This happens again and again and it works to undo whatever I had thought about without typing and posting.
I keep the television on as I switch on my laptop and begin catching up with everything that had happened since Meurks last posted.
I comment on the comments.
Meurks is “late-night active.”
Monday ends with everyone online playing personalities.
Playing personalities frequently involves postponing tomorrow.
My phone rings.
Goes to voicemail.
People post pictures of what they think Meurks looks like.
I say to myself, “Meurks looks like me.”
Then I think about what I just said and feel something closer to regret.
And I don’t know why.
I forget what I had said, and why I felt what I felt, when the phone rings again. This time I pick up the phone.
It’s her. She doesn’t sound surprised.
She talks like we had already been talking about something, “… so then we’ll wake up early and sample the festival at Pointe, and then …”
I recall what else needs to happen next.
I make it happen. Post, comment, check, double-check key followers’ latest statuses, satisfied: Sign off. Veronica is still talking when I’m done.
Next thing I hear is her asking if I want the red velvet or the dark chocolate cake. “Dark chocolate.”
I brush my teeth, floss, put rewetting drops in my eyes, urinate, and then change into clothes I specifically wear for bed.
I sit up in bed and listen to her voice, phone in my lap, forgetting to put her on speakerphone.
Then she says, “I’m tired. I’m going to go. Love ya.”
She waits. She waits until I say it too.
That satisfies her nightly needs much like double-checking my most active valuable followers’ statuses satisfies my own needs.
Then I feel very little, the heaviness of breath and eyelids closing on their own. I set the phone on my nightstand. Plug it in to charge.
I never turn it off.
The TV is still on—it’s what I think before not thinking anything else.
4
When I wake up the television is off. I consider the fact that I hadn’t turned it on. I look around my apartment for a long time. I expect my phone to be on the nightstand but instead it’s in the bathroom. I expect my laptop to be on the desk in the corner of my bedroom but instead it’s on the kitchen counter.
In the kitchen, at the laptop, I wait for it to reboot.
I look around the apartment.
Items in my life, and not very many — two chairs, table, half a couch (the other half missing, maybe never was found), tube TV (the old kind), a pan, a plate, a fork, a spoon, a few knives, condiments, no real food (just some eggs), bed, laptop, lamp, nightstand, old desk, creaky office chair, phone, phone charger, laptop power cord, largely unused metro card.
I feel pathetic. No, actually I don’t. I feel proud.
What does proud mean?
The laptop finishes updating and soon is at the dashboard.
I post the overview, wait and see.
A few likes. Minute later, more likes.
Sunlight in my face, I walk over to close the blinds.
I hear a knock on the door.
At the same time my phone rings.
Walk over to the phone or walk over to the door. I blink and I’m there. I don’t feel each footfall; I don’t notice that I’m walking in any particular direction. I feel much like I’ve only begun to stand up straight. Then I am staring at the screen, and the screen is bright.
My eyes are tired.
Veronica’s name and number.
The call goes to voicemail.
Phone and knocking. Phone and knocking doesn’t stop. It requires a lot of effort to walk to the door and open it.
I expect Ben but I am not surprised to see Veronica.
She looks happy, don’t know if it’s genuine, but my eyes focus on something else. I look beyond her, but I don’t see Ben. I feel momentarily relieved until Veronica pushes something toward me, holding it up to my face as I pull back.
She shouts something.
What she said doesn’t register until I read what’s written on the thing she hands to me. It says, “Happy Birthday!”
Then she says it again.
“Happy birthday!”
Hand tightens around the doorknob, “Thanks?”
“Don’t tell me. No. no way. Really?!”
Makes a face. I take a step back. I look at the thing she gave me.
I keep looking at it.
“You forgot your birthday! Only you.”
Veronica laughs, and she laughs too loud. It echoes through the hall and I keep looking beyond her to see if Ben is there.
“It’s cake, Zachary,” she giggles.
I almost drop the cake.
“I have work today,” I warn her.
Sometimes work helps avert situations, unpleasant and uncomfortable situations like this.
“It’s Friday,” Veronica tells me, “you’re so strange …”
She pushes past me, walking into my apartment.
“I love that about you. I love every dysfunctional tidbit ’bout you.”
I quickly close the door.
I look around the apartment.
I go to my laptop. Check the date and time.
Friday. 11:41AM.
There are 2 people in this room.
One of them can’t recall what it was like this week, and whether or not Zachary the employee stuck to his routine.
I begin typing.
Confusion can be a good thing, I think. Sometimes the confusion speeds up time and time can really weigh you down. You feel confused when you aren’t able to configure yourself for the situation. You feel confused when you end up talking in the second person. Like me, right now. Confused. But today is Friday and it isn’t Tuesday like I thought it would be. The week breezed by and I don’t remember any of it. This is a good kind of confusion.
I think.
What do you think? Oh, she’s watching me …
When I look up, she is, as expected. She has her head resting in her hands, elbows propped up on the table that I’ve had for as long as I’ve had it. I didn’t have any other sort of table; that table is the only table I’ve ever had.
Meurks gets a lot of comments. People misinterpreted “she’s watching me” for something sinister. I think about that. I stare at her. Stare at her staring at me. I ask, “What are you doing here?”
She shakes her head, “Zachary, you need to stop acting so strange.”
She stands up, walks into my room, and picks out clothes for me to wear. She shouts from the bedroom, “Enough of this same drab shirt, tie, pants combo. I want you to look the part. It’s an important day!”
I wasn’t born literally on this day. I was born on the same date, apparently, many years ago. Based on my age. I have wrinkles on my forehead. I went to school. I had to take a lot of tests. I think my heart sank at one point and my feelings felt a whole lot denser, improbable. I wasn’t born today. I was born more than a decade ago.
“You need more clothes!” She walks out of the room holding some shirt, no tie, some pair of jeans. “This will have to do.”
And then, “ Don’t know how anyone can live this way.”
The last one gets a lot of likes. A few new followers too.
“I have the whole day planned.” It sounds like the opposite of planning, because I wasn’t told beforehand where we would go.
If this is my day off, it should feel like Sunday, which doesn’t really have a feeling. But it should feel like Sunday and it doesn’t.