Anyone who has even dipped their toes into the dark waters of neuroscience will know that mind and body are inextricably linked. Our visceral aspect is an essential part of the ephemeral. If you were able to remove someone’s brain and successfully hook it up to a life-support system, the resulting mind would not be entirely human. I suspect that this procedure may already have been done, because it’s certainly one way to explain the emptiness of my current Project Manager’s cranium. The alternative is just too sad to contemplate: his singular brain cell committed suicide out of loneliness.
This line of thought was prompted by the ongoing physical failure of the reanimated corpse I laughingly refer to as “my body”. I am the human equivalent of an Alfa Romeo Arna (If you decide to look it up, be prepared to be horrified) completed at five o’clock on a Friday afternoon. As my condition deteriorates and the pain ramps up, the disconnect between who I was and who I am widens.
Perhaps it’s time to introduce you to Eggplant Boy…
Sadly, this useless sack of shit is my stepdaughter’s boyfriend, not some lame superhero. I imagine that if he was the latter, he’d be cut from similar cloth to Florida Man. Anyway, she “met” him while playing the Call of Duty mobile game and his particular brand of toxic behaviour towards the other players was just too sexy for her to ignore. I admit that I have a pretty dismal track-record when it comes to romance, but my stepdaughter takes it to the next level. She simply can’t resist picking the absolute worst barrel-scrapings that life has to offer. It’s almost impressive, to be honest.
I call him Eggplant Boy (or alternatively, Aubergino) not because he has the dynamic, vibrant personality of your typical brinjal, but rather that he would be a lot easier to tolerate if he was sliced thinly, then covered in salt and subsequently deep-fried.
It doesn’t bother him in the slightest that he is a pathetic, unemployed layabout with no plan for self-improvement whatsoever. He is content to lounge around all day sponging off the goodwill of others indefinitely. His excuse for his bone-idleness is that he allegedly has social anxiety which makes it impossible for him to find a job. Apparently, social anxiety also makes him incapable of actually looking for a job, picking up after himself, or even taking a shower. I’m not 100% sure if he manages to wipe his own arse, but that’s one of those things you’re probably better off not knowing.
I was blissfully unaware of just how unpleasant he was when I agreed to let stepdaughter and Eggplant Boy stay at the flat “for a few days”. This was supposed to be for the period between Christmas and New Year and although I wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of having a stranger in my home for a week, I had no idea how dire it would turn out to be. Within a day of their arrival, they had managed to turn the flat into a complete tip: food-encrusted plates were left lying around; the sink became a Jenga-stack of greasy crockery; piles of dirty laundry and wet towels covered the bathroom floor; and an unstable heap of additional rubbish was dumped on top of the overflowing bin. I dragged them off the couch to harangue them for their complete lack of consideration and I made it absolutely clear that I wasn’t prepared to be their domestic servant. Since they were both (technically) adults, I expected them to clean up after themselves. Stepdaughter tearfully agreed while Aubergino did his best soft bitch impression and conducted a detailed examination of his shoes.
It turned out that my stepdaughter had only being paying me lip-service, because in the days that followed, I kept on having to confront them about their disgusting habits and the filthy state of the flat. Then, to add insult to injury, I was told – not asked – that Eggplant Boy had decided to extend his stay.
I spent a considerable amount of time ranting to my shrink about how intolerable the situation was before he pointed out that since I hadn’t agreed to the extension, it wouldn’t be unreasonable for me to toss the annoying leech out on his crusty buttocks (I’m paraphrasing).
“B-but where will he go?” stammered stepdaughter when I broke the bad news. I responded with, “Don’t care. Sounds like a you problem”. This earned me stepdaughter’s Death Stare(TM) and I am reliably informed that now I rank higher than Satan in Hell’s hierarchy. Time to update my CV then.
Stepdaughter and Aubergino are currently infesting her father’s house. Her dad has large property, a fondness for alcohol and a propensity to choose violence when he’s blotto. Hopefully we’ll see a suspicious verdant mound occupying the bottom of the garden in the near future. Fingers crossed.
I’ve been instructed to tell you that I am still alive – at least nominally. On the other hand, I could just be a clone and my original body has been origamied into the freezer we keep in the archive for some reason. There’s a hefty lock on it and nobody seems to know where the key is, so short of bringing in my bolt-cutters, I can only speculate.
I do know that my company will be in weapons-grade doo-doo if I expire before completing my current project, so while they are invested in keeping me functional, the task deadlines are stupidly unreasonable and that places some rather onerous demands on my time.
Home life continues to emulate a kinetic sculpture fashioned out of a spinning fan and ballistic turd launcher and I’m not strong enough to get into that just yet. What do we say to the God of Disaster? Not today!
Once again, I am called upon to produce a fully-developed technical proposal THE FUCKING DAY BEFORE it is due. In my industry, the timelines are sometimes short, but the brain-donor who sits behind the mahogany desk in the fancy upstairs office has had this tender wedged up her arse since last month. Maybe she expected me to know by osmosis or geomancy or Fast Radio Burst that she wanted my help, because actual instructions appear to be a bridge too far.
When she finally decided to pull it out, she realised that it was due tomorrow and sent me a frantic message last night. I let it go to voicemail, because I was off the clock by then and I don’t get paid enough to put up with after-hours office horseshit.
To be honest, I don’t know why I’m annoyed. This happens so regularly; it may as well be in my job description.
I finally had The Discussion aka “WTF do you actually want?” with my estranged spouse. She’s been avoiding the topic like a greased weasel in a lubricant factory, so I was woefully unprepared when she actually agreed to talk to me.
Of course, when I fetched up against the expected wall of non-committal grunts and shrugged shoulders, I felt it was time to ask if she wanted me to give her the D. And by that, I mean “Divorce”. What followed were several hours of such unhinged behaviour, it was reminiscent of the great brass shortage that plunged the cabinet-making industry into chaos.
The following day, I was bombarded with a string of lengthy text tirades, which I wasn’t able to respond to because she blocked me from replying. When I finally managed to sneak one in before the virtual portcullis came down, I wanted to make it count, so I kept it to a simple suggestion that she seek professional help. Somehow this penetrated the thick layer of batshit enveloping her mind and hit home. It seems to have altered her trajectory from a headlong plunge towards self-destruction to one that approaches a lot closer to reconciliation.
Oddly enough, now that the beatings have stopped, morale has improved. Don’t tell my manager or his head might explode.
the other side of the mountain 