Dear Octopus,
This morning my shower broke. The water was running, but was icy-cold. I almost fell back out of it, both shivering and muttering inane swathes of profanity. But aside from the not-inconsiderable angst caused to me by having to use the other shower, I realised that there was a far deeper and terrifying cause for what could at best be called concern and at at worst an all-encompassing horror. My routine had been disturbed.
And then it hit me. I HAVE A ROUTINE.
The whole thing appears to have sneaked up on me, like an aggressive chest infection or desperate urban charity collector. And as I worried my way into the office today, it was painfully - nay excruciatingly - evident how enslaved to said routine I have gradually become.
My alarm goes off at 7.00am. Snooze is set for nine minutes. My sleep is now so controlled by this fact that I now don't even remember 7.09am or even 7.18am. I'm only really awake at 7.27am, where every day I think, 'if I were any sort of a man I'd overcome all of the past failures of my life and get up now...' and every day fail to do so. Every day I get up at 7.36am. Every day. From there I shower - hot water permitting, obviously - attend to my toilette, choose my attire from a horribly small pool of wearable v-neck sweaters and pairs of Levi jeans, get dressed, go downstairs, and put on my trainers. I'm at Wimbledon Park tube no later than 8.08am. Every day the same people are on the platform: Fuckhead Frostyballs (with whom I used to vie for a seat in the second carriage, until I grew tired of his elbows' athleticism constantly outwitting my wit), Gormy Temp-Girl-Smith (who looks terribly well-bred but listens to 'rap' music and can't close her mouth), and Luther Smarm-Diabolo (who appears to want me to think him a City trader when I've come to suspect he works in Westfield Shopping Centre). As the train arrives we all slope into the same carriages, and take the same seats. We all know the exact spots on the platform where the doors will appear. Mine is between the left hand edge of the tube sign and the door-knob of the winter waiting room. Yes. I know that.
Change at South Kensington any time between 8.21am and 8.32am (forgoing signal failure at Earl's Court, and by which time I've always finished the Metro), and am usually at Leicester Square by 8.41am, having moved onto a book. Headphones in, and from the tube to the office I can listen to either three medium lengths songs or two long ones. Normally chosen from a pool even smaller than that of the v-neck sweaters. Outside the office by 8.48am, and at my desk by 8.52am. Sometimes this used to be 8.54am, if I decided to stop en route for a wee. This is no longer the problem it once was, having been edited out due to its unpredictable effect on timing.
Needless to say, this is only about two hours of my morning. The same is true, to lesser or greater extents, for the WHOLE DAY. My whole fucking day is lorded over by such stringent patterns of inconsequential governance. Why? What does it matter? Who cares if I get up late, or early, or arrive at 8.54 rather than 8.52? Would anyone in that office even notice if I didn't come in at all? Who set these Machiavellian axioms to their devious machination, if only in my mind? And why am I so in love with them?
Am I alone? Or is that virile, semen-sweating blaggard Luther Smarm-Diabolo similarly entrenched in meaningless repetition, from which his successful extrication is his sole and heartfelt aim? Did Gormy Temp-Smith spend her childhood envisaging this quiet, gloom-filled martyrdom? Does it make her happy? And why the fuck have we never spoken? How can I have formed these presumptions about them, when I see them every day but know nothing of their lives? What does that say about me?
It's ironic really. You may not think it, but these fervent existential questions are nothing new. They are not original programming in the channel of this mind. In fact they arrive every evening, between Parsons Green and Putney Bridge.
Yes, they too are just constituent parts of the all-encompassing routine.
Your loving friend,
Action Squid
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