OUTSIDE MY WINDOW #5

DISCLAIMER the content and character below is fictional. This is a blog segment where we write a monologue or story depicting fictional characters .Today we are featuring the monologue “free time.” written by Lauren Brady from her collection of monologues in 2018.

FreeTime.

      Why would anyone work at a DMV you ask? The job you take once you’ve given up on everything else. Once all the desire of radiating passion has been ripped out of your deprived body and only the empty, wretched carcass remains. Have you ever seen someone at a DMV? Are they a ray of sunshine?  No, exactly, that’s what I thought. The fact is that no one at a DMV wants to be there. They ended up there out of poor circumstance. My preferred term of the disorder is called lost dream syndrome. All of the people who work here are made up of the same thing; coffee, smokes, and lifeless dreams. I was a painter. I painted everything and everyone, but it got me nowhere. It sure was no fairy tale story like I was hoping for. 

      I took this job because I thought it would be a sustainable income to support my passion. Unfortunately, I started when I was young, and I wasted strong enough. When the managers hooked their grubby little claws into me with promises of promotions, I cracked under pressure. That’s how they get you in this demeaning desk job; with the over eccentric boss who will always put something desirable in front of you. I mean they really shove it in your face until you suffocate, and the only way to survive is to accept their offer. The offer that wasn’t even good to begin with, but it was enough to make you start thinking. Thinking about a future and what the smartest move would be to make next. It’s a dangerous thing, it can lure you in. The next thing you know you’re stuck in a daily comfortable routine and you slowly start falling. The routine messes with people’s fragile minds, routine makes you think that you’re an adult, that you’re all grown up, but really you’re doomed.

      I try not to take it too hard though because we are all pressured in culture to submit to an unexceptional job that we don’t really like but it has good hours and pays decent. Society praises your good work ethic by dangling promotions. The money is so pathetic you could never see a difference in your pay check at the end of the day. People try to make you excited about the work you’re doing here to persuade you to stay, to encourage the hope of recognition. That’s the one thing everyone wants, Recognition. In the real world does anyone have a future in this job? No, but I’ve come to terms with my failure. The amount of disappointment is debatable actually, because there was no appeal to me to become a starving artist. I hate that stereotype, but it’s true. 

       This job at the DMV does come with its perks though. No one comes here; I find that fact increasingly interesting. The fact that approximately 940,580 people in Calgary have their driver’s licenses and no one at all goes to the DMV. That’s why I like it here at the DMV; you need little to no effort to get by. I make use of that time to organize my constant disarranged head of thoughts. Try to develop something, create something, and hold on to that little piece of artist that’s left in me. I don’t know what I will make next but I know it will be great, it has to be. If it is great I can quit this job and be able to support myself. What a dream that would be! The reality of that possibility would be slim.

     This job has damaged me too much to return to painting. The job may not sound like it’s physically demanding, but you would be surprised at how the body can torture you with the smallest of things. The sting of the median nerve as it shoots through my wrist. Oh the wrist, what a small body part that we all forgot about, and who knew it could bite you so quickly. It’s a grueling pain. It turns the simplest mediocre task, into a hard and torturous expedition. The one tolerable trait that it reveals is the constant strenuous ache of discomfort. I treat it as a punishment for staying on this pathetic job. I’m glad it comes and I adore the remembrance behind it. It reminds me of how I would feel after a long day of painting, and It inspires me to think in a new innovative ways to take on art. I’m currently playing with the idea of trying to make art that’s more sophisticated. Something that will take a lot of effort for people think about when they see it. Something that will truly make you think while analyzing it. It sounds like a simple task, but I can’t think. I’m all out of ideas. I’ve lost the thing that made me tick. My pendulum is gone. I feel like that’s a special skill that the DMV accomplishes. Takes every last hope and desire you ever dreamed up and make it go poof. I still dream that the muse will come back one day though. Once I got the best idea for a painting, but then a customer approaches. All of a sudden my hands start running, they always route to auto pilot to the keyboard before I can even complete a thought, I can’t stop them. They attack the keys with such force, the sound echoes along the hall. Typing up a bill of sales, new license plate registration, and a visual referral form. All done in a matter of minutes, then the customer is back on their way, and my idea was gone. It vanishes and I’m all alone again, me and my blank infinite mind. Some days it gets to the point where all I can hear is the ringing of the florescent lights. It’s implanted in my brain. It follows me with a trail of haunting yellow hue that emits from the persistent bulb. It follows me everywhere I go, I can never get away. It was designed so people would stare at their computers more. I’m almost positive that the lights were made to seduce us. To impregnate us with the desire to look at a cooling screen, specifically the blue wavelengths in the screen. It boosts your attention, reaction times, and your mood during daylight. It’s the blue light from the screen that does it. Much more desirable to look at than the potent yellow light scorching everything else. 

      I swear all I do at this job is scratching my head. It’s terrible and such an awful habit to have, but what else am I supposed to do? All I do is sit, and type, it’s not really a thrilling job. Half the time I honestly look at my dandruff as it falls down. I’ve been able to strategically do this in between customers of course. Meanwhile there are days where I’ll sit there for hours without a single customer. I’m sitting, sitting, and sinking, as little white dots simply falling cascading, dwindling down and dropping off of my head. They keep falling, deeper and deeper into my keyboard. Slowly the little flakes create a white cloud across my plastic panel, a sea of flakes, immersing into the keys. Becoming one, interlocking with one another, creating a whole. Creating something new, it was created out of dust. Particles, they cover everything, and everyone. Yes. That’s it! Everyone is covered in particles, and they slowly all fall down. The whole kit and caboodle falls down at some point or another. It is purely the way of life. That’s all they do, that’s all they’re good for. Falling. Dry skin. I have a dry scalp to thank for this. I examine the work with such care, what a wonder I made. How it’s so irregular, but has a specific pattern. How it’s shaped so uniquely as if it was carefully planned. All along I was making art at this job and I never even notice the black canvas beneath me. A new form of art! There are so many questions to be asked. What levels does this suggest? Is it merely dandruff on a keyboard or does it mean something more? Is it our society and the different stages it shows? I forgot how exciting it was to be an artist, how everything could change in an instant. When I first discovered this I kept shaking my hands in my hair at my desk to create more particles. I needed more particles, more material for my work. I shook and shook. I began to think maybe it is the certain angle of which I scratch my head. I have to account for all the variables. Not a single thing can be left out. It’s all simple calculation, scratch per flack perhaps. I need more materials to finish my creation. I don’t know what it is yet, but it’s going to be great. I know it. I feel it. It will get me out of this place. This tedious and mechanical system of people, oh how it does makes me cringe. It got to the point where my hands could no longer be measured in kilometers as they were racing through my scalp. The thrill of new discovers went on for days.

It was relieving to feel the jolt of a purpose again. This joy was short lived after I received a letter the following week from head office to stop immediately! I guess it makes the work place unsanitary, plus I was making the other staff members along with customers uncomfortable. 

Now during the evenings I work at my home studio, because I strongly feel that the itch for modern particle art will be widely acclaimed one day.