Avalanche Aphrodisiac: Ep 3

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Half asleep I groped my way to my phone that was on the bedside table to check the time. Hung-over from the night before, I opened the bedside drawer and rummaged around for Tylenol and dry-swallowed two pills. Lying back on my pillow, I listened to the bird song outside the open window and waited for the painkillers to take effect; soon, my aching bones would be liquefied; the bird song: a serene silence. According to the clock on my phone, it was somewhere close to midday. My roommate’s lifestyle felt suddenly resonant. He idled around, gets out of bed whenever he wants, works in his underwear if he feels like it. No longer was I waiting on my purpose to be reconfigured by some great event (the moment itself, admittedly, had been kind of arbitrary). Epiphany had eclipsed the maddened frustration I felt building up inside of me. I wondered what my date had got up to after I had abandoned her at the restaurant; I wondered what she told her friends when they asked about me, or our date, and started to cringe at the thought. That being said, I had a feeling the incident wouldn’t be without a sequel. Simon, my friend from Google, sent me a message as I lay on my side reading the news. Bitcoin had risen yet again. One article mentioned the fact that search queries for Bitcoin had outperformed that of “Kardashians”. There was still hope for the world. I opened Simon’s message: Tell me about your first morning as a free man? He had wanted to quit too, but I felt like he didn’t have the backbone to do it, which wasn’t a surprise - in a company full of spineless clones. Likely Simon would remain at Google for the foreseeable future, applying for a promotion in a couple of years, getting rejected, then re-applying six-months later, this time being offered the position of Senior Software Engineer under the condition that he surrenders his permanent contract and becomes a “Contractor”. Idiotically he would accept, and find himself panicking every time he so much as had a cold, because the employer no longer paid his health insurance. Suddenly, after giving the best part of his twenties to his flailing career, his job would become automated. The entire situation would be unbelievably stressed. In the kitchen, I heard my roommate pottering around, presumably stoned (there was a faint smell of weed permeating the air), and I decided then that I wouldn’t tell him what I had done the previous night – generally, I shivered at anything that wasn’t met with perfect mutuality.

Quitting your job and blowing your savings on digital currencies was tantamount to being struck off the social-register, at least in the circle I moved in; the circle of safe hands, savings accounts and exemplary credit scores. To say I felt regret, however, wouldn’t be an accurate representation of my feelings at that moment, because regret, for all it’s worth, is just a by-product of hesitation. My roommate and I only had a few mutual connections, but I worried that he would tell someone I knew. It meant too that I didn’t feel comfortable telling Simon either, as he would inevitably tell everyone at work (contrary to his own opinion of himself, he is one of the department gossips) and word would get out that I had turned my back on the industry, regardless of what I thought of it; that meant I might not be able to find work again, unless I moved away. Suddenly, what I had done became tangible, painfully so, but to become a lion, I thought, sometimes you have to leave the Serengeti.

Fighting the urge to reply to Simon, I tossed the duvet to the side, sat up and swivelled around to face the window. I was also anxious to see if the $24,000 I had invested had made me rich overnight, but of course this was wishful thinking. At present, there was very little I could do about it, I just had to be patient and wait; after all, the only remedy for winter is spring.

The Tylenol starting to take effect, and I allowed myself to fall under its spell. It was just after midday on a Monday, and here I was, falling back in a blissful sleep, with nowhere to go, and no one to answer to but myself. It was true, I thought, as my vision became a soft focus, I didn’t have my dream job yet, or any job for that matter; but anyway, who falls asleep and dreams of labour?

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