John found himself in a rut, everyday he felt as if he were looping in a thirteen year olds first CD player. He would wake up with the taste of old cheddar and anchovies in his mouth, he lived off of the leftovers from his catering gigs. He felt stale as he looked around the half lit room, it was impossible to sleep in a place like this. The land lady woke every morning at 5 and insisted that all the housework be done before 8 sharp, just in case someone good might come around. She was always waiting for some bohemian celebrity to come strolling through the door, so her life may have some strange form of meaning. It would never happen. Her name was Edith and she wore smudged blood red lip stick and curlers in her hair most of the time. John had only ever seen her in sweat pants and a purple parka that smelled of moth balls and cheap laundry detergent. When all of the tenants left the building which was quite often as no one could stand listening to her take on “Amazing Grace“, she would dress in her old evening gown and pound away on the ancient piano that rested in the main hallway.
Now, as I was saying, John felt stale as he lay in bed looking around the room, it was covered in advertisements for various products. John felt a sort of comfort in advertisements, they were straight to the point, no games. He placed his hands on the top of the bureau and looked down at his feet. He couldn’t remember a time that they didn’t hurt, but oddly enough he found that the pain often times made life bearable. It was rarely the same sort of pain, some days it would be agonizing, other times a dull throb. The fact that he couldn’t count on it made life seem less tedious. He pulled out a stiff t-shirt and smelled it, there was a slight hint of mildew. He slipped it over his head and looked in the mirror, nothing special. It was another day and the biggest problem at the present moment was finding his left sneaker.
John lay back on the bed and pounded his pillow, he was exhausted. He looked at the clock, 7:45. This woman was driving him crazy. She was dead set on driving her tenants insane, John was sure of it. He didn’t know why but he was sure it had something to do with having her house placed in some “bizarre happenings“ television series. He sat back up and hit himself in the head. “Wake up”. He’d had three hours of sleep every night for the past 3 years. He was lucky to get his head down for a couple hours before work, but that was a rare occurrence. He laid back and hit the stereo, some meaningless trash screamed out of the right speaker, the left had stopped working months ago. John moaned, life wasn’t getting any easier.
After three-quarters of an hour John mustered up the will to find his lost sneaker. He scoured the room throwing around bits of old socks and plastic plates with molded leftovers in order to find the floor. Finally, it was discovered beneath last week’s wedding special, risotto, and a t-shirt that had been lost for months. He sighed again and squished his foot into the hole. John absolutely hated Tuesday and he was perfectly aware that today was going to be just like every other Tuesday had been for the past twelve years. He tied the shoe and muttered something incomprehensible. It was only going to get worse.
John stepped outside. It was one of those gray days that despite the cloudy sky seemed to be ridiculously bright so John had to shield his eyes for a few moments. There was a slight breeze that blew all his hair to the left, he hated that. He looked down and pulled the coat around him with a sigh, here we go. John walked five thousand, four hundred thirty three steps to his mother’s house. He stood in front of it for a minute remembering brief childhood memories. The house used to be yellow, now it was a dirty brown with blue shutters just like every other house on the block. As a kid he had played in the yard pretending to be a mad scientist who had control over the ants that infested the yard. The ants went a long time ago, they were imprisoned in concrete for the rest of eternity. He always felt a bit bad about that.
John walked in shouting hello just as he had every other Tuesday. He stepped into the same scene, life was just so predictable. The chins was sitting on the recliner sipping an extra large slirpee with her legs crossed at the ankle, her pants rode up slightly revealing her pale blue ankles and socially acceptable socks. She would remain in this position throughout the entire meeting only stirring to ask anything that sounded intelligent in order to, in her opinion, maintain her superiority over the house. When she spoke John couldn’t help but watch her chins wave as the star spangled banner looped in his head. The mother was sitting on the sofa, next to the father, she would listen intently and occasionally adjust her eyeglasses, her thoughts on everything were recycled moosh and she tried her best to hide this. The father was sitting awkwardly with his arms crossed against his chest, he never frowned, or smiled, unless of course he saw something on the evening program that particularly moved him.
John took his place on the opposite side of the room. The chair he plopped down in was dusty, it made him sneeze but it didn’t matter, nothing really did. He was fed up with this entire situation. John tried to speak his peace and listened to a constant flow of excuses and slurping. “Oh, say can you see?”. John never could win. They’d been at this for 12 years and never once was there a break through. “By the dawn’s early light”. The true purpose of these meetings was to inform the father, who’s intelligence was that of a prematurely born algae particle, of John’s psyche. Apparently, John was considered unsatisfactory because he did not meet his father’s macho standards. The old man was what you would call a Grade A Macho Alpha Male, which he believed to be the utmost important characteristic in a young man, especially a young man he had spawned. John blamed himself and beat his confidence down to a nonexistent level. Because of this human contact was scarce and he knew it very well. If he didn’t have a job he’d practically be a recluse. The chins waved some more as she spoke about homosexual tendencies. “And the rocket’s red glare”. John tuned out. “The bombs burst in the air”.
John stormed off, this was nothing new, all of the meetings ended this way. He was confused more than anything. Why had he allowed them to control his life? Every Tuesday for the past twelve years had been spent in a dusty chair watching a woman’s chins grow to extreme proportions. There was really no point in participating in the meetings anymore, but John was really sick at the idea of the amount of time he had already lost. Why couldn’t the old man get it? What could he have accomplished with the lost Tuesdays? Who knows, he certainly didn’t. He’d honestly had enough, maybe it all wasn’t his fault, maybe he didn’t deserve to be ignored. Maybe, just maybe…he could get his time back.
It was this thought that spawned the theory that would eventually consume the rest of John’s life. For the next three months John’s free time was spent in the local library desperately seeking any information that involved time. Physics, philosophy, mathematics, the reading material seemed to never shrink. It wasn’t until the librarian accidentally stuck a psychology book into John’s daily book binge that a breakthrough happened. Although reluctant to even open the book, as he believed it might waste his time, John glanced at the table of contents hoping something might catch his eye.
It hit him like a ton of bricks, “Medulla Oblongata”. With a name like that it certainly had to be the answer. John developed a theory in 14 minutes flat and buzzing with excitement ran out of the building accidentally knocking over the magazine rack.
John flew through the hallway of his building. Edith yelled random profanities after him, but couldn’t be bothered to do much more, it was time for her favorite television program. John couldn’t hear them anyway, he was too far gone. He slammed his door shut and pushed his desk chair against it with a load THUD. He ripped off the advertisements on the wall as fast as possible throwing bits of paper and thumb tacks all around the room. The mess was not going to be a problem, he would never even realize it was there. When the last advertisement was thrown to the ground John pinned up a large map of the human brain that contained the hundreds of microscopic notes he had taken in the library. It was time. He flung himself on the bed and slept for the next three days.
When he awoke from his slumber John knew exactly what he had to do to get his time back. He sat up and looked around the room for his shoes, he had a lot of work to do before the Tuesday chat fest. They were located on top of the chair he had placed against the door which slightly phased him. He couldn’t remember placing anything neatly anywhere, ever. All the same, he jumped out of bed and stepped on three tacks while making his way to the chair. He cursed, pulled them out of his feet and threw on the shoes. John was at the door and waiting at the bus stop before Edith had even woken up to do the daily chores.
It was still gloomy outside. John took a deep breath and enjoyed every second of it. He was happy. He hopped on the bus and gave the old man who was navigating the beast of a vehicle a wink. The old man groaned, he hated his job, especially on the gray days and wasn’t in the mood for some kids cheer. In his spare time the bus driver sang karaoke to Tina Turner songs, he loved trying to hit all the high notes. He had to think about purple boas and strobe lights in order to get through the long days.
The bus smelled of pine and old women’s perfume, this made John smile, he’d never been on a bus that smelled like this before. He sat in the back row with a big grin on his face. An old woman glanced at him with the look of suspicion and fear. She wanted off the bus as soon as possible, she didn’t even know what she was afraid of. John’s left leg shook, he put his hand on it to keep it still. It didn’t work well.
John hopped off at the fifth stop, he had a lot of shopping to do and not a lot of time to do it in. He hated stores anyway, everyone always seemed to look at him funny, just like the woman on the bus. John was relieved when she got off the bus, he watched her sit at the bus stop waking for the next one to come around. It made him laugh, she was wasting her precious time waiting and avoiding. He had broken that cycle.
The fluorescent lights flickered as John rushed through the aisles in the store. He slid down the freshly waxed stores grabbing up this item and that. He passed a woman in a very large blue hat who mumbled stories about her cats. She secretly hoped someone would comment on them, or at least ask what she had said. No one ever did and John didn’t have the time or the courage to. After ten minutes of utter confusion and distress John rushed out of the shop and onto another bus back home. This one smelt like the typical bus. John sat in the same seat as before and smiled at the old woman who had avoided him the last bus ride.
He rushed off the bus and straight into his bedroom throwing the chair in front of the door with the same THUD as before. He threw together the ingredients he had bought and sat on the bed with a huge grin on his face. Today was the day. John turned on the radio, it was the usual trash. He chunked an old book at it and it fell off the table. Suddenly, John realized he was going to have to test this formula out. The vacuum started in the corridor and John grinned, he knew exactly who.
John waited for Edith to finish her morning chores. When he heard the television set tune into the first soap opera of the day he crept down the staircase and stood behind Edith who had plopped herself on the couch with a big bowl of cashews. The other tenants had fled the building before the vacuum cleaner had started. Everything was quiet apart from Edith’s chewing and the reassuring voice of a soap star echoing through the hallway. John placed his concoction to the bottom of Edith’s head and took a deep breath. He closed his eyes.
Edith lay on the ground blood trickling down her neck. John felt refreshed, but confused. It was dark out all of a sudden and the soap opera on the television had disappeared. John turned the television set on, it was the pre-early news show. He had succeeded, but he had only regained a few hours of his time. After getting over the initial shock John realized he had to get out of the building before everyone woke up and discovered Edith on the floor.
He rushed out and caught the same bus he had the first time around. He didn’t wink at the bus driver, but instead whistled a Tina Turner tune throughout his entire journey. He ignored the old woman and she remained on the bus. After sliding around in the store he stopped and asked the woman in the blue hat just what she was on about. He listened intently, smiled at her and made his way back to the bus stop. The woman with the blue hat later regarded this day to be the best she had ever had. On the bus home John sat himself in the same seat and stared at the old woman who had previously in nonexistent time looked at him with such fear. As his stop approached he stood up kissed her on the forehead and pranced off the bus.
It was time. John ran to his parents ten minutes early. He knew very well he couldn’t go back home because of Edith. His mother answered the door with a frown on her face, she hated when he was early. John squeezed past her yelling “Bathroom, Bathroom!” in order to avoid a lecture. He mixed the chemicals he had bought and stuck them in his pocket. He walked past the same weekly scene.
As the chins took her place she began the Star-Spangled Banner ritual. John braced himself to stand up, but then sat down again. The chins continued. John looked at the things waving about. He felt bad for her. John turned his attentions to his father. He looked so miserable. John felt bad for him too. He looked at his mother affectionately. She looked so dim sitting over there. Was she a victim of all of this too? The guilt over powered him. John pulled the chemicals out of his hand. He was going to get his time back. He started towards the chins, he figured she had cost his dad too much money so she might as well go first. He looked at the back of her head, it was covered in fat. He had not attracted any attention with his movements. Everyone seemed to be mesmerized by what this woman was saying. John stepped back, he felt so guilty he didn’t think he could stand much longer. He wanted his time back.
John looked at the chemicals and then he looked around the room. The chins was still yacking on and on. He took the chemicals in his fist and placed them to the back of his head and pushed. Everything was a haze. Everything was nothing.

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