Wake Up, Heart Yanked Out

Cyprian woke up floundering in his own dystopia at the age of twenty-five. He stood at a quarter-century and on the cusp of life but his hopes and dreams had been dashed. Still he was young, unbelievably young and his feet trod a fecund path. He held a low grade menial position as a governmental flunky in the ranks of civil service, lusted after women incessantly and viewed himself with utter contempt. I say he 'woke up' floundering although he'd been awake all along...with his eyes shut tightly against the affliction. The job, a veritable torture rack, blackened his outlook. He considered himself a martyr he was so oft crucified. And who could blame him under the circumstances? He suffered a great deal of anguish at the hands of his fate. Things happened, fell into place piecemeal, with little or no forethought. Try as he might he was unable to alter his affairs. In that regard he was like a marionette...but who manipulated the strings? It was as if he wasn't alive at all but living vicariously within his own skull. A sort of back room, cerebral existence in which he harbored no ambition. By hook or crook, sheer indifference and laziness he ended up a civil servant. Naturally he loathed the job; it became the ubiquitous thorn in his side. It was anathema to him and he suffered from uncontrollable shakes, bouts of nervousness and wild fits of depression. Emotions oscillated within him like a pendulum and it became difficult to hold onto the reins. His senses became dull and his mind filled with drivel; his attention span deteriorated and he lost the ability to concentrate. He was drawn and quartered...trapped like a beast in the zoo.

He longed to quit the 'nine to five' but had bills and the rent. Civil servants make peanuts, chicken feed. The more he scrimped, the more debt mounted. And his landlord didn't pussyfoot around for someone so light on his feet. A day late with the rent and he was out on his ass...Sure, he looked for other work. As a desperate measure he perused help-wanted ads in the Picayune over beer at Johnny's. No luck. Every possibility disgusted him equally; he couldn't fathom doing anything with relish...He grew disenchanted and existed in a lull. An utter failure in the realm of employment. At night, in bed before sleeping, grandiose visions danced in his cranium...Lofty pipe-dreams; the musings of a peon. Still he was young, unbelievably young. I do not speak candidly to illicit compassion on his behalf. Rather, I am illuminating the quandary in which he found himself awash as a triumph of sorts.

But fuck the groundwork; the groundwork can wait. It's the meat and potatoes I'm after now. It was a Sunday when the doldrums hit him. Sundays are useless entities- the only sensible thing to do is fritter them away as quickly as possible. Cyprian woke from his slumber at the crack of dawn and felt the noose begin to tighten. How many hours remained before he had to return to work? Ah, work! That's the idea that stuck in his craw. The death of tomorrow always lingers on the breath of yesterday. There's no hope for men who lack ambition. And in this world the multitudes will always be bound and fettered...