Disconnected from life

So it has been a very long time and although I've had plenty of ideas they've all been very difficult to actually write and this one is a bit of an odd one too. There are times I think when everyone feels a bit distracted from the present, away with the fairies and everyone assumes that it's a nice day dream they're having. Well for some I guess that is the case or just staring into space but sometimes I wonder what if it's not, what if the distraction is something you wished would disappear from your life completely. Or what if it was something that seemed real but wasn't. Well working with this theme I started to write this piece about being disconnected.

Here I am curled up on the floor in the dark again. It’s not cold but then it’s not hot or airy or anything much; can’t tell where I am it’s just here. It’s almost like I’m suspended in a warm air flow except that nothings moving and it feels like I’m lying on something, yet I can’t tell what. I hate it and I’m scared. It feels like I’ve been crying and I’m rocking back and forth like a baby trying to comfort myself, it’s almost like I’ve been beaten and yet I don’t’ feel bruised. I feel sore like I was bruised and then they healed in seconds and I am left with this after sense that I should be bruised and swollen and not able to move, yet when I do I feel fine.

I can’t hear anything much, no birds, no cars or trains and no one moving around close to me. I cry again, why can’t I stop, it’s not like I’m even hurt or am I? I just can’t tell. What was that? …Not sure it was there at all and now it is gone like the sound just evaporated: like it was never there to start with and yet I can remember hearing it. This place is weird it’s like all I ever hear are echoes, that disappear so quickly, sound that has no source or substance. Even the beatings are like the never happened. They start and end without warning as flashes in the dark and then there are gone, so unreal yet I can remember them. Am I drugged? It feels real and I feel awake but I’m not sure. Oh it is so confusing I feel so disconnected from myself. Was that something? Oh God what if he comes back…?

And who is he I don’t remember anyone. Oowww…ahhhh. Don’t hit me, don’t hit me, what did I do?

I rock back and forth, cuddled up stroking my top arm trying to sooth myself and melting into the floor, yet not sinking: moulded into air yet lying still and crying silently. Why will this not end and what happened did they beat me or rape me, are they starving me or just drugging me and why oh why do I always feel that they have done something and yet never know what.

 

The sunshine is beautiful and warming to my skin, I could sit here all day just soaking it up.

“Hey there…lovely day isn’t it?”

I smile. “It is indeed.” I sit back lifting my face to the sun and closing my eyes. Humm this is lovely. However better get on, there are things to be done like work unfortunately. Back to the grind stone and back inside to the paperwork.

As walk in Sarah looks up from her desk. “How was lunch?”

I walk across the office towards my desk. “Too short!”

Sarah laughs. “Yeah, know what you mean.” She turns back to her computer. “Can’t wait for four o’clock, then I’m out of here. Home to the garden and a bottle of wine.”

“As if.”

She shrugs. “Should have got in earlier then you could go too.”

Yeah she was right this flexible working was great but it still required me to get in earlier enough to do all of my hours if I was going to leave at four. I sigh. “Oh well there’s always tomorrow.” But for now there was a mountain of data entry to get through. Damn shame no one ever filled the paperwork in legibly. The hardest part was working out what people had written the rest was a cinch.

Everything was blurry, oh I need a break, only three, oh dear. I rub my eyes; they feel so gravelly I need a break.

Sarah was shuffling files.

“Want a coffee?”

She looks up and shakes her head. “No thanks.” She turns to the window, a smile playing at her lips and then she looks down to the files again.

Right just me then. Soon be break time.

“Arr Bev, glad I caught you.”
Great Dave, this can mean only one thing; he’s trying to palm something else off onto me, wonderful.

“Oh you’re looking tired. Can I have a word?” He motions to the wall

“Yeah sure; I was just going to get a drink.” And I move away from my desk and head towards the office door.

“Taking a break, it’s not that time already is it?”

I stop at the door and plaster a smile on my face before turning around to face him. “No sadly not, just needed to give my eyes a rest from the screen.” I point towards my computer screen.

I have never worked out why I always feel so guilty about getting a drink when I’ve been staring at the computer for well over an hour and health and safety say I need to give my eyes a rest every hour for five minutes. Look at something in the distance they say, change the distance at which you’re trying to focus and let your eyes relax. Yeah great idea and wonderful for them, however every single time I actually do this the boss comes along and says something like ‘oh taking a break blimey didn’t know it was that time’ and I feel like I’m skiving off. It’s not like they couldn’t give me something to do that didn’t involve using a computer so I could vary my work but hey they’re the boss’s. Damn pains.

“Oh right. So have you finished the routine samples?”

I sigh. “No not quite.” There were thousands and when you can’t even be sure they’ve put a one instead of seven it really doesn’t make the process go any faster.

“Really.” He raised his eye brows. “Well we need you to get on to the extra sets on today. We have a client who wants some and if they’re not on the system then we’re in trouble.”
I smile, not an unusual occurrence they were always wanting things done like tomorrow. “Yes well I could just skip onto them.”

He shook his head. “No, no, we need them all on there.”

Like I didn’t know that. “Well there’s still, maybe thirty sets to go and if they’re all so badly written it’ll take what… maybe three hours but I have bloods to spin tomorrow and that will take all morning and then enter them, another couple of hours so…” I’d lost him; he was staring straight at my chest. A bad habit at the best of times but right now I could do without it.

“Right well just get them on there will you Durmstrung want their samples in two days.” He walked off.

I lean against the door to push it open and close my eyes.

The floor is cold and I want to cry, there’s no one here, there’s nothing here. I need this to stop I can’t take it anymore. I just want to die. Tears start to roll; I just want to not be here anymore.

Eyes flash open; no I don’t need that now. I look round and see Dave walking away from me and remember.

Yes sir, of course sir and when exactly am I supposed to do that….this evening maybe. Now I know why I don’t come in early, they’d be far too much room to ask me to stay late. At least this way I have to leave when the building shuts and I’ll have done my hours and no more.