#writing
Chapter 1: Repetition of Genesis
In the beginning there was light. Or that’s what Max had been told. He wasn’t sure if he believed it, but he was too apathetic and invested in other thoughts to care. He was never a religious man, nor a romantic, and he faced a struggle in life equal his perseverance; that he never felt the need to question anymore than where he’d find his next meal. People were born, people died, trees grew and wars were fought, life did it’s own thing, and made sense to him in the ways it affected him. As long as that didn’t change for Max, he was alright.
Max woke up how he always had, mildly miffed at the way the sun cast a long, golden beam right between the slits of his shutters, directly into his eyes. He gathered himself, slowly getting out of bed with the same reluctance that would carry him throughout the day. He went through his normal routine as he always had, in a fittingly normal fashion. A cold shower, a bowl of steel cut oats, and finally ending it with donning his grimy factory overalls, a badge of shame, announcing to the world his position in life, of which he was painfully disdained to admit. He wouldn’t have given it much thought, given his personality, one would expect him to be fine in the position he held. That would be true, if he hadn’t had a taste of the top.
Nearly 15 years previously, when Maxamillion Miller was but 20 years old, he was drafted into the army to fight in the vietnam war in 1969. Max had had no purpose in his civilian life, and this was an awakening for him. For others it was seen as a death penalty, a cease to normal life to fight for a beurocrat behind a poster board. Max had been given purpose, and an outlet to exercise his abilities which would have gone to waste in his small home town of Newport Arkansas. His feeling of meaning would be as fleeting as his usefulness to the US after the war, after his draft had been served in 1971, he returned early as a result of a congressional bill passed by anti-war hippies, his words not mine. Ironically, he found this unfair. “How could these people control his fate with a stroke of a pen?” He would think to himself angrily, but his prospect for an answer was quickly replaced by the need for survival, leading him to his vexatious current existence at the auto factory in Logan town, Ohio, while his search for reclamation and redemption became a distant visage, only thought of in times of nostalgic appeal when he stared above his closet shelving to his military uniform neatly folded collecting dust, topped by a trifold American flag.
Max made his way out the door, saying his gauche “hellos” and “wonderful weather we’re having” to neighbors he’d known for years, but never by name. He saw his house as a place to live, not to congregate, and as such missed out on neighborly things like parties and block-wide bbqs. His hands, maladroit and stiff from the cold november air, fumbled with his car keys, until he opened the door with a satisfying click. He drove uneventfully to the factory, his radio emitting a pervading, unostentatious static. He arrived at the factory, the roaring and whirring of the various car-making machines inundating him with the same sense he had felt every day for the same 15 years, giving him a sense of safety and guidance throughout his daily, uneventful tasks. He’d worked in the same position, eaten the same ham and cheese sandwich, and stared at the same faces every day for so long, that even the gradual phasing out of old types of cars for the manufacturing of revolutionary new cars with fancy curves, bold colors, and revolutionary technology being manufactured was normalized.
After work, he made his usual stop at the local grocery store, the intrusive jingle of the background music as his companion while he picked out the same ingredients for the same meals he’d been eating for 15 years. “15 years” he thought. 15 years in the same house, same job, same car, He suddenly was overcome with ideas of his past, ideas of what once was, seeming like a child’s endeavors in scope to his mature, adult life, but seemingly more real, not to mention necessary, the more he explored these buried memories. He couldn’t go on living the life he had. His despair and hopelessness turned into anger and resentment, his mental thoughts started to become physical as he lost hold of himself, his anger he’d bottled up roared inside of him, like a tiger in a cage struggling to break free. he began minorly convulsing, his eye twitching slightly like a mental patient and his breathing becoming heavy and definite. His vision was a haze, his reasoning hidden behind blissful wrath. The tables had turned, the tiger was outside the cage now, and the order of power had been redetermined. In his epiphanent rage, Max failed to notice the store employee who, having seen similar outbursts, begrudgingly tapped the disoriented man on the shoulder, in a reluctant show of aid.
“‘Sir, are you ok?” The attendant asked hesitantly.
Max snapped out of it instantly, voice of reason seemingly tranquilizing the tiger inside of him, usurping its throne of power in the process.
“Uh, yea i’m alright” Max said, in an almost nauseated state, before hastily gathering his groceries, along with a bottle of whiskey to quell his thoughts, and leaving the store.
Max didn’t think much on the ride home, but the radio static became much more apparent, and way less soothing as he pulled into his driveway. He walked inside with an air of urgence and ignominy hung over his head, forgetting to lock his car door in the process. As he closed the door to the outside world, all his feelings hit him at once, in what can only be described as the opposite of a catharsis one would expect after a similar catatonic episode. He couldn’t quite tell if that meant there was more to come, but he didn’t care much as he poured a glass of whiskey in a seemingly vain attempt to return to his normal routine.
Consciously, he had forgotten the whole incident. He went along his normal routine. Putting away groceries, watching tv, and making himself a grill cheese. It was unhealthy, easy, and he had made it the same way for 15 years every night. Subconsciously though, he had not forgotten the incident. He was still deciphering what had happened, and fitting the messy result into an amalgamation of reassurance. Little things he had done for years that blended into ambiguity had suddenly become examples and arguments in the subconscious debacle of his life thus far. The miniscule seemed much more apparent, even if he didn’t realise it. The floor tiles were cracked and dirty. His couch sagged into the carpet, and the light snuck through the blinds, exposing the dust as it filtered through, much like how reality was now sneaking into his mind, and exposing his impurities. He put his mind to his sandwich, starting off with a light buttering of both pieces of sourdough bread, crumbs falling on the floor as he carelessly pulled the bread out of the bag. He turned on the stovetop with a click, the fire responsively engulfing the escaping gas, heating Max’s face for a brief moment. He placed the bread onto the pan, a light sizzle hissed from the pan coincident with a golden-brown crust forming on the bread. The brief moment of anticipation during the bread’s cooking was enough time for a thought to escape into Max’s brain, which caused a brief panic, which he once again quelled with a sip from his whiskey, which made a clink as he placed it back down on the cold stone countertop. It burned the back of his throat a bit as he swallowed, as he wasn’t usually one to drink, let alone hard liquor on a Thursday night. He then picked up the two pieces of bread, now toast after having been cooked on the stove, and dropped them onto his plate prematurely as a result of forgetting that cooked food is usually hot on the fingertips. Finally, like the cherry on the top, the icing on the cake, the crux of the biscuit, came the cheese. It was cool to the touch, almost soothing after the bread had burned his fingers ever so slightly. He laid down two pieces of cheese onto one side of bread, the cheese instantaneously melting into the bread itself, before being tucked in like a child under the final layer of bread, forming a grill cheese. The cheese oozed out the side of the bread, and out through the imperfect curves and bubbles of the crust, coagulating lightly on the outside edges of the cheese, preserving the warm, gooey, golden goodness inside. It was grilled cheese alright. He seemed awfully proud of his work, almost enamoured by the way it sat perfectly on his plate, warming his hand through the ceramic. As he slowly ate it, he came back to his old thought process, gently soothed back to the comforting ambiguity he once knew. The whiskey made him sleepy, but soon enough that was the only difference between then and any other night since the past 15 years. He left the dishes for the next day, and drunkenly fell asleep to the thoughts he had grown used to, nothing.