.
If I had had the decency to die yesterday, or before yesterday, or any other free day for the matter, I wouldn’t be here scanning stuff for stupid customers at Wall Mart whom I would probably never see again.
Not that I wanted to see them again, of course.
With a huff and heave, I rolled the next lady’s gigantic watermelon, making sure the sticker on its green surface was recognized by the machine before placing the heavy fruit in a plastic bag with extreme difficulty. The woman began to blow intolerant bubbles with her disgusting bubble gum, and I had the horrible urge to grab it from her mouth and stick it in her mousy brown hair as she started making the horrible, horrible popping noises as clear signs of irritation.
And my working hours passed like so, scanning different things and stuffing them into bags. The name tag around my neck glinted the words ‘Mark Centes’, and I cringed at the nude exposure of my personal name. It wasn’t fair. I didn’t want these people to see it.
At around seven in the evening, I removed my name tag, retied my shoelaces, and trudged back home, where I fixed myself some dinner, checked the boring mail, and fell asleep on my medium-sized bed, looking more dead than I really was—sadly.
And then, the phone rang.
I groaned, deciding to ignore the horrible ringing sound and continue my slumber, in a fruitless attempt to pretend it didn’t exist. When the wretched phone’s wails did not cease, I reluctantly grabbed the device, flicking it open and muttering a hollow, drowsy ‘Hullo?’ into the speaker.
A cheery voice greeted me, and I felt my ears psychologically bleed.
“Hiya, Mark!” Alice squealed, and I gave a low moan that I could feel emerge from the deepest, darkest pits of my sleepy heart. Her worried tone only annoyed me more.
“Are you ok? You sound sick…” She fretted. “I was fine—more than fine—until you called.” I mumbled with my eyes still closed, “Now can you leave me to sleep in peace?”
Without waiting for an answer, I closed the phone once again, burying my face in my pillow in an effort to drag sleep back into me as it struggled to slip away. The ringing came again, and I issued a groan, pressing the red reject button long enough for my cell phone to shut down.
I changed my position in hopes of re-achieving comfort, and slowly, my consciousness began to drift through the misty curtain that separated me from the other side. My eyelids grew heavy, my lower jaw began to slant sideways, a small gap appearing between my lips...
RING!
I nearly jumped out of my skin, as the home phone let out a howl. I rolled off the bed, barely registering my collision with the ground as I crawled and groped for the horrible, horrible plug in the darkness. The ringing continued, like ambulance sirens and fire alarms had gone off altogether, somewhere in my head.
Alas, my hand brushed the cord, and I pulled, the world almost stopping as all the noise died.
Brain-dead, I cursed subconsciously, heaving myself back onto the bed and hugging my pillow to my chest as I tried to sleep.
