The Last and Worst Day of My Life

DISCLAIMER: A work of fiction

Today I got out of bed and my body didn’t come with me.
So I’m standing there, thinking, hmm, this is a little weird. Here I am, a floating pair of eyes attached to a brain or at least a hovering consciousness, and there I am also, lying in bed sound asleep. So which one of them is me? The one I am or the one refusing to get out of bed? Most days I’d be the one still lying in bed, while my body went through the motions. You know, roll out of bed, trip on your shoes, brush your teeth. Examine the extent of your bed-head. Convince yourself it doesn’t quite merit a shower. And then when you’re all dressed, coffee in hand, ready to walk out the door, you go back for your brain, fix it in place, and drive to work. It’s a nice arrangement. You get to sleep those eight extra minutes people say don’t help, but you know they can make or break a day. You know that there’s no way you can tolerate those self-absorbed tweens and having to floss through their braces because they’re so damn lazy and ask them what color bands they want, even though it doesn’t really matter, because, fuck, kid, you’re wearing braces and they aren’t going to look good no matter what color you pick, just please, don’t choose white because when you come back they won’t be white anymore, they’ll be fucking yellow.
Yeah, no way without your eight extra minutes. So that’s what I do. I’m an orthodontist in training. I’ve got my D.D.S. and my pledge to improve oral hygiene and dental alignment and perpetuate the status quo of teeth sculpted by Michelangelo himself. I get to tell kids the bad news that, yes, they need braces, why, maybe because God was lazy when He made your teeth, but wait, it’s okay, because these next few years of anguish will bring a lifetime of happiness.
Three months at this job has really started to eat away at me. I need to relax. The day has only just begun and I’m already ready to quit. Just look at your body over here. It knows how to relax.
So I turn to my body. It hasn’t moved. Alright, pal, just this once, because you’ve been so good to me over the years, I’ll go through the motions and let you stay here and rest…in my bed. Just promise not to wander off without me. My body doesn’t respond. Doesn’t even turn over or bat an eyelash. But I figure, hey, that’s a good sign. See you in eight, I call behind me, as I walk over to the bathroom door.
Now…this is going to be interesting. As far as I can tell I have no hands. I can’t even feel where my hands aren’t. No phantom fingers, nothing. Which is exciting, because everyone talks about how cool out of body experiences are, only I have to negotiate this door somehow and I doubt it responds to Sesame. I guess I have to put my problem solving skills to use.
Ok, so we’ve got an impassable white barrier. It’s in the shape of a rectangle. And there’s a golden knob on it shouting ‘look here,’ ‘look here,’ only that’s too obvious to be the solution. It’s just the distraction. The real answer is…down below, in the quarter-inch of space between the bottom of the door and the carpet. There’s even a strange glow emanating, wouldn’t you know it?
I look back to make sure lazy bones hasn’t stirred and take a dive for it, zooming toward the carpet and that glorious hole in the bathroom’s defenses. I squeeeeze through just barely, compressing my consciousness between a wooden ceiling and fuzzy floor.
Aha! Here I am in the bathroom, with the lights I left on. Cracking tiles, peeling wallpaper, leaky faucet, and—whoa, where did I go? I mean, I wasn’t expecting much, seeing as I have no body, but now I’m really seeing I have no body. Not even the faintest outline. Or the slightest evidence of occupying space. I lean in closer to check for evidence of refraction. Nope, the light is passing right through me. Like some cruel joke from Ripley’s Believe It Or Not!
If it weren’t for Descartes, I would probably be questioning my very existence. It’s a little sad that I trust the philosophizing of a mathematician over my own two eyes, but the circumstances are most definitely extenuating. As in, I don’t have eyes. And also Monsieur Descartes is pretty damn persistent in telling me, you think, therefore you are! You think, therefore you are! I wonder if he ever had to go through this experience. Woke up one morning missing that fabulous moustache. And had to locate it on his Cartesian coordinate system, never mind the rest of him. Strange how sharp my mind is for having just woken up.
Come to think of it, I don’t even feel tired. But what am I supposed to do now? Exist in here for seven more minutes? Count down from four hundred twenty? It’s not like I can brush my teeth or microwave the coffee. Better get my body. Hey, get in here! No answer from the other end of the psychic hotline. So much for that option. I contemplate the crack in the door again, only it’s dark from this side. Wait a second, I’m being an idiot. Couldn’t I just walk through the door, since I’m disembodied or whatever? I make for the door and stop. Walking through a solid object is a little easier to imagine than to do. Like jumping off a cliff. Especially after years and years of not jumping off a cliff.
I edge forward slowly, halving the distance between me and the door. I edge forward again, halving it again. Now there’s less than a quarter inch of space between us. I can see the contours in the paint. You would not believe how bumpy this door is. Seriously, these ridges must be the size of hillocks. Who knew a standard door contained such an off-white winter wonderland? I just hope it doesn’t start snowing.
This is going nowhere, so I back away, far enough that I can see the whole door. What am I going to tell my body when it finds me locked in the bathroom? So nice to see you, now let’s join forces and win the day? Ah, fuck it, sometimes you have to stop tugging gently and just rip it off. I pause momentarily and charge. Like an angry rhinoceros! I crash through the door and tumble out on the other side. The door looks fine. I feel utterly violated.
But while I’m checking myself for splinters, my body hasn’t even stirred a bit. It’s just lying there with that ridiculous smirk on its face. Maybe it’s amused, just pretending to sleep so it can watch me jump through hoops or devise novel methods of conscious transportation. Maybe it’s dreaming innocently of Disneyland. But either way, it’s time for a rude awakening.
I let myself sink into bed, down into my sleeping body. It begins to return. The arch of my feet, the bend of my knees, the curve of my spine. My chest heaving, the breath coursing through my nostrils and roasting in my lungs. The curl of my lips, the weight of my eyelids, as they pull me down, down—suddenly, the squeak of plumbing in the distance. Followed by the muffled sound of flowing water, the shower turned on next door. I bolt upright. It’s Lola, the girl in the next apartment. Or better yet, naked Lola. In the shower. With hot water running over her body and steam rising all around. I look down at the sleeping giant. Apparently, he is deaf. Five out of eight minutes left. Five sweet minutes of naked Lola. And then a new voice bubbles up from within, my conscience. It’s wrong, don’t do it, respect her privacy, blah, blah, blah. Cumbersome as ever. I await the rejoinder from my testicles but it never comes. A sense of honor surges through me. My mother would be proud.
But then reason kicks in and tells me to fuck you, Jiminy Cricket, it’s Lola. L-O-L-A, Lola. You’re never going to get another chance like this. Unless you become savvy with women overnight, which isn’t a likely forecast. Just get in there, sneak a peek and if you don’t like it you can leave. But you can’t miss this opportunity. Plus, you have to find out if she’s really worth that gym membership.
I have to go with reason on this one, so I leave my body for the second time this morning and drift over to the door. Direct passage was really unpleasant last time so I opt for the crack. Maybe because compression is easier to imagine. I mean, everyone’s been squeezed through a tight space sometime in their life—that’s how we’re born. Except for C-section babies, I guess, who never get the light at the end of the tunnel experience, either. They just get wrenched out into the blinding brightness with no warning. Have you ever notice how some people just have a short fuse, but you could never figure out why? Well I have: they were C-section babies.
Anyway, passing through that door felt like being squished through a garlic press. First you’re diced, then you’re oozed through a metal grate, and when you come out in a lump on the other end, you can’t quite tell if there are or are not bits of you left behind. So I check the floor for straggling pieces of my consciousness, not that I could see them if they were down there. They probably seeped through the cracks in the tile. Oh well, they were probably just useless memories of fire truck sirens from childhood or remnants of stuff I memorized about membrane potentials for bio finals, good riddance.
The sound of water in the pipes is unmistakable. I can almost hear pattering as I approach the wall. Lola is waiting for me on the other side, probably lathered in soap. I close my eyes and drift forward before my conscience has time to say anything. My nonexistent molecules scream with agony as they are sieved through the many layers of the wall, first paper, then plaster, then wood, and back again. I take a moment to collect myself and then—
GOD DAMN IT, what the fuck is this!? The hairy ass of some greasy Italian guy clenching in the shower. And Lola’s fingernails are digging into his back and she’s sliding up and down on the wall in rhythm to his ass clenching. What’s more, he’s grunting like a troll and she’s moaning like a whore and there’s water all over the bathroom floor because they didn’t even bother to draw the fucking shower curtain. While I’m thinking, damn, that could have been me, minus the greasy hair and the hairy ass.
Of course, I get the fuck out, on account of the clenching, but also because I’m a little hurt. I mean, come on, Lola, how could you do this to me? To us? I was going to serenade you with the poetry of my loins. Eventually. Fuck, this wall hurts.
So now I’m back in my bathroom. Wait, no I’m not, I’m in someone else’s bathroom, what the hell? So I drift in circles through a couple more walls and eventually arrive back in my bathroom. I feel bruised and bloodied, in spite of having no flesh, like I’ve just splattered myself across the bathrooms of the entire apartment complex. I imagine exploded flecks of my consciousness dripping off the wall into the grout, oozing down the sides of the toilet bowl, and traveling out to sea with the rest of the sewage. This feels like getting punched in the solar plexus, like when you’re doubled over, gasping stupidly like a fish out of water, but the air’s not coming and you’re afraid you’re about to die, except why isn’t your life flashing before your eyes like they said it would? Well, probably because this pain is so intense it’s sucking you into yourself like a black hole. You learned once a long time ago that you’re supposed to exhale really hard to restore yourself, only how the fuck are you supposed to exhale if there’s nothing in your lungs to begin with? And just what is that THUMPING? Your heart on its last beats? Lola getting humped against the wall? The incredible drum roll of the Italian’s Stallion’s buttocks?
No, it’s the damn faucet leaking. Because, apparently, the drain is clogged and it’s started to build up a little puddle in the basin and every time another fat drop lands, the sound echoes through the bathroom. What, has it discovered the resonant frequency already? The walls are shaking. How long before they crumble? I have to get out of here. Quick, the crack in the door. I zoom downward, spinning out of control with lava on my heels, the cave of wonders collapsing behind me. I swerve under at the last second and burst through the other side, rolling to a halt. I lie there for a few seconds, like after interval workouts years ago. Only my chest isn’t heaving and I’m not drawing breath. I wait for the uncomfortable, tingling tightness of suffocation. I wait and wait. I wait so long the pain of my shattered conscious fades away. And still, I haven’t drawn a breath. The automaticity of it must be wrecked, like when you think too hard about it. Your breathing sort of falls under complete motor control and it won’t start back up on its own, it downright refuses to, so you have to sit there like an idiot and respire manually, which isn’t even as effective as normal breathing, but now how are you going to fall asleep, if you can’t even breathe? But for some reason I don’t face that problem. I don’t feel any tightness. Instead I feel calm. And freed of my slavish dependence on oxygen. I guess that means consciousness is anaerobic, after all.
Suddenly I remember myself. It must surely have been eight minutes by now. And if it hasn’t, well I don’t care, because I’ve had enough of this shit. My conscience starts whistling “I told you so.” I take note to do something really evil today, like tell a fourteen-year-old boy the only color bands we have left are pink and purple. Maybe this time I’ll even wait to hear the decision. Watch him try not to piss his pants as I change his bands. Then see the turmoil drain from his face as he laughs it off in front of the mirror and wonders why he wasn’t cool enough to figure out I was fucking with him. Let Jiminy Cricket marvel at what an übermensch I’ve become. Only, don’t tell him Raskalnikov loses in the end.
I rise off the floor slowly and turn around to face the bed. I hope my body misses me as much as I’ve missed it. Come here, you—
Well, that’s interesting. The bed is empty…