And it was then that the panic set in on him, like a pack of wild dogs. It tore great chunks out of his psyche, gnashing reason and reality into piecemeal before swallowing it greedily, in the same way that a soldier drinks water following combat.
Jordan felt his heartbeat in his throat, felt the sweat begin to cling to his brow like painters on a scaffold. He was back, yes, he had finally returned, but that fact alone wasn’t enough to be his salvation. Jordan caught himself. Was this any salvation at all?
Very rarely does anyone recognize the good fortune of a boring life. Meals are accounted for, the means by which a man clothes himself and earns his keep are nothing but an afterthought, and the terror of the present is exchanged for the anxiety of tomorrow. Jordan Commoner knew his good fortune, at least in theory.
Every morning at 7:30, or thereabout, Jordan would naturally wake up. He had not used an alarm clock in nearly seventeen years, and it was unlikely that he would need to use one within the next seventeen years. Jordan spent no more than five minutes in bed stretching, yawning, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. Only after exclaiming “Ah, fuck,” after lossening his muscles would he begin his day.
Jordan always walked, not jogged, not run, not strided, walked, to his bathroom, sliding off his boxers and turning on the showerhead as he smeared toothpaste onto his toothbrush. After rinsing it under the tap, he would step into the now sufficiently cold shower, brushing his teeth and trying to ignore the chills that ran up his spine. He made sure to let the water cover his face, drown his pits, lap the crevices between his thighs and his ass, tickle the hairs of his groin.
Once he could bear no more (he was up to three minutes and forty-five seconds now), Jordan would step out of the bath and dry himself. Jordan was not an athletic specimen, nor was he the deification of sloth. He was a tad fleshier than he would’ve liked, but he still admired the contour of his arms and the flesh of his muscles as he dried himself.
Then Jordan would dress himself and spritz a bit of cologne on, once on his wrists, which he would rub together and slather onto the crooks of his elbows, and then massaged on to the sides of his neck and the back of his ears.
Jordan was out the door around 8:00 every morning. He rarely ate breakfast, unless you counted pills and water as a suitable meal. The orange was for focusing, the green ones he had to take twice a day so his heart and head wouldn’t race, and the faded pink ones were so he didn’t sleep 18 hours a day or kill himself.
Jordan usually listened to music on his commute to the train station. The drive was acceptable so long as traffic was cooperative, though he often scared himself by how easily he zoned out in the midst of traffic. The same realization played through his mind each time: for something so dangerous, driving doesn’t take much brainpower. I’m moving at 60 miles-per-hour in a 20-ton metal box. And he would always remember that he had the same thought yesterday morning, more or less, before zoning out again.
Jordan’s subway ride usually took 37 minutes. He would get on the Silver line, ride for five stops, get off at the sixth, board the Orange line, exit on the second, get on the Blue line, and ride until the tenth stop. From there it was a short six minute walk to work. The elevator ride to the 14th floor was usually long enough for Jordan to finish the podcast episode he started upon entering the train station.
At his desk, Jordan would find all the things that he didn’t finish, didn’t care to finish, or couldn’t finish from the day before. His monitors were always off and his chair was always turned towards the entrance of his workstation, the cushion and backpost facing him like a flower in bloom.
Jordan was a consultant, which meant he spent the days telling people about information they already knew, but with different words and with colorful graphs. Nearly half of his day was spent writing reports, emails, or describing data that he and his team had collected the day before. The other half was spent in ad hoc meetings, using appropriate amounts of business jargon, and wondering if Melissa from accounting was actually flirting with him or being friendly.
The day typically ended around 5:30, though Jordan would occasionally stay as late as 6 or 6:30 if he had enough work to justify doing so. As his manager joked, “too bad you’re salaried.”
The commute home followed the same exact steps as the commute to work, but obviously in reverse. Jordan would ride the elevator down to the first floor, walk the six minutes to the train station, ride the Blue line for ten stops, exit and enter the Orange line until the second stop, and then transfer to the Silver line for five stops and exit on the sixth. From this point he would drive through the bustling city traffic, which wasn’t too terrible so long as the other drivers cooperated and didn’t zone out like he did.
When Jordan got home he would take off his shoes and neatly place them back by the doorway and toss his socks on the living room floor. Next he’d loosen his tie and unbutton the top three notches on his shirt. He’d kill ten or fifteen minutes watching the news or flipping through channels or trying to find something good to masturbate to before abruptly getting up and taking off all of his clothes to shower.
Jordan would pick up his socks and toss all his clothes into the hamper and rub his eyes under the searing heat of the showerhead. He used to go to the gym before he showered, but work had been so hectic recently that he couldn’t find the time — this is what he told himself and everyone else, primarily his parents, who commented on his extra weight, though he couldn’t truly admit what about work had gotten “so hectic.”
After his shower Jordan either cooked himself dinner or went out to eat or ate three bowls of cereal before logging onto his computer and playing videos and talking to friends and thinking about killing himself before he shut everything off at around 11:30. Climbing into bed, Jordan took about 15 minutes to fall asleep, or 30 minutes, if he decided to masturbate again.
The next morning at 7:38 Jordan woke up and ate breakfast.
He skimmed through a book for 20 minutes and took three minutes in the shower, brushing his teeth after he got out. He packed his work clothes into a duffel bag and walked to his car, driving past the train station and all the way to work. He changed clothes in the garage and marched up nine flights of stairs before riding the elevator up the last five floors.
He took his pills at his desk, the faded pink one so he wouldn’t think about killing himself so much, the purple one to stay awake, orange one to focus, the red one to get the room spinning.
Jordan worked until 2:30 before passing out and being transferred to the hospital.
He woke up at 10:30, to sighs of relief from his boss, a smile from his coworker, and a hug from Jenny in HR.
He left the hospital at midnight and got a ride back to the parking lot. He drove home in silence, the driver window slightly cracked. The wind whistled into his ear and licked at his hair.
The next morning Jordan woke up and immediately went to work. He had slept in his clothes from the previous day, having been too tired to take them off.
His manager was surprised to see him, not only because he had told Jordan to take the rest of the week off, but also because Jordan was brushing his teeth in the men’s bathroom with a toothbrush and toothpaste he had bought from the pharmacy across the street from his office.
It was 9:00.
Jordan sat at his desk all day and thought about violent sex between him and Jenny, and then him and Melissa, and then Jenny and Melissia, and then him, Jenny, and Melissa. Jordan responded to all of his emails with less than five words and spoke no more than twice in the three meetings he had that day. During lunch he knocked on Melissa’s door and asked her to coffee.
They came back to the office 45 minutes and 27 seconds late, though nobody seemed to notice.
On the way home Jordan intentionally brake checked the car behind him and caused an hour long traffic jam. He spoke with his insurance company and the other guy’s insurance company and the tow truck operator and the police officer and his parents and his crush from junior year of college and God and himself.
Jordan walked to a bar a few miles away, declining the tow truck driver’s offer for a ride home. There he drank two beers and shared a shot of whiskey, neat, with a woman who looked like she was his type if he had shown up 30 years earlier.
Her mouth was warm, and her tongue knew exactly where to taste, but that still wasn’t enough to distract him from the overwhelming smell of perfume in her car. Or the picture of her second grader in his music class’s recreation of Madagascar.
Jordan didn’t sleep that night. He spent the next 12 hours playing video games online, only pausing to eat, chug water, and use the bathroom.
The next day Jordan walked, not jogged, not run, not strided, walked, to his bathroom, sliding off his boxers and turning on the showerhead as he smeared toothpaste onto his toothbrush. After rinsing it under the tap, he stepped into the now sufficiently cold shower, brushing his teeth and trying to ignore the chills that ran up his spine. He made sure to let the water cover his face, drown his pits, lap the crevices between his thighs and his ass, tickle the hairs of his groin.
Once he could bear no more (he was up to three minutes and forty-five seconds now), Jordan would step out of the bath and dry himself. Jordan was not an athletic specimen, nor was he the deification of sloth. He was a tad fleshier than he would’ve liked, but he still admired the contour of his arms and the flesh of his muscles as he dried himself.
Then Jordan would dress himself and spritz a bit of cologne on, once on his wrists, which he would rub together and slather onto the crooks of his elbows, and then massaged on to the sides of his neck and the back of his ears.
Jordan’s subway ride took 35 minutes. He got on the Silver line, rode it for five stops, got off at the sixth, boarded the Orange line, exited on the second, got on the Blue line, and rode it until the tenth stop. From there he walked the six minutes to his office. He finished the podcast episode he started at the train station as the elevator rose past the 13th floor.
At his desk, Jordan found all the things that he didn’t finish, didn’t care to finish, or couldn’t finish from the day before. His monitors were on and his chair was turned towards the entrance of his workstation, the cushion and backpost facing him like a flower in bloom.
The next day Jordan called in sick, taking advantage of the three days he was supposed to be off anyway. He ate granola and cereal and stared at himself in the mirror for what seemed like hours.
He knew that the farce had been revealed. There was no malice in his discovery, no terror or panic, but no joy or relief either. What he saw in the mirror, the reflection that stared back in the cold of his eyes, frightened him.
It was truth!
It was truth made manifest, though not the philosophical sort that required references and context. This was a more practical kind of revelation, the kind that a child might make out of boredom and was quickly pivoted from to something else by the adults in the room. Common sense, for a lack of a better term, had flooded back into his body, like a torrential rain. It gushed over and under the walls of his blood vessels before washing over his flesh and tendons and muscles.
There was no physical sensation in this action, save for the swelling the pit of his stomach, the simultaneous gnawing and weight of lead that could not be, yet was.
Jordan was afraid. Obviously. Clearly.
Jordan was afraid, though not of his actions, not of what happened within the last two days, not of the consequences or even himself.
Jordan was afraid because it could happen, would happen, again, and again, and again and again and again any time the mood struck him. Or to be precise, whenever he would allow himself to do it again.
Jordan was not a man. He never had been, he realized.
He saw the sweat begin to bead around his hairline, how the oil pooled in the corners where his nostrils met the skin of his face. Jordan rubbed his eyes, hard, so hard that he thought he might blind himself.
When he opened them again, he found that he could still see.
