Thomas needed the toilet. Yet, the prospect of emerging from under the duvet… the blinding but necessary bathroom light… the cold bathroom tiles under his feet… having to be exposed to non-bed heated air for long enough that he probably wouldn’t get back to his current sleepy state … Was it worth it?
He wasn’t sure. His alarm clock glowed as he heavily placed his hand on it to see how long he had left until he had to get up anyway. 6:30. Thomas did not want the time to be 6:30. In fact, he would have preferred the time to have not been there at all. That’s not strange, he thought. Most people do that. Who does want the time to be nearer waking up? In fact, who even really wants there to be an alarm in the first place? Most people. Getting up is something people sort of have to do, isn’t it? But people do wake up, consider the values of actually getting up, and then un-wake themselves temporarily, slightly daunted by the knowledge that they would have over twelve hours of existence to deal with, don’t they?
Thomas didn’t go to the toilet. He decided that the final thirty minutes of his rest would be spent in slight discomfort, but equally would be spent in his warm, comfortable bed.
When Thomas eventually did wake up, he was surprised. The small existential crisis he’d had while considering the benefits of getting up to go to the loo didn’t seem to hold up very well when he had a mouthful of cereal. Of course people want to get up. For starters, there was breakfast. Then there was the thing that was no small matter; in fact, he realised, it wasn’t all too big of one either, nothing ground-breaking. Work.
It took a while to get to work. Thomas caught the tube, speeding beneath the world above of walkers, cyclists and drivers that was probably more eager than him, he thought. Thomas always dreamed of being one of those who used his commute to further his life. But he didn’t. All Thomas did was stare into the void of life presented in front of him inside a train which he could not in fact see very much of in itself due to the large number of bodies crammed into it.
There must be a reason, Thomas mused, why work and play are considered different things. Growing up, he had always been told that he should enjoy his work, or rather ‘the process’, but he could never master that art. It was strange too, because Thomas had always thought he liked his job. Then again, Thomas thought he liked life, but the hour each day he spent underground looking at everything but, at the same time, nothing, argued otherwise. So did his internal monologue at 6:30am when he needed the loo.
Thomas worked in an office. He considered himself quite a good worker in the office; focused and dependable, not trying to make the job into something it wasn’t.
But he wasn’t focused today. Thomas didn’t want to be either, which was a relief, as that in-between mode is horrible, he thought.
Thomas remembered the cleaner rather little. He felt like he remembered him a little bit more than some others in the meeting room, but nonetheless he’d wanted to know him more. Perhaps, Thomas pondered, it was because in every memory he had of the cleaner, the man was smiling. It was probably because Thomas walked past him every day and each time the cleaner seemed to say, ‘Good morning!’ in a brighter tone, while Thomas managed to speak with astonishing mediocrity of enthusiasm.
Thomas knew he wouldn’t see the cleaner again. Everyone in the meeting did now.
Thomas didn’t know how he felt. Of course, loss, he thought. But he felt something different as well. He didn’t know exactly how to articulate the feeling. The best way he could think of explaining it was for him to picture the cleaner’s smile, and then his own face in the mirror, and wanting to see reflected in his face a show of such positivity.
It wasn’t jealousy. Thomas thought it must have come from the respect an eternal smile seemed to demand. It was an urge to make a change, greater than just in his morning greeting; he needed to, at his core, he supposed… evolve. Evolve, so that people remembered his grin and his words rather than him blending in as astonishingly mediocre in just about every way. Thomas wanted to be remembered, outside of an office meeting room and a funeral, and he was suddenly aware of how little he would be unless he changed.
Maybe he read it wrong and simply had an inner desire to be the office cleaner. No, he thought; I’ve got it right. I definitely have it right.
The next day, Thomas woke before his alarm without uncomfortable bladder pressure. Despite this, he got up early. He had cereals, cleaned his teeth, got dressed, and left his flat. He thought it odd that a morning where he felt so much anticipation of the day ahead be so, well… normal. That a day that seemed to breathe hope into his mind be no different to begin than any other, the only difference being what came before, and what would come after.
Thomas did not catch the tube that day, or indeed again. He walked with the world above, which to him seemed strangely similar to the tube below. He had thought, perhaps, that people in sunlight had more energy? Of course not, Thomas realised in a wave of common sense with a sprinkling of GCSE biology. Humans did not photosynthesise.
Thomas thought this was strange, because although he was very aware he was not a plant, Thomas had more energy walking in the morning glow. But then perhaps that was because he knew where he was going, and it was not to work.