The Machinist

Eric ate slowly. The food was unspectacular; gelatinous in texture and full of artificial flavours that offered no real satisfaction. He would probably be hungry again in a few hours. He was disappointed, but detached from his disappointment to the point that he could be pleased by it. It added to the atmosphere that he had so carefully created for the evening. A sense of alienation, loneliness and freedom. He listened to the cold wind blowing outside the dismal little restaurant. It was a fine night indeed.

He finished his food, and sat for a minute. Hours of darkness yawned ahead of him, and when he saw the sun rise he wanted to have some stories to tell. He was feeling more awake than when he left the cinema. Perhaps it was the additives in the food and the bad lighting in the restaurant, but he could feel an agitation rising through him. It was only just noticeable, but he took it as a sign that he should stop thinking ahead, and start moving on. It was the same agitation that had come on before, and ruined so many nights.

It was not the first time that he had sat outside the school trying to cultivate the dreaminess in himself; watching as his everyday life flickered past his eyes and started to seem as distant as the scenes that were projected onto the screen in a cinema. Nor was it the first time that he had followed the buses out of the school gates in his car only to turn left towards the city. Each time, this action was supposed to evoke a sense of unexpected subversion of routine - and he tried to make sure that he felt that way. Today, he had reached the goal he had been striving for. He was like an observer in his own life, his own thoughts and feelings were part of the scenery. He could watch himself as he would watch the main character in a movie. The urban scenes he had seen from his car window had taken on the feeling of a lucid dream in exactly the way he had wanted. Like a well-shot scene from a movie, the mundane and the everyday things were seen afresh.

On past occasions, the effect had been ruined by that agitation that came over him when he started to think ahead too much. In the past, he had even started to wonder what his class-mates were doing. One question would lead to another until finally he asked himself how other people would see him sitting here in this Chinese restaurant after watching a movie on his own. A sad loner with nothing better to do on a Friday night. Thinking of himself in that way no longer hurt. It had become a necessary part of the character. The loneliness was conveyed in the scenery.

He stood up slowly. The food was starting to make him feel a little queasy, but when he stepped outside and felt the cold breeze he immediately felt better. It blew back his hair, and his long coat flapped in the wind. He imagined how he would look to another person standing here in the small hours of the morning. The night seemed full of possibilities. The fact that there would be only one conclusion to the evening didn't get in the way of the effect one bit.