There were four of us. Young, beautiful and successful individuals amongst a crowd of many. It was another grey morning in another old rooftop converted into another trendy restaurant in East London. A reservation was needed to get a table, and the location was kept “secret” and only revealed the day before to create a feeling of exclusivity, which entitled the owners to charge immoral prices for breakfast and watered-down cocktails.
“What else can we ask for?” Chris said as he squeezed a lemon over an oyster with one hand, and the thigh of his newly acquired girlfriend, Nastia, with the other. His broad smile made me raise my glass like an automaton. An empathic reflex, if you might.
“Cheers!” I said, and we all toasted.
“Life is good,” he reassured me. I nodded while sipping the tasteless Bloody Mary, pumping some fuel into my tired body to endure another Sunday brunch. The rusty metallic railing on my left separated me from a five-story drop and I wondered if the fall would be enough to kill me. It looked like it. Just a little courage and I’d paint the cobbled road below with the dirty colours I carried within. My soul, if any, would merge with the fumes of the city and the wheel would keep spinning, undisturbed.
Even on the weekend, heavy cars and vans moved their cargo in a frantic procession, with their orchestra of claxons and engines in full swing. Towers loomed above and around us as the greatest creations of our era. Mechanical temples built to worship the banks and the brands, to please the CEOs and stockholders and remind us all of the bigger faith we belonged to.I grabbed hold of the railing, scared by the sudden desire to jump and the seamless ease of it. My girlfriend, Sophia, reached out to the bartender that passed by and asked him to take a photo of the four of us. She posed as I brought my arm over her shoulder and smiled for the camera, trying to guess who would she date after I died and how long would it take her. Once the moment was captured, I excused myself and headed for the bathroom as Nastia and Sophia agreed on a filter before uploading it to the cloud so everyone could know we had a #refreshing #brunch with #cocktails and #greatfriends who #workhardplayhard.
I ran into a skinny, bearded bartender. “Hey, where’s the bathroom?” I asked.
“That way, buddy.” He was a hipster, with those big holes in the ears done with a rounded piercing. I wanted to rip one off and say ‘Thanks, buddy,’ as he bled out and screamed, but I didn’t. I hurried into the small cabin where people shit and do drugs, pushed my back against the tiling and slid down to the floor into a squatting position.
My heart was trying to bounce out of my chest and I felt exhausted. Just relax, it will pass, you aren’t going to die in a bathroom, I thought, but sweating increased and fear took over. It doesn’t make sense; I’m all right. This is just mental. It’s all in my head, like the other times. Exhale... I covered my face with my hands and smelled the rust of the railing that was embedded in my left palm, then combed my hair back and noticed how the right corner of my blazer had absorbed the pee it was resting onto. The liquid penetrated the fabric and made its way up into the woollen maze, merging the molecules of someone else’s water and toxins with the ones of my expensive attire. It’s all stardust, in the end, I acknowledged as I rose to sit on the toilet instead.
The mere distraction gave me a window of time to think straight. I took out my phone and ordered a cab, exhaling in relief when I saw that Govinda P. had accepted my request and would come to save me in an estimated time of three minutes. I ran back to our table and threw some money at it.
“Hey, sorry, I’m going home, gotta go now.” I stuttered.
Sophia looked up. “What? What are you saying? Are you okay?”
“Yeah, you stay, it’s fine, but I really have to go. Sorry, guys.” I glanced at them, then headed for the stairs that would take me out of that dreadful place.
“Luca, wait,” I heard Sophia behind me. “Are you sick?”
“I’m so sorry, I’ll call you later,” I said over my shoulder.I made my way past the maître d and the line of people who waited for their turn to eat, obediently standing like dominoes along the metallic staircase. My ghostly getaway, followed by the rattling of Sophia’s heels in the steps probably gave them a good topic to spice up their brunches. She tried to get hold of me, but I was taking two and even three steps at a time until I reached the ground floor and opened the gate to reveal a beautiful sight. There he was, my Pakistani knight in his shining Toyota Prius. I dived into the backseat and Sophia followed.
“Mr Luca?” the driver asked.
“Yes, Ennismore Gardens, thank you,” I said. The car joined the traffic as I sunk my head into Sophia’s belly.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” I mumbled. She caressed my wet hair with her delicate fingers and her nails scraped my scalp.
“Don’t worry; you’ll be fine.” She kissed my ear in a motherly way that made me shiver. My breathing slowed down as we made our way home.
***
I woke up around six after a long nap. The pillows were covered in sweat. I reached for the bedside table and rolled a joint as I sat in my underwear, recapping the life decisions that had brought me there. I put on some pants and a hoodie and went to the kitchen to get a little fruit juice with a straw attached to it. Sophia was watching some TV show in the living room.
“Are you awake? How are you feeling?” she asked.
“I’m better. Going for a run. See you in a while, okay? I need to clear my head.”
“Okay, but don’t overwork yourself,” she said.
The main reason we were paying almost three thousand pounds a month for a one-bedroom flat, was to have Hyde Park just a few meters away, a much-needed oasis in the midst of an overpopulated junkyard. I headed out and walked eagerly towards the welcoming colours of nature. June was ending but the weather was still shit, so the park was almost empty.
The first step from the paved road onto the grass felt good, as always, marking a transition from the complex world of greys to the simple one of greens. I threw the juice in a bin, then lit up my smoke and walked into the woods, towards my trees. I had found my trees almost two years ago, in my first month in London, and since then they had become my best friends.
They were a group of three, equidistant to each other and far enough from the main roads, forming a perfect triangle in which no cars could be heard and peace could be found. They had grown in a respectful competition over the years, surpassing each other’s new branch with a higher one and even interlacing until they formed a beautiful canopy under which one could disappear for awhile. They didn’t say much, but they always gave me the answers I needed. When I arrived, I took a puff and humbled myself before their wise and solemn presence, pacing around them as I used to, making sure they were all right. Then, I called Chris on the phone and he answered straight away.
“How are you? Feeling better?” He said.
“Hey, yeah... I don’t know. Sorry about this morning, but I was feeling like shit.” I said.
“I know, Sophia told us. Don’t worry. It’s all the stress, isn’t it? I can understand.”
“Yeah… but, no,” I sighed. “I think this is more serious. It’s been going on for a while, like panic attacks.”
“Did you go to the doctor?”
“Nah, doctors won’t help. This is a mental thing. You know how I’m always so negative about everything? I think I just can’t do this anymore,” I said.
“You mean the job? You want to quit?” It was hard for a man like Chris to conceive how could someone walk away from such an easy, well-paid job.
“Yes. It’s the only way,” I replied in relief.
“Is it because you didn’t get the raise? You’ll get it soon, just wait a bit more. We all know you deserved it more than Greg, but the game is the game,” he said.
“Fuck the raise, man,” I said. “I have enough money already.”
“Yeah, but we are designed to always want more,” he replied, probably smiling.
“But more for what? This game we play is an illusion, Chris, a sugar-coated turd that we swallow every morning,” I leaned against the tree and scratched off a piece of bark to examine it, feeling its texture with my fingers. Despite all the time I had spent with these trees I still didn’t know which species they were, which made me sad since I could name thousands of brands just by their logo. I put the piece of bark in my pocket.
“I get it, you’re mad, but what are you going to do? We all have to do something anyways,” he said.
“Do we?” I asked. “Why do we have to chase the carrot? Why am I a failure if I don’t waste my life selling shit?”
Chris paused as though looking for an answer, but I dove in before he found one. “I’m 28. I should be happy. I shouldn’t be anxious and depressed about getting a fucking raise and selling more makeup to teenagers.”
“Ah, you’re angry about next week? I know the briefing isn’t the most exciting—”
“—It’s not next week, Chris. It’s every week, and you know it. If it’s not that, we are getting kids addicted to sugar or convincing some idiots to buy a new pair of sneakers with Bluetooth. Don’t you see that we are the problem? Who the fuck needs Bluetooth on a shoe?!” I was shouting, and the trees remained silent. I lit back the blunt to calm down.
“You are over exaggerating, Luca,” Chris said. “First of all, that will happen anyways. We are not those brands. And second, if we don’t do it, someone else will. You know how many people would kill to have our jobs?” I knew he was going say that. He always said that. He was a pragmatist, I was a dreamer, and this was our weekly argument to try to put some sense into each other.
“That’s not the point, man. You can’t just say, ‘hey I’m destroying the planet and creating misery, but everyone else is doing it too, so I guess it’s fine! Let’s go have cocktails!’” I was getting angry again, but Chris remained calm as he was used to being shouted at by our clients.
“We’ve talked about this many times... all we do is tell stories. Don’t be so hard on yourself,” he had a way with people. I sat in between two roots of the tree that stood out and spread my legs, tired of fighting.
“Okay, Chris, I know you got a mortgage to pay and you’ll tell yourself whatever it takes to make you sleep better and I don’t judge you for it, honestly. I wish I could do the same and be okay with all of this like everyone else seems to be. But I can’t, and it’s killing me.”
“So, what are you going to do?” he said.
“I told you, I have to quit.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow seems like a good day.”
“Okay, take it easy. Have you even thought this through? What are you going to do? Give it a week at least; it will pass.”
“I have been thinking about it for a long time. I have enough savings to travel and try to be happy again. I’m just going to buy myself some time to think and relax. No rush,” I had no idea about what would I do next, but I couldn’t wait to do it.
Chris chuckled, and I knew that for that moment he dared to dream about it too. “What about Sophia? Does she know?”
“Not yet, but kind of. We both know that something is wrong and I guess we are just trying to avoid talking about it. It’s not just work, it’s also us, we don’t work either,” I didn’t want to start explaining that as well. “Anyways, see you tomorrow, I’ll let you know what’s up.”
“Wait—” he said as I hung up.
Chris was a great guy and my only real friend in London. Despite our differences, we found common ground in the simple pleasures of life: Football, PlayStation, meat and whiskey. His lack of morals allowed him to enjoy every vice without second thinking, and my lack of purpose led me to follow him into his hedonistic affairs. We also shared an ambition that got us to work together as partners in one of the best creative advertising firms in the world.
My career had begun a dozen years ago when I ran away from home in Spain and started making an income patrolling the streets with a handful of flyers to lure people into bars. Now, I lured millions of them into the gardens of the brands that paid for my lifestyle. Respected and wanted, I had been accepted into capitalism’s promised land, trained and protected by the masters of the game who had turned me into a circus lion. There was no need to hunt anymore, but neither was there a challenge. I roared when I was told to and got fed for it. Needless to say, it wasn’t enough, and it felt odd to feast on the elixirs of paradise while the earthly world was burning.
I looked around and smiled, thankful for my solitude in nature, enjoying the joint as I reassured myself that I no longer wanted to taste the cocktail of success. A drink that was topped with the foam of the rising stars and exotic, rich flavours, giving it a sweet first taste that left you thirsty for more. It was mixed with three-quarters of soda for the base, where all the mediocre fought to become one of those bubbles that floated their way up to the top, and finished with the heavy tears of the losers that sank to the bottom, giving it a bitter last note.
Some of those around me drank it with thirst, chugging it and asking for another round without even stopping to think what had been put into the making. Others knew but tried to ignore it. They sipped with measure and quietly left the cocktail on the counter before tasting that pungent bit that remained at the base, aware that all the ingredients were needed to make the cocktail of success. Glory needed misery, and many had to lose for others to win. But what if they didn’t? What if there was another recipe? That was what tormented me while I sat at the top of Maslow’s pyramid. I had the girl, the job, the status, and it wasn’t enough. I lacked the meaning in my life, if there was to be some, and to find that I had to ask myself all the uncomfortable questions.What had once been my pride was now my agony. A shaming guilt that chased me obsessively until it brought me to that point, hiding in a park from panic attacks and suicidal thoughts.
I sat motionless in the grass for almost an hour, chewing on those thoughts while trying to meditate, feeling the breeze on my skin as my vitals slowed down. Meditation had been my latest discovery on a desperate search for life hacks to fix my head. I’d sit and listen to a guru from an app who guided me into a counterfeit feeling of wisdom. “The Sun is always shining in the sky even if there are clouds that block it from you. See yourself from afar and don’t judge, just acknowledge. Focus on your breath…” those were some of the palliative cues and metaphors he had for all of us, wretched souls, who just wanted to be normal again. Whether it worked or not, it was one of those activities that felt like the right thing to do to get my shit together, similar to eating a salad or waking up early in the weekend.
My mind was too agitated to find the focus that my guru was talking about, so I stood up and put him back in my pocket. I walked around one of my trees and looked upwards to its majestic top. What are we doing to you? During the lifetime of the tree, we had embarked in two world wars, exterminated millions of species and speeded up considerably on our race towards self-annihilation, yet he could do nothing but bear silent witness to it all, shaking its branches in disagreement from time to time. I decided to head back home, and just before leaving the park I received a message from Chris:
Ten reasons why you can’t leave me:
I laughed and remembered with nostalgia. Summed up like that it didn’t look so bad. If they had told me when I was eighteen that this would be my life ten years later I would have cried with joy, a golden cage to spend my days in. But shallow nights of cheating and mornings full of lies couldn’t last forever.
It all built up in the inside, generating more and more pressure within the skull up to the point that I feared that one day my head would explode and splatter around all my secrets. I wanted to stop, but there was always another brand who needed a new advertising campaign and another girl who wanted to have a drink, so I did what I had been trained to and fulfilled the cravings of my self-esteem, losing my reason at the bottom of a bottle. Dionysus would walk away with the first morning light and leave me all alone with that scary stain that was creeping up my soul. A dirty, sad and ugly stain. I’d return home and shower, scrubbing myself hard, but it wouldn’t wash off, so I’d hide it under a clean shirt and masked its rancid smell with eau de toilette. Sophia knew, and I couldn’t bear facing her as she tried to believe my lies. I’d blame everything on stress and fought to fall asleep with the guilt of not making her as happy as I had promised her I would. This wasn’t an age of honour.
My body wasn’t oblivious to it either and punished me with the panic attacks. My hands shook often, I felt adrenaline rushes and shivered at random moments. Alcohol and weed helped to cover it, but, like makeup on a beaten up wife, they wouldn’t fix the problem. I had to quit my life. It was the only way and there wasn’t a single reason to keep postponing it.
The wind was howling and it was getting colder, so I rushed home. When I entered the lobby, I stopped for a moment to reassure myself. Okay, I talked the talk, now let’s walk the walk. I went into the elevator and pushed the button for the 4th floor. The elevator ride ended too soon. I needed more time to think. Didn’t I? Fuck it. Alea Iacta Est. I reached for the doorknob and introduced the key, listening to it slide through the lock until it clicked. Upon turning it there was no way back. I would walk in and put an end to a life with the woman I had thought I would marry.