Alex pushed the door shut with his shoulder after unlocking it with the 4-digit password.
It was 2:17 a.m. He had checked his watch in the elevator out of habit. He left his shoes in the middle of the floor; one tipped over and the other straight as he walked straight to the couch.
His coat stayed on, since it was colder inside than out when he would first arrive in his giant suite.
The place looked the same as when he'd left at seven that morning with the coffee mug on the side table with a ring stain, stack of unopened deliveries leaning like they might fall, takeout bags and the kitchen sink still ringing with that slow drip that he had been meaning to fix.
Drip... Drip... Drip...
He could hear it from here.
Alex dropped his laptop bag beside the couch. It landed with a soft thud on the carpet that urgently needed vacuuming.
He was twenty-five, had a good, six-figure salary. He was an accountant and handled the books for five companies now, all tangled together in some merger mess. Bosses loved him since he was reliable, helped them cover their tracks, gave no room for complaints and stayed super late.
His pay was a direct deposit, his bosses would pay him multiple "gifts" every month, his rent was paid on time, his car mortgage and petrol payments were all borne by the CEO, and he was well-off enough to send his sister quite a huge sum of money every month for her studies and accommodation—he loved her dearly, after all, enough to leave everything to her name in his will.
However, despite how good and enviable his life was, he was tired of it. His life was blurring in front of him.
He would wake up, shower, order coffee from Buckstar, drive to work amidst mind-numbing traffic, work until the building emptied, and then he would come home, microwave something or skip it and fall asleep on the couch half the time.
This was his life. This was the consequence of earning more money than he could've ever imagined of, despite not being in the position.
Alex sat forward with his elbows on his knees while he stared at the floor. His back ached from the desk chair; his eyes were dry and scratchy, and his headache was creeping closer that had started at the temples and was working its way forward.
Suddenly, his phone buzzed in his pocket.
He quickly fisted his pocket and fished the phone out.
ADMIN CHAT
CEO: This stupid Connor is coming tomorrow. We need some urgent reconciliations done by morning.
Victor: The auditors are doing too much. Do they not understand that we have the best Accountant in the world behind our backs? No number of recons are helping him 😂
Tony: True. Anyways, @Alex you can handle the recons, yeah?
Alex huffed something between a sigh and a scoff, thumbed a quick "on it" and tossed the phone face down.
"Because sleep is for amateurs and retards," he said to nobody. The words that came out of his mouth were flat, but there was a twist in them, like he was trying to amuse himself and failing.
'I am famished...'
He thought about food. Fridge probably had leftovers from... whenever. Or bread. But standing up felt impossible. His legs were heavy, as if they had forgotten how to work. He leaned back instead with his head against the cushion that had a permanent dent from his skull.
His home wasn't bad, really. Two bedrooms off to each side with windows overlooking a parking lot. His General Manager, Victor, had picked it for him because it was close to the office and was a quiet building.
Sometimes, he could hear the neighbors upstairs walking sometimes, muffled TV from next door, playing over the constant moans and flesh slapping against each other. But it was a rare occurrence, mostly it was just him and this deafening silence. His sister, Sarah, would call sometimes, but she was busy with her own stuff, and Alex didn't mind.
Alex's gaze suddenly landed on the pipe wrench by the sink. He had bought it on Saturday after watching a TubeYou video. He got halfway through tightening the fitting before giving up.
The sight of the pipe suddenly made him shift uncomfortably.
He almost flinched.
It acted as a catalyst for a bitter memory to resurface, after all. When he was twelve, maybe eleven, he had come home late from a friend's house. His mom was drunk and mad about something. She grabbed a length of pipe from the basement and swung it at his arm.
"Learn to listen," she had said at that time while Alex sat with his skin split open. He hadn't cried loud which made it worse. However, he couldn't cry. He was beaten up so many times—for his own mistakes and Sarah's—that crying over it just felt like a loss of time to him.
Instinctively, he reached down now and rubbed the spot through his sleeve. The scars were still there, a little bumpy under the fabric.
He pressed his fingers into it and felt the ridge.
It was an old habit of his, it didn't hurt anymore, but it kept reminding him of his past. It helped his come to terms with his current life, where he didn't have time even to breathe properly.
Rubbing his fingers, Alex sighed. "She is dead, that wench. I should stop reminiscing over painful memories..." He sighed again.
He picked up his phone and looked at it. It was Christmas Eve today. He opened his bank and looked at his account. It had a total of €37.000
A rare hint of a smile graced his tired face and sent all of it to Sarah. Immediately afterwards, he placed his phone in a "Do not Disturb" mode that was going to last through the night. He didn't have the energy to fight his sister who always kept pushing him to save more and more for his marriage, or for a "rainy" day.
Oh, how sweet she was, Alex had always thought. It always made him look back at his decision to save the little, sweet girl and always being proud of what he did.
With his headache suddenly worsening, he reached for the ibuprofen bottle on the table. He shook it a few times and heard the rattle of a few pills. His long, thin fingers worked the lid as he opened it.
Inside were the white tablets and that small desiccant pouch, the one with the warning printed on it.
Suddenly, his hands started shaking. It was a side-effect from his early days, where his mother had beaten him on his fingers with a pencil so many times that long after he had recovered, his fingers would start shaking uncontrollably.
At the same time, Alex's vision grew fuzzy at the edges from no sleep and too much screen. He tipped the bottle, meant to pour a pill into his palm. However, the pouch came out first. He popped it in his mouth and swallowed with the flat Coke from the glass nearby.
At first, he thought it was the medicine. It didn't taste right as it tasted papery and dry, but he was past caring.
He sunk back into his couch and closed his eyes. After about 30 minutes, the room began to spin a little. "Good heavens...fuck my life... Even the pills aren't working..." Alex rasped.
However, at the same time, he felt a toxic feeling spread through his body. His head crashed back into the soft embrace of the couch as his thoughts wandered where he remembered last week when almost texted an old college friend about grabbing a beer. He had deleted it before sending as he was too tired to explain why he'd ghosted everyone.
Then, he remembered his sister's last message, the picture of his nephew in a school play. He had an older brother as well, but he was not on speaking terms with him. Sarah lived in the same city as him, but not in the same house, as his older brother's wife did not like Sarah living with them.
At that time, Alex had replied with a thumbs up to his cute nephew.
Suddenly, he felt really bad about doing that.
The child, after all, had nothing to do with their own little, silly squabbles.
A plethora of other memories flooded his mind.
Alex's breathing grew shallow, and his chest covered lesser distance than the last one with every breath.
The tap continued, dripping one drop after another that ringed inside Alex's head like systematically blooming explosions, however, Alex stayed calm, because for the first time, in the external chaos of the world and the internal chaos of the toxic pouch slowly killing him, he felt a semblance of relief.
Despite being beaten to death almost every day, he was still afraid of dying. However, in this moment, he realized that it was the sweetest, most pure thing in the world. He could feel his heart flutter and twist in pure ecstasy as he felt the strength sap from the tip of his toes first and slowly began to work its way up.
The coat that he hadn't taken off felt warmer now. Really warm against his cold skin that kept getting more and more cold. His hand slid down to rest on his left arm again as his fingers settled over the scar.
He closed his eyes and didn't open them again.
The phone buzzed quite a few times on the table but eventually went dark.
The following morning came slow. Gray light filtered through the blinds and traffic yawned awake outside. The apartment had stayed quiet except for the dripping sounds.
Alex was not moving, his coat was still on, his head was tilted back against the cushion while a thin trail of dried foam formed an arc on his lips.
The lips that were curved up, giving his pale face a content look.
Alex Oskar, on Christmas Eve, had finally attained rest for the first time, no matter how short-lived it was going to be.