David McLean

9 min readOct 16, 2020

A short story on the mindlessness of the everyday in the lives of those who feel perpetually stuck.

David Mclean

Introduction

Behind every closed door is a world different from our own. A way of living. Things occur that we would never expect, let alone do. For some of us our lives are just so. We wile away the hours, each second bringing us a moment closer to the end. However, for some is does not matter because each and every moment spent in front of that sordid TV screen is another moment passed. Another moment forgotten. Another moment we no longer have to live.

One

The Flat

The moon was up, and the front door was closed. The soft glow of the TV screen was lighting up the room in a pallid grey. David was lying in bed with the duvet pulled up to his chin and his glasses had slid down clinging to the tip of his nose. On his bedside was a glass of water and a copy of last week’s TV Guide. A small lamp with a crinkled shade clung to the edge of the table squashed up against the wall next to his Bluetooth speaker.

The room had one window on the far side which sat behind navy-blue curtains that hung on a plastic track. A white corrugated radiator stood fixed to the wall underneath the sill where David’s black polo shirt was drying for the next morning. A large, square tightly woven blue rug covered the blank expanse of magnolia carpet which lied in the middle of the floor. Round the outside stood several pieces of flatpack furniture in beech. There was a chest of draws, wardrobe and a bookcase which was filled with CDs, DVDs and a stock image of the sea.

David’s bedroom was one room in a building of fifty flats spread over four floors. His flat was on the ground floor among another nine, the floor above had fifteen and a door leading to an old lift shaft that had recently been blocked off since someone’s cat got stuck down there two weeks ago. The third floor had only eight flats because it also housed the onsite gym and the fourth floor had the remaining seventeen flats, the majority of them being studios. The hallways were long and narrow with half shell wall uplighters every ten feet or so. There was a mixed smell of urine, cigarette smoke and damp ingrained into the carpet from fifty years’ worth of residents. Most people only lived in the flats for two to three years before moving on to houses they had saved deposits for. A lot of them were young couples looking to start families, and the odd middle-aged forty something pair with a little boy on his side looking to upsize.

The clock struck ten thirty and David pointed the remote at the TV turning it black. He rolled over onto his side and laid still in the darkness. The light from the street seeped into the room from under the curtains throwing a square shadow up the wall onto the ceiling. Remember when you were six years old and something would wake you in the night, weary eyed you would look all around the room and notice the shadows only they wouldn’t be square or rectangular, to the mind of a six-year old they’re man eating creatures, vampires, Frankenstein’s and big cats. As it happens David had a black cat called Oreo named mildly after one of his favourite biscuits, the chocolate bourbon always made number one, but the name actually came from a lazy internet search and it was one of the top ten results, so he went with that.

He stretched his legs out as far as they would go pointing his toes and then releasing whilst simultaneously letting out a deep breath and closing his eyes. As David slowly drifted off to sleep, next door started doing their usual. She would shout, he would grumble something back, the little girl would cry and her even smaller brother would start screaming. Then he would walk out slamming the door and she would start screaming at the kids telling them to go back to bed. This would happen most nights and because of it, David always kept a pair of foam earplugs in his top bedside draw.

Two

The Morning

The wind was howling against the window forcing through a draft that squeezed through the tiniest cracks in the buildings structure. David walked to the bathroom from carpet to cold terracotta tiled flooring and stood with his pale angled feet spread out with dark curled hairs upon his toe and the top bridge of his foot. The skin to the side of his big toe and underneath of the heel was both rough and hard. As he went to relive his bladder with the first morning urination of the day, he held his head back with his mouth agape staring at the ceiling. He put away his penis and turned to the mirror over the sink looking deeply into his eyes. Directly in the centre of the pupil his whole life story surfaced. He became transparent and every trouble and triumph could be seen. His love for film poured out into the reflection. The knowledge of having a degree and not being able to do anything with it dug away at David every time he got ready for work. However, it didn’t matter because his job in the shop paid his bills. It paid his rent and allowed him to have a roof over his head. A passion for some abstract art where he wasn’t a known prodigy meant nothing. He could not feed himself with it, he could not keep the tax man away with it and he couldn’t get a decent haircut with it. There was no future, family, home or car that existed through a passion that lived in the mind. It has to be a physically discovered thing from those at the top of the field otherwise it cannot be sustainable. It becomes air in the darkest moments, an obsessive craving that the abuser cannot kick. A useless entity which amounts to nothing because it’s merely a thought with no action. That was David’s film career. His profession is retail shop worker and has been for the past eight years. It can’t change now. It’s too late. Besides, no one would take him seriously. He doesn’t have the finance to back it up let alone anything else.

Three

The Bus

The rain faded into the air forming mist over the hill next to the church. The bus stop stood on the corner behind the block of flats tall and stark white against the grey sky. The cold air hit David’s face causing the skin under his beard to dry out and become irritated. Red cars, grey cars, blue cars, white vans, delivery lorries, school mums driving their kids, university students travelling to lectures, office workers suited and booted and other retail workers on a path to something greater also travelling in cars. David stood at the bus stop. Every minute or two he would endure the moist air to lift his phone out of his pocket to check the time. Another minute had passed. Then he would turn to check the timetable fixed to the bus stop flag to confirm he had arrived at the bus stop at the correct time. The he would check Twitter to see if the bus company had reported an accident. He had been stood at the bus stop for ten minutes, but it felt like an hour. Another couple of minutes had passed and he repeated the cycle. Shifting his weight from one foot to the next, he would look up out into the traffic searching for signs of relief from the waiting. Then once a break in the traffic appeared, he would listen intently for the familiar sound of a bus engine on approach. A few times a promising sound would whir around the corner, but it was often just a large van.

After twenty minutes standing on the side of the road in the bleak weather with the sleeves of his coat beginning to soak through a bus came around the corner. The water was running off the roof down the front windshield and the windows had steamed up from the breath of passengers inside. The doors opened and David stepped aboard looking down at the muddy water patches from previous shoes, showed his pass and went to sit down. The smell of thirty-year old perfume filled the air around David. A light blue quilted coat sat in front of him bulging over the seat. It was soft and pappy and belonged to a much older woman whose hair was in tight ringlets. Across from David sat a man wearing a suit with a long, thin umbrella perched between his legs. The hook of the handle stood proud providing a resting place for both his hands. The man was clean shaven and had a mild aftershave dabbed onto the side of his neck; still fresh because you could see the glossy patches. His nose was facing forward and his gaze uninterested. Behind David sat what seemed like a pile of coats. There was a big, burly man with bright red cheeks and a red nose. Every line in his face told a different story about his ex-wife Sue and the Rose and Crown at the top of his estate.

The drone of the bus engine stopped and started along the designated route allowing others to come aboard and shelter from the rain. Each rain droplet clung onto the side of the window cooling the glass and forming more condensation on the inside. David’s eyes softened and he looked on into the advancing weather. His mind began to wander. He saw pictures of film cameras, movies stars, clapper boards and a lot of pens and paper. There was big, black wooden boxes, curtains and angled lights. Everyone applauded, and they applauded David for his work. The film was made under budget and for that reason they made a significant profit. He was proud, his home was comfortable, and he was happy. Everything was okay.

Familiar buildings started to become visible through the cleared patches of steam in the side windows. The images in David’s mind faded away. Back to reality. The bus had reached the city centre. David had arrived. It was time to go to work.

Four

Work

David walked through the door and a feeling of dread would line the pit of his stomach. Only eight hours to go he thought. He went to the locker room and put away his bag and hung up his coat. He looked into the mirror and saw a man. A tired man he did not recognise. He was weary of his life, his home and his daily routine waiting for the bus in the rain. He straightened up his uniform and ran his fingers through his hair. He took in a deep breath, sighed on exhale and shrugged his shoulders as he walked out the locker room with a wry smile. Eight hours to go he thought. Eight hours and I can go home.

Four Point Five

David’s Thoughts

I can go home in eight hours. I’ve done the journey to work now so I don’t have to do that anymore. I’ve already stood in the rain, and it won’t matter on the way home because I can have a bath. I’ll be home. Home. What is home? What happens at home? A short break before I have to do this all again tomorrow. The getting up, the morning urination, looking into the mirror, the daydream, the walk to the stop, waiting, sitting on the bus, daydreaming, reality hits and I arrive. I’m stuck here for the next eight hours and there’s nothing I can do about it so I may as well make the most of it. I have to be here. I can’t leave, can I? Unless I’m ill, but I feel fine. Eight hours to go. Two more days of this and then I’m off. A day off. For me. Or for this machine to recharge me to do this all over again?

Conclude

I think this story could continue but I’ve chosen to leave it where it is because I feel like I’ve lost my way with it, and also I’ve said everything I wanted to say. I’m not really sure how I’d progress it without it becoming too cliched or predictable. For now, that is David McLean as a man in this world.

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