Congratulations, Adrien!

I stare at the white ceiling for so long that it starts to change colors. The blinds softly rub against each other in the breeze, every once in a while knocking back on the window frame. I must have tossed the blankets off of me some time ago, as out of the corner of my eye I see them on the floor. I shiver but don’t move to pick them back up. I raise my hands and look at them for a couple moments, then replace them back to their spot where they were resting on my stomach. The house is silent. There’s no snoring from the room next door, now that my father is dead. We used to get apples from the tree in the garden every fall, but since papa made his permanent residence under its roots, it’s gone infertile. That’s what we get for tainting it with a corpse.

Light finally cuts through the blinds, chasing away the shadows on the ceiling, bleak and pathetic. I turn my head towards the clock on my nightstand, and I feel the muscles in my neck stretch painfully after being stiff for so long. Six twenty two am. I’ve been awake for almost three hours. I sit up and stay motionless for eight more minutes. Then the alarm clock in the room next to mine starts screaming, and I stand up. The sound is cut off as I pull on my clothes and walk to the kitchen. I fill a glass from the sink and down it, then another and drink that too. Visitors always claim that our water tastes stale. I tell them that I hope they choke.

I walk back to the room next to mine and open the door. My mother is sitting up in bed, staring forward blankly. Her gray hair is thin, as is the skin on her face and arms. Only her hands look young as they rest on top of her covers, since she’s never used them a day of her life and she’s always taken good care of them.

“Good morning, maman,” I announce my presence. She starts and her eyes search for the sound of my voice. I walk to the side of her bed and take her hands.

“Good morning, mon ange,” she says, her voice a broken violin. I help her into her wheelchair and then push her out to the bathroom, where I wait outside after helping her stand up. She re-emerges and we pass by the kitchen without stopping. She doesn’t take her breakfast until later, if at all. I open the front door, wheel her over the bump in the doorway, let the screen swing shut behind me, and bring her to a stop before the porch drops off.

“How does it look today?” She asks. I look around. The sky is gray and it’ll likely rain soon. The yard is dead. The apple tree is skeletal, and I wouldn’t be surprised if it blew away if the wind was strong enough.

“There isn’t a cloud in the sky. Your flowers are coming into bloom. The birds are singing.”

She strains an ear. “I can’t hear them.”

I don’t answer, and we stay on the porch for a couple minutes. She smiles as the wind hits her face, and I turn up the collar of my jacket. I finally take her back inside. I pick up her book off the table and hand it to her, and she moves her perfect hands across the pages. I then go to the kitchen and make a bowl of plain oatmeal and a soup consisting of whatever’s left in the refrigerator. By the time I finish it’s eight. I try a spoonful of both, congratulating myself on each of their flavors, then cover them and put them away.

“I’ve made your breakfast and lunch. If I’m not home before dinner there’s some left from yesterday in the fridge,” I tell her, and she thanks me. I go back to my room to grab my wallet, then return to her. “I’ll be going to work now.” She holds out her hands and I allow her to take my face in them and kiss my cheek. I then walk outside to the fence, get on my bike, and ride away.

I arrive at the cafe and check my watch as I sit down at the counter. I still have half an hour before work starts. I order a coffee and a sandwich whose contents I don’t bother to figure out. As I start to eat the bell on the door jingles and someone sits down noisily next to me, loudly ordering a coffee and the same sandwich as I did. I look at him out of the corner of my eye. He drums his fingers on the counter absentmindedly, then glances over to me. After a second his eyes light up.

“Adrien!” He exclaims. “I can’t believe it’s you!” I stare blankly at him and take a sip of my coffee. “It’s Nat, Nat Cardot. We were in university together.”

I look him up and down. He certainly doesn’t leave an impression. I wouldn’t be surprised if I had never seen him before in my life, and I don’t think anyone would notice if he vanished off the face of the earth. “How stupid of me, of course. I remember you. Nat! How are you?”

“Not so bad. Yourself?” He asks. His order arrives and he takes a big gulp of his coffee. I set mine down.

“Not so bad.”

“Did you move back to town recently?” He takes a bite of his sandwich and it gets stuck in his teeth.

“I never left.”

“Oh, really? Me, I was living in America for a while, but I just moved back a couple months ago with my fiancée.”

I pity the person who has to marry him and endure the constant chatter of his loud, obnoxious voice. “Really? That’s wonderful.”

He goes into the long tale of how he met her, what she’s like, and what their future holds. I don’t pay attention. Frankly I’ve forgotten that he’s even here until I hear him say my name.

“How about you, Adrien?”

“What?”

“Are you living alone?”

“Yes.”

“Ever the bachelor, huh?” He laughs, slapping me on the back. I set down some coins on the counter and leave without a word, not waiting around to hear him call after me. I’ll not go to that cafe again, or at least not for a while. I don’t have time to waste on people I won’t remember.

My bike screeches to a halt and I park it next to everyone else’s. I enter the building and say hello to the secretary who does not reply, as she’s on a telephone call with her child.

“But maman’s at work right now, baby. Yes, I—” She sighs and is quiet for a couple moments. “Is that so? Okay, well tell your brother to…” I stop listening and stare at the elevator shaft, waiting for my ride to come. Finally it does, creaking to a stop in front of me. I open the gate, step inside, and press buttons three and four at the same time. After a slow and jolting ride, I get off at the third and a half floor, walking down a hundred endless halls. I open the door to enter the wing that I work in and am surprised when at least ten people shout in greeting to me. I slowly take in the sight in front of me. My faceless coworkers are gathered in the center of the room, and a banner hangs from the ceiling: Félicitations, Adrien! The two frontmost are holding a cake with the same sentiment iced on, along with a sickening attempt at a rendition of my face. They stare at me expectantly.

“What is this?” I ask with a general motion of my hand. They all look at each other, shifting around.

One ventures cheerfully, “Well, it’s your five year anniversary here and all - can you believe that? - and nobody has ever been here that long, except for of course the boss, who by the way took a lot of convincing to let us do this, and—”

“Alright, alright,” I say, holding up my hands, then continue to stand there awkwardly. What can I say? Nothing will satiate their thirst for praise at their choice to celebrate my existence at this company. The two people holding the cake hold it out to me, and I take a step back. Then I keep walking backwards.

All their voices mix into one monotone phrase. “Where are you going?”

“I’m taking the day off,” I say, then run away to the elevator. I click the button a couple times, and when it doesn’t come immediately I run down the stairs. I breathlessly tell the secretary my decision to leave early, but I don’t know if she really heard me because she’s still on the telephone, wringing the cord in exasperation.

“No, that’s- Just- Just put your brother on the line, okay? Hello? Now listen here young man…”

I don’t stick around to double check. My bike waits for me, gleaming in the pale sunlight, but as I start to mount it I notice the front tire has gone flat. I let it drop to the floor with a clatter and abandon it, walking in no direction in particular. I pass by the appliances shop and pause by the window, like I do every day, watching the hundred tvs situated in the window, clunky things with fuzzy figures on them. Their mouths move but their words are meaningless nonsense. Why should today’s shows be any different from yesterday’s, or tomorrow’s? On one screen a man stares at me, frozen, something wrong with the wire. As I walk away I can feel his artificial gaze linger on me. I enter a new cafe, one where they don’t know me so well. Only one of the employees has a face, one with piercing blue eyes that penetrate through the gloom. The voices of the others get jumbled, but his is clear, even though he doesn’t talk to me. I watch him for a little while, then escape before my order arrives, leaving money at the table for their trouble. I look up at the taunting sky. A single raindrop falls, narrowly missing my eye, then nothing more. I walk down the street, weaving in between the clusters of people.

A tourist says deafeningly to me, “Could you direct me to the—”

I point in a random direction, then keep walking forever and ever. I look at my surroundings, committing the interesting to memory and forgetting everything else. I enter a jewelry shop and mill about aimlessly for a while, wondering which piece I’d buy if it ever became necessary. Jewelry shops are one of my favorite things in life. Every object is memorable and distinct, and there’s hundreds of them to choose from. One of the workers asks if I have something particular in mind, but I shake my head. I think about what the man at the cafe in the morning said, whoever he was. I wonder if he ever bought jewelry for - was it his sister? His girlfriend? - the woman he was talking about. I leave without buying anything and walk for another eternity. Suddenly a woman walking in the opposite direction bumps into me hard, and I stumble. I don’t look back, as it doesn’t really matter, but I hear her start to shout at me.

“Hey, watch where you’re going, connard!” She says. I stop and turn to look at her, eyebrows raised, about to tell her that it was in fact her that ran into me, but stop when I see her. Her face is very striking. She wears a bright green jumper, and her blonde hair reaches down to the middle of her back. The finger that she brandishes at me is painted bright green as well. I’ll likely be thinking about her forever. It’s not fair for a stranger to be this memorable. By the time I register what’s happened she’s turned away with a huff, continuing to walk down the street. I walk after her. I catch up and take her arm, pulling her into an alleyway. I break her neck as soon as we’re out of view from the street and before she can say anything. She falls to the ground limply, now a slightly blurred mass of greenish yellow that’s already starting to fade away. It’s a reasonable thing to do. It could have happened to anybody, and it just happened to be her. It’s not out of the ordinary. It’s fine.

I slowly walk out of the alley and down the street. I don’t look back, and I start walking faster. Soon I’m running, and fire starts leaking out of my eyes and down my cheeks. I look down and watch the pavement speed by underneath me. I look at my hands and see they’re covered in blood, creating a red trail behind me. People come and go, stepping in it, but none of it sticks to their shoes. They pay no mind to it. Maybe it really is normal.

I run for a millennia until I reach my house, half a mile outside of town. One of the neighbors smiles at me as I pass by. I look down at myself. Don’t they see the blood running off my hands onto my clothes? I look up. The house is on fire but nothing is burning. I step inside and see my mother sitting in her wheelchair, listening to a woman yammer on the radio. She doesn’t hear me as I walk up to her. I reach out to touch her hand, orange at the corners of my eyes, then retract. She has enough blood on hers already. I walk to my bedroom. I linger in the doorway, staring at my bed. I lay down but I don’t sleep. The flames grow higher.

I turn my head towards the clock on my nightstand. Six forty pm. I’ve been awake since I arrived. Or maybe I’ve been asleep the whole time. Who could know?

I stand up and walk to the dining room. Mother is sitting at the table, eating the leftover food from yesterday and humming a tune to herself. I pull out a chair next to her and she jumps, startled.

“When did you get home, mon diable?”

I stop in the middle of pulling in my burning chair. “What did you say?”

“I said, ‘when did you get home, mon ange,’” she repeats, louder this time.

“Oh. Just a couple minutes ago.”

“I didn’t hear you come in,” she says. I tell her to keep eating, then serve a plate for myself. She finishes her meal and I tell her I’ll take it.

She caresses my burnt face but her hands come away clean, and she opens her mouth to thank me. I cut her off and say, “Don’t touch me.” She apologizes, turning away. I go to wash her plate. The blood on my hands turns the water red but none of it stains the sink. After a couple minutes I apologize about my harshness. I finish up and then sit back down again, continuing to eat my portion.

“I killed a girl today, maman,” I tell her after I finish chewing.

She takes a sip of water. “Again?” I nod but she doesn’t see it. “How sad,” is all else that is said on the subject.