I do quite a bit of talking before these kinds of things now, don’t I? Unfortunately for you (unless you like my pre-body ranting), you get me introducing you every week to “1441’s” “chapters!”
This week you’ll be meeting someone new, and he is the narrator. I’m honestly not good at introducing introductions, so enjoy:
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My Room // Today, 5:26am
Holy fucking hell, I keep forgetting to turn off my alarm clock. Three weeks of it waking me up at 5:26am for a job I don’t even have anymore is bound to drive me insane. That’s not just a random time I pulled out of my ass and my clock isn’t just messing with me by choosing an obscure time on its own.
I’m fascinated by numbers and I could live just trying to figure out patterns, but I’m especially fascinated by the number 13. For some reason, the number is closely associated with bad luck, but for me it has been the one number I can count on. 5:26 is simply five plus two plus six, which equals 13. It’s been called my favorite number by my friends, though I wouldn’t personally call it that myself.
5:26am gave me the amount of time I needed to get ready for work, browse the internet, eat breakfast with my mom, and pick up some coffee if I chose to before I arrived at work or school with a few minutes to spare. Seeing as it’s summer, my alarm clock’s sole purpose was to wake me up for work.
But I really don’t want to think about that job anymore. It just angers me. I’m trying to be zen again, so this is the last of it that you’ll be hearing from me.
Because I could always sit in my room alone after I came home from school, I essentially had a life of solitude. I’d just do my homework, watch TV, play videogames, surf the internet, and read some books; really anything that would keep me from making any actual face-to-face contact with people.
I mean, yeah, I’d go outside and play soccer with the other boys on the block when I was younger and friends would come over to my house just as often as I would go over to theirs, but I’ve found some kind of strange comfort in having my own place in the world where I could be alone when I wanted to be.
And honestly, this has been a nice week, a nice month, and a nice life at certain moments.
Going back to that last thought, that seemed like the end of a suicide note. I’m not suicidal at all, not even depressed really. I’m just a quiet, reserved observer.
But truthfully, leading up to high school, even I begin to think of myself as a shut in. I’m just not that much of a people person. It wasn’t until a few years ago that I came out of the shell that was my room that I met some of the most important people of my life. I was exposed to a word of new things including books, music, and movies.
I’d like to think of myself as a reliable person, always going out of my way to help anyone that needed help, especially my friends and family. Eventually I began to take notice to the fact that people were taking advantage of my instinctive need to help.
Once people caught word that I was leaving Chicago to go to school elsewhere, they started being nice and wanted to help me out with everything. And it wasn’t the sick kind where you’re checking in on someone to make sure they didn’t vomit facedown into their pillow while they’re sleeping, but the kind of nice that usually results in knowing someone has a couple of months left on Earth.
Honestly, I got fed up with it. All I did was send off that Intent to Enroll Form, not find out that my kidneys had shut down and needed a transplant. I don’t get it, really. I never turned heads, no one paid much attention to me, and that’s the way I expected it to always be. I let all the attention get to me and I just exploded. Just as easy as it was to walk around the corner to mail that form, I pissed off a lot of friends.
Nothing in my life is as expected and never can be anticipated. Leaving somewhere else is my chance to take control of my own life. I’m going to have to go downstairs and cook one last breakfast for my mom before I leave to the east coast tomorrow morning. One last day to actually fix the bonds I’ve broken with amazing people.
Besides, I don’t like loose ends or cliffhangers.
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Ooh, isn’t he mysterious? He apparently has quite the history that keeps chasing him. “1441” #2 will be up next week, October 13th!
[Twitter:
@LeetAmerico; Formspring:
LeetAmerico]
