Pantomaniac

Chapter 6

Two weeks later...

Kef was walking along the sidewalk when he saw his reflection on the shop's glass wall. His hair was matted to his head. Dark patches dangled at the bottom of his eyes. He brought his hands up to his cheeks, struggling to feel like he was more than just bones.

It has been days since he lost his job. He had been hunting everywhere for a new one but to no luck. The last time he visited Maya, she almost got scared when she saw his face. And Rina was, of course, not happy. He had been avoiding telling her the truth but that day, he had no choice. He had expected yelling and cursing, but all Rina did was shake her head and lead Maya back into the house.

Kef had long lost his sense of reality. His days were spent searching for a new job. And his nights? They seemed to be lost on him. Each day when he woke up, he could barely recall the night before. Except for faint traces of dreams.

Despite the amount of sleeping, he never felt rested. His body ached more and more with each growing day. And there he was, looking at himself, barely recognizing who he was.

He took his phone out and checked his mobile notes. There was only one place left. A distant friend said a corporate building needed a daytime guard. Distant friend. That was how far he needed to go to find a job. He had to scroll through his Facebook friend list and messaged people he had not seen in years. The fact that he got a response was a miracle in itself.

Without thinking much about it, Kef opened his online newspaper app and scrolled through the classifieds feed. His eyes jumped from one posting to the next, not certain why he was doing it in the first place. Before exiting the app, out of habit, he checked out the highlights section.

After reading the headline, his eyes trailed the news and fell upon a photo of a young boy. He had hair that looked like it was glued to his forehead and his spectacles could have passed off like that of Harry Potter's. Kef read on. He couldn't stop himself from shaking his head. For a few moments, he forgot about his troubles. His non-existent job. His screwed-up relationship with Rina. No, none of that landed in his mind. Instead, he questioned the news over and over again. And he questioned himself for questioning what he was reading. Why was it happening? And why was he that bothered by it? He should not have been. Especially after what went down between him and Arfan.

But there was something inside him that pulled him towards the news. A magnet. A chemical reaction. Something. As he walked towards his car, the question floated in his mind. Slowly, however, it faded.

As he drove to the office building, his heart floated in the same spot it had for the past several days. Over half of it was dipped in a pit of hollowness, with the tip peaking at a hope which felt a thousand miles away.

Even when he parked outside the building, Kef contemplated turning around. What was the point? He had met with rejection after rejection. What made him think that one building was going to change his course? All he wanted to do was leave but somehow, in some way, his body refused to bow down to his thoughts.

So, he stepped out of his car and started walking towards the building. Then, his phone buzzed. Rina.

Tuition fees have gone up. And please don't say Maya doesn't need it. What we need is for you to have a steady job.

Kef felt like a bottle full of wrongly-mixed chemicals. He was vibrating and within seconds, that vibration turned into violent shaking. Rina's text was like a knife, slicing through his layers of patience. How did she get there? She used to love him, unconditionally. But at that moment, it seemed like she relished in the act of insulting him. Emasculating him down to the pieces.

Kef stuffed his phone into his pocket and continued walking.

*****

It was like time froze. There he was, standing outside the gate, staring at his car. But his thoughts were still trapped inside the building.

Did he really land the job?

It may not have been years but living day to day without work and barely anything to scrape by had sent Kef into a spiral of hopelessness. To the point that success, no matter how small, felt foreign.

It was funny how a short duration took over Kef's life like he had been jobless for ages. He realized, at that moment, that losing control even for a minute meant losing touch of everything and that translated into decades.

Only when he sat in his car did he finally relish in the fact that he had a small break. Tears welled up in his eyes. He made a promise to himself. He could finally start fixing his life, start reshaping himself into the man he used to be. Maybe the time had finally come for him to let go of his past, mold his future and move on. For the first time in ages, he felt like he was alive. Or so he thought.