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At eleven o’clock, I lift my sweaty hand from my mouse and I get up from my chair. I gulp, then turn to Jacqueline. Her perfume is a floral scent with a hint of spice and citrus that reminds me of a garden full of flowers and fruit trees. I hadn’t intended to ogle at her now, but I’m in a vantage position to peer down the cleavage of her skater dress. That pink lace bra barely holds together the generous mounds of titflesh that are pushing against the cups of the garment. The day I’ll end up standing on tiptoes and with a noose tightened around my neck while my heart pounds away violently, urged by my survival instincts to find reasons to keep living, the word ‘breasts’ will flash in my mind in capital bold letters. Tits are the symbol of power that I crave to possess, the source of strength that gives life when everything else fails. Their presence will ward off evil spirits that lurk outside of our shelters looking for a chance to invade them. If I let go of breasts, what would I have left to hold onto except for a life of loneliness and despair?

“Uh… Jacqueline,” I say weakly, “I’m going to get a coffee. Do you want one too?”

She was absorbed in browsing external hard drives on Amazon, and when she gazes up at me and processes my offer, she seems pleasantly intrigued, because I had never offered to get her anything. Jacqueline rubs her lower lip with a fingertip as one corner of her mouth raises in a smile. Her eyes, two pools of blue ice floating above a mountain lake, sparkle while she looks at me from under her lashes. I wonder if she can sense the heat rising off my skin.

“Sure, sweetie,” she answers softly with her voice dripping honey. “A latte.”

As I turn to walk away, Jacqueline reaches for the sleeve of my sweater and pulls me back with a gentle tug.

“Leire, maybe Jordi wants a coffee as well?” she suggests with a coy little grin.

I blush crimson. I pivot towards my male coworker, whose existence I had forgotten until a couple of seconds ago. Our intern draws upon his deep reserves of patience and forbearance to deal with my awkward self.

“It’s alright, Leire. I’m still running on the coffee I drank a couple of hours ago.”

A few minutes later I’m warming my right hand with a steaming cappuccino while I witness how Jacqueline’s pouty lips close around the rim of the plastic cup that I lovingly brought to her. When she opens her eyes, her pupils were turned my way. A jolt of electricity runs through my body. Jacqueline gives me a big smile, which accentuates her dimples. I fail to withstand her gaze as my heart beats fast, so I pretend that my work requires my undivided attention, which, to be fair, it does, as I’m struggling to program through my tasks. However, I want to watch Jacqueline surreptitiously through my peripheral vision. She keeps sipping the hot liquid that is slowly seeping into her tummy, making its way through the crevices of her fleshy anatomy. I should have drooled into her coffee.

That was a knowing smile Jacqueline threw my way, so she realizes how wet she can make me. I must be blushing in her presence like a little girl caught with a handful of candy bar wrappers. But someone stalked by a sentient horse can’t be sure of anything, except that I need to relieve the burning sensation in my crotch.

I’m working on a failing unit test when I realize that my coworkers are stretching their legs, eager to breathe the cold October air instead of the stale atmosphere of this office that reeks of sweat and bad coffee. Somehow I have reached the lunch break without losing my mind.

I take a deep breath as my coworkers chat. A pair of feminine hands grabs my shoulders and rubs them briskly, in circular motions. The hair on my nape rises.

“Are you coming with us?” Jacqueline asks me from behind.

I’m about to shiver in pleasure at the touch of her fingers gliding across the flesh of my neck and shoulder blades through my sweater and shirt.

“I-I’d love you witness you two getting tipsier as you prattle about sex, but unfortunately I have to catch up on work.”

I don’t retain her answer. While my coworkers walk towards the entrance of our office, I try to admire Jacqueline’s butt in the reflection of my monitor, but the tail of her cardigan hides her posterior. Once they’re gone, I sigh heavily. Although I attempt to resume my task, waves of lust keep running down my spine. I’m both aroused and ashamed, as if I had just been caught diddling myself.

I slip away to the bathroom. Inside, I check that all the stalls are empty. I’m refreshing my face with cold water when a shadow falls over me, and I end up staring at Spike’s bulging eyes in the smudged mirror. His huge, elongated head is blocking the fluorescent light. My eyes are drawn to the oval of pink flesh underneath the flaps of skin that cover the horse’s groin. His stench reaches me, overwhelming my nostrils.

This piece of shit horse opens his drooling mouth to speak, but I interrupt him eagerly.

“It’s the ladies bathroom, Spike. Then again, whoever castrated you also gave you a vagina, huh?”

I fail to push out a mocking chuckle. If anything, I fear that my eyes may overflow with tears. I have to remain strong, but I just want to cry and scream at the same time.

“Sorry for bothering you,” Spike says.

“You couldn’t be any further from sorry, freakshow. You’re a hideous horsemanoid creature, a disgusting pile of bones and filth who eats human corpses and craps out garbage. Just shut your deformed muzzle before some random person walks in here. Why do you keep disappearing suddenly, anyway?”

Spike lifts his snout, which causes a long strand of drool to fall onto the tiles. His bulging forehead crinkles.

“It takes a sustained effort to maintain a stable reality and hold on to the illusion of a coherent world.”

“Is that what happens when you devour people alive?”

I guess his explanation made sense. If I were a horse, it’d be impossible to get a good night’s sleep. I’d dream of being chased or torn apart by wolves or other predators, or even worse, by an angry mob that screamed “Horsemeat! Horsemeat!” as they beat me to death with clubs or rakes. So understandably, horses prefer to stay hidden whenever possible. It’s easier to live alone than to be constantly tormented by terrifying visions.

In any case, a wave of nausea is rising in my throat, and my temples are throbbing. I clutch at the sink as I swallow my foul-tasting saliva.

“You should take a shower every once in a while, you know?” I mutter.

“Everything is getting too confusing. Leire, you need to listen, because I’m trying to tell you something important.”

I turn off the tap and rub my damp hands against each other. I hear footsteps approaching from the hallway.

“Well, you are doing a terrible job at it, and I couldn’t possibly care about anything a stinky equine would want to tell me. I won’t give you the opportunity for any of your cells to inject their genetic material into mine, if horses could be said to possess any form of DNA whatsoever. I won’t let you eat my brain either, so there’s no point talking to me, okay, Spike?”

A woman enters the restroom, but I lower my head and sneak away while the intruder opens a stall. I hurry towards my office as I hear Spike complaining in a high-pitched voice like a honking goose. He must be losing it from the irritation of having been left alone with his stench and vengeful thoughts.

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The morning light streaming through the two windows brightens further the frost white ceiling and walls of our office; and the row of three powder white storage cabinets, which contain binders that Jacqueline gets paid to fill with reports that nobody reads; and the porcelain white table where our assigned PCs face the same way, forcing my coworkers to sit so close that they could glance freely at my screen, so I have to worry in case I have opened a porn site absentmindedly. The floor is covered with a carpet that is faded, threadbare, and marred in several places with old food stains that are impossible to remove.

The sound of keyboard clattering serves as the drumline to the popular songs that the radio spews out. Near my empty workstation stands Spike the horse, balancing on his hind legs that tremble as if they were made of rubber. When he lifts his long, drooling face, he shrinks away from my disdainful gaze, but despite the sadness that oozes from his bulging, black eyes, this horse remains a vile creature who has no respect for anyone’s dignity and should be exterminated with a shovel and gasoline and fire and whatever else is available, for daring to exist at all.

As I tramp to my chair, I gesture silently to Spike to move aside, but that’s as much as I will acknowledge his presence at the office, because my coworkers can’t see him. If they did, and knew about Spike’s crimes against humanity, they would scream for me to destroy this horrible beast at once.

I sit at the desk as if it were an altar consecrated for worshiping some god or goddess responsible for making humans suffer every day. Although my ass cheeks just began to get squeezed against my seat, Jordi turns towards me and throws words my way.

“You really are unlucky, Leire.”

I’m getting dizzy, partly because I have exhausted my feeble muscles and lungs ascending the slope to this business park, and also because of the heavy dose of anxiety that has been injected into my veins. I feel Spike standing close and sniffing my scent, breathing it deeply as if to inhale my thoughts straight off my mind. I can sense the horse’s desperate longing for my body. Does he want to impregnate my womb so I produce a litter of horses? Would I end up giving birth to magical unicorns? Or is Spike simply seeking the pleasure of my soft flesh and the caresses of my sweaty hands upon his coarse coat?

I clear my throat as I wipe some sweat off my forehead.

“You mean in general?” I ask hoarsely. “Or do you specifically refer to this moment?”

Jordi pushes his glasses up his freckled nose as he offers me a patient smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. As usual, his spotless white shirt is tucked inside his black pants, making him look like an angelic choirboy.

“Jacqueline told me that your car died, so you found yourself having to navigate the public transport system.”

“Yeah, I know. The train was filled with people, too. It was like a war zone. But… my life is a battlefield, and I’ve decided to join the zombie army.”

Jordi shrugs.

“Things have been calmer around here, thankfully. As your kouhai, I’ve taken the initiative to handle that ticket of yours about pushing data to a database via a RESTful API.”

I never know what those Chinese words that Jordi keeps using mean, but as long as he does my job and I get paid, he may as well speak solely in Mandarin.

“You are saving my life,” I say, then sigh. “Don’t worry, I will be firing on all cylinders soon enough.”

I switch on my computer. As soon as the monitor shows the motherboard logo, from my right, Jacqueline rolls her chair closer to mine and leans forward, placing a hand on my shoulder. I shiver at the touch of her palm that smells of soap, and I think of the horrors that might happen to my poor soul if she uses a finger to trace a pattern across my skin.

Jacqueline has tied up her glossy, raven black hair in a ponytail with a blue ribbon, and she’s wearing a loose, fog grey cardigan over a wine red, low-cut skater dress. Her threateningly large breasts are encased by a lacy, pink bra that flatters them. I get a glimpse of her polyester, thigh-high boots that hug her long legs. My heart flutters. There goes my interest in focusing on my job.

“I have never seen you this pale, Leire,” she says softly. “Take it easy today, alright?”

My brain is numb and inert as if someone had poured a bucket of cold water over my head, but I nod anyway as I stare at Jacqueline’s beautiful face.

“I guess I’ll take it as easy as I can while I work through my long list of tickets. But… how are you doing, Jacqueline?”

My question disconcerts her. I guess I never asked for her well-being. Her lips are slightly parted, revealing a hint of crepe pinkness at the corners. I wonder if her other labia sport the same coloration. I want to follow with my tongue the skin from her creamy neck down to the swell of her breasts.

“I’m fine as always, Leire,” Jacqueline says appreciatively. “Just take a breather when you need to. Don’t punish yourself.”

After Jacqueline wheels her chair back to her workstation, I keep replaying her mellifluous voice in my head. But I must look pale for sure; a fear has built up in my stomach like a lump of coal churned into a mountain range of lava by a volcano god, because my boss is likely to reprimand me for my lateness.

I have barely checked out my assigned tasks in Service Manager and opened Visual Studio Code when I hear Ramsés say my name. He’s standing at the doorway to his office. Today he chose his admiral blue suit and a spotted tie. As soon as our gazes connect, he beckons to me with his thick, hairy fingers, then he walks back into his cave.

I close my eyes and wish I was dead. After I take a deep breath, I stand up wearily and I shuffle to my boss’ office. When I enter it, Ramsés is leaning against his mahogany desk, likely to rub his hard on through his pants at his leisure, but I’m dazed by a rancid stench that permeates this office. Did my boss fart up a storm before calling me in, as a humiliation tactic?

My boss sighs as he goes around his desk. He parks his ass on the expensive upholstery of his executive chair.

“Leire, please sit down.”

I hold my breath while I eye him with suspicion, but I slowly lower myself onto the guest chair opposite his desk.

“Did you want something, sir?” I ask meekly.

Ramsés looks down at a stack of papers on his desk, then he wrings his hands together until he finally speaks with an air of authority and impatience.

“Let me put this out there: I don’t believe your car broke down.”

How dare he accuse me of lying? My blood boils at the audacity of that statement.

“Excuse me?”

Ramsés fixes his gaze on mine with a penetrating glare that makes me squirm uncomfortably.

“Yesterday you complained for the first time about the volume of work I assign you. The following day you arrive more than an hour late without notifying me that you wouldn’t come in time. I have to assume this was part of a stratagem to prove how indispensable you are.”

My mouth falls open as I stare dumbfounded at my boss. I shift my weight in the chair, but as I’m about to defend myself, a black mass peeks out from behind my boss’ shoulder and wraps itself around his neck as if to strangle him. Ramsés fails to react. The hideous form writhes and contorts like it’s stuck in viscous liquid. It has a grotesque head shaped like an upside-down bowl of spaghetti, and I make out a mouth full of jagged teeth like rows of broken glass. At the end of two vermiform appendages coming out of its head, two bulbous eyes gleam like black marbles. It reminds me of a deep sea creature.

From the thing’s throat comes out a loud squelch, but I can’t understand what it’s saying, maybe because it’s gargling on all those bubbles of thick mucus that keep dribbling from its lips.

I must have fallen into a trance as I gaped at the strange creature; my boss ends up repeating my name. As if he had spoken an incantation, the monster disappears from Ramsés’ shoulder. Drops of sticky fluid that had dripped onto his desk vanish into thin air.

“Don’t space out, Leire, please,” Ramsés demands sternly. “Is this one of your defense mechanisms to avoid facing reality?”

His tone had shifted from annoyance to concern as he observed me. He scratches the side of his face, which is covered by a dark stubble.

My brain feels sluggish and dull. I can only nod as I try unsuccessfully to wipe away the sweat that is now running down my forehead. My temples throb painfully with every heartbeat.

“You have always been strange,” Ramsés says, lowering his voice, “as expected with such a technically-minded woman, but in these last few months you’ve been… deteriorating.”

His words cut my heart deeply, because he is correct. I try to smile to dismiss his assumptions, but I fear that my cheeks will tremble and tears will well up in my eyes.

“So what, you think I’m suffering from psychosis or schizophrenia?”

Ramsés shrugs, then shakes his head.

“I don’t know. Are you? Those are heavy words. You are a good programmer, but I can’t have you being erratic and inconsistent. You know what will happen if we can’t deliver the contracts in time, the company will have to pay the penalty fee. If it gets bad enough, I won’t be able to pay any of you.”

“I get it, sir. I’ll work hard.”

Ramsés’ voice deepens as he tries to convince his employee to do the right thing, and I can’t help but tilt my chin down in a submissive gesture.

“You used to go above and beyond. I suppose you worked overtime partly because you had nothing else going on and you may as well earn some extra money. I was glad to pay you for it, but the most I can demand of you is to complete your tasks during the regular workday hours.”

I can’t force myself to lift my gaze. My shoulders droop, my eyes turn watery. Ramsés’ chair creaks as he gets up and walks around his desk. His admiral blue pants fill half of my frame of vision, and then I feel his big hand around my right trapezius muscle. He squeezes it firmly. The smell of cigarettes wafts down to my nostrils.

I stiffen. My throat is dry. I bet this man was waiting for the opportunity to fondle me. I want to jerk my body away, because I know what comes next: he will pull down his zipper, and then he will stuff his fat cock down my throat. Maybe he’s expecting me to give in willingly and reach out with both hands for his belt buckle, because I am a whore who loves swallowing every drop of salty juice from her lover’s ballsack. I’m paralyzed as I wait for my boss to grab hold of my neck, but instead he pats me on the back twice with his violating hand.

“Keeping a job must be hard for you, but whatever is going on, Leire, you need to straighten yourself up and be a proper adult.”

My chest feels tight as my temples throb. First he rapes me, then he calls me a child? And what if I am? I never signed up to become an adult. If as a newborn I had understood what nightmares this life would have entailed, I would have crawled back into my mother’s cunt.

I was never a proper human being. As a baby, my head looked like a boiled egg with a hole in the center that my parents had to feed by screwing a rubber dildo attached to a pump, which gave milk that tasted like a mixture of rotten eggs and vomit. I remember that alien cock clearly, it was bigger than a tree trunk with a snake’s head on top that threatened to chomp on mine. The rest of my body was a collection of tubes and wires connected to machines that made weird noises. The doctor said that everything about me pointed towards a malfunctioning brain, so I got put under a magical spell that turned me into a walking corpse, which nobody could recognize as a person anymore. When the sun rose, my dead eyes showed me a horrid world that made me want to cry like a little girl even though I was a grown woman, because this dimension was a scary place full of monsters that could devour a person at a single bite, and there were no adults, just a bunch of children running around with their heads empty, screaming at each other while they played with knives, guns and bombs.

All of my actions have been guided by an overwhelming urge to escape from my trauma-filled past, and my life became an endless cycle of suffering, grief and self-destruction which caused my mind to crumble. My body at least used to function properly, but now I have been reduced to a twisted wreck of insanity.

I black out. The next thing I know, I’m shuffling out of my boss’ office, barely able to focus my gaze ahead. My horse stalker was spying on me from the other side of the doorway, and he hobbles aside as I pass. Spike’s nostrils flare like they’re constantly filled with an unpleasant odor emanating from deep inside his throat, because his digestive organs are filled with a rancid sludge that stinks like rotten meat mixed with urine and vomit, all rolled into one nauseous concoction laced with sulfuric acid and a dash of ammonia, to make sure that no one could ever forget the stench that escapes out of the orifices of this horse-shaped monstrosity.

Spike lets out a drawn out groan that send shivers to my bone marrow, and causes me to cover my nose to block his breath. His hooves scrape against the carpet as he stumbles along trying to keep pace with me.

“Your blood flows through the veins and arteries of the people around you,” the horse says gloomily. “It’s a miracle that you can live among these human beings without going mad.”

Spike wants to pretend that he understands me completely, although he’s an inhuman abomination that eats people alive. I see his point, but I’d argue that I haven’t been sane for as long as I can remember. In fact, if those around me found out my true nature, they would surely never forgive themselves for having been so blind to such a grisly reality.

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I boarded the Euskotren from Irún, so I managed to wangle one of the best seats available in any of the carriages: the individual one next to the corridor connection, which faces a row of three seats. Now that I’ve grabbed that seat, nobody can stand beside me, as I have a curved, plasticky wall on my left and an opaque glass divider on my right. But at this hour, the train quickly got crowded by a cross section of the workers and students of this province. Two women in their forties, dressed with conservative business attire, have taken the opportunity to get some shut eye in front of me, and the remaining seat got filled by a student who keeps scrolling on his phone.

I want to sleep, if only to disappear from my life for a few minutes, but my heart is pounding and my palms are sweating because I dread what awaits me at my office. For the first time since I became a wage slave all those years ago, I’ll arrive late to work because of a horse that eats my dreams, and also because my car nearly killed me. I had feared that the poor excuse of a horse that stalks me would hinder me as I face the workday’s challenges, but now I’m sure that my terrible mood will ruin my performance, although I was already slacking off.

I keep picturing my boss’ lascivious visage as he reprimands me for wasting his time and money with these shenanigans of mine, while he fondles his hard cock under the desk. Ramsés’ eyes always seems so hungry when he stares at me with those serpentine black pupils. He’s going to fire me and replace me with a young and obedient female employee, someone he can use like a sexual toy. Or else he’ll force himself upon me in various positions, while he yells obscenities in my ear and I cry tears of shame and humiliation in full view of my coworkers. I shudder with disgust. How sick is that man to want to fuck a woman right next to her colleagues?! And why does he want to fuck me so badly anyway?!

Why can’t the crowd shut up? Who would want to carry a conversation at this hour? Stop interrupting my thoughts! Be quiet for a minute, just a minute, so my brain can rest. Why must we talk all day long, filling our heads with nonsense? I bet they just want to hear themselves over the sound of the train’s engine and the clatter of its wheels against the tracks beneath us. Their voices make me dizzy and nauseous, like they’re speaking through an echo chamber that amplifies every word they utter and turns every syllable into an insult that stabs deep into my soul like knives made out of nails. Their brains rot in their skulls while their mouths spew filth into the air. What have they done to deserve to be born into this world, to live their pathetic lives in this miserable country with its shitty weather and its ugly people? Please, let this be over soon.

And those two female office workers sitting in front of me look so placid. Their minds must surely be drifting away into dreams of lovemaking, while mine is consumed with thoughts of a horse’s obscene appendages that he so eagerly wants to stretch out towards me.

The train has passed Oiartzun, and again the view from the windows gets reduced to a succession of naked trees that have sprouted from the earth close to the tracks to expose their numerous, skeletal limbs like perverted alien abominations. Why can’t nature shield its hideous appearance at least when I’m forced to stare at it to distract myself during such insufferable rides? Instead, I’m being assaulted by its ghastliness every passing second as this monstrosity of metal rumbles along.

When we stop at Errenteria’s dreary station, with its graffiti suggestions for us to get out and for the fight to continue, the doors open and a bunch of people penetrate my carriage like an invading horde of zombies. Two Eastern European guys whose stocky builds and worn T-shirts and cargo pants suggest they work in construction, one of who sports a scar that bisects his left eyebrow, stare back at me as they pass by to find seats. My heart beats faster. Why the hell did they hold my gaze? What did I do to them? People always have to bother me even though I’m just sitting here, stewing in my misery. Just leave me alone, damn you!

They are gone. I shouldn’t need to worry about those bastards anymore, and I have to focus on finding a way to survive the rest of the day. My stomach feels like somebody has stuffed a fistful of sand down there. I catch the student gazing over his phone towards my work bag, that I placed between my seat and the glass divider. Is he trying to steal my bag? I barely put anything in it, I mostly carry it around because it soothes me somehow. Why does however is in charge of trains in this country force me to share my ride with a thief? Then I hear the muffled sound of my chosen ringtone coming from my work bag. After I reach into my bag to hold my vibrating phone, I anticipate the embarrassment of having to open my mouth and speak surrounded by all these strangers.

When I find out who’s calling, I nearly piss myself. It’s Jacqueline. The insisting vibrations of her call are travelling down my forearm, straight towards my nether regions. What do I do? I’m too nervous to talk to Jacqueline, especially after she provided such a stupefying orgasm in the shower this morning. But if I don’t take the call now, she might hang up and go away forever!

“H-hello…?” I say as I hold the phone against my ear.

I hear a muffled sigh on the other end of the line. I strain my ears to listen in on whatever she utters, hoping to retain every word.

“You know,” Jacqueline starts, “I feared you wouldn’t have answered, or that your phone would have been disconnected.”

I could taste the concern in her voice. She thinks about me when I’m away. I exist.

“Why would you think something like that?” I ask her with a dry tone that evidences my anxiety.

Jacqueline chuckles.

“Because you aren’t here? I’m used to seeing you sitting at your PC as I walk into our office every morning. So either you were sick today, or something much worse had happened. After you broke down in the bathroom…”

Jacqueline continues talking, but my gasp interrupts her.

“Wait, I don’t want the others to find out about that!”

I spoke too loud, becoming one of those annoying assholes who bother the other commuters by forgetting they aren’t sitting in their living room. A few stares land on my exposed skin, so I lower my head and cover half of my face with my free hand.

“I’m standing outside,” Jacqueline says. “The dawn is about to break, so that should be nice. Did you wake up today only to start crying all alone?”

I lower my voice to defend myself.

“I’m not that pathetic. No, my shitty old car broke down, that’s all. I’ve found myself having to rely on the train to reach our awkwardly situated business park, although I hadn’t gotten on a train for years.”

“But you didn’t call the office to tell you were running late, did you?” she asks with a slight French accent that makes her sound charming and childish.

“R-right, people inform others when they will arrive late to things…”

Jacqueline laughs, and I become jealous of how natural and effortless it sounded.

“Yeah, I guess you wouldn’t have called. So you are fine then? You’re safe?”

“I’m fine, other than the fact that adult life is an unending nightmare of indentured servitude to pay for the debt I incurred when I was born.”

Jacqueline giggles. I’m offended that she considers modern slavery a laughing matter, but I can almost see that gorgeous woman’s smile through the phone speaker. Her laughter is infectious, and I would have laughed if my heart wasn’t rotten after years of sadness and self-loathing.

“Alright, Leire. I’ll see you soon, then?”

“Who knows what might happen on my way to the office. I can think of many disasters.”

“Stop thinking of disasters, sweetie. Tell yourself that everything is going to be fine.”

Jacqueline’s voice is so warm and soothing that I’m inclined to do anything she demands.

“Because everything is guaranteed to be fine if I tell myself so?” I ask incredulously.

“Not at all. But it would lessen your anxiety, which would contribute to make you feel better. That’s what’s all about, isn’t it? Being happy and feeling good while we are still alive?”

That sounds incorrect to me, but my chest is hot and tight, and my breath has become shallow, irregular. The hint of melancholy in her voice had told me that she had experienced some dark times. I wish we could keep talking for hours. Jacqueline blesses me with her attention; it gives me strength and courage to continue to function as a person. And I’d do anything for this woman to hold me in her arms again.

I can’t tune out the conversations of nearby commuters, but I hide the legs of the three people who occupied the seats in front by covering both my eyes. I hunch over, resting my elbows on my knees. Jacqueline and I are alone in the office. She has stayed after hours at our workplace as an excuse to spend time in private with me. Or even better, she has invited me to her house, and she’s about to excuse herself to put on more comfortable clothes as I sit on the edge of her bed.

“Hey, listen,” I say softly, my lips brushing the phone. “Thank you again for caring for an annoying wreck like me. It means so much that you are looking out for my well-being. I-I want to repay you somehow, so…”

I can’t come up with any way to repay her that doesn’t involve me kneeling in front of her pussy. A few seconds later, Jacqueline remains quiet. I can’t even hear her breathe. I open my eyes and find out that the train is speeding through a tunnel, so the call has dropped. Why does this damn province have to be so hilly?

But as I slump in the chair and I take a deep breath, my body quivers from Jacqueline’s lingering presence. I close my eyes. For the rest of this journey, I’ll lose myself in memories of our intimate moments together.

As soon as I get off the train at the underground station of Lugaritz, I’m surrounded by fresh young adults who likely attend the nearby college. They walk around while they hold their phones. Some of them stop and chat with each other about their classes.

An unpleasant feeling comes over me, and I start to sweat and shiver. The butter yellow panels that cover this station’s walls, along with its bright fluorescent lights, remind me of looking into a fridge, and I’m one of the packaged products waiting on a shelf. When did I become someone’s disposable article, meant to be thrown away when they no longer need me anymore?

The nearby humans likely smell my fear of them and consider it an invitation to attack and devour me. There is nowhere to run away to now that I have arrived at this place of horror. The smiles of these twenty year olds are full of malice, but they restrain themselves from touching me in case they catch something contagious.

As I stand on the sidewalk outside the station, a few minutes after sunrise, I look down the slope towards a peanut brown building that features two parallel, vertical constructions that resemble blocky smokestacks and that may house the elevators. The business park where I work is in that direction, but how do I reach it from here? I should have looked it up online at home, but that was a problem for future me to handle. I better start walking.

The clouds look like they are melting into the sky as they fly by fast. I trudge past modern-looking, white and grey apartment buildings, a roundabout, and tall office towers that make me feel tiny. The October sun shines brightly on my face through the trees. My eyes are already tired and sore, and my nose is runnier than normal. My nerves are jangling around inside my body like a chorus of impotent monkeys. Everything is a nuisance and a burden. Why do I bother, in general? Why struggle through this life? I wish it all could cease with the push of a button.

I thought I had gotten lost, but I recognize an upward slope that I have driven along five days a week since I started working at this job. The reclined sidewalk is adjoined to a park with freshly cut grass, and that contains a playground where a few housewives are already playing with their spawns. As always, the moms ignore my existence because I’m not their biological child.

I can’t say I’m into kids, but that housewife life sounds like a dream come true. I would forget how this decaying world looks like at six in the morning, and a few hours later I would wake up, prepare myself a cup of coffee, and accompany my young child, whom I would have cursed with my anxiety and depression, down to the playground, where the kid would climb and slide while I would lie down on the soft, green lawn and let my mind drift away until I fell asleep. But I can’t do that, because I need to reach my workplace, which is why I’m pushing myself forward and up this hill as my legs burn unpleasantly from the lack of exercise, and I have to steel myself for the remaining hours of the workday, during which I’ll have to pretend that I’m a functional human being instead of an anxious wreck that wants to die.

Once I reach the plateau where they built the business park, I turn left and follow the sidewalk, passing by a wide variety of cars that are occupying all the available parking spaces close to the office blocks. The sun whitens the mirrorlike, wavy surface of the building that contains the restaurant to which Jacqueline had dragged me during a lunch break. Less than a minute later I’m staring at the boxy, salt white office building that contains my workplace and that was built to ruin my life.

As I hurry towards the entrance, a sudden movement in the row of multicolored garbage bins makes me stop. My body shudders at a sudden chill running through it as a wind blows from behind me. A dark mass is perched on the lid of the banana yellow bin. A second and a third mass slink up the sides of the bin to join the first entity. A fourth and a fifth mass follow suit. They are formed by a fluid substance that resembles tar. As if my eyesight was getting sharper, I can make out the shades that differentiate each entity as they coalesce to form one single black blob.

I stare at the mass as it shuffles in place as if breathing, and on the edge of my hearing I pick up sounds that resemble whimpers of pain and anguish as the creatures melt into a lump of putrid, foul-smelling sludge of despair.

Whatever. I continue on my way to find out what horrors await at the office today.