Choices

 Not quite from the archives, but I wrote this back in June 2013 and completely forgot about it...

Choices

Wearily I rub my eyes, my colleague is sat on the seat opposite me, our train heading towards the office.
    "Feels like Thursday," she pines, it's only Tuesday.
    I nod in agreement.

At work I head upstairs immediately, flick the kettle on, grab my preferred mug and am about to spoon in a miniature mountain of coffee, when I realise the jar is empty.
    I try to cast my mind back to yesterday, remember that last cup of coffee I had, and I'm certain - adamant - that there was definitely enough coffee in the jar for at least three more cups.  I can't imagine who else might have had a coffee, it's a small office, my boss is away on business, and everybody else prefers tea.  Could I have been wrong?
    I pop to the corner shop to buy some more coffee, hesitating at the display comprised almost exclusively of Nescafe brands and one cheap alternative that, experience suggests, will taste distractingly acrid.  I could walk further down the road to a supermarket, but I feel bad for not being at work, I want to conserve my free-time for more important opportunities, so I nab the smallest jar of Nescafe - reasoning that I can get a more ethical alternative quite quickly - and head back to the office.

I text my girlfriend, just something inconsequential, but, after half an hour, I still haven't received a reply.  I try to imagine all the things she might be doing that would prevent her from checking her phone, wonder why she doesn't realise that I just want a little bit of validation, just something to remind me that she still cares about me.  I guess that's pretty desperate.
    Perhaps I was being too optimistic, I reason, even going so far as to call her my girlfriend is a bold gesture.  I mean, we've been seeing each other for a while, but I guess I'm more emotionally invested than she is.  She says it's all quite new to her, I think she's treating it as a bit of fun, a little bit of experimentation, but for me it's serious, I mean, for her it's a choice, but for me it's not a choice, I was born this way, it's who I am.
    Maybe I'm being naive to think that I can get her to change her mind, see me the way I see her, I guess?  But, at the same time, I don't want to force someone's hand, we've always been very honest with one another, but I can't help how I feel, or, at least, how I think I'm going to feel and when it comes down to it; to that decision between seeing her and not seeing her, I'm always going to go for the former.  I guess I'm selfish like that.
    Because that's what it will be ultimately, me forcing someone, who has told me from the start that this is just a bit of fun for them, to sit there whilst I parade my emotions in front of them, a little song and dance, tell them how much they mean to me, but, at the very same time, feel overwhelmingly cruel and guilty that I'm essentially trying to blackmail them into one of two things.
    Either they go back on themselves, cave in, try and take things seriously - against their wishes.  Or, they're the executioner, and they tell me in plain terms that it'll never happen and we probably shouldn't see one another anymore.  I know these are the only two conclusions, but I'm too cowardly to accept that.
    It's hypocritical of me, the amount of times I've told people that my lifestyle is not a choice.  It's one of those questions you wind up tolerating; "Oh, so, when did you choose to be..." You try not to let the eye-roll show.

I struggle to sleep tonight, I wake up, feeling like I've been in bed for hours, though the clock says it's only 2am, yet the sky is a blue-black, like the sun's feeling impatient this morning.  I nod off again, molding the pillow into a makeshift body for me to hold, and then, in what feels like seconds, I wake up again to a  blazing, bright day and the clock tells me it's 7am.
    However, there's something unnatural about the morning, the feel of the streets, the manner of my fellow commuters, it's calm and orderly, like it would be after the rush hour.  But each clock I check just reiterates the time, it's ok, I'm not running late.

At noon I stand in the supermarket staring at the range of microwave meals that often comprises my lunch.  There's a nice looking mushroom risotto for £4, but another in the cheap section.  Out of both boredom and curiosity, I inspect the labels of each.
    Whilst the list of ingriedients blurs into insignificance it's the place of manufacturer that ultimately grabs my attention, with both risottos having been produced and packaged in the very same factory in Chertsey.  Ultimately, I realise, the only thing different about these two items is the packaging, one designed to look decadent and delicious, the other functional and basic.
    But I still buy the more expensive one.

I sent a text to Iwona again, even though she hasn't replied to me since yesterday.  It's been a few days since I saw her and I miss her, though I'm loath to mention this as it might seem a bit too clingy.
    Are we the unstoppable force and the immovable object?  Should one of us bow out gracefully before somebody gets hurt?  I can't help but daydream that there must be some reason, some unconscious something, that is why we haven't done this yet.  Though I suspect that we're both too selfish, we both want to get all we can from the other and only relinquish our hold when we absolutely have to.  In that respect, how is this unlike any other relationship?
    She told me she thought I was open minded, I think that's another stereotype people assume, that because they think it's a choice they imagine that all people are hard-wired to want the same relationships as everyone else, so anyone who chooses otherwise can flip-flop between the two.  If you're a guy who likes guys then there's nothing stopping you from liking girls, if you're a girl who likes girls then there's nothing stopping you from liking guys, but if you're a girl or guy who likes the opposite sex then getting with someone of the same sex just isn't the done thing.

My mum re-married shortly after my father died.  I wasn't shocked, I'd known for years that they weren't happy together, in fact, she'd been sleeping on a sofa in the lounge for the last year or so of their relationship.  I think, if he hadn't had that heart attack, they would have got divorced around about the same time.  At least I hope they would have.
    They didn't want to be married, that was obvious to me and my sister, but they stayed together until we both left home.  I was there last, saw the strained conversations most clearly, in that final Summer, after I'd finished University, earning some money before I moved up to the city.
    I know that they only stayed together because of us, to make sure that we came from what they considered to be a stable family.  It wasn't a stable family, whatever mask of domestic happiness they thought they had created barely covered their lies, eyes the most telltale feature, and stern mouths held fast as inappropriate comments passed idly over awkward dinnertimes.  The farce of my mother carrying duvets and pillows downstairs every night, making her little nest, and then waking up first - or so she often believed - and re-creating the illusion of their normality.
    My sister doesn't trust marriage now, but it once felt like the only way for people to move forward in life.  These ceremonies, she argued, represented the illusion of progression.  We had, as a society, created a series of events designed to act as milestones, deceiving us into thinking that we had achieved something, that we had accomplished a goal as a person, distracted us from the fact that we were, in actuality, unchanging, still fraught with the despair of our youth.
    Nobody chooses to be born.
    My mother once said, though she was half-asleep when she told me this, that I was an unwanted pregnancy.  That her and my father had been fighting, she'd gone out and had some drinks, came home to find him crying, and she took pity on him.  She didn't even think about the fact that she might have gotten pregnant, I guess she had deluded herself to think a child could only be conceived in love.  When she started showing, when the doctor could confirm that she was going to have a daughter, she thought it was too late to abort me, though she wanted to, she wanted to say to the doctor there and then, Please, make it go away.  But, the look in the doctor's eyes had frightened her, made her feel guilty, she couldn't bring herself to do what was in her heart and months later, I was born.
    Both my parents remained quite distant from me, I was raised more by my sister, only a handful of years my elder, but still, as an eager five year old, she'd help change my nappies as best she could.
    I was an anchor though, holding my mother to that relationship.  If I had never been born she could have been free.

It's the end of the month, payday, and for a few fleeting hours my bank account will bob up to the surface, out of debt, draw a deep breath and then sink back under the waves.  I have never really understood it, I try and budget, I don't go out as much as I used to, I home cook as much as possible, don't drink as regularly.  But still, the money goes.
    I scour through my statements trying to find the anomaly, the leak, an unknown standing order perhaps.  But there's nothing out of the ordinary, and when I add it all up, it's exactly right, somehow - despite my best efforts, despite getting a raise again recently - that money still goes and I'm left pawing at the dappled sunshine seen through water, caught in the undertow.
    I want to move out, move on, get a place to myself, start to make what little effigy of happiness I can, but I don't think I can do this on my own.
    That's when I think I'm putting too many of my hopes and dreams in Iwona, too much responsibility unknowingly hoisted upon her shoulders.  But surely, she wants these things too?  And I'll wait, I don't want them now.  But is it naive to keep scratching at the door, like some optimistic puppy, hoping to be taken in?
    I feel guilty for feeling the way I do, as if I've allowed Pandora's Box to be opened.  But I don't feel like I was complicit in the decision, this emotion was lumbered upon me as much as I am lumbering it upon Iwona.  I feel like my mother, pregnant with something unwanted, desperate to get rid of it, but incapable - perhaps afraid - of doing so.  For me, it's because I never want to be alone.  What did my mother want?  Once I was born the slow wait for me to leave began, was it so she could move on with her life, regain what was long lost?  It wasn't her fault that she and my father fell out of love?  I have to wonder if they were ever really in love to begin with?  But, how do we know?
    Love is subjective, which is maybe why it's easy for some and difficult for others.  I wish I could care less, I wish spending time with Iwona wasn't so wonderful.  I feel like a slave to unconscious decisions, but at the same time I am the only one who has the power to do anything about them, but it's only really the power to stubbornly battle on or to walk away.  What kind of choice is that?  There is no fork in the road, just one path, and we can either continue or turn around and retreat.  Perhaps cowardice is just a derogatory term for wisdom?  I know that I'm going to get hurt, but I keep moving forwards.

I had an important meeting this morning, but my train was delayed due to signalling problems and I missed my connecting service.  I wound up getting into work 90 minutes late, having missed the meeting.  A colleague had stepped into my absent place and done, so my boss told me, a brilliant job filling in.  I began to feel my tenuous grasp on my job slipping a little from my fingers, and all I could do was say I'm sorry, it wasn't my fault the train was delayed.  Feebly adding, It won't happen again, but it's not like I can control that.
    For the rest of the day I'm shaking, my emotions are heightened, I'm perhaps a little too curt on the telephone to clients.  I don't know why I feel this way, this is a job I've never enjoyed, yet I've stuck it out, never really looking for another role somewhere else, because I can get by doing this, I'm making a decent wage, I don't want to set myself back.  But I'm not making any progress either.  Sure, they up my salary every now and then, but where does it go from here?  What am I trying to achieve?
    Two weeks later they give me my notice, I have a month left at the office and I should start seriously hunting for a new career, but I give in to procrastination just as I have done for these past three years.  Expecting someone else to pick up the pieces when it all falls apart.

I've been standing still, too afraid to walk forwards, too proud to walk back.  I've let others find me, try and urge me to walk on, or at the very least, go back, see what it was I was heading towards, and try again.  But we don't know, the path began without our permission, it just appeared, one day nothing and the next day expectation.  Except, you can't see the end of the path, you don't get to dictate that either, and maybe you'll walk for a hundred years or maybe you'll walk for a day.  Me, I shrink into myself, someone will come along soon, someone will put their arm in mine, they'll want to walk side by side, keeping me company, making sure I'm smiling, and they'll give me hope that there is something to look forward to.  All paths have to lead somewhere.

Under Contract

Summer never seems to last as long as it did when you were a kid. I remember those endless sunny months, so full of formative experiences, miniature adventures, wonderment, sometimes heartbreak, but always a golden, glorious highlight of the year.
    Now I'm older there's no Summer break. I guess I'm envious of my friend, Helen, she's a school teacher and she still has mid-July to early September off, along with all those other term breaks. Sure, she complains about not being able to "choose" her holidays, but, I'd gladly swap my paltry 25 days a year for that.
    Still, she also seems to share my halcyon memory of those long - almost to the point of dragging - Summer months. I think it's because I didn't use to carry around all the concerns that now plague me, even if I have time off in Summer, my mind still harrangues me with thoughts of rent, bills, outstanding projects, the things I keep putting off, chores and admin, friends I haven't seen or spoken to, the constant gnawing worry that I'm going to die alone. That consumes a lot of time, and these were neurotic issues I did not have as a child.
    Why can't I switch off? I drink, I smoke the occasional joint, I spend long lazy days just lying in bed, procrastinating, yet time - zoom - just - zip - passes - whoosh - me by.
    On one such tangential day I was exploring some old boxes I found in the attic, there were some old camcorder tapes and I figured I'd give them a watch, see what was on them.
    Wobbly, time-ravaged images of Welsh holidays; my sister's 8th birthday party; and one video where someone - probably my Dad, he had a habit for it - had left the camera running in the bag, in fact, the entire tape, all 45 minutes, was just this constant shot of the bag. I know, because I watched it all from beginning to end, straining to hear what was going on around it, curious as to what I might discover, but, I heard nothing of note.
    What was strange though was when I finished watching the tape it was dark outside.
    Time has a habit of doing this to me, those evenings after work where I plan to get things done, I'll open my laptop and then look at the time, it'll be 10pm. It's why I end up just cramming microwave meals into my maw, I don't have the time I used to have to cook.
    But this, this was particularly odd, the longest the tape could be was 45 minutes, and I'd started watching it at ten past seven, it didn't begin to get dark until around half eight or nine. Miffed, I rewound the tape and hit play again, this time holding my watch up alongside the date-stamp that my Dad - as he was prone to do - had left imprinted in the corner.
    The video read: 05-04-88 - 15:42.
    My watch read: 21-08-18 - 21:11.
    By the time the video's time changed to 15:43 my watch was reading 21:13, and once the forty five minutes had unspooled, just over ninety minutes had passed.
    Concerned that my watch was broken I took down a wall clock from the kitchen, set an alarm on my mobile and called the talking clock from the landline. Starting the video over, watching it through, with volume at the maximum in case I could hear it being played back at half speed or something, and then checking the time once it was done; it was the same story.
    Forty five 1988 minutes were now the equivalent of ninety 2018 minutes.
    "Surely," Helen said when I called her up immediately after this revelation, "there's something wrong with the video player, I mean, how old is that thing anyway?"
    "Ten years or so, but I checked and double-checked, it doesn't seem like a coincidence. I mean, once the universe has finished expanding it must start contracting again, and what if time - the speed of time - changes as a result of that?"
    "Meaning?"
    "That time is going to get faster and faster, if it's halved in thirty years, then, another thirty and it'll be half again, until..."
    "What?"
    "Until time ends."
    Helen spluttered a laugh, "Oh, Rory, you're being a tad melodramatic. If you turn up at my front door with a Police telephone box parked on my lawn, hmm, maybe I'll believe you."
    My silence prompted the sound of the phone being shifted from one ear to another before she sighed a warm, reassuring sigh.
    "If," she reasoned, "if time is contracting then what can you do about it? What difference does it make? A day to us is still a day, the sunrises and sets when it always has, just the space between those gestures, compared to how it was in our childhood, is smaller, but the rate at which we move through space, that's the same, it's not like time is getting faster and we're getting slower."
    "Not for another forty years I'd say, although mobility scooters can do some pretty brutal speeds these days. Once almost mowed me down in the park last weekend."
    "See," Helen chuckled, "everything's getter faster."
    I could see Helen's point, there is no need in getting in a bother because time is running out, then you'd only fixate on that and ignore the fact there is still time left for you to enjoy. If you think constantly about tomorrow you'll forget about today. But, by the same stroke, why should I not ponder these gigantic concerns? When I was a kid I was terrified of asteroids colliding with the Earth, as I became a teenager I began to stress over exams, then getting a job, now my monthly outgoings, and as I grow older still my worries will further narrow until it's simple things like getting out of my chair that cause me apprehension.   
    Still, if you're thinking all the time about being struck by lightning and pay no heed to other problems then you're probably more likely the type to step in front of a bus by mistake.
    I bought myself a dictaphone with a 72 hour recording lifespan and I recorded myself for one whole day, and every hour I would shout the time: "One o'clock!", etc. The following day, at the stroke of midnight, I pushed play on the recording, and as the day wore on I noticed the shouts getting ever so gradually out of sync, until the cry of "Eleven o'clock!" landed at 22:59.
    Carefully I put the dictaphone away, buried deep in the random bits and bobs of my bedside drawer, and I made a little promise to myself not to think about it again, and tomorrow I'd try and find some room for all those things I'd been putting off. I'd try and make time.