Circle

I sat up in my bed. The sheet was no longer spread all over, the covers were bunched up against the wall. A red tinted light sipped through the curtains, as if laughing in my face after yet again one of my sleepless nights. I slipped onto the other side of those red cloths, opening the window to let a breeze into the hot room. Though I was not a firm believer of the saying "Out of sight, out of mind", I instictively avoided looking at that eye of heaven peering down at me from the now light blue sky. I pulled the curtains tighter together, and fell onto my bed as I re-entered my dark room. I looked up at the white ceiling as I listened to the silence, broken only by a few seaguls and every now and again by the passing-by of a few cars in the distance. I knew this insomnia was self-inflicted. In fact, it could not be called insomnia, since this was no medical condition. It was all my doing.

'Fuck it.' I muttered to myself as I pulled out of bed. There was no sleep to be had tonight, especially not with every aspect of my life breaking apart by the seams. Yes, on the outside it was not all bad; for the moment, I had a well paying job, a nice roommate. I was young, healthy, single - a good or a bad thing - and I had a nice aparment, or at least an apartment in a respectable neighbourhood. Still something in my life was lacking beyond redemption, or at least it would not be fixed by my never-ending thoughts on the subject, my wallowings in some kind of depression that I would never admit to. This is what the night was for. Not the depression, but for the freedom I felt when nobody else was around, when all was dark and everyone silent. People were in their worlds of dreams. Me, I was in this world. It was during the day that I locked myself up. The night was what Iived for. The freedom I felt when alone in the dark.

I woke up with a start. The morning bustle made its way inside through the open window. The breeze brought with it the scent of a morning, a warm sun and the sea. My blurry vision forced me to blink a few times before reaching for the alarm clock on the floor. 08:32. Half an hour late, as always. I considered jumping out of bed, but instead I moaned as I adjusted the pillow underneath my head. I tossed around a few times before slowly picking up clothes from the wooden floor in my room. I pulled on what I picked up first, and glanced at myself in the mirror that was still leaning against the wall after half a year of planning to hang it up. I changed shirts. Once, twice, and a third time. I leaned closer as I grabbed the make up I also kept on the floor, and quickly freshened myself as best I could in the five minutes I had before I needed to be out the door. I tied my hair, my movements were still slow from the sudden cease of slumber. I slowly walked into the hallway, pulled on my shoes and stepped outside my flat and into the hallway. I waited a moment before closing the door behind me and running down the steps. Yet another day of hurry, stress and cigarette breaks awaited me.

I smiled at my co-workers as I stepped into the office. The conversations began, ranging from parties to work matters, girlfriends to new cars. I joined in, not genuinly, but without effort. As I arrived at home I heard the familiar sounds originating form the TV, and throwing a glance into the room, saw my roommate lying on the sofa, book in her lap, her eyes on the television. How was your day. Here we go again. I listened patiently to the rantings of a stressed student pulling off both work and studies, while unaware of whom to pity more; her for suffering, or me for listening to it. I sat down and eventually she calmed down and normal chatting ensued. Then money matters. Both of us were broke. As always. We laughed. That laugh which only people beyond desperation mastered. That almost hysterical, laid-back laugh filled up with bottled up anxiety that had been around so long that it would never explode. It was just rooted in there, it had made our souls its home for so long that we were already unaware of it's presence. Yet it clawed at our hearts every single moment of our lives. You could look away, but it was always there. And when you had turned your eyes from it long enough, you were blind to it, like a hole in the wall of your apartment that had been there so long that you did not see it anymore. You know it's there, you can see it, but it just belongs there. The dark patch that does not stick out of the white wall, but just belongs. Like that feeling in your chest, that pressure that never cease, but you just cannot let it go. It belongs.

I sat in eating my lunch, throwing around the common jokes of the work enviroment, when a collegue, pale as ever, sat down. I could see the determination in his face, and took a bite off my sandwhich, giving him a chance to begin with his new effusion. The drama-queen sighed deeply. For a moment I started doubting whether he was one. Then he began.

-"We're all gonna lose our jobs." People turned to him, either in disbelief or panic. "Did you guys hear, half off us are getting fired. " The questions came rolling. Everyone seemed either excited by the change or panicked. Still most, especially the ones hiding the excitement they felt inside, acted the part of a shocked employee with great success. I did too. I genuinly tried to feel stressed as I heard the list the man rambled up. But the stress just would not show it's ugly face. I leaned back. Even when I got the news from my employer, when he told me I was fired due to financial problems, I could not react. I played the part, I played it with my collegues too. Where to get a new job, I even laughed that desperate laugh I was an expert of; it was at least genuine. But the feeling of stress, it never came. What I felt was something else. For so long, my life had been on hold, for so long I had walked alone in the night, for so long I had asked 'How was your day', for so long I had played this part. Now, I was free. From what I was uncertain. But in my apartment where I had been like a caged animal, glaring at the four walls holding me captive. Exiting that flat had not helped, for I had always been caged. By what I was uncertain, but caged I had been. Never would I have believed that my sweet release would come on a slip of paper, but there it was. The excuse of a life time.

I sat down. I looked at the screen that shone on my face as a second sun, and looking at the empty boxes in front of my eyes. I filled out all the information needed to categorize myself, and as I sent my application I felt what I had not felt since I was younger; I felt nervous. Not nauseous, a feeling I had for long mistakenly thought of as nervosity, but the actualy thing. I packed my bags, I packed up my life. And I left. I left it all. I left my cage. As I walked into the air port, I knew I was not running away from this country. I was many things, I had an endless list of flaws. But there was one thing I was not, and that was naive. I knew life elsewhere would only be harder, a language I did not know, all the faces on the streets belonging to strangers - Yet this feeling of freedom, of being nervous, light as a feather. I had awaited its arrival since I first closed my eyes while lying on my bed and making the decision that I called "putting my life on hold". I was free. I knew none. In this country I was not slumming it, I was not a failure, I was not a leading a life of excellence, I did not belong to the hierarchy yet. And that was the beauty of it all. I was me; stripped from all that was familiar, stripped from my name, my heritage, my achievement and my failures, my past, and my future. There was nothing but me, and I was nothing but another person in a city of millions. I was a part of this. I was a part of the world without having a part to play. In the future I would have one, but for now, my future was mine to chose. Here amongst the faces I did not yet know, I was only me. Me and the present, and all of the world. I no longer needed the night, for I had gained something by losing everything, I had gained my freedom. The freedom to choose. Or what was better yet, not to choose. The freedom to live, not wait.

But that never happened.

I was in the lunch room still, I was eating my sandwhich still. I was listening to the pale drama queen, speaking of some new problem that he was doing his best to stir up even more. I excused myself, and went to smoke a cigarette. My life, my whole life was this. One day to the next, I sat and my thoughts stole me from the world in which I physically existed. I enjoyed it more than reality, I always had. But sometimes when I closed my eyes, I could not help but feel alone. Alone and depressed. My world was not real, my dreams were never to be fulfilled. Was my life going to always be this? This endless switching back and forth between what was real and what most definitely was not? And what if one day the line was blurred? I was interrupted as another person stepped into my zone; he stepped into the cigarette room.

-"Nice weather outside." He said while lighting up the cigarette. I nodded. "Makes you wanna go sleep. Have some nice congac and just doze off." He smiled at me as he spoke. I smiled and disagreed, saying lying outside or playing a game of football would be more enjoyable. He always smiled at me, this man. He always tried to disagree with me in a friendly manner. His goal always was to get me agitated or into some passionate disagreement. The reason I had yet to figure out.

I stepped into the office and was greeted by a ton of new work that had miracolously been conjured up by the other employees. My work was sorting out other people's mess. Pointless, like everything else I did. Coffee cups, keyboards, post-it notes, people talking while avoiding anyone of higher status, chairs with wheels. That uncomfortable sofa gaining dust as nobody ever sat on it. How I loathed this.