Entry 1

His mouth is moving. He is talking directly to me, but there is no sound. There is only a drone. This monotonous buzzing like the wings of humming birds. His mouth isn't moving anymore. I believe he must be waiting for a response. I muster a nod, totally committed but not committed at all, just enough to give the perception of my full attention without actually giving it. The glance in return is that of appeasement, exactly what I want. He gives me a pat on the back as he walks away. I start to wonder what he wanted in the first place. I wonder just long enough to disengage the lever that locks my swivel chair in the full upright position. I lean back and place my steel toe booted feet on the desk. Was someone talking to me just a second ago? I could have sworn someone was just standing here talking to me.

My mind is under a blockade of cloud cover. A misty place cut off from the ability to receive. I could sit here in this chair for hours, and I will. Closing my eyes and placing my hands over them, I shield any light and fill up with the darkness. The A/C unit kicks and sputters to life, sending a flood of cold air across the office that drives me even further into my artificial isolation. I drop my hands and open my eyes. I look around the trailer that serves as my office. Somber faces of the alarm clock mournful, sinking into their caffeine induced servitude, uniformed and callus. Such is the life of the government employee, military or otherwise. Work is as far from the getting done, just as the bureaucracy that rules it is far from functioning successfully.

I woke up with a single thought, a question. It is the present and only clear thought I can manage today. I've try thinking of what I ate last night. I try to think of my wife and her loving embrace. I try to think of consistency of macaroni and cheese, but to no avail. I’m brought back, dragged back as if by an invisible rope to that thought. Its imprisoning words echo and vibrate, flashing in my mind as it cuts me off from the rest of the world. I look at the digital clock radio that sits on top of the filing cabinet across the room, 7:30.

I’ve been here an hour already and I still haven’t logged onto my computer. I drop my feet from the desk and use this momentum to take a proper working position at my desk. Legs tucked underneath. Eyes motionless and facing the monitor. I place my hands on the keyboard in the poised and ready position. I can’t bring myself to hold down the Ctrl + Alt + Delete that would bring up the access screen. I would plug my username and password in, if I could just begin. My fingers, with nails recently trimmed or chewed (I can’t remember), lay motionless. The weight of them is impossible. Staring into the blue welcome screen I ask myself the question. The question, which awoke me this morning with such crystal clear intent, that it is now burned into my conscience. A brand and trademark of something I’m not too sure of.

How did I get here?

My tingling fingers remain motionless and I have now sat here, answerless and staring into my computer screen, long enough to cut off the circulation at the elbow. I sit back in my chair and feel the cushion depress as it takes on the weight of my back and shoulders. The tingling in my fingers resides and I resort to closing my eyes and covering them with shaking hands once more. It’s such a simple question, but I can’t answer. An answer would be an admission of something wrong. Nothing is wrong. If nothing is wrong then there is nothing to admit. Yet here I am, in my makeshift office, assembled in a trailer, assembled in a hangar bay, wanting an answer. My pulse is building up, am I really going to have an anxiety attack right here.

I pull at the collar of my shirt and, with darting eyes look around the room. No one has noticed my agitated state. I start to sweat. Rising from my chair I muster the strength to walk, at a slightly erratic and brisk pace, for the door. Not one soul, of the seven present in the office, looks up. I open the door and with a flurry slam it shut behind me. Standing in the hangar bay a breeze blows. The smell of the shipyard, a mixture of fabricated metal and the stuff collecting at the bottom of the various dumpsters, circles in a blistering cold current. My cheeks expand in the effort to hold my stomach back. I run to the adjacent hangar bay aircraft elevator. I was going for the shantytown style trailer that served as a restroom. It rested on the elevator, looking over the side at the collective madness of junk that sits on all naval shipyard piers. I burst in almost impaling a shipyard Baba with the broken doorknob. The urge to vomit passed as I stand over the lime-incrusted sink

I look at myself in the mirror. My reflection is pale and distorted behind the etched words and symbols left by past patrons. I run water into my hands until the temperature is scolding hot. I splash the steaming liquid across my face. I let the water cool and run down into my shirt before I splash some more. This overwhelmed feeling in my lungs is like a sucking gunshot wound to the chest. I gasp for breath and slam my back to the wall. I slide down into a crouching position. The room is small and claustrophobic, but the tightness is soothing to me. I can’t understand my reacting. My question is crippling me and the real problem is I know the answer.

I don’t know how I got here...

I say the answer aloud. My voice doesn’t sound like mine and it cracks into more of a croak as it bounces off the aluminum walls. I tell myself to breathe. In. Out. The air enters my lungs and the supplied blood flow makes my face warm, signaling a return of color. I stand to face myself in the mirror. I say the answer again with a forced conviction. What I’m trying to convince myself of is unclear, but it makes me feel better. I don’t know. Now I say it with determination. I don’t know. A cloud of dust descends from the metal under siding that serves as a ceiling, as the vibrations of my voice knock it loose. Another good, deep breath and I’ll walk out of here. My face and hands are dripping; I reach for paper towels. There aren’t any – typical.

I open the door and walk out onto the three steps that lead to the elevator floor. The cold air hits my wet face and hands causing my teeth to chatter. I walk back through the open aired hangar bay. I place my hands in my pockets; the cotton walls absorb the remaining water from my hands, dampening my legs. A grimacing smile crosses my lips from this sensation, as I see Patrick and Salinger, probably on their way to the smoke pad. They move in slow motion and I can’t make out what it is they are saying. Lips move with no sound, but are nonetheless directed at me, and the thought of inventing a response brings back the nausea. My tongue tastes like bile acid.

“You too, fags!” is all I can manage.

A noticeable look of confusion spreads across their faces, first Patrick, and then Salinger as I continue on without looking back for acknowledgment. They look to each other and shrug, moving onward to whatever. I ascend the stairs to my trailer. Entering I notice nothing has changed. Everyone is in the same spot as if in still frame, like a painting of the saddest day of your life. Everyone in the same uniform, blue with white lettering that spells out the name associated.

A squeak rises from the chair as I again take my seat. I rehash the possibility of logging onto my computer, but decide I don’t need another panic attack this morning. So I concentrate on just the keyboard. The letters arranged to mimic the original design for typewriter keyboards, by Christopher Sholes in 1874. The earlier design for typewriters was bulky and used mammoth bars, or stokes with each individual letter. The problem Sholes found was, that when typed to fast, these stokes would bind and collide with one another, ultimately breaking and disabling the early monstrosity all together. It is said, and with no real evidence, that Sholes QWERT design was meant to place the more frequently used letters in more difficult positions. This arrangement would help by slowing the typist down and allowing the machine to function without the deleterious effects. This is seemingly baseless however when letter frequencies are considered. The third most frequently used letter in the English language is ‘A’, which is the resting place for ones left pinky finger and easily punched with said finger.

“Fucking damn pig fucks!”

The abhorrent verbiage jostles me from my trance and I spin in my seat towards the only sound I’ve heard all morning. Harp is sitting in the corner playing Angry Birds on his smart-phone, which he has done every day this shipyard. His unblinking eyes transfixed on the miniature screen, which is smudged opaque with fingerprints. The FX volume on his phone is set to silent, so the only affirmation of success or failure is from these violent outbursts. His goal, a lofty one, is to get a score of three stars on every level. Lofty of a goal it is, because with new levels coming out almost every week. Every design increases in complexity, leaving each stage more sinister than the previous. Harps out cries were nothing out of the ordinary.

“I swear to God, these pig forts are like fucking fort Knox!”

“Have you considered trying a different game for a while, there Harp?” Rorche asks over his shoulder.

“Have you considered fucking yourself?” Harp replies shortly.

“All I’m saying is maybe if you tried a game you were better at, you wouldn’t yell in the office like someone with Turrets.”

“And all I’m saying is… have you considered fucking yourself?”

Rorche rolls his eyes. Harp returns to his siege of pig forts. The joy of being snatched from the drowning pool of my thoughts is short lived, as the silence of the room crashes into me with torrential force. It leaves my mind dazzled; a million stars of the universe explode in my vision. I begin to wonder if the exchange was a figment of my imagination. An apparition that might possibly bring me to the reality I craved and out of my head. I try searching again for a different answer to my question, or maybe I try thinking of a different question. So much space in my head, my mind is an endless expanse, leaving a place unable to be traversed.

I look again to clock radio, foolishly. 8:06, in blinding red text, alights my mind and the thought of staying in the trailer, in this chair, for another minute sends decimating stomach pains to my abdomen. I bend over in my chair a lay my face on the black desktop. I bring my right arm up and around to support my head, knocking over a paper cup of water that was left behind the day before. The cup is almost empty but the remaining water is enough to completely soak the base of my keyboard. I don’t lift my head and allow the water the run over and off the base, to my forearm, which is an inch away.

As I lay defeated, I feel a vibration in my coverall pocket. Keeping my head down I push myself away from the desk. I lower my left hand and plunge into the darkness. My minds eye can’t make a plausible connection between the vibration and anything. I feel a square block. As I pull it from my pocket it continues to buzz in my hand. I recognize this mystery object as my cell phone. The screen is blinking with life and showing the smiling face of my wife. I hesitate to answer.

What if I answer and just can’t say anything. She will know something is wrong. She knows me all too well, and whether by averment or abstinence she will know. On one hand an ally would be handy. A person necessary to confide the darkness that is slowly, or not slowly, consuming me. On the other, if she doesn’t understand, the problem could be expanded to boundaries I am yet able to face. I clench my teeth and answer the phone, sliding the virtual unlock button on the touch screen.

“Hello”

“Hey baby, just wanted to say hi. You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine sweetheart.”

“Seriously, baby, you don’t sound good. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t know.”