the politics of lonely

After seven beers he decided to leave the remaining six untouched and go to bed. It was just after 11pm. At 7am he awoke and decided to go to the post office to collect the parcels that were accumulating… he was a master of ordering things online for which he had no need. Upon the drive to the post office, feeling slightly hungover, he was amazed by the number of cyclists on the road. What the hell were they all doing up so early and why were they so damned active? Didn’t any of them ever awake with a hangover? No, they spent their evenings preparing, hydrating, for the cycle ahead of them. He hated every single one of them and contemplated running them over one by one.

Arriving at the post office he was greeted by an angry postal worker… there was no greeting, no smile, just a slamming of items and an aggressive manner of searching for parcels. ‘Yeah, I’d be angry too if I had to start working at 7am in the post office,’ he thought to himself.

With parcels in hand he left and drove back home. Arriving at home he decided to make his customary weekend breakfast; two bacon and egg rolls.

‘Sheer decadence’ said a voice in his head. Was it the voice of a cyclist? Yeah, a cyclist would have to get down on his knees before his yellow-jerseyed god and beg for forgiveness at taking in so much fat.

‘I cycled 46 miles on Saturday morning, what did you do, MATE?’ that Monday morning office-talk had already begun in his own mind. 

There was no doubt about it; he should have knocked a few of them off their bikes just for good measure.

‘But aren’t you judging them right now?’

 ‘Yes, but they deserve to be judged.’

The conflicting range of voices in Cooper’s mind did not seem to trouble him at all, although he had recently been frightened by the possibility of madness. When one lives alone it is difficult to gauge the level of one’s own sanity because there is so little personal human interaction. All he knew was that he seemed to cause a problem with almost every single text or email that he sent to anyone these days. It was as if he had lost all ability to relate to society or to conform to the codes of behaviour expected by it. He had started reading from a new text book recently and the opening paragraph read as follows: Conversation is without doubt the foundation stone of the social world. Human beings learn to talk in it, find a mate with it, are socialised through it, rise in social hierarchy as a result of it and, it is suggested, may even develop mental illness because of it. Interesting and terrifying. The final sentence leaped out of nowhere. What on earth does developing mental illness have to do with this text book or with conversation? He read it again to ensure that he had not misread the words and that it wasn’t simply something on his mind that had in turn convinced him he had seen something which was not there. Yes, it definitely mentioned mental illness.

          How easy it seemed to be, to slip over that precipice into the volcanic broth of madness. In what seemed like a previous life he had considered himself too strong of mind, too aware, and too educated to allow mental illness to take control but, the more he read, the more he studied, and the more he interacted with human beings at work and in shops and in places of service, the more he realised that he could not relate to people at all. He felt anxious. Like the only multi-coloured character in a black and white cartoon, he didn’t belong and he felt that it was blatantly obvious to everyone.

A few days ago, Cooper had gone to pick up his car after a service:

‘Right, Mr Wilson, we have had to replace your dipthrometer-pentacostal-moonbeard-accellerator and this is going to cost an additional £57. Not to worry, the rear turbo-thermometer-boost-calcutta is only £6 so, in total, you owe us £230. I know that we advertised the MOT at £19 but we have had to charge you £40 for it because the offer expired at 11:55am and you only got the car to us at 11:56am.’ This was vaguely what he had heard.

To get back to his room and to be alone after such ordeals was becoming an increasingly intense relief.

He switched on the television and began to flick restlessly through the channels, it all seemed so shallow. There was nothing of substance anywhere. Sixteen year olds getting angry because they couldn’t have a £15 000 diamond necklace for their birthday; twenty-somethings disappointed because they couldn’t buy that £750 000 house in the country; fashion competitions; talent shows – no one actually became successful based on their own talents and merits anymore, it was now done via the means of a reality TV show which was a competition. He suddenly felt absolutely hopeless. He was lonely. He had nothing. He rented the apartment in which he lived and just about made it through every month, paying his rent and buying groceries. He wore the same old clothes week after week. On Friday’s, in the office, casual clothes could be worn and he had already overheard a couple of the girls there commenting on the fact that he wore the same jeans every Friday. Ordinarily, this would not bother him but there was an eventual accumulation of negative thoughts. The internal voices were at war:

‘You are alone and you shall always be alone.’

‘But I want to be alone.’

‘Do you really want to live the rest of your life alone as you are now?’

‘I can do what I want, when I want, and how I want.’

‘And what do you do? Drink alcohol and reach out to friends on the internet who simply aren’t there when it is a Friday or a Saturday night because they are all out in the real world having a good time and meeting real people. They interact, they touch, they kiss, they fall in love…’

‘They spend money on over-priced and over-marketed commodities in order to satisfy a need created by the media and to show everyone else what their tastes are and how deep their pockets are. Personality does not attract in the twenty-first century, cosmetic surgery does. Power is the only aphrodisiac known to man at the current time and money is the only source of power that mankind can be sure of. Financial and material wealth, class status, corporate status, the car you drive, the shoes you wear, the films you watch, what it says on your t-shirt, which gym you go to… upon this you are judged’

‘But you drink alcohol alone until you fall asleep, then you wake up and eat bacon and egg rolls? Disgusting.’

A tear fell from his face and he sighed heavily as he arose from the sofa to walk into the bathroom. Walking into the bathroom he saw his sagging, miserable face in the mirror.

‘Ah, the only constant in my life... the disappointment I feel when I look into the mirror.’

He opened the cabinet door and had a look inside, spotted a full bottle of Paracetamol, took it out and went to his kitchen. He picked up a bottle of Vodka and, with the Paracetamol and Vodka, walked into his bedroom and lay down on the bed. He emptied the tablets onto his bed and then started to place them, a few at a time, into his mouth before swallowing them. He swallowed as many as he possibly could, took a long and deep swig of the Vodka, swallowed, and closed his eyes.