Ch 25: Tori is Losing It

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(Tori)

No word from the Aerospace Holy Health Board or Officer Bitch from Personnel. That’s her name right? Yes, that’s it. Officer Bitch.

“Officer Bitch!” It’s satisfying to say it out loud. One more time:

“OFFICER BITCH!”

It’s been three weeks since I was grounded and I’ve done absolutely nothing. I’ve been sitting around in my cool new apartment. I haven’t even gone to the gym once and I’ve been eating these shitty nutrient cubes. I think I was supposed to file some kind of appeal or something within five days, but I was supposed to go to Ickle first and suck him off or something. So fuck that. Fuck everything.

Every night, just as I’m getting into a deep sleep, that banging happens. I go back to sleep, it bangs again. It’s coming from the ceiling right above my rack. The second time it happened, I went right up there and knocked on the door of the apartment above and politely asked about the noise. It was weird. She’s around my age. She’s totally normal. She had no idea what I was talking about and she looked really surprised. I mean really surprised, like, I actually believed her. She was nice, considering that I banged on her door at 04:00. She offered to help by letting the custodian take a look in her apartment. She suggested that I ask the building manager about it to try to find out what is causing the noise.

The building manager, oh yeah right, no. I can’t go through that again. I can’t move again. The whole Residential Council process, forget it. I don’t even have my job anymore.

I’ve tried to catch up on sleep by taking naps. Every time I’m just about falling asleep, bang, there’s the noise again. I literally can’t sleep, ever. I’m not allowed to sleep.

Oh, and of course there’s no word from my wonderful friend Mira. Not even a note to ask if I’m alive. You know, you suddenly disappear from work for a month, hey no big deal, no one even asks about you. Why would they?

I know I’m not thinking straight right now because I haven’t slept right in weeks.

But I am really feeling very in touch with my fucking feelings of fucking anger right now.

I have to get out of here before I start punching the walls or something. I get dressed and head down to get a coffee. It’s nice having the coffee shop right outside my building, overlooking the waterfront. I remember how nice this neighbourhood is.

I’m waiting in line to get a coffee.

A voice behind me says, “Officer Bitch.”

I turn around and there are two women sitting at a table nearby and they’re looking at each other laughing.

“Excuse me?” I say to them. They look up at me, surprised.

One of them turns to me looking surprised and says, “Uh yeah, sorry?”

I say, “Oh, I just thought you were talking me.”

“No, no. Uh, no?” She’s shaking her head, looking very polite. She waits for me to say something.

She’s wearing a yellow shirt. The other one picks up a bag from the floor and holds it up in front of her. It’s the same yellow colour. They both just stare at me. They’re smirking at me.

I get my coffee and leave. They’re laughing as I leave. I don’t know what’s real. I think I’m losing my mind.

I’m back in my apartment thinking that it would very nice to fucking kill someone right now. Kill that fucking pervert Ickle, or one of those Leader fuckers. They probably run all this shit for sadistic fun or something like that. They’re probably watching me right now placing bets on who I’m gonna kill.

I’m sitting on my bed, thinking about how I would do it. I’ve thought about it quite a bit actually. You know what the best way to kill someone would be? I mean out of anger or revenge?

A knife, obviously.

I would just stick it in and then step back and look at him so he could see who did it. In the neck would be too fast. When someone gets their throat cut, it stops blood flow to the head immediately. When the blood flow to the head stops, you pass out within seconds. I know because I’ve blacked out many times. It wouldn’t be enough time to make sure he knows what’s happening and who did it. So I would stick it right in his fucking gut. Below the ribs though. Maybe twice. He’d probably take a few seconds to realize what’s happening, then try to run away, or maybe try to grab me, and I’d just run along with him until he falls down because, again, it doesn’t take too long to pass out because the blood flow to the head is interrupted, but then he’d be on the ground and I would watch him die. That would be good. That’s the best way to kill some motherfucker who’s been fucking with you for no reason and took your life away.

I’m looking down at what’s in my lap, in my hands. It’s my Air Crew survival knife, issued at the Academy. Fixed eighteen centimetre blade, partially serrated. I watch a tear fall on the hard nylon sheath covering the grippy plastic handle. I know how to use it.