Four of Collin's Memories of Loneliness

by Dominic Raths

Collin sat in a four-person booth at the diner staring into his bowl of soup and confirmed to himself that he was ready to die. The soup was chicken noodle; cubes of white pink chicken lazily floated and sank amongst the nest of shoestring shaped pale noodles. He had also ordered a sandwich, a standard BLT on white bread, that he would not realize until after he paid and left the diner that he did not receive. He would tip fifteen percent. The BLT in question would have been made and after his departure would sit on the order out counter for about eighteen minutes until someone, his waitress, realized her mistake and would eat it quietly herself. Her name is Carol and she is a struggling addict to morphine. Collin is also a struggling addict but to cigarettes and a synthetic numbing agent that he uses without his knowledge while he takes memories out of his spinal cord with a syringe developed by Diogenes Corp. The memories are then taken to a sort of one-hour photo center to be copied and shared amongst friends and acquaintances. They would be shared with Collin’s family if he was in contact with any of the remaining living members. He was not.

So, Collin took the syringe out of its sterilized plastic wrapper that he kept in a leather shaving kit bag that used to belong to his grandfather. The bag was black and almost kidney shaped, a silver-plated zipper running along the concave end. It could hold about seven or eight of the syringes. There were currently three empty and four were full. The gelatinous liquid removed from the top of the spine was a semi translucent green not unlike pea soup with small copper bubbles distributed amongst the goo. The copper bubbles looked like olive oil in a jostled bottle of water. The numbing agent was on the needle itself and its addictive properties were subtle and caused a moderate amount of depression and lethargy when taken and if not taken in about forty-eight hours. The Diogenes Corp was under investigation by the FDA and faced many pending lawsuits for its services. Diogenes was a Greek philosopher who was a cynic and lived in a jar. Collin was not aware of this, nor were the majority of the corporation’s customers.

The memory Collin was trying to capture with the syringe was that of the noodles in the piss colored broth in front of him. The noodles had significant meaning to Collin, and he did not want to forget the meaning. He felt that if he tried to write it down he would not correctly word what they meant to him, nor did he trust his memory at this juncture to keep the emotion he was feeling solid enough to capture it for later use. He was not sure what this later use would be. Collin was a stock clerk at a grocery and had no creative endeavors. The underlying addictive nature of the process of capturing the memories was the primary drive behind his compulsion to remember the noodles. In his eyes, the noodles spelled SJORN. This was close to the Norse goddess of love, Sjofn. Collin was not aware of this either but the emotion he would have felt if he was would be the same. A shell of a man in desperation to feel that his life had purpose and worth.

With the needle firmly in his neck, Collin pulled the plunger out slow. With it came the pea soup color gelatin with copper oil memories. It was not gruesome nor was it clinical or beautiful. The action felt not unlike making one’s bed; deliberate and minimally satisfying. The memory faded from his mind like the end of a burning wick and he placed the sharp into a container separate from the vials of memories. He could not remember what the other memories were at this point although they were all taken within the week. This knowledge did not distress him actively but subconsciously it nagged at him. The nagging was easy to ignore so it could fester into a full-blown psychological attack two years later when he would throw himself in front of a bus on main street. The catalyst for this act would be receiving a parking ticket.

Consequently, the other four memories were just as dull and inconsequential as the one he had just taken. They were almost sublime in their standard everyday quality. One was of a lamp on Collin’s desk. He was sitting there in his one-bedroom apartment going over vehicle registration paperwork in the evening. The light bulb in the lamp flickered because of the ice storm that was happening outside had disrupted the generator for the apartment complex. It caused all of the lights in the building to flicker and reset all of the digital clocks. He captured this moment. Shortly after he put the memory away there was a knock on the door. It was his neighbor, an elderly lady with a face that looked like it was prosthetically old but was in fact weathered by time. Her name was Elizabeth Henderson and she lived alone across the hall from Collin. It was common for her to knock on his door and ask him vague and empty things in exchange for cold and empty responses. This was one of her only sources of human interaction. It was for Collin as well.

“Did your power just flicker?” Elizabeth asked. This was after Collin heard the knock, looked through the one-way door viewer lodged five feet up, saw Elizabeth, had an instant thought of mild annoyance, and opened it to greet her with a hello Elizabeth how can I help you.

“Yes, just for a second.” Colin’s response was as dry as dead leaves. He did not dislike Elizabeth and felt a tug of sorrow for her situation, or what he assumed was her situation.

“Did it reset your digital clocks?”

“I don’t know. It probably did. Let me check.” He looked to the left into his kitchenette and saw three flashing surfaces with lime green numbers all saying 00:02 in square numbers. “Yes, it did.”

“Oh. Darn. I hate resetting my clocks. I always forget how exactly they work. What buttons to press and for how long and if you have to hold one while you press another.” Elizabeth was desperate to connect to a human being on anything. She was not really upset about having to reset her clocks. She was lonely and would continue to feel lonely until she would pass in her sleep seven months later. Loneliness was a disease that would compel her to talk to strangers about things that did not really matter and she did not really care about though she would talk about them with the vehemence of a preacher dispelling the devil. The people she talked to would all be mildly annoyed and consequently a touch guilt-ridden and disgusted with themselves because they knew that Elizabeth simply wanted to not feel lonely. And everyone is lonely. Most of the people she talked to simply accepted it as a fact of life that you are alone in the world. You become callous to it and press it away into the folds of your stomach until you can’t feel it as much. And so these strangers, the people Elizabeth would talk to on the street, at the bus stop, or waiting in line at the pharmacy, or in the grocery (where Collin worked, unbeknownst to Elizabeth), detested the fact that she had the audacity to try to not be so lonely with these flimsy conversations. They were frustrated that she did not accept what they considered to be fact, that she scratched and clamored at her pain, that she was so desperate. It reminded them that they were desperate and it made them self-conscious and afraid. So, they would erect a wall between their discomfort and her in the form of curt apathy and staunch self- reliance. And this reaction caused Elizabeth, who did not realize the slight complexity of the inner workings of this interaction, to be discouraged and downtrodden. She would vow in a quiet voice to herself that she would never try and talk up a stranger again. This would not last ever because her pain was so simple yet too great for her to not try to alleviate it.

“Yes. That’s always a pain.” Collin replied.

“What do you think caused it?” Inquired Elizabeth.

“Uh. Probably all the ice outside. I don’t know.” Collin really didn’t know although it was an educated guess and indeed the case.

“Oh yes. The wind sounds so malicious this evening. Almost as though it’s trying to get inside, like a lost soul seeking the warmth and shelter.”

“Hmm.” There was a pause for about five seconds and Collin did not know what to do.

“Do you think the rest of the building lost power for a second?”

“I don’t know. I’d assume so.”

“Yes, perhaps. Or maybe just this floor? Do you think?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.” Collin actually thought that it was more probable that the whole building lost power for that less than a second moment that he captured and put away. He did not express this though to prevent the conversation from developing further. There was another five second pause.

“Do you think we will lose power completely? Or that it will happen again tonight? I-“

“Maybe.”

“would hate to set the clocks just to have it happen again. Oh maybe, yes. What should I do, do you think? Set them? Or not?”

“I don’t know. I guess you could just set one and wait and see. That might be best.”

Collin was less annoyed the more he talked because he thought he was being helpful and logical.

“Yes, that’s a great idea. Do you know what time it is? So, I can set one of my clocks?” Elizabeth could have checked herself because she did have a phone and a battery-operated wall clock.

“Um.” Collin just thought about that himself but was already reaching for his phone to check. “It’s 8:35. PM.”

“Oh, thank you Collin you’ve been such a help.” This was not a dismissal of the conversation on Elizabeth’s part but would be interpreted as such by Collin who replied,

“It’s no problem. Have a good night.” and went to close the door, expecting to be interrupted but was not. So, there was a slight hesitation that Elizabeth picked up on and interpreted as a hesitation that there was more to be said but did not react in time for the door to latch and lock.

The second memory in Collin’s shaving bag was of steam rising off of a hot tea latte he ordered from a chain café vendor. Pequod started out as a small coffee shop owned by two friends who went to high school together and went to college for business. Upon getting their degrees they were accepted for a loan and opened their coffee shop in a standalone location downtown. The rent was high but the location was convenient for enough people to stop in, so the ends were met and the two slowly paid off their loan and expanded their menu to the customers recommendations. Eventually the loan was paid off and the two were able to open a second Pequod’s in another location in the city near the university. It competed successfully with another chain coffee place for two years. The competing chain eventually offered to buy the shops for an exorbitant amount of money. There was a falling out between the two friends; one wanted to take the money and start another shop in another town, the other wanted to hold ground. After two months of debate they sold the rights of Pequod to the chain corporation on the understanding that the aesthetic would not change and the currently employment would not be fired. This was the case and more Pequods were opened in other college towns with similar aesthetic and offerings. And as computers progressed so did the technology in the cafes.

Twenty-five years later all 14,000 plus Pequod locations were completely self-automated. Customers would walk in and press some buttons on a screen, pay, and their order would be dispensed in a paper and wax cup in a vacuum tube at the other end. They would bring their receipt, have it scanned, and a little door would open to release the drink. The disposable cup had their name handwritten by an automaton in permanent black marker for effect. If there was an error in the order you could dump the drink in a funnel that would analyze the contents against the receipt. If it detected an error another would be made. If not, you could go on their website to dispute it and possibly get a free drink voucher e-mailed to you. There was also a little bar next to the vacuum tubes that you could pay for extra sugar and cream. Everything was mathematically balanced. There was an advanced option on the order screen that you could request specific temperatures, milliliters of syrup or milk or milk alternatives, and on and on. Customers were encouraged to buy a monthly membership card that would allow you to save the settings of your drink and order them in advance. They also offered a chip to be placed in your car or wallet that would have the drink ready for you when you entered the store or pulled up to the drive thru. It was a miracle of modern technology. One engineer with a college degree could maintain one Pequod with about three hours of work per day. The engineer was selected by the parent chain company and given a lacky that would help load the machines inside with milk, coffee beans, cream, etc.

Collin did not have a membership to Pequod. He ordered the same standard tea latte every day on the way to work. It was on the first menu and he was not interested in taking the time out to discover whether the advanced options would make the drink better or worse. He took the memory because the steam rising off of the cup spiraled around in an enticing way. In reality it had been a whole day since he took a memory and it was starting to ache inside, as though someone was in there with a scour brush, lazily cleaning his intestines and counting his fingers and teeth.

The third memory in what was once a shaving bag was that of a sound. Collin had heard the sound before but not really noticed it. He was in his twin bed at night, tucked away against the winter wind that sounded like a lost soul seeking warmth and shelter. His bed sheets were insulating his warmth and radiating it back to him to the point where he had to take off his nylon socks because they were making his feet sweat. After he did so he laid back flat against the pillows and heard a far-off scraping. Again, this was not a new scraping, it had always existed whenever the wind blew. At least it had for some time, for as long as it took the tree outside of the apartment to grow a limb far enough to claw against a windowpane just a floor above Collin and two rooms across from his bedroom. Collin did not know this and waited, studying the sound. Scrape, seven seconds, scrape, two seconds, two quick scrapes, nine seconds, scrape. And on with the rate of the wind. It oscillated and changed. The sound was dynamic and variable.

Collin got out of bed and stood stock still to realize it was coming from outside and up. He looked out of his window and saw the cityscape all flecked with a white flurry that would pile up in tiny hills on all of the windows and in the gutters and the cracks of sidewalks. This was the first flurry of the year and the ground had been frozen for about a week, so everything stuck and swam about in a frenzy.

Scrape, two seconds, three quick scrapes. Collin opened the window and was assaulted by a gust of wind. The bug screen protected him from the snowflakes dancing around in the night wind. As he pulled it up, he received what felt like a hundred tiny glass shards cut into his cheeks. He winced and stuck his head out and looked up to see the tree branch clawing at the windowpane. There was no way to reach it from his room. There were no lights on in the window. Thoughts passed in slow procession through Collin’s mind like a tired holiday parade on its last street. Did anyone live in that apartment? He closed the bug screen. Who lived there? Have I seen them in the hall or the parking lot? He closed the window. Latched it. Do they know that there is a twig battering their window? Steps across the carpet to the edge of his bed. Do they care? How do they stand it? Crawls into bed on his side and curls up. Do they enjoy it? Does it just not bother them? Do they not notice? Scrape, ten seconds, scrape. He thought that they might not care or consider that the sound bothered someone. Though the sound did not bother Collin. A small moment occurred that he should go up and ask. This thought was buried immediately.

Collin mutely sat up to grab the black bag and pull out the memory.

The fourth memory in the bag was taken during Collin’s lunch break at work. There was an employee lounge that had a fridge and freezer, a plastic table with four wire footed plastic chairs, a microwave, a vending machine for dry snacks and another for coffee, and a sink. Across the hall was an employee bathroom stall. The walls were an off white that was yellowed by the bulbs above. Compared to much of the technological advances in the recent years, the break room felt antiquated, cased in amber. The vending machines had yellowed advertisements in their glass displays. Feed the need, one proclaimed. Café, another said dully in a faux cursive font. The buttons for selection were actual buttons that were worn. The 5 button was completely illegible. Dirt and grime was entrenched in all of them to some extent, signifying indirectly which options were more popular, perhaps even to whom they were popular with if one could equate who had the dirtiest hands with the dirt on the buttons.

Most people had left the lounge to mill about the work floor before the break ended. Collin was in the lounge now because he was outside smoking at the start of his break. As his eyes wandered another employee entered. Eric and Collin were not friends and were not enemies. They were contemporaries and suffered at the jaws of existence equally. Conversation between the two was on a first name basis because that was the standard for the environment. Collin had worked at the store for three years, Eric for four. This did not cause any rift between them nor any emotions of superiority or inferiority. They did not think of each other outside of work hours. As Eric entered, he greeted Collin with a hey how are you which was met with a fine and you which was met with a good. Eric walked right past Collin who was seated at the table, took out his wallet, and put some bills into the dry snack vending machine. He pressed two buttons and out came a packet of mixed nuts with a grinding whir of machine parts that turned the spring shaped guard in the machine. It turned and turned and whined from age and friction. Another packet of mixed nuts almost came out of the machine but stopped just short. During this time lapse, Eric stared through the glass and made small sounds of excitement and surprise. Like, hey, oh, look at that, it might, aw! He turned to Collin with a look of disbelief.

“Did you see that? Damn near vended me two packs!” Eric said this at a volume that was unnecessary for the gravity of the situation.

“Yeah, almost.” Collin’s voice tried to match Eric’s out of emotional respect but was completely unable to hide the fact that he was not impressed or interested in the near miracle he just witnessed.

Eric gave the machine a playful tap which did not dislocate the hanging packet of mixed nuts and laughed. “Think I should put another in and get three?”

“I guess if you want three.”

“I don’t but I could save them for later.” Eric pondered the concept but could feel the air growing cold. “Nah, leave it for the next guy, huh?”

“Yeah.” Collin did not know what else to say.

“Well. Catch you out there.” Eric nodded and left the lounge with his snack.

Collin was alone again in the lounge and stared at the dangling mixed nuts. He stood and approached the machine, itching with a dull curiosity. Would another order of mixed nuts produce one packet or two? Collin also gave the machine a playful yet meaningful tap. Rat, rattle, rat on the glass. Tap, slap on the side. Nothing aggressive. Just curious and testing. Nothing happened. The package stayed fast to the coil and did not even flinch at the vibrations imposed on it. Collin did not have the money to find out what the answer would be. He went out to his car and pulled the memory. The next day there was no dangling package.

Collin in the booth at the diner staring at the chicken noodle soup that sort of said SJORN in the noodles. SJORN was close to the Nordic goddess of love, Sjofn. Love.

-Originally written January of 2020