The Obedient Wage

You shower quickly, hoping the sheer normalcy of your morning routine will counteract the wild events of the previous night. This does nothing to address the underlying anxiety, but it does give you some odd sense of control. For just a few minutes you can push the absurdity of your new reality from your mind, and embrace the familiar. You run the towel over your newly awakened body, more aware of the rough fibers than you'd like, but it's not enough to deter you. You'll have to get dressed whether you're going to work, or a doctor, or an exorcist for that matter, so you may as well get dressed as usual.

Your clothes don't fit. At least, they don't fit like they used to. The shoulders of your collared shirt are a little more baggy, and you have to hop and wiggle to get your slacks around your hips. Your shoes are a bit too roomy, and to your surprise, once you tie the laces and stand up, you find your perspective slightly lower than before. You look down, where you see your slacks bunched up around your ankles, feeling as though the shoes are to blame for your diminished stature. After a moment of reflection, you realize it's true. You've been prancing around on the balls of your feet all morning. The shoes just make you walk flat footed again.

You slump into your couch. You've got some college friends you could call for help, but honestly, you've been a loner since your bad break up with Stephanie. Your head falls back over the edge of the couch and you groan under the weight of the choice before you. Are you really about to go to work, like the perfect little wage ****? You can feel your psyche screaming out to 'keep at it!', 'work hard!', 'You don't want to loose what little you have...'. That thinking is a trap. You know it's a trap... And yet there's a certain virtue you've revealed in yourself for having accepted the trap. Endure. Persevere. Bide. Such things have become your silent mantra over the past few years, and they've served you well enough. As your girl left you, your ambition was spoiled and stunted, as the full weight of student loan debt fell on you, your obsessive endurance kept you from going under, and even helped you make some progress in life.

"Fuuuuuck." you groan out loud. "I Am NOT going to work like this." You promise.

Your phone alarm chirps, and with a lump in your throat, you realize you're about to be late for the bus. A moment later, you're clomping out the door, feeling like a kid wearing his dads too-large clothes.

You sit in the bus with your legs tight together. Usually you'd sit with your legs wide and relaxed, but the trembling fear of your new secret keeps you tense and closed off. Unsurprisingly, pinching off your legs doesn't cause you the usual discomfort. What is causing you discomfort is your hair. Your bangs keep falling in your face with every turn, bump, or break of the bus. You acknowledge with some resignation that your hair must have gotten longer last night as well. At least you can cut your hair. After an annoying ride of your usually short bangs falling in your face again and again, you stop at the convenience store, at the bottom corner of your works sky scraper. After feeling a disproportionate mortification as you deliberate over a hairpin, hairclip, or scissors to cut your bangs, you settle on a simple black hairclip, and promptly clip your bangs out of your face.

You catch your reflection in the glass door as you leave, and find an adorable profile glancing back. A flutter of something NOT shame or fear tickles your belly, and you scowl. But as you walk, you can't help but feel... Cute with the little hairclip, and secretly wonder if there isn't a bit more you could do?