Blood.

My favorite color was grey. Grey, grey, grey. My favorite color was grey because everything in my life was grey. The walls of the apartment of which I resided; grey. The walls of my office; grey. Appliances, furniture, electronics, clothing, plumbing...everything was grey. Everything was grey, except for my bed. My bed was the only exception; my bed was all white. Bleached with my work shirts, because hey, I needed a little variety in my bland life. So yes, white sheets and white shirts; impeccably clean. Everything in my apartment, everything in my lovely claustrophobic fit inducing cubicle, everything in my boring existence was sparkling. In my clean cabinets were cleansers of all sorts; window cleanser, wood cleanser, glass cleanser (it's different from window cleanser), laundry detergent, dish soap - all in very neat, obsessive compulsive-like order, of course. I washed a different load of laundry every day.

I worked at that office for so long that I forgot what exactly I did. Got up every morning at six, had my two cups of coffee, took a shower, brushed my teeth, got dressed. Drove to work. Read documents, typed emails and letters. Signed my name. Played Solitaire. Waited to go home. Organized mail. Sent faxes. Who even uses fax machines anymore? Trimmed my nails. Resisted the urge to bite my nails. Checked my personal email. Felt rebellious and taught myself how to create fake viruses. Never work up the courage to actually create a fake virus, but wouldn't it be so courageous and rebellious and just so cool if I did? Wondered who the world's greatest Solitaire player alive was. Went home. Got changed into my sweat pants, which were, you guessed it, grey. Grey sweatpants, grey tank top. Sat on my couch and watched somewhat comedic shows with has-been actors, ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, go to bed at nine. Wake up at six, start the routine all over again.

I was so sickeningly complacent, and I had become numb and immune to how mundane my life was. I was a cubicle zombie, destined to file papers and organize mail and play Solitaire all my life. Until I died. I forgot what I did for a living. I forgot who I was, really. What was my name? It's not like it was important anyway; I was lost in a mass of people doing the same job. You go from new guy, to newish guy, to guy that's been there a year, to guy that's going to spend his entire life there, to guy who's going to have a blank tombstone.

Little did I know, there was life beyond walls with the consistency of cardboard.

Life went on as is, but inside, something evil was growing. Something evil and something that lurked in the back of my brain. The growing feeling of resentment, pain, anger, hatred, just pure evil, was spawning. The need to shock. The need to destroy something. Break something. Damage. Just even dent something. The feeling of knowing you're never going to make an impact on the world, the feeling of just living your life, feeling as if there's a gun cocked at you, ready to shoot, at a certain, given time, but until then, you were just going to go on living life as the dictionary definition of normal, knowing that gun will shoot, just not knowing when, is just probably the worst feeling you could possibly feel. And I felt it every day. I felt like I was just waiting to die in that little cardboard box with a desk. Like a mouse with a wheel. I had my wood chips, my food, my water. I had my wheel. I was going to run on a wheel, eat, and shit, until the day I died.

I resented my parents for resenting me. I was the child that never got too much praise or attention; I was the quiet one that could be forgotten at the gas station when going in to get a candy bar. Dismissed constantly by my "busy" father and my "busy" mother. But they always had time for everyone else. I know I wasn't planned, but I don't think any of my friends were. They were all only children, but my parents paid more attention to my friends than they did me. They forgot I was there. I was a burden to them. I moved out. They never called. I called them once, and my dad hung up on me to have a conversation with a telemarketer about how to help him find a certain channel on cable television.

My parents had a satellite dish.

I resented my ex-girlfriends for all dumping me for better guys. I was the rebound guy. I was non-descript. One time, I saw one of my exes at the grocery store and she had no clue who I was. I gave her my name, and she told me it didn't ring a bell. I think at that moment I knew I was just a mouse with a wheel in a cage meant to be a fish aquarium, and I was destined to run on a wheel (also known as my job), eat, shit, sleep, and die. I wasn't meant to do anything else but live my life, waiting to die, to become fertilizer.

I hated my friends for leaving me. I hated them for running off and leaving me to live a life filled with grey. A bland, saltless life is what I lead. I can't blame anyone but myself and my lack of personality for that, I guess.

This was all until I met the man that would change my life.

I went to a bar by my house one night, you know, escape the bland for one night, get completely wasted, like, shit-face drunk, and cry to the bartender about how my mommy never loved me before I passed out in a puddle of my own drool on the polished wood bar itself. I couldn't afford therapy.

The man who I ordered my pitcher of beer from was what most women would call Mr. Right. He had dark black hair, naturally tan skin, and his muscles were apparent in his black bartender's polo. He served appletinis to the rich skanks a few seats down from me as I waited my turn to order my beer. He took one look at me and said "wait five minutes." So I waited five minutes, three hundred seconds of my life. My slow, boring, death by seconds. Milliseconds. In five minutes, his break sign went up.

"Come on, sad eyes," he said, summoning me, "we're going out back."

A smart person, fuck, a person with half a brain, would not go out back with a strange muscular tan bartender with a name tag that said "Francis" on it. A half wit would not get off his little pleather stool to follow some strange man who serves alcoholic beverages to anyone who sits down out to the back of the bar of where he works. I would have sat my ass on that pleather stool or better yet, left and gone home to my life of blandness. I would have been better off not even coming here. All I fucking wanted was a pitcher of beer.

This was the cocked gun, forcing a bullet my way. This was my end. This was when the mouse reached the end of his little life. His sad, sad little life.

"Sir, um, why did you a- " I begin, but Francis doesn't let me finish.

"Because you need it. Now don't ask questions." He pauses. He's brought two beers outside with him.

"Okay." I keep my little mouse mouth shut.

"I've seen guys like you here before. Little cubicle rats who need to escape their perfect lives and get wasted and cry. Or fight. Or, true to the former and latter, both. Crying doesn't do shit for skinny little wastes of time like you. It makes you even more depressed; into your sinking little hole of depression, until you're standing at the top of the highest building near your apartment complex, with a gun in your mouth, screaming to the crowd below 'I'm gonna do it! I'm gonna do it!' and all the people are screaming back at you 'You have so much to live for, don't!' except they're fucking wrong, right? They're wrong, off, so wrong and off. You have nothing to live for; that's why you're up there. And that's why you've come here. To drink and sink down and cry, because you have nothing to live for. You're destined to spend the rest of your life in a fucking box, work in a box, live in a box, and when you're dead, spend the rest of fucking eternity in a box. You're destined to live either alone or in a loveless marriage with a suburban whore who'll bear children of all different fathers...except yours. She'll marry you for your money or house, a place to raise her bastards. You will be a miserable prick for the rest of your life. You will be a waste of sperm and egg, skin and space, unless...unless....you fight off your demons."

I stood there, in awe, jaw hanging open, at Francis the bartender's speech. He was one of the smartest people I had ever had the pleasure of meeting, if even by accident. I wanted to shake his hand, to hug him, lock him in an embrace, and...yeah, I still wanted to fucking cry. Even more so than I already did. I mean hell, he just basically called me fucking worthless. He compared my entire existence to a brick of shit. I think that's what made me want to sob about my tiny little life even more.

"You look like I just revealed the meaning of life to you."

I just stood there, unable to move. I couldn't think of anything, but "What is the po-"

"No questions, rodent." Oh, well, that's nice.

"Listen to me, and and listen fucking well, you hear me? Tonight is going to change your life. Tomorrow will be the most glorious day of your life, and you will owe it all to me, and you won't even remember the name you read on my ugly little embroidered name tag. You will be forever grateful to me, yet you will forget I existed. Do you understand me?"

"Yes." I respond, looking him in his intimidating, powerful eyes.

"Now, listen. I am going to punch you as hard as I have ever punched someone. I am going to make my fist connect with your face, and I will make you forget my name. I will 'ruin' your boring little face, I will decorate it. Do you have a problem with this?"

I couldn't speak. Paralyzed with fear and confusion, I just shook my head slowly. We stood there in complete silence, Francis grinning at my startled, work rodent face and my shaking, work rodent body. He power walked, pimp strutted, if you will, up to me, and pulled his perfect fist back.

Gun locked and loaded, aimed at my face. Safety off. Trigger pulled. Forced explosion at my head, to destroy me in one fell swoop.

Francis's fist collided with my face and I felt bones getting crushed. I could feel everything around me slowing down. The cluttered noise of people inside the bar was dimmed. Everything around me was begin to slowly fall with me. The stars in the night sky seemed to look down upon me, as if to tell me that this is what my life has come to. It seemed like an hour before my bleeding face hit the ground, my body soon following. Earth spun below me, as if to taunt me, before things went black.

I woke up what felt like five minutes later, probably because it was. The parking lot had the same cars in it that it had before I passed out. I got up slowly, not really remembering too much, except that my face really, really hurt. The dizzy feeling I felt when I stood, wobbling back and forth like a piss drunk child, was like the worst hangover, multiplied by about ten thousand. I felt so disconnected from the world. I felt like I was walking in space.

I slowly began to remember how far my apartment was. It was across the street, I had walked. I wonder if the bartender I met would give me a ride. Probably not. I remembered, slowly but surely, why the fuck I was on the pavement to begin with. I felt my face; it was soaked in blood. My fingers, shining bloody in the moonlight, were becoming sticky.

But I felt...I felt alive.

I felt as if I had just won a fight with Muhammad Ali. That is how fucking good I felt. I couldn't even explain it. The air felt a lot crisper. The sounds I heard were so much clearer. I could remember the path to take to get to the apartment in which I resided. I looked at my clothes, soaked in blood.

I smiled to myself.

I wobbled home with a stupid grin on my face. I said hello to the doorman who I never even gave the time of day. He didn't even look my way. I guess I deserved that, but I did not care. I walked up to my apartment, but what I saw was cops. I saw lots and lots of police men. I saw my mother and father. My mother looked as if she had tears in her eyes. I walked up to her. I asked her why she was crying. Who were all these people? Why were they at my apartment?

She didn't even look my way.

I decided to stand there and listen to the police men tell my parents what had happened...although I'm not sure why this was all going down outside my apartment. What the fuck could have involved me?

"Well, they found his body in a bloody puddle outside of the bar down the street. Said it looked like he could have been in a bar fight that went a little too far. His face was unrecognizable...so they looked through his wallet. They looked up his next of kin, obviously, you guys were called down here. We'd try to find his killer but all they would get was a few years in prison for manslaughter."

Next of kin? Killer? Bar fight? Was this all about me? Am I dead? No, no, no. It can't be about me. Fuck, I've never felt more alive in my life. I feel like I'm...I feel like I'm floating. Walking on air. Sticky with blood, dizzy, yet alive. Alive and well. I tap the cop on the shoulder to tell him everything's fine, he can go, because I'm so alive. But he doesn't even look at me. He looks in a completely different direction.

My mother began to sob, as my father looked on ahead, cold. His gaze was always cold. Cold and unavailable. I wanted nothing more than for him to love me as a child. He was incapable of compassion, emotion, feeling anything other than work related issues. I was the mistake that ruined his life. I was the resentment that he never wanted to feel.

My mother, she didn't want me either. But she cried. She was crying into her hands, into a tissue. "My baby," she said. "My baby is dead."

Oh, so now I'm her baby? I'm her fucking baby? I'm dead. The only time she's thought of me since I left the poorly built nest which I basically built on my own with little experience. I'm her fucking baby in fucking death.

Wait. Wait a fucking minute. I'm dead? I'm fucking dead! What the...Francis lied. Francis lied to me. That no good, lousy, bartending motherfucker. I'm dead because of him. I'm fucking dead. I'm on the outside, looking in, and I'm dead. Sticky and covered in blood and I'm a walking corpse. And I didn't go to heaven. I didn't go anywhere. My soul or whatever the fuck I am now is meant to wander the fucking earth for life. No, not for life. For fucking immortality. Eternity.

I scream. I yell. I shout. I throw an all-out ghastly temper tantrum in the middle of the hallways of my apartment.

"FUCK THIS. FUCK ALL OF YOU. YOU NEVER CARED ABOUT ME WHEN I LIVED MY MEASLY, FUCKING PATHETIC LIFE. AND NOW YOU CARE? NOW YOU CARE WHEN I'M NOT FUCKING ALIVE? YOU COULD HAVE CALLED ME OR ACTUALLY HELD A CONVERSATION WHEN I TRIED TO MAINTAIN A BASICALLY NON-EXISTENT RELATIONSHIP WITH YOU FUCKS. FUCK YOU. FUCK YOU, YOU STUPID MOTHERFUCKERS. RIGHT NOW, I'M MORE ALIVE THAN YOU WILL EVER FUCKING FEEL."

And that's when I woke up, in a puddle of my own blood, on the pavement, behind the bar. Francis was looking down at me.

"Ha, how you feeling, champ?" Sarcasm oozed out of every pore on his tan, perfect little mouth.

"Pretty fuckin' shitty." I responded, weakly.

"Good. Now go on home, you fuck. Go live your life like you were meant to. Quit your job, find a girl, do fucking something with your life. Don't come in here and cry and ruin the polished wood of the bar. Do fucking something." He offered his hand to help me up, and I accepted, of course. I had to. I didn't feel like I could fucking move.

He walked me back to my apartment to make sure I didn't die in the road. Nice guy, really. Real stand up fuck. He basically dragged me up the stairs, his hands getting bloodier and bloodier by the minute. Everything was covered in blood; the staircase, the railing, the hallway leading up to my apartment, my face, my hair, my clothes, Francis's fingers, my skin, Francis's clothes, my shoes...everything. Drenched.

I grab the key out of my pocket to unlock the door. I turned around to thank Francis for helping me, but he was gone. It was like he never existed. I shrugged it off and moved about my apartment, covering every clean surface in blood. Everything grey turned red, in awful, blotchy stains. It'd be a pain in the ass to clean up, but it was the pain in my face I was worried about. I stumbled to my bed and put my head on the clean pillowcase, feeling it becoming soaked in blood. Soaked. Drenched. Covered. But fuck it, I didn't care. Everything was completely dimmed after I fought with Francis. Everything.

I woke up the next morning in a dried puddle of blood. But I had never felt happier. My breakfast tasted better than any breakfast I had ever tasted, my coffee had never been more energy-filled. My shower was so relaxing, and my mind was just completely calm. I laughed at the blood stains on my carpet and smiled at my black eye and fucked face. I chuckled and grinned. I had never laughed or smiled more than I did that day. I called my place of work and quit. I laughed when they said they required my services more than anyone else's; it was all a ploy to get me to stay. It was not going to work. My dad called; I picked up and hung up on him. I felt happier than I ever had, and I whistled all day long.

I was finally going to start living.