Short Story.... Looking in the mirror and feeding the beast.

He sat there slumped on the sofa, looking at the TV screen, but not really watching it.

It was more of something for his eyes to do while his mind raced around in a black, empty, vacuum.
He felt nothing.
Totally.... and.... utterly...
...numb.
No. Not really numb, there was something.... teasing him, but not showing itself...
He was positive that he used to feel things, feel something, but he couldn't remember when.
To say it was distant memory, would have been to put it in place, far too near to him.
It was much further away than that.

There was one emotion.
Simmering rage.
He backed away from it, inside his mind, shocked.

Then his eyes flickered, and moved across the screen. Something now stimulating him, and dragging his attention out from the internal vacuum of his mind.

On screen, a sexy young brunette snorted a big line of cocaine of a mirror, in what looked liked a very expensive hotel room.

'Fucking junky wasters', He said to himself, picking up his glass, and swallowing down his 12 year old malt, enjoying the feeling of the warm spirit slide down his throat, giving him a nice hit.
He was glad of the distraction the malt had given him, well away from what his mind had just shown

He hated junkies.

The young brunette on screen, 'the fucking junky', turned and walked away from the camera, the scene showing her dressed in a very short skirt, complimenting off her beautiful long legs to perfection.
"fucking whore," He muttered disdainfully, as his eyes ate up every square inch of those long, and very tanned, legs.

He turned off the TV, punching down on the remote control button with far more energy than required.
The images were starting to disturb him, make him angry, almost.

He wondered briefly, just what it was , why these TV images made him feel that way.
It wasn't his fault, he knew that.
'It was fucking Hollywood, that's who'. He thought to himself.
The phone was ringing, he suddenly realized.
He'd been distracted by the images, by that whore, on the screen.

It was her fault that he'd never heard the phone.

Reaching for it, the ringing stopped almost immediately.
" For fucks sake," he muttered to himself, pissed off at the caller for hanging up on him.
He picked up the phone, and checked to see who it was.
He hope it wasn't his boss, requiring his attention on something....

He loved his job, and part of that was being available to his bosses 24/7. He never let a missed call go unchecked.
People complained about their mobile phones feeling like a weight around their necks. A chain, a burden of being permanently available.
He never saw it like that.
He didn't see things like most other people did, and certainly not like 'the normies' did.
His contempt for 'the normies' had been growing louder in his mind, of late.
He was set apart from 'them', he knew.
But it was his secret, and he'd never told anyone about his thoughts on the subject, not even his wife. Never his wife.
He liked having secrets, as they gave him a sense of power, of being in control.
It was his wisdom, that set him apart from 'the normies'.

A phone had never felt like a chain to him, but much more like a conduit to opportunity.
Every time that little box notified him that some one wanted his attention, it made him feel good.

That is.... until recently.
Recently, things had shifted, and instead of 'the rush' feeling of being wanted by someone, there was now something else, another feeling, intermingled with it.
A feeling that he couldn't quite put his finger on, but he knew that he didn't like it very much.
He'd started to have some dark moods lately, and with it, a sense of drowning in waters that he could sense, but never see.
He never let the world see this side of him, of course.
Secrets.
He wasn't a loser, he was in complete control, and the master of his own destiny.
His job relied on mega positivity , and so dark moods and negativity had no place in his world.
They were consciously banished, denied life.
Only occasionally would he allow himself the opportunity to examine these dark thoughts , and always in complete solitude.
Normally with a scotch or two.
Or three.

Putting more and more hours into his work recently, it had helped him to distract himself away from this quiet, but growing, sense of foreboding.

He preferred to see this mild sense of dread, in terms of a computer program humming away in the background on startup. When he opened his eyes in the morning, it would click into life, and it only stopped running when he managed to finally get to sleep.
The program -virus- had started to run louder of late, and it was taking more of his resources. Sleep had also started to elude him some nights.
He liked seeing his world in terms of computer programs, it made it clean, and neat.
Not messy, not like real life was.
Feelings were messy.

Framing his emotional turmoil as a digital product, gave him some sense of control over it.
He hated not being in control.
He knew that with enough affirmations to himself, he would eventually fix this virus.
'You can think yourself out of any emotional turmoil' was something that he firmly stood by.
'This one just seemed to be taking a lot longer than usual' , he reasoned.
He would- eventually- fix this troublesome and noisy program.

.......Looking at his phone, and saw that it had been his wife calling him.

She never seemed to let the phone ring nowadays, seeming to be more of a chore to acknowledge his existence, rather than any desire to really communicate.
"Fuck it" He mumbled to himself, putting the phone down.

Ever since she'd taken that new job, she seemed distracted. Not fully 'there' with him any more, even when she was in the same room as him.

He'd congratulated her when she'd got the job of course, and they'd had toast to her success when she took the position.
Always the supportive husband, but deep down, there was an uninvited worm that was wriggling away in the pit of stomach, just at the thought of her going to work everyday.
....She'd been financially dependent on him for this last few years, and this was a role that he not only took on, but relished.
He didn't know why, but the extra income that would really help the household budget right now, filled him mild dread, rather than delight.

Not wishing to examine his thoughts any further - they were starting to agitate him- He turned the TV on, once more.

....The leggy brunettes was still on the screen, but now the scene had changed.
She was baring even more flesh now, as she languished lazily besides a swimming pool, and clad in only a tiny bikini.
'fucking whore', He muttered, sipping his drink. He kept watching.

What he had noticed, was that the girl on screen had much longer legs than his wife. And much fuller breasts.
'Dis.....'" he uttered, swigging down another slug of scotch, "...gusting,"
He started building up a mental picture of the girl on screen....Imagining what her life was like, off screen....

She'd be putting it out, no doubt about that, left, right and center, just to get the acting jobs.
Partying every night and doing god knows what...

He despised her. And the life that she must be leading.
He kept his eyes glued to the TV.

He liked people watching and building up narratives of their lives, creating a reality for them to exist in, which varied, depending on the environment that he found himself.
The fantasy lives that he created in his mind, were never as good, never as productive, and could never compete with his own.
The 'normies'.
Lately, however, the 'people watching' habit that had not given him as much reassurance at it had over the years.
It had changed.
He no longer felt that warm sense of self righteousness with his life, when comparing.
The world that he created for them, was no longer as 'tidy' as it was before.
The woman at the play swings who had fat legs now looked happy .
This was confusing for him.
She'd never looked *happy before when observing her, she'd just had fat legs.
The untouchable comparisons that he made of his own life, relative to others peoples lives, were no longer working....
Reality was creeping into his 'fantasy reality', and it was definitely uninvited.
What'd given him comfort in his life before, now presented a risk to his own place in the word.
And he didn't like risks.
Risks meant potentially losing control.

...Just like his recent investment.....
For the first time in his life, he'd done something that he actually considered to be a risky strategy
He'd invested.
It was exciting. Well, it was initially.
But now, after seeing a 90% plunge in it's value, it was a source of stress, not excitement.
One more thing in his life that seemed to add to that feeling of the screws tightening.
People were now judging him for his choices.
He knew they were talking behind his back...he just knew .

Reality had, once again, come knocking.
Uninvited, and unwelcome.
His fantasies of material success, and a stress free life, once fueled enthusiastically by his growing investment, had come falling back down to earth with a crash, in direct correlation to the collapse of the share price.

The simmering rage, once buried deeply under the smiles of the cultism of positivitiy, now started to manifest itself more and more, and came spilling out into the real word, spewing out with a life all of it's own.
He was losing control but he could never admit that it to himself.
How could he?
He didn't realize it.
Cracks were appearing in his neat and controlled world, with increasingly large amounts of time being spent just on trying to cover the splits from showing in this fabric of his made up reality.

.....The girl on screen was laughing flirtatiously at someone, as she lay out in the hot Californian sun.
A slow burning anger rose up within, as he kept watching her...

She did have a fantastic body. Not like his wife's at all.
He despised the girl on screen even more now, for making him think like that.
He felt himself starting to swell.
He turned off the TV quickly, disgusted with himself for allowing himself to feel like that.

His reaction to the leggy brunette on screen disgusted him.
His erection grew.
He took another deep swallow of scotch...

Looking for a distraction - anything - he glanced around the small apartment that he once used to call home, but it no longer felt like that.
Ever since she started going to work.
....'Why didn't she get tan, like that girl on screen?', He thought, the image of the girl walking around the pool, still lingering in his mind, 'It would really suit her.'

He dispelled the thought as soon as it materialized.
Thinking of his wife with that same gorgeous tan and then going to work everyday, made his chest tighten up, his breathing becoming labored.

He took another slug of scotch.

Pushing away the thoughts of his tanned wife going out everyday, on her own, his eyes fell on his new suit.
He liked this suit.
Always hung up, dry cleaned, and pressed to perfection, it was in a permanent state of 'ready to go'.
Dressed only in his underwear right now, and alone, he had no reason to wear it.

That was reserved for when people would see him, either whether at work, or out socializing.
Appearances were very important to him.
It the told the world who he was....He scratched his balls, readjusting his dwindling erection....

He noticed that he was nearly out of scotch, so he'd have to go to the shop to replenish supplies, and so he put on his suit, and left the apartment.
.....But only after brushing his teeth and eating plenty of mints. He didn't want anyone to know that he'd been drinking in the daytime.
That kind of shit was for total losers...
....And he was a winner, he told it to himself, every day (in the mirror).

'I'm a winner' He mumbled, as he staggered unsteadily down the stairwell, breathing in the stale stench of someone else's urine...
He stopped.
What was that he just heard?
.....He heard his his own voice talking to him, rising up from lower down in the the stairwell...