RAW - Chapter 1: In the mouth of dullness.

I rubbed the sleep from my eyes, groaning as I walked to the gates of the local Cheapo-Mart, the oh so great wretched hive of scum and mass production mega mart where I worked. “Ok brain,” I said to myself. “I know you hate me, and sometimes I hate you too, but its six in the morning, so I need you to wake up so I can earn that guap. I want running water this month.” In a clear sign of pure mental anarchy, I felt my face contort and my left eye twitch, giving me that patented sensation of burning needles piercing my skin.

I slapped my face, trying to gain enough cognizance to open the door of the place. Six bazillion mosquitos, flies, and discarded candy wrappers welcome me along with that familiar smell of cheap chlorine and sweat. “Ah right, the Classic Cheapo smell. You know you’re shipping Cheap when the smell somehow gives you acid reflux.”

I walked down the many aisles to a corner of the mega mart, past the drunken hobo that fell asleep on a bed made out of cockroaches and toy cars. It was the meat section, and it was hard to miss, with its huge sign above the barely functional displays that said ‘Actual meat not guaranteed’.

I was in charge of the ‘sausage assembly’. It was as interesting as it sounds.

The door to the section had been stuck since forever –stuck in the sense that it was actually painted on and was never a real door to begin with- so I simply jumped over the displays, careful not to step and slip on the great puke stain of sixty three that simply refused to go away. It is said that whatever shoes stepped on it would forever be haunted by its smell.

I went behind the freezers to look for my partner in crime –since making people pay six cents per Cheapo sausage was an actual crime in several states… and Nantucket- and found him right where I expected him to be, sleeping on top of the ‘Can’t believe it isn’t real meat’ boxes. I slapped him on the back of the head. “Hello, Lester.”

“Glycolysis,” he shouted as his neurons were shaken awake. “I mean… hello Paul.”

“So, my tall yet chubby friend,” I said as grabbed one of those fluffy freezer jackets from the floor and shook all the rats off.” You ready to partake on yet another grand adventure of the mundane and insanely maddening exercise that is poorly paid manual labor?”

“No.” He adjusted his glasses as he stood up. “But I don’t think it matters. Nothing really matters if you really think about it.”

I laughed. “Oh Lester, your pessimism really cheers me up. No matter how miserable I think I am, the fact that I know you’re here to share my misery always makes me feel all warm and fussy inside. Well, it’s either you or the nuclear fusion batteries that keep this antiques we call ’freezers’ running to barely legal levels.”

“Oh how I wished I had your natural excitement,” Lester said with slumped shoulders.

“Funny you say that, because I have none right now.” I opened the first freezer. “Smell that? Smells of…  tedium.”

“Didn’t know tedium smelled like warm beef blood and ammonia.” Lester picked up some old, wet boxes from the floor.

And so began yet another day, just like all the others. Uninteresting, boring, dull, repetitive, and in the end, mundane. Not even the haunted carts that moved on their own from aisle twenty two that went by in front of our section made it fun anymore.