Oral Fixation


CHAPTER ONE

Leela found herself waking from another daydream to see that she had lost a good 4 or 5 hours real time. Sometimes her mind would just take a walk and not return, not the average seven seconds every ten minutes that most people take but for absolutely hours. She couldn't really recall what happened during these lapses, but it was certainly something strange, because every now and then she'd snap back to reality to her own ridiculous laugh or the coppery saltiness of a bored tear that fell into her mouth which was slightly ajar, probably in awe that her life could be so mundane. And there she would be endlessly typing figures into spreadsheets that no one would ever scan for real accuracy.

It shocked her that her body could be so independent of her mind, that she could continue to function without a trace of consciousness. The thing that irked her about the whole thing most was this: everytime she came to, there would three sometimes four pens chewed half way down to the points. And not just lightly gnawed on, like pitbull-with-a-rubber-bone chewed -- well beyond the point where you could lend it without a raised eyebrow of disgust from the borrower. Her gums would bleed and her tongue was swollen and raw, causing her speech to feel awkward and uncomfortable.p> Some people blamed this behavior on sexual frustration, mostly men, and her mother didn't know what caused it she only knew it wasn't good for Leela's teeth. Her therapist told her it had something to do with issues of abandonment as if her teeth were trying to hold to something she couldn't retain.

It probably stemmed from her parents divorce, he'd said or maybe, her best friend's suicide or even as far back as her caesarean birth that ripped her from the womb unsolicited into life. It was all a bunch of crap. Leela hated her therapist and the way he would neatly file all her emotions into their respective folders of cause and effect as if putting a name on an issue could make it disappear, as if that would make it less painful and more like another tab in her database of excuses for fucking up.

But she went to him anyway. she learned a long time ago how to tune people out and as far as she was concerned, he was just a big ear absurdly sitting his chair with a notebook and everytime he spoke he just became this big mouth moaning "blah blablah blah blablah blah". and this always sent a smirk shooting to the corners of her mouth because everyone knows mouths don't have anything of significance to say when they aren't attached to a coherent head.

Which brings us back to this whole wandering thing her mind did. Was she different without her head? Did she say and do stupid things her mind would be embarrassed by? Is that why everyone in the office treated her like an imbeucile? I mean she really had to wonder just what the hell was going on out there, while she was on hiatus?

It's not like she was crazy or living two lives. Not at all, She could remember if she really tried. But most of what she saw just wasn't worth the mass of mental space it took up. So she'd push it aside and eventually out of her memory all together. But the catch was this: what if she threw out some of the big stuff, too, with her general clearing of the cluttering occurrences? Like that time when she accidentally tossed out that nice man's phone number -- the one with same smile she always pictured her son might have. And now he was sitting in the landfill in Staten Island with a pile of random receipts from her wallet, and the wrappers from an entire Plen-T-Pak that she had consumed while typing in the figures to yet another balance sheet that no one would ever be bored enough to actually read. And she thought "Oh fuck! What if I do that shit all the time?"

Next Chapter

Chapter Two


This page hosted by GeoCities Get your own Free Home Page