Jarrod
It was 6.15.
30 minutes of Milton-memorising had brought him a further
8, sometimes 9, lines. The semi-colon on line 9 brought a welcome pause, an
achievable target for early morning learning.
The absence of an audience was distinctly irritating, for
Jarrod, as he felt convinced that such an achievement was too significant to be
shared alone.
He had kept a written record of his achievements for over
ten years. He reasoned that, since he was the main participant in his world, it
was only fair that he held all the records. When asked what he had done with
his life, he could turn to this.
Shifting from paper to laptop had been an important step.
At first, it had seemed like a simple doubling exercise, backing-up his
handwritten record in an everlasting digital format. Everlasting, that is,
until a glass of orange squash threatened to vanquish the past year, one
trickle at a time. However, as the years passed and the laptops survived, the
keyboard became his primary mode of input and he found a way of expressing and
documenting that surpassed anything the paper had been able to offer. If he
wanted to dismiss a thought he could simply delete it and it would be gone. On
paper it would remain, however crossed out and indecipherable he made it; it
would still be there in the background, reminding him of a thought he once had.
Jarrod liked to observe. Observe, record and reflect. His
laptop was over-populated with a haphazard collage of documents, often lacking
a title, containing all manner of surveillance notes and imaginative flurries.
One day, he promised himself, one day he would bring everything together to
form some glorious whole.
He didn’t read so that he could write but it seemed only
fair that he produce – or, at least, aimed to produce – something that might
sit alongside the works that had taught him so much. To belong in their company
would be to become their equal. He needed to find a way to become equal.
He glanced at the screen before him and brought ‘Document
7’ to the forefront. He re-read the rambling sentence for at least the sixth
time:
Derek rose with a
sense of purpose far outweighing any he had ever encountered before, as if
stepping into a new world, faced with a fresh horizon, the sense of
anticipation seeping out of every pore, like a sponge being squeezed dry of
everything previously contained within, ready to be filled afresh.
The pride he felt each time he completed reading the
sentence aloud in a single breath soon dissipated as he stared in soulless
despair at the inactivity of his fingers, seemingly incapable of producing a
follow-up sentence that would establish at least the possibility of an opening
to the narrative. It was certainly his favourite of the seven and yet even the
label of ‘Document 7’ appeared to mock him for his failure to at least have a
title in mind, a basis from which to work. At school, he had often found that
the title was the final word or phrase to be added but it was somehow disappointing
to be sitting here now with no heading over what was becoming an increasingly
pathetic-looking lengthy single sentence. The more he read it, the more he came
to despise Derek, even though his age, appearance, or views on pre-marital sex,
let alone vegetarianism, had yet to be established. Even his name, Derek, now
sent a shiver down Jarrod’s restless spine. It was a poor choice of name and
his fondness for the sponge simile was fading quickly.
He returned to the safe haven of ‘Document 4’; the simplistic
nature of its six words – The day had not
begun well – had disappointed him but at least there was no Derek to
destroy its potential. He could go anywhere from here. Few days seemed to begin
well, so surely finding a suitable way for one to begin badly would be easy. He
began to type, commanding his fingers to achieve something, however small.
All he had wanted
was to be listened to, to have his words embraced.
He
held his finger down on the backspace key.
---------
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