Page 9 of Cuts like a Knife
A hard pill to swallow, but I’ve choked it down and you should too.
So even though I have the recording of the taco idiot to back me up and what I should do — what I would do if I was an actual serious, legitimate, educated journalist instead of someone who fell into this gig after suffering what was either a quarter-life-crisis or a low-key nervous breakdown — is quote him accurately, I won’t. Because I am one of the world’s few non-stupid humans and I know with every fibre of my being that it’s simply not worth it.
Nothing is worth it.
Nothing matters, really. Not for me. Things that matter are entirely in the past now.
Okay, okay. Lots of things matter, just nothing I’m ever going to be associated with, nothing I’m ever going to work on professionally. And it doesn’t matter and I hate it, but it is what it is. This is my life now18.
I think I might be depressed.
From his cube across the aisle, Callum starts obnoxiously humming the Jeopardy theme. For goodness’ sake. My piece is like 400 words and it’s mostly just typing out what these dummies said on the recording. I have hours until my actual deadline. I do fifteen pieces like this every single month. This is nothing.
Callum is such a pain. He sees that I’m working and wants to break my concentration for fun, probably because he’s noticed I’m actually trying to focus lately. Or at least, trying not to stare at my phone all day every day, which is a change I’m experimenting with because I’ve noticed a weird vibe around the office lately.
Lars has been looking at me with more interest than usual. Noticing me. Probably noticing that I do actual work maybe ten percent of the time that I’m here19.
It has occurred to me that if I don’t care at all about the gig, and then someone notices, I may well lose this job. This job that I hate, yes, but one that I rely on. It pays the bills. And I need the money, as piddly as it is. Bex and I are still roommates so our split rent isn’t too bad, but still, finances are tight.
Plus, I need to have a job for like, my heart. What would I be without employment? Nobody. Nothing. I feel like I would disappear.
Poof.
The phone buzzes again.
I’m not looking at it again right now. I’m finishing my column. I’m not getting fired today20.
Okay, so look, I’ve been fired before. It’s inadvertently how I ended up at Citidaze magazine — a pretty tarted-up way to describe a publication printed on the softest, cheapest newsprint known to man — but whatever.
Maybe you think that since I’ve been fired before, I’d be able to handle it. That seems logical.
Of course, one could also argue that the last time I got fired, it devastated me so completely as to render me an entirely different person than I had been previously21.
Being fired does that. It sort of strips you down.
And one might say that being stripped down in that humiliating way is what landed me here, a shell of my former self.
One might go even further and say that really, who knows what another firing could do to me emotionally, but let’s not think about it.
Back to the recording.
“I just … I mean, I just adore tacos. I mean, the smell of them. Not the taste. Obviously I don’t actually, like, eat tacos. I juice. Obviously.”
Sweet cheese. I hate this guy. I remember how he repeatedly gestured to his own muscular physique when saying the word “obviously” and how much it grossed me out at the time. Luckily, I’ve learned a lot about keeping my expression neutral while working here and I don’t think my disgust registered.
The ballerina girl’s voice comes over the speaker next and I type and edit as I listen, my fingers flying over the keyboard.
Emily: I just adore tacos, but for me, the real draw was the man cooking them. I mean, look at him!
My fingers are moving at lightning speed. Warp speed.
Just get it done, I think.
Just. Get. It. Done.
Now that I’m thinking about being fired, a kernel of disquiet has popped off in my chest. I’ve been here at Citidaze for more than two years at this point, and I’ve definitely settled in. Or settled, at any rate. Settled like a thick slimy murk of algae at the bottom of a disused swimming pool. Alive, even if I don’t look like it.
I can’t get fired. And I can’t quit. I’m so lucky to be here. It’s a miracle that I even have a job after what happened.
