Day 7 - Trapped Story

Trapped Story

Matthew Ryan Fischer

 

Wesley was trapped.

Pitter-patter went the rain, falling on the roof above.  Tick…tick…tick went the grandfather clock, counting remaining moments and passing time.

The pattern was relentless.  All Wesley could do was hear the patterns.  The distraction was enough to make a man mad.  Welcome to my alienated anxiety, thought Wesley.  The noise of the patterns grew and grew and grew.

Wesley was trapped.

The painting on the wall was a mash-up collage where someone had painted over a previous work and turned it into a chaotic mess of graffiti and clip art madness.  You could make out the boat and the ocean and what must have been representative of all the bland, lifeless, boring art that makes its way into hotel rooms across the country.  Over it the artist had glued on images of dead whales, hunted and tortured for profit and pleasure.  Then there were pictures of skulls and massacres and all sorts of other horrible historic depictions of the worst humanity had to offer.  In bloody red letters they had splattered “Man.”

Wesley didn’t know what made art good or bad.  He had been at a studio show because a friend of a friend knew a girl that may or may not have been interested in talking to a guy such as himself.  He had felt pressure to fit in and have something to talk about, so he had bought this painting.  He could have chosen from many such examples of post-modern scribbling.  It seemed to him that all this artist did was take preexisting work and smear something over it.  He didn’t get it.  But he gave himself something to talk about that night.  His pocket book was often used for that.

Not that it had gotten him the girl.

Wesley didn’t remember everything, but it seemed to him as if he remembered every failure, every slight, and every mistake he had ever made.

It was a nightmare, this life he made for himself.

He tried to escape by playing games, video, tabletop or otherwise.  He tried to escape it by drinking too much on a Friday night and by watching too many hours of sports on Saturday and Sunday.  He tried to escape it by countless hours on the internet, searching for moments of mindless mirth that could amuse or titillate or make him forget who what when and where he was.

All he did was fill his head with additional regret.  Regret for the time he spent, for the wasteland that was his entertainment, for the emptiness that was his love life.

Wesley was trapped by what he said and what he saw.  He should have been smarter.  He should have been faster, funnier, and friendlier.  He wanted to be remembered for something, but mostly he wanted to be forgotten.  He knew he was a failure.  He knew people knew that.  Especially the strangers he met.  He would have liked to do something worthy of praise, but knowing he lacked that ability, he wished he could fade away.

Wesley had many many things on his mind at all times.  His thoughts, his wishes, his dreams paralyzed him and made him incapable of change or action or initiative.  Wesley knew life was to be lived, but somewhere he had read that life is what happens when you’re making other plans. He hoped change would come, but knew that if he didn’t make the effort himself, no change could ever come.  Maybe he was living his life whether he liked it or not.

Yes, Wesley was trapped.  Very much so.