For the first time in my life, I felt energized, as if waking up from the best sleep I'd ever had. I paced around my flat, like a nervous cat. Except there was not a single nerve in my entire body. My heart was racing, my body trying to burn off all the adrenaline that pumped through my veins – except the more I burned off, the more my body just produced. Every hair on my body was on end, and I just couldn't stop smiling, even though my cheeks were starting to ache.
My knuckles still felt sore, my fingers clicked and clacked as I flexed them up and down. I could still make a fist with them just about, but the pain didn't even register with me anymore. I just couldn't contain myself any longer, my throat expelled a loud, proud chortle. The chortle became a snigger, the snigger turned into full on laughter – like I was laughing at the funniest joke I'd ever heard in my life. And the laughter didn't stop, it carried on until it hurt to breathe and I couldn't let another sound out.
All my life I had been made to feel weak and pathetic; from my mother to my boss. All this time I avoided confrontation for fear of reprisal, for fear that I was too weak to fight back. All this time I just wanted to keep my head down and not get into any fights. I just wanted to get through one failure to the next. But when my fist struck Richard in his chest, it was like a ton of weights had been lifted from me. For the first time in my life, I could lift my head up with pride – like a warrior making his first kill.
"I... stood up for myself..."
My smile widened despite there being very little flesh left to expand, as if hearing those words were somehow unattainable for me. As if I were in a dream, a fantasy. But this was no dream. I was wide awake for the first time in my entire life. Now the words that Dr Eve had taught me rang true.
Embrace who you are – and not what the world wants you to be.
I understood it all now. All my life I had played by the rules; and what had that gotten me?
Well, I wasn't going to play by their rules anymore!
Next day at work, I had a spring in my step – so much so that even Lara looked surprised. During the day, I did the footfall count, passing by The Fall of Man and admiring it's superbness as I always did.
I bet he never gave up – neither would I
I passed by a couple. One of them in a beaney hat and a beard that really could have done with a trim and a wash – I could smell the soy lattes all the way over here. Next to him was a girl with purple hair, tons of piercings and some jean looking dungarees. They were standing by a painting that was a replica of that famous We can do it picture – the one showing the housewife flexing her muscles that's shared on Social Media because reasons.
"I don't think I've ever said this before, but this picture really does capture the strength of women and their fight against oppression that they are still going for."
I could tell by the way he was overblowing every word that he was only saying it to impress the girl. She nodded at his phrases like a toy dog, like she was pretending to sound interested.
"I really don't see how you women do it," the soyboy neckbeard said, looking at the woman. "What you have to go through everyday is appalling. But I just want to say, on behalf of all men, we appreciate everything that you do! You women are amazing!"
Let's face it, no man would compliment women this much unless they wanted something. And who the fuck was he to talk about the struggles women had to go through anyway? What did he really know? The most he had to struggle probably was whether to have caramel with his drink or not. Or how much he wanted to ask from mummy so that he wouldn't need to get a job.
The Old Adam would have just walked away and left it. But he wasn't here anymore.
"I do respect everything that women go through, and it's a shame that you are still treated second to us."
The woman smiled, showing the piercing on her lip.
"Mate, she's not going to fuck you!"
The soyboy turned to me, his glasses almost falling from his eyes. "I beg your pardon?"
"I'd watch him if I were you, sweetheart," I said, directing a hand to the girl. "His hand was hovering close to your arse a minute ago."
I walked back as the girl widened her eyes toward the soyboy. "I... I don't know... what he means..." he stammered, suddenly having nothing to say.
I couldn't hide my smile as I walked away. Yeah, I cockblocked him – but I'd just done that girl a favour.
I took a quick break to catch up with Rachel, as I had a rare moment when I had nothing to do. However, when I got there, the café looked like a bomb had hit it. There wasn't a single table that didn't have clutter on it and I could see that Rachel's forehead was gleaming and her cheeks fluster as she removed the mess from one table, seemingly desperate to get it back to it's usual state.
"Rachel?" I asked. "You all right?"
"Lunchtime rush!" Rachel gasped. "Had a swarm of people come in at once, this is the only chance I've had to clean it all up!"
"You want a hand?" I offered.
"That would be amazing if you could!" Rachel said. Her eyes narrowed. "Jesus, Adam. Are you all right?"
"Yeah, I'm ok," I replied, taking a black back to start clearing the tables. "Where's Ron?"
"'Lunch break!'" Rachel bellowed. "He left as things started to get busy, refusing to stay and help me."
"So you were left to do all this on your own?" I gasped. "That's not right!"
"I know right?" Rachel groaned. "Why do they even hire that ginger twat? He's as useful as a chocolate teapot!"
"I'm back!" the aforementioned ginger twat said. As soon as she heard his voice, Rachel stared daggers at him that looked like she could slice his head off.
"And where the bloody hell have you been?" Rachel bellowed. "Your lunch break was over ten minutes ago!"
"I got held up at the pharmacy," Ron said with a nonchalant shrug. "Hey, what happened here? It's like a bomb hit it!"
"You think?" Rachel was incredulous in the way she screamed that, and I thought her throat was going to rip in half with the way she shouted it.
"It's quite messy here, really not setting a good impression of the café."
Oh Ron. Did you really want to go down this route?
Rachel took a deep breath as if she was about to blow him away with superbreath (which would have been pretty cool now I think about it), then she puffed it out with all the frustration she could manage. Her veins on her next bulged and I was worried she was going to have an aneurism. "Well, I'm sorry!" she grunted. "But I was a little busy serving customers, seeing as I was on my OWN!"
"I had my lunch come up!" Ron squealed.
"Oh don't give me that bollocks," Rachel exclaimed. "You knew well how busy we were getting and still left me to do YOUR job!"
"It's not my fault my lunch break fell on that time." Honestly, Ron sounded like he hadn't hit puberty sometimes.
"Well, I haven't had my lunch yet," Rachel complained, throwing the black bag on the ground. "And now you're back, I hope you don't mind if I go eat something!"
"I'm not cleaning this up on my own!" Ron moaned.
"Are you actually serious right now?"
"I don't appreciate your tone with me, Rachel. I was just following my scheduled lunch break at the time that it was given to me. I also don't think it's fair you expect me to clean up this mess on my own, especially when none of this was my fault..."
"Hey, Ron!"
The Old Adam would have kept his mouth shut and let Rachel have at it – but just hearing Ron speak was starting to rot the inside of my brain. It was even worse than Mysti's! "Here's an idea – how about you shut the fuck up and do your job!"
Ron was happy to snap back at Rachel, but the minute I opened my mouth he was quick to go silent. He looked like he was about to piss himself. I wasn't a huge guy by any stretch of the imagination, but even I dwarfed him! He just stood there as I laid into him with verbal punches.
"I don't have to be here!" I continued. "Cleaning the café is not in my job description. But I do it because Rachel needed the help. In fact, she always seems to need help because YOU are too lazy to do anything! I haven't seen you do a single thing since you started working here and frankly, I'm wondering what you even do here! But you can make yourself useful now! Rachel, it's your lunch right? You go."
Rachel looked back at me with a thank you expression and didn't waste a second before leaving. About time someone told Ron the truth, I'm just glad it was me.
I picked up an empty coffee cup and threw it into the black bag I was holding. "You can't do that!" Ron suddenly shouted at me as if he grew a pair of balls.
"And what's wrong with that?" I asked calmly.
"It's paper! It has to be recycled!"
Really Ron? You REALLY wanted to do this now? "What's wrong with me throwing it away?"
"It's destroying the environment!" Ron said. "We have to do our bit to help the planet!"
Spoken like someone who had just read that off a poster and had just decided to repeat it to sound cool.
"Well maybe you should tell that to the Asian countries, seeing as THEY account for most of the world's pollution." I had seen that on video recently, and he claimed to be a scientist of this stuff, so I was prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. "Let me tell you something, Ron. In a few hundred years time, the sun is going to go supernova and burn this entire planet to the ground anyway. And all your paper straws, reusable bags and 'reducing your carbon footprint' isn't going to do squat.
"And for the record," I picked up another paper cup, "you can throw away paper cups if they have food waste in them. Because food waste cannot be recycled." I dropped the cup in the bag and thew my arm that was holding it to his chest. "I expect to see this café spotless by the time I get back. Or you and I will have another chat!"
Ron took the bag from me, looking like he was about to burst into tears. I walked away and left him to piss his pants (which I would make him clean up as well).
You know, if the people in this world were like Ron, maybe burning it wasn't such a bad thing.
I went on my day, taking a brief stop by the museum noticeboard, where we kept posters for museum and community events. I noticed one of the 'mental health' posters that I had put up a while ago, still in it's pride of place. I gave it a read once more, just for shits and giggles.
Your health matters
Sure.
Make time for yourself.
Okay.
Ask yourself "What do I want to achieve today?"
I just wanted to be happy.
Your thoughts and opinions matter.
Did they, though?
You are loved.
I'd stop caring.
You are beautiful.
Whatever.
It's ok to ask for help.
Again, I would have debated this.
Show the world what you can do.
Oh. I will.
Nope! It was still just empty bollocks. Did these companies actually believed the words they wrote down? Of course they didn't! If they actually believed it, they'd do something to help us. But all they could manage was these empty gestures on a stupid piece of paper. Considering how many depressed people were out there now, I actually had to wonder how much of it was helping? I swear I never remember anyone being as depressed as they are now. Back in the old day, when someone mentioned depression, it was considered a rare thing – now you had to really look for someone that wasn't depressed or anxious or messed up in the head. Maybe we were just making the problems worse by being so open about it.
Ah sod it, what did I know?
"Excuse me."
I turned and saw a woman in a pink coat and dirty blonde hair behind me. She held a piece of paper in her hand, which she held towards me. "Would I be ok to put up this poster on your community board?"
"Sure," I nodded, "that should be ok." I took the poster and gave it a quick speed read. "WSA?"
"Women's Sporting Alliance," the woman replied. "It's about a talk I'm given at the town hall."
"Whose Anita Kennedy?"
She narrowed her eyes as if I was supposed to know the answer. "I am," she said with a very slight pout.
"Oh, ok," I replied. "What's the talk about?" I know the poster probably said that, but I honestly couldn't be bothered to take it all in.
"It's about gender inequality in sports," Anita replied. "Despite the Women's Football team taking in more trophies than men, the pay they get is substantially lower. This is why we need to fight the gender pay gap and make sure that we get equal pay to men."
The Old Adam would have just silently choked on these words, put up the poster and said nothing more. Maybe he would have forced a light hearted comment just to make her think he agreed with her. After all, this is not an argument that you should get into lightly, less you get ripped apart online. But, as I had established – he wasn't here anymore.
Most people would have done this behind a computer screen – but I wasn't going to be that cowardly.
"Yeah," I said, eyes glancing over the poster again. "Could it just be that – maybe no one cares about women's sports?"
"Excuse me?" Hey overly painted eyebrows narrowed, accentuating the wrinkles under her eyes even more.
"I mean, this is just an idea," I said, trying to be polite as I could, "I assume that the women's sports is just like the men in that they take a cut of the earns from ticket sales, merchandise and whatever. And if what I've read is correct, the viewing figures for the women's matches are less than half of what the men get. So maybe the problem is that no one is watching women's sports, they're not just getting less pay because they're women."
Anita let out a frustrated puff of air.
"Hey, I respect sportswomen," I continued, "and I agree they should be getting an equal pay to men. I'm just saying that maybe instead of moaning about how you're not getting the same wage, you should find ways of getting more people to see women's sports. Oh, and by the way, I've seen what those women footballers make. Even at a lower pay than men, they're still making more money than I will ever make in an entire year."
"Well, I think that's incredibly ignorant," Anita snapped back. She probably used to having people automatically agreeing with her, hence why she had such a weak comeback.
"Well, let me ask you this," I said. "Manchester United players earn far more than Stoke City players, which I assume is because Manchester United are the more popular team. Should Stoke City be earning the same as Manchester, despite not bringing in most money? Or, let me ask you another thing. Did you know that male models earn less than female models? Should we be advocating for male models to have a higher wage, just because the female ones are earning more than them?"
I saw that Anita's face was like a beetroot, her mouth pursed as if she was frantically thinking of a comeback. I gave her a few seconds, but nothing came from it.
"Anyway, where would you like me to put this poster up?"
Anita snatched the paper from my hand with a loud "Forget it!" and stormed away, almost tripping on her heeled shoes.
"Best of luck with the talk!" I called out. "Hope it goes well! I'll do my bit to help women's sport by watching them!"
Anita just huffed and carried on walking. Bit rude, I was only offering an objective opinion.
I looked back at the mental health poster again. The phrase Ask yourself "What do I want to achieve today?" seemed to ring out to me more than ever.
I did want to be happy.
And if making people miserable made me happy, then so be it.
The rest of my day went as normal. I went through my usual procedures, and when the time came, I locked up, ending by closing the big wooden doors at the front of the museum.