I wondered, firstly why Mr García ever hired me, and secondly, why I had never resigned. “Aaah Nico,” he told me on my interview, as he thumped me on the back in a rather overly friendly gesture, “You have a talent, you can write without needing to think, this is what we need. Fresh, un-censored ideas”
“Whatever.” Throwing the rest of breakfast in the bin, I thought, “Right- ten minutes to get from Sol to Avenida America: impossible.” Why is it that people make promises that they know they cannot keep, just to avoid confrontation? I had to arrive to the office as soon as possible, it was vital
It’s so ironic, that the more stressed, and the larger the hurry that you are in, the more people seem to get in your way. Whilst sitting in ‘KFC’, with all the time in the world to have, there was no-one to be found, and now that I have ten minutes to cross the capital city, the entire Spanish population has miraculously appeared, joining me in every stage of my journey. Waiting five minutes to cross a road: don’t people understand that those are vital minutes they are making you lose? It’s all very well for them in their air conditioned Mercedes, beeping their horns, screeching their brakes, until… ‘No Nico, always keep present objectives in sight.’.. beeping their horns whilst you wait in the glaring sun. Minutes of agonising asphyxiation, you run, your muscles are tired, you feel the lactic acid build up, you can hear the lack of oxygen echo through your lungs, you feel the debt. But in your mind there is no space for biology lessons, there’s only one objective: arrive. And when, at last you do, you can touch the sky. That is where you’d like to spend your holidays, and why not the rest of your life. You feel cool, calm and collected.
At last, the air conditioning, and the joyous gratification of arriving on time cool your temper right back down to where it should be: at around fifty percent. One might think it would be lower, unless one has lived and worked in a demanding advertising agency in the capital city of Spain. The looming, dooming thought of eleven hours enduring constant phone rings, broken fax machines, toner-less photocopiers, and at least three never ending stacks of paperwork to be done, each with late deadlines. Yes, now I can relax, like any other day.
And there, sitting in my white chair, leaning on my white desk, I started on my first endless pile of work, just like every other day that I had stopped for breakfast à la colonel. I started to write without thinking, using my “auto pilot” skills that García had hired me for. “I am alive, I am very lucky”. Always the same sentence, day after day, month after month, year after year. It was a therapy, you see, that my psychologist had thought would help me. And that’s how I have spent three years, writing that same sentence everyday. It was my treatment. My condition: writer’s block. The cause: my guilt. Not a decent word had come out of my head onto a page since it had happened. I didn’t know why I even bothered coming to work anymore. I was useless. I am useless. I can’t do anything The only thing that kept me running to work each morning was the glorious air conditioning.
It still wasn’t nine in the morning, and I already noticed that I was sweating. Maria, my secretary knocked on my office door and came in, so I tried to make normal conversation, “I’ve not seen it this hot since…” My mind went blank, black. I couldn’t speak. “since…?” replied Maria. There was no answer. You know the feeling when your mind suddenly thinks all by itself, and remembers a memory that you would rather forget had ever happened. You know the one, when your stomach plummets thirty floors in an elevator, whilst your body stays exactly where it is, your heart pumps a million times a minute, your throat becomes dry, your mouth falls open and your brain tries to push out that awful memory before you become aware of its existence.
But I knew. I had already remembered. That day was just like this. The situation was so familiar; the same heat, the same intensity, the same need for the cold, fresh air though that blasted machine. That same phone call, the same hurried run, the same journey. The other guy was running too, and we crashed. It was silly, we were both yelling into mobile phones, not looking where we were going, crashing our way through the traffic, we both blamed the others, for colliding into our ever-moving “office space”. And we collided. And we fell. Them, in their Mercedes, beeping their horns, screeching their brakes, until we collided. We collided… But it wasn’t just me, he was running too. He was sweating, as well. It was before 9am, and we were sweating. I saw it, I saw the pain in his teary eyes, and I too, knew. I couldn’t breathe, there was no air was in my lungs, only heat. He needed to breathe too. I had to leave, I couldn’t stay, I had to go, away, there, I was late. But I couldn’t move, something was keeping me there with him. He had needed to get to somewhere too. I never did find out where, because he never arrived. The only thought crossing his mind was his objective: arriving, and he never did. But I arrived, I stuck to that one thought, and clung to it, stared death in the face and… got there… arrived. And because of that, I am recommend to feel fortunate.
Since that morning, I have all the air conditioning I could need, and want. When I do get here, I don’t need to go out in that heat, I don’t need to sweat. But I’m trapped. In my white office, in front of a white desk, and a piece of white paper. A white chair, with big wheels that do my work for me, they walk for me and that decide my fate. They control me. I do try, thanks to the therapy, and my psychologist, not to hate the summer, not to despise the heat. But sometimes, when I look through the window, and I see that the wind isn’t making the trees sway, that people don’t go out to walk. I feel nauseous, and when I think of those wet eyes, I have to try very hard not to be jealous of his luck. “I am alive, I am very lucky”. I wish my psychologist could only see; I may have arrived, I may have succeeded, achieving my one objective, but what if it wasn’t the right one? It wasn’t good enough, I wasn’t good enough. He went through the same agony, and the same asphyxia, he lost his glory and so did I. We both arrived, but now he touched the sky. And there, he will spend his holidays, and the rest of eternity.
And me?
I’m trapped.
