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If you haven’t read all the previous parts or you don’t remember them well, I urge you to read this short story (or novella) from the beginning (link here).

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I worked my first entry-level gig designing websites
In Gros, at an apartment converted into office space.
Multiple workstations with CRT monitors
Set along both sides of a long, narrow room.
Bulky radiators beneath the windows,
Worn hardwood flooring that creaked.
I spent my mornings developing interfaces,
Coding their layout using HTML and CSS,
To advertise the services of companies
Such as a patisserie and an antique store.

Apart from the greetings I mumbled,
I only spoke with our project manager.
I dodged gazes as if they could look inside me
And spot the congealed mass of scars.

Once, a guy whose face I hadn’t retained
Told me to follow him, and I obeyed,
Believing we would discuss a work-related issue.
I found myself amidst a coffee shop’s hubbub,
Seated at a table with other team members
While two of them chattered about a ski trip.
I felt as if I had been strapped to a chair
And forced to endure a documentary
About a foreign culture I didn’t want to visit.

I was a feral creature thrown into captivity,
A cancerous blight at the core of a tree.
The merest social interaction drained me.

Sometimes, as I typed,
Flashbacks of us assailed me
Like a hail of buckshot.
I hunched over, rested my elbows on the table,
And pressed my palms against my eyes
Until I hoisted myself out of the abyss.

I was reading up on the quality of wines
For an online shop we were developing,
When I got to meet my first HR professional.
Wielding an apologetic smile, she asked
If I thought I would work well in a team,
A euphemism for “You don’t belong here.”
My manager had praised my work,
But, I admit, I was a silent wreck.

When I exited that apartment building
For the last time,
My lungs loosened in relief.

At my second job, more PC towers
Emitted a cacophony of whirrs
That blended with the din of typing,
The intermittent squeak of chairs,
And colleagues’ humdrum prattle.
Cables snaked across the floor,
Leading to servers, routers, printers.
I wore down those morning hours tainted
By the burnt-plastic smell of CRTs,
So I could soon return to solitude.

I got dragged daily into meetings
That often devolved into venomous griping
Over coworkers whose oddities
Were but a tiny fraction of my own.
I kept my head down; by then I understood
That neither effort nor proven skills
Would anchor me within office walls
If my presence unsettled some higher-up.
After they closed the door on me,
My contract left unrenewed,
I savored an entire Monday morning
In bed.

To fit into society, I needed to behave
As though I hadn’t died when you did.
I needed to lie in a million ways
To the world and myself.
Izar, through sheer will, I clawed a foothold,
I pieced together a patchwork self
Stitched from the shredded remnants
Of the boy who, in your light, once dreamed.

A constant vigilance to hide my damage
Made each second tick by agonizingly.
As a reward for my efforts,
Coworkers ambushed me with small talk.
While kids in their mid-twenties rambled on
About whatever the hell they talked about,
I would rearrange my mask into smiles.

However, my coworkers intuited
That a vital chunk of me had perished
As if blood flow had been cut off.
At times, they treated me like a stray cat,
Fearing I might suddenly claw at the eyes
Of whoever extended an unsolicited hand.

During a break, I stood at the rooftop balcony
With my project manager and a programmer.
Our breaths lingered in the morning chill
While a steaming cup warmed my hands.
The programmer, garbed in skinny jeans
And a graphic tee bought from Threadless,
Stopped describing T-shirt designs
To inquire why I seemed so gloomy sometimes.
On impulse, I blurted, “My girlfriend died.”
A shocked silence, a shuffling of shoes.
“Shit, dude. Sorry.”

Seated around a break room table
With the team of developers,
As we listened in acquiescence
To our supervisor prattle on about her guinea pig,
I realized that I yearned to be anyone else,
Or to disappear entirely.

I had ventured into the wild and survived,
But my heart remained broken.
Day by day, I witnessed my body, a stranger’s,
Push forward through the unending grind:
Eat, piss, shit, work, sleep, repeat.
Stripped of meaning, drained of colors,
Life had morphed into a grayscale smear,
A murky, polluted expanse of sea.

The relentless thrum of machinery
Melded into a mechanical chant:
“Stay complacent. Stay ignorant. Stay docile.
Bow to the inevitable end.
All fades into the abyss unfathomed:
Your name, your knowledge, your works.”
What was the goal of this journey?
So I could afford the down payment for a home
That would demand sacrifices from then on?

The weight of decades ahead
Felt like a collapsing skyscraper,
Its rubble crushing me to paste.
You were gone, so why bother?
Instead of fueling a bleak routine
Set on a loop till retirement,
Was it not better to surrender
And let the anguish devour me?

Two sets of railway tracks vanished
Into the tunnel of an underground station.
From the depths of that kilometric gullet,
An end-times rush of wind approached.

As the tunnel entrance brightened,
A stark-white light glided along the inner walls,
Revealing the rough texture of concrete,
And reflected off the veering rails.
From the curve emerged a metallic serpent,
Its headlights piercing the dimness,
Its row of windows glowing amber
As if its innards were filled with a lazy fire.

In the abyss, the abhorrent question:
“Didn’t you love Izar enough
To join her in the grave?”

I shut my eyes tight, I held my breath.
I locked my muscles in place.
The train’s heavy rumble reverberated
As its brakes screeched against the rails.
With a dying whine and a series of hisses,
The would-be reaper slowed to a stop.

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Author’s note: today’s song is “I Bleed” by Pixies.

If you enjoy my free verse poetry, I have three books worth of it yet to be self-published. Check it out.