I have a thing for survival
So go ahead hurt me some more
I will live with denial
‘Til you’ll trouble me no more

The morning of my first month in Oracio’s apartment, I came to a sudden realization that my life had radically changed without me noticing it.

The kettle was on the hotplate whistling, the bread slices waiting to be toasted. And I was on the floor, doing my morning pushes up, counting down while my mind wandered on the street noise. People talking, the deli shop across the street opening its roller blind, birds chirping and the constant buzz of all the blurred sound, like the breathing of a sick man. When the whistle became a continued painful call, I got up, turned the stove off and plugged the toaster. Someone honked outside and I went to the window to look.

The delivery truck had arrived for its weekly food supplies. It was the usual: pasta, rice, sweet corn and peas, carrots and fresh salad on top of canned meat, ham and milk. On a side, eggs and common cheese. Some fruits, some dried goods too, lots of protein bars and breads. Nothing fancy, nothing exotic. The basic need for the table. I took some tea leaves from the can Oracio’s had left and poured some water on it, keeping a distracted eye on the drivers. One was young, the other in his midlife with a two weeks beard. The toasts came out, I put it on a plate, with a piece of cheese and sat in my briefs on the window edge, to eat my breakfast while watching people going by their daily routine.

The scenery was a bit the same every time; we all had our scripted schedule. That slender middle age veiled woman walking down the street with her two boys to get fresh bread, the fat man walking his dog and stopping by to joke with the truck driver assistant, while his boss was dealing with the deli owner. The cigarette they would exchange. The rusty voice of the delivery man, the yapping of the dog when the store daughter would get out with her bike to run her first errand. They were all doing more or less the same thing. It was repetitive, reassuring and boring at the same time. But observing them, it suddenly became obvious to me how much humans actually enjoy redundancy.

It is safe. It helps to not think too much. To not fear too much. And even though surprises are told to be the spice of life, it seems that people actually rather go for dull food like the one the deli was ordering every week. Every morning, as I was observing them, while eating my breakfast, I felt like a scientist observing rats in their test cages. Dissecting them with an attentive eye. It didn’t take me long to notice their preferred pattern.

But it took me a month to notice mine.

I never really gave much importance to what I was doing so I didn’t mind occasional side track and fate improvisation. But seeing how the past months had been chaotic to the point that each day was a plate of ghost pepper, my previous life in comparison seemed pretty dull, entrapped between the pages of a book. But only on the surface. As my mind was running wild into the mental imagery of what I was reading, my daily experiences, despite rooting from the same task, were unique and unprecedented.

However, everything was different now that I was truly living on my own. Without noticing, I had also established a routine, and most importantly, this one involved other humans.

Maybe the change occurred in response to being so brutally exposed to social games at the center, maybe it was because of Oracio’s sudden entrance in my life. Or maybe it was because of something else. But for the longest time where I had been observing everyone like the subject of an experiment, I became aware that I was myself just like anybody else. I was no observer. I was just the passive rat that stayed in his corner of the maze thinking he was the guy in white coat.

By sitting every morning, on the window edge, to look at the world, by doing this ritual, I was just like that dog owner, the deli guy’s daughter, the bread lady and any of those passersby, with their insignificant life.

All the same in one single Petri dish.

I was sitting on the windowsill, in my underwear, because I liked feeling the wind on my skin, because the view was appealing, and because drinking my tea while plunging into that reality show was pleasantly peaceful. With the chaos of the town, of our life, we all needed this peace of mind. Until the next surprise. Until the next spice bomb landed in our meal.

The feeling of belonging to the rats’ side became even more so obvious that morning, when a drone passed above us, and we all went silent simultaneously, wishing for it to leave. I could feel everyone tensed up, as if our freezing guts belong one a single entity.

My tea had long turned cold when my heart managed to slow down. Even then I remained petrified, way after the bot had gone and everyone had resumed their activities. When I finally was able to get a grip of myself, I was clutching so hard on my tea cup, I had almost broken it. My joints were white. My tongue and head numb, as if I had run a marathon. Frailly, I stumbled up and closed the window, shutting down the city hubbub getting back to its cheerful self, and sat on the bed. I heard another honking - the truck was leaving - followed by a long feeble and distant murmur covered up by the fridge buzz.

I sat still for an hour, facing the window, ready to see it blow up at any given time. Of course, nothing happened.

My face in my hands, I took a deep breath to calm down. I was in shock, at first by the sight of the drone, then by how panicked I had been. I didn’t know where it was coming from.

I remembered being wary of them just after the shooting, then being annoyed by their presence. But the sudden fear I just felt then, was different. I felt like I had been caught off guard by something that patrol every day in the neighborhood.

It was illogical. It wasn’t rational. Though, after being mad at me for feeling like that, something else came to my mind: I had been surprised because I had stopped thinking of them.

For a whole month, all of this had disappeared from my spectrum. Not because I was less aware of it. Not because I was reading more… but because for the first time since it happened, I hadn’t thought of the shouting at all. Even more, I wasn’t even conscious I had stopped thinking of it.

I had nightmares, I suffered from vision, irritability and hallucination following the massacre. For weeks, I hadn’t spent a night without being visited by the ghosts of a bald woman and a dying old man. To the point I thought they would be with me forever.

I had been aware my nightmare had disappeared after my assault in the shower. But I was still thinking about it, it was still looping in the corner of my head, even just by thinking that I hadn’t dreamed of them as usual. Then I moved into that studio, and ever since, my mind was somewhere else. Ever since, I stopped worrying about the shouting, the drones, the death and the Blue.

I had stopped thinking about Adla and my teacher, entirely. There was a bit of freedom in this discovery, but inexplicably, I felt like a traitor. Part of me was feeling reassured that those two would continue to haunt me. It was like preserving them alive. But the moment I was put in a more pleasant environment, my mind just flipped flop like a five year old child seeing a candy cane. It was disappointing.

I took off my glasses to look at them. My old teacher memento. That tired man who, after years of a crappy working condition, had still found enough concern within him to show the best of his profession. He wasn’t dedicated. He was boring as hell. But one day, he stepped out of his routine to simply ensure one of his kids could read comfortably. He wasn’t like the chairman trying to prove something by having me reach the top. He just wanted me to read, as easily as possible. It was as simple as that. And yet, it had more meaning in the end than anything in the world.

He blocked the door with his desk and body when the attack occurred. He begged for my life while being wounded.

He was a good man. And Adla was a mess of a girl.

And I had left them both down. I owned them nothing, I barely knew any of them. I sure didn’t like any of them or had respect for them. I didn’t look up to the man, and I didn’t love the girl. But maybe I should have. If I had, maybe they wouldn’t have been so easy for them to slip out of mind.

I folded my glasses, put them on my desk and lied down, looking at the sky through the window. My toast had gotten dry, my tea steeped for too long. I didn’t mind. I was no longer hungry. I held still, lifeless, as I realized it would probably be the last time I would ever be haunted by those ghosts.

I skipped school that day. Oracio severely scolded me and personally dragged me back to school the next morning.

But it was fine. I was back to my routine.