If anyone was to spot me walking through town early this morning, they would have seen a dishevelled looking woman clutching a bottle of water as if she was trying to dilute a very serious hangover. It didn’t help either that I was walking with a limp, an indication perhaps that I fell over in a drunken state the previous night. Or that my makeup was a sweaty goop spread unevenly across my face.
Eventually I made it home after what felt like a very long walk of shame; my eyes could barely stay open long enough to see whether I was putting the correct key in the lock. And I was in my room for less than a second before I managed to somehow undress myself completely – before finally falling into bed.
For the past few weeks I’ve been somewhat sad about the fact I sleep alone; that there is no warm, pliable body next to mine to hold and cuddle in bed. But this morning, as I stretched my legs out, as I twisted my body horizontally across the mattress and bunched the pillows up into a comfortable mess underneath my head, I was glad there was no one there to get in the way; least not to see the state I was in.
The truth is, I hadn’t just got in from a heavy nights partying. I wasn’t even drunk. I’d just finished a twelve hour shift at work after a two week stretch of working myself ragged. The limp was from standing up and bending down repeatedly, from stretching, pulling and defending against the books which seemed to like falling on me for no other reason than to cause me pain. And my makeup was a mess from having my hands touch my face constantly, wiping away the sweat and tears of pure frustration.
My colleague and I were tasked with the impossible: to sort out and tidy the four stockrooms at work. Easy you think. But when you realise they’ve been used as a dumping ground for the last year and a half and that the only order they followed was chaos and lots of it, somehow it didn’t seem so easy anymore.
Indeed, there was many a time when I would randomly shout out in frustration, “What evil deeds did I do in my past life to deserve this torture – I’m a good person!”
My colleague could only agree and say he hoped that in his previous life he had tortured a whole myriad of people, in lots of nasty, terrifying ways. Only then would this hell seem worth it.
How many books I handled, I couldn’t tell you. How many particles of dust I inhaled, I couldn’t tell you. How many litres of sweat that poured forth from my being, I couldn’t tell you. I’d like to, but the numbers simply don’t register.
The physical aspect aside, it was the mental demands of the job which really got to me. It didn’t help that I was, and still am, going through a bit of a personal crisis. Moving books from point A to point B doesn’t require a lot of thought, just a lot of physical effort, and so I was often left with my thoughts. For two weeks I was constantly locked in my own head about the shit that was going on in my personal life; round and round it went driving me crazy. It got to the point where I very nearly spoke to a counsellor about things.
If it wasn’t for my colleague who listened to my fragile ramblings, I would have made that call.
I absolutely hate – HATE, talking about my problems to other people. I feel they are my burden to carry and no one should have that amount of crazy put on them. But being locked in a caged stockroom with only one other person, he sort of had no choice.
When I wasn’t trying to figure out WHAT WENT WRONG, I was breaking randomly into song. From Michael Jackson, to Frankie Goes to Hollywood, I sang it all. I could make a song out of anything. Even books.
For some reason (and that reason is no one buys them) we had an endless supply of Duncan Bannatyne books. It’s sad to say perhaps, but I even managed to create a little ditty out of those as well.
“Duncan Bannatyne… be my valentine… don’t let the sun shine… out of your – ARSE.”
Arse? My colleague enquired. That doesn’t rhyme with shine.
Well obviously, was my response. I just like the word.
I was truly inspired.
Or cracked.
The last day of our little project started at 6pm on Friday evening, and we worked right through until 6am Saturday morning.
As passengers started filling in at Heathrow to catch their flights, my colleague and I quietly exited the terminal. As people were coming into work, we were going home. As the day was just starting, ours was just ending.
What happened in the stockroom stays in the stockroom. And in the words of my excellent compadre and colleague, it’s been emotional.