Something I wrote in rant.
Vaggie was having a shitty day. An absolutely shitty shit day.
She had barely slept for a couple of hours after staying up the night before over a row between tenants. She tried to sleep for five more minutes, but her head got carried away for her tiredness and she ended up sleeping for more than half an hour. Vaggie had to bathe as quickly as possible, and yet she didn't have time to pick up a miserable apple to eat.
Oh, what she would have given that day to make it one of those days when she spent hours dealig with her tenants all day, of course, she would spend it screaming with a vein or two in her forehead, but that was an effort to that she was used to, plenty, not to the physical stress that sent her from one place to another without time to rest, her feet were already killing her and it was not yet her time to eat.
She alone could let out a bitter sigh before continuing.
By the time she finally could allow herself to stop and rest and thought she could spend some time with Charlie, she would surely make her laugh with one of her quips, or show her a new song that she was working on for a few days. Or they would just cuddle side by side in silence in a darkened room while Charlie's favorite songs played and her soft breaths.
Whatever it was, it would be better than whatever shit the hotel could give her.
But her illusions fell to the ground when Vaggie received a call from Charlie saying that she would have to be out of the hotel for a few hours due to some problems with Angel Dust with some pricks who asked for Angel's "services" and the bastards didn't take a "no" for answer. It took all of her self-control not to throw the phone against the wall or end the call right away just because it was Charlie.
"I know you are hating this, is there anything I can do?" Vaggie heard through the other end of the phone, but she didn't answer. She was just massaging her forehead with her fingers while she tried not to think too much about it.
"I-I understand, I swear I'll make it up to you. Okay honey?" The call ended, leaving Vaggie alone and trapped between stacks of papers on her desk in silence.
To her good or bad fortune, at this point she could no longer tell the difference, she dissociated from herself for the rest of the day. Series of images at high speed passed before her eyes, she did not feel anything when she saw those images, she did not know that passed first or later.
She continued like this until the clock struck 9 o'clock at night with the chimes of one of the clocks hanging in the hallways that brought Vaggie back from her trance.
That's it.
Vaggie no longer had to do anything for anyone till tomorrow and she was free to do as she pleased. Her first instinct, like every day, was to go to the elevator and call it. At her impatience, even though it had only been a few seconds, Vaggie continued to push the elevator button over and over with an expectant look, until Baxter told her the elevator was broken and couldn't be repaired until tomorrow.
Vaggie was so tired that she didn't even have the energy to be angry. She just went quietly like a grave, up the stairs that she would have to climb on her own. Then, her bad luck struck again, and Vaggie began to notice the pain in her feet that she had accumulated all day.
Despite her pain and tiredness, she began her task as an old habit in her. Just as it was a habit in her to be able to hold out a little longer always. Always.
But just over halfway there, when her legs were already numb with pain, she collapsed.
She laid on the stairs, breathing just enough, until, against her will, her body began to shed tears.
She hated it. She hated all of this. She hated it with all her strength.
She couldn't stand it anymore, she preferred to stay lying on the stairs, waiting to sink into a dream from which she would never wake up, imagining that hell had been just a bizarre lucid nightmare.
And this…circus, this freak show, which was the only way Vaggie could call this place.
This circus, this circus that was based on an delusional dream. From a delusional clown, with a delusional maid that followed her everywhere when she needed her.
And now that she needed someone, she was alone. No one would come for her.
With that belief etched into her mind. She huddled on herself on the stairs, trying to ignore the discomfort and pain in her back and muscles.
Something smaller than an idea flew like a tree leaf through her mind, a memory, several memories, none specifically or with something special about, but all with something in common.
The days when she was a child, and she could sleep late, or stay up late at night, and it didn't matter.
As those memories flew away from her, Vaggie tried to hold onto it, she tried to hold on those times when nothing mattered.
She couldn't understand or explain how she got there.
She might wish to erase the things that got her to where she was right now.
She could. But, why bother?
Vaggie just cleared her mind in black, and let herself sink into the nothingness of her thoughts.