If I have learned anything well over this drive, it’s been the different levels of exhaustion. Once you endured the usual yawning, the heaviness of the limbs, and even the moments when daydreams cross the threshold into sleep, I suppose you arrive here.
The paper cup of coffee somehow succeeds in tasting watered down with a strong taste of plastic. Or maybe it’s just the cup that I smell? I’m not sure. I was only able to muster a single sip, but I’m still holding it. There is a wastebasket in the corner, but I’m too tired to make the effort.
It is extraordinary how the waiting areas in car dealerships seem to have been standardized. There is the same perimeter of chairs with a few benches thrown into the mix. In one corner is their version of a complimentary café experience. The sad little Keurig accompanied by a bowl of green apples, each one shining with a gleam unnatural to fruit.
There is a tv on one wall that is inexplicably playing a local news channel. The volume would normally be considered loud, but given that it’s eight in the morning, and I’m the only one here, it is outright obnoxious. There’s probably a way to turn it down, but again, my inertia cannot be overcome.
I have slept since the incident last night. It was a few restless hours on a moldy, old mattress in a depressing motel. It doesn’t really seem to matter. There is an endless void that opened up within me, and it gobbles up any aid I attempt to get to my brain. Caffeine, sleep, they both vanish within me and I’m left in worse shape than before.
It feels like my life has turned into a low budget carnival ride. Drifting along the tracks, the settings move past me. The dingy motel room, the forlorn lobby, and now in this small room dedicated to killing time. It all feels diminished to crude painted settings that I glide through. Nothing feels real, and there is a separation between myself and reality. Everyting is a part of something else, and I’m only here for the ride.
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My body sits like an old relic, collecting dust in this joyless room, the bitter taste of French vanilla coffee spoiling in my mouth. My mind is far away. If it can be tied to one specific place, it’s back in the tow-truck.
He was trying to be friendly. He was helping me. What I said to him was unnecessary and cruel. I didn’t feel ashamed. Or at least, not now. When I woke up, I stared into the mirror, and was comforted by how bad I looked. I deserved it. I played it all back again, and as I did, I got closer to the mirror. The man looking back at me wasn’t just beaten down, he was diseased.
Perhaps diseased is an overreaction. That thought also occurred to me, but then I remember the feelings I had after I spoke with such violence towards him. There had been a rush of excitement. It had felt good to lash out. And what sort of person was I to relish hurting a kind stranger?
How does one reckon with their own inconsistencies? The black and white of the world have blended together, and in this mire of gray, I feel like I can’t even trust myself. Not that I am thinking of granting control back to him. I never could trust him, so I’m forced to continue onward myself, now with wariness guarding each step.
Surely, I would never treat someone I cared about that way. It’s like a thin salve that I spread to mollify the growing doubts I feel toward seeing Clara. I have to keep going, because what else can I do? Even if I can hear the lie in that statement. These are the lies we have to tell ourselves.
The surface of the coffee is completely still. It’s cooled off, and in its tepid reflection, I see the waiting room in a shade that makes it somehow gloomier. The mechanic walks in, and announces my name to the room despite the fact that I’m the only one there.
The tire is fixed, the gas tank is full, and I don’t have much road left to go. I sit there in a gas station parking lot, keys in the ignition, hands on the wheel. It feels like a precipice is moving closer. I walk right up to the edge. Even if I don’t want to go over it, the choice was made long ago. Although it’s a steep drop off ahead, I turn and see how far we fell to get here. There is no turning back, all I can do now is take the plunge.