24 Hours
Annie (08:00 - 09:00)
Jack doesn’t understand why I go for a run every morning. Jack doesn’t really understand a lot about me anymore. Mostly that’s why I run.
We used to be different, Jack and I. We used to love each other, deeply and desperately. We used to know each other better than anybody on the whole fucking planet could ever hope to understand someone else. We were all we ever needed. Things changed. We changed. Jack stopped being there and I started running.
Sometimes it’s nice to get lost. To just trust that your feet will take you where you need to be. To cut away from all of the worries and the people and the shit. To just be you; yourself, and nobody else.
It’s easy for me to get lost in this city because I don’t know where anything is. Every building is unfamiliar, every street name is new and every person I pass is just another body. We are all just ugly lumps of flesh and bone and one day we will all rot away into nothingness.
I run past these human-shaped bags of gristle, past houses where I know they live and die. They aren’t paying any attention to me. They have their own problems. We each of us have our own lives to worry about. We are all looking for The Answers to The Questions that haunt us as we toss and turn between our bedsheets every night, whether it’s as trivial as How shall I get my hair cut? or as profound as Why can’t I provide my husband with the child that he deserves?
The best you can hope for, in the end, is death. Every moment before death is simply spent waiting. Waiting for a malevolent being to spring from the shadows in the alleys in the dark and drag us back with it. We are all born to die. What you do in the space in-between is your own business.
As my feet pounded along the concrete I replayed in my mind the conversation between Jack and I last night. A conversation we have been repeating over and over each night for the past year and a half. It goes something like this:
Jack: Sometimes I feel like you are running.
Annie: Sometimes I am.
Jack: No, not like that. Fuck. This is exactly what I’m talking about. I mean running away from your problems, Annie. From me. [Heavy sigh]
Annie: So do I. Sometimes I am running away from my problems and sometimes I am running away from you. And sometimes I am just running.
Jack: [Even heavier sigh] I can’t remember the last time we had a proper conversation.
Annie: We are having a conversation now.
Jack: Annie, would you fucking stop it? I’m trying to talk to you.
Annie: You are talking to me.
[Jack shakes his head and rises to his feet. He casts one final, despairing look at Annie and leaves the room. Annie puts her hands on her head and lets out the breath that she has been holding. Scene fades to black.]
It’s hot today. Sticky. It’s going to be the kind of day where every shop in town will reek of sweat and there isn’t a thing you can do about it. Just like Jack and I. Some days everything stinks but you just have to hope that tomorrow will be better because what else can you do? Nothing. The world keeps turning, no matter what.
Recently most days have been sticky between Jack and I. Some mornings I wake up and he still isn’t home. I don’t know where he goes and I don't want to. All I know is that I sleep better when he’s beside me and that’s the reason we are together. Everything is easier that way. For all of the differences between us, for the way he just walks out after we have an argument, for the feeling I get of sharing my house with a stranger, I still sometimes glance over at him and feel my stomach swell with something that we have to call love, even though I don’t much care for the label.
Sometimes I think Jack feels it too. He must, surely, to still be around. There are other women out there. Prettier women, with bigger breasts and blonder hair and longer legs who must surely be more suitable for him than I am. Women who can give him everything he wants. And yet he is still here, sometimes. With me.
Marriage isn’t supposed to be easy, I know that much. Compromise is key. I compromised and moved to this stupid fucking city away from my friends and my family. He compromised and bought a cat. Sometimes you have to meet each other in the middle. I can’t give my husband exactly what he wants but he can’t always be there for me either. So we come to a silent truce and we carry on because there is nothing else to do. We have given up on trying to change things into anything other than what they are. We are the faces of Learned Helplessness.
The next time I look up from the pavement, I become aware that I am lost again. A glance at my watch tells me that I have been running and thinking for just over 40 minutes. I am truly lost, both in time and space. I don't worry about it. I remember being told once that if you just keep turning left, eventually you will come full circle, right back to where you started. I've been turning left for quite a while now.
I slow to a walk and using the back of my wrist I wipe the hot beads of sweat from my forehead. Approaching me are two skinny girls in their late teens or early twenties. It wasn’t so very long ago that I was as young as them, though it has been two tiny lifetimes now. As they pass me, I overhear a snippet of their conversation: “I think he studied architecture. Or archaeology,” was all I managed to catch. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. Nineteen was my favourite age because I met Jack when I was twenty.
I step into the oasis of a nearby shop; the rattly air-conditioning feels like the breath of God on my bare, moist face and it doesn't smell yet. I float to the drinks chiller and select a bottle of water before heading to the checkout. The boy there looks tired and heartbroken. It is unmistakeable. There is a sadness in his eyes that I’ve seen a thousand times before, reflected back at me from countless shiny surfaces. His name tag says Alex but I don't know if that is his name.
“Morning,” he says reluctantly, taking the beverage from my hand and wiggling it limply in front of the scanner before it makes a satisfactory beep. He places it back onto the counter. “Fourty-nine pence, please.”
I want to tell him that she isn’t worth it. That he will find someone else; someone better, taller, thinner, blonder. But I can’t bring myself say it because I don’t know if it’s true. For all I know, the girl who broke him was absolutely perfect and he will never be truly happy again. So I don’t say anything, really. I just hand him a fifty pence piece and thank him with the most sincere smile that I can muster.
And then I turn left again, and begin trying to find my way home.
We used to be different, Jack and I. We used to love each other, deeply and desperately. We used to know each other better than anybody on the whole fucking planet could ever hope to understand someone else. We were all we ever needed. Things changed. We changed. Jack stopped being there and I started running.
Sometimes it’s nice to get lost. To just trust that your feet will take you where you need to be. To cut away from all of the worries and the people and the shit. To just be you; yourself, and nobody else.
It’s easy for me to get lost in this city because I don’t know where anything is. Every building is unfamiliar, every street name is new and every person I pass is just another body. We are all just ugly lumps of flesh and bone and one day we will all rot away into nothingness.
I run past these human-shaped bags of gristle, past houses where I know they live and die. They aren’t paying any attention to me. They have their own problems. We each of us have our own lives to worry about. We are all looking for The Answers to The Questions that haunt us as we toss and turn between our bedsheets every night, whether it’s as trivial as How shall I get my hair cut? or as profound as Why can’t I provide my husband with the child that he deserves?
The best you can hope for, in the end, is death. Every moment before death is simply spent waiting. Waiting for a malevolent being to spring from the shadows in the alleys in the dark and drag us back with it. We are all born to die. What you do in the space in-between is your own business.
As my feet pounded along the concrete I replayed in my mind the conversation between Jack and I last night. A conversation we have been repeating over and over each night for the past year and a half. It goes something like this:
Jack: Sometimes I feel like you are running.
Annie: Sometimes I am.
Jack: No, not like that. Fuck. This is exactly what I’m talking about. I mean running away from your problems, Annie. From me. [Heavy sigh]
Annie: So do I. Sometimes I am running away from my problems and sometimes I am running away from you. And sometimes I am just running.
Jack: [Even heavier sigh] I can’t remember the last time we had a proper conversation.
Annie: We are having a conversation now.
Jack: Annie, would you fucking stop it? I’m trying to talk to you.
Annie: You are talking to me.
[Jack shakes his head and rises to his feet. He casts one final, despairing look at Annie and leaves the room. Annie puts her hands on her head and lets out the breath that she has been holding. Scene fades to black.]
It’s hot today. Sticky. It’s going to be the kind of day where every shop in town will reek of sweat and there isn’t a thing you can do about it. Just like Jack and I. Some days everything stinks but you just have to hope that tomorrow will be better because what else can you do? Nothing. The world keeps turning, no matter what.
Recently most days have been sticky between Jack and I. Some mornings I wake up and he still isn’t home. I don’t know where he goes and I don't want to. All I know is that I sleep better when he’s beside me and that’s the reason we are together. Everything is easier that way. For all of the differences between us, for the way he just walks out after we have an argument, for the feeling I get of sharing my house with a stranger, I still sometimes glance over at him and feel my stomach swell with something that we have to call love, even though I don’t much care for the label.
Sometimes I think Jack feels it too. He must, surely, to still be around. There are other women out there. Prettier women, with bigger breasts and blonder hair and longer legs who must surely be more suitable for him than I am. Women who can give him everything he wants. And yet he is still here, sometimes. With me.
Marriage isn’t supposed to be easy, I know that much. Compromise is key. I compromised and moved to this stupid fucking city away from my friends and my family. He compromised and bought a cat. Sometimes you have to meet each other in the middle. I can’t give my husband exactly what he wants but he can’t always be there for me either. So we come to a silent truce and we carry on because there is nothing else to do. We have given up on trying to change things into anything other than what they are. We are the faces of Learned Helplessness.
The next time I look up from the pavement, I become aware that I am lost again. A glance at my watch tells me that I have been running and thinking for just over 40 minutes. I am truly lost, both in time and space. I don't worry about it. I remember being told once that if you just keep turning left, eventually you will come full circle, right back to where you started. I've been turning left for quite a while now.
I slow to a walk and using the back of my wrist I wipe the hot beads of sweat from my forehead. Approaching me are two skinny girls in their late teens or early twenties. It wasn’t so very long ago that I was as young as them, though it has been two tiny lifetimes now. As they pass me, I overhear a snippet of their conversation: “I think he studied architecture. Or archaeology,” was all I managed to catch. I couldn’t help but smile to myself. Nineteen was my favourite age because I met Jack when I was twenty.
I step into the oasis of a nearby shop; the rattly air-conditioning feels like the breath of God on my bare, moist face and it doesn't smell yet. I float to the drinks chiller and select a bottle of water before heading to the checkout. The boy there looks tired and heartbroken. It is unmistakeable. There is a sadness in his eyes that I’ve seen a thousand times before, reflected back at me from countless shiny surfaces. His name tag says Alex but I don't know if that is his name.
“Morning,” he says reluctantly, taking the beverage from my hand and wiggling it limply in front of the scanner before it makes a satisfactory beep. He places it back onto the counter. “Fourty-nine pence, please.”
I want to tell him that she isn’t worth it. That he will find someone else; someone better, taller, thinner, blonder. But I can’t bring myself say it because I don’t know if it’s true. For all I know, the girl who broke him was absolutely perfect and he will never be truly happy again. So I don’t say anything, really. I just hand him a fifty pence piece and thank him with the most sincere smile that I can muster.
And then I turn left again, and begin trying to find my way home.