Yesterday at work while I was throwing empty cardboard boxes in the bailer, I noticed a giant mechanical spider with a broken left front leg, and an abdomen empty, opened, and exposed, missing two double D batteries, which made its whole body lifeless.
It was two days after Halloween, and plush snowmen, reindeer, and santas have already replaced its ass on the shelves.
Two days after Halloween, and its smiling sewn on mouth and plastic eyes are suffocating in trash.
Right then, I made a wish to anyone or anything.
I made a wish to switch places, to give the giant mechanical spider my life, so it could do something better with it than what I'm currently doing (nothing.) I want it to experience life after Halloween. To fall in love. Get a good paying job. Be attractive. Suave. Sophisticated. Have sex. Have children. Earn medals and plaques. Get handshakes from old men. You know, actually accomplish something, instead of dragging other people down.
After this week, after this month, after this year, getting thrown out and crushed by a trash compactor is something I can actually look forward to.
But nothing happened, because nothing ever happens; both of us were still stuck in the same shitty positions.
Crying and embarrassed.
I went to my car and did some drugs and smoked a cig to collect myself because I can't have my coworkers thinking that I'm crazy.
When I got back to the deli, my coworker Ria asked me, "Mv, what's wrong?"
I looked up at here with tears swelling on the edges of my eyelids and told her about another failed attempt at love, about the spider, about how I can't take it anymore, about the surge in drug use, and about the reality of what it feels like to lose my sanity.
She tilted her head, looked at me with her powder blue eyes and said, "Awwww, Mv it's going to be okay. But you can't lose yourself in your own thoughts, and in pills. You can't change people, or how the world is. I know it seems like every time you try and put yourself out there, you get shot down. But you gotta keep going."
I started to cry, and she leaned in, gave me a hug, and pressed my face against her shoulder.
"You know, if it was 15 years ago, and I didn't have kids and wasn't married, it would be deli love between you and me. I'm sorry things never seem to work out, but I know this girl at the Duryea store who works in the deli, who would be perfect for you. She's real skinny, cute, and likes books just like you. I wish I had her number so I could hook you guys up."
We broke our embrace.
"It's okay, I'm just too much trouble. Too much emotional baggage. No one is attracted to a crazy person."
"Mv, it's going to be okay. You're going to be okay. You working Wednesday?"
"Yeah."
"Cool. You like plants? Cause I got this plant I want to bring in and give you. It'll help take your mind off all this shit. You know? Give you something to do."
"Yeah that be great. Thank you. Sorry for acting this way. I'm just so fucked in the head."
She grabbed my shoulders.
"Mv, look at me, it's going to be okay. If you let it get to you it will. You just gotta let go. You just gotta move on."
Later that night, still dwelling on facts I can't change in my bedroom, I hear the sounds of the mechanical spider's body being crushed in the back of a garbage truck. Sitting next to the window, listening. Heartbroken. Still crying.
It got to me.
No comments:
Post a Comment