Alex Jones slumped in his chair, the dim shadows of the old computer screen dancing across his face. Hours sat and crawled by, save the low hum emitted from his desktop fan to break the stillness in that small cluttered apartment.
His eyes were glued on the screen while his fingers absently tapped on the side of the chair.
He wasn't the kind of guy that stood out, unless one counted the wrong kind, anyway. To the world, he didn't exist; to them, he was just another nameless drone within the sea of office workers, and that was perfectly okay with him.
His life was monotonous, an endless series of labor and sleep. Among the people, he kept to himself everything Alex had shared with him in his life, things which nobody knew.
Not his friends that he hung out with, not the guys at work, definitely not his family. This-his addiction-had been buried deep inside his brain, in those corners of his mind where he just refused to go or confront it head-on.
Alex Jones was hooked on adult films.
He was not even proud of such an act; if anything, he hated it, yet each time he tried stopping, it just wasn't going away. Loneliness gnawed at him-the shame was heavy. Even at the sight of a woman, all he could feel was a pang of inferiority.
But online, within this virtual space, he didn't have to be, and he didn't have to talk to anyone. He could just sit there in his thoughts, and the addiction began to feel so comfortable, it had almost become too reliable of comfort.
It was no different tonight: after a very long uneventful day at the warehouse stacking boxes and moving stuff around, doing other things which didn't involve much in his head, he found himself in his apartment again reaching to that world on the other side of the screen.
The air was left on, a pizza was too, a car's alarm hummed across the apartments; he did nothing. Alex wasn't about anything much, at least in that very instance.
He took one more deep breath of fresh air and clicked the new video-the one he had been waiting for impatiently the whole week for-and his heartbeat increasing with excitement because something inside was telling him it was the same old one.
The same faces, the same situations, the same seconds of delight that flickered. He leaned back in his chair and let his mind wander as the movie started.
It was a mild relief he had known in weeks. Perhaps tonight, he thought, tonight it would be different. Tonight, perhaps he would not feel so empty. He could at last sleep properly and not wake up with his gnawing anxiety over his life, job, future, everything. Maybe just forget it for some minutes, anyway.
The longer the film wore on, the more Alex became entranced. It wasn't until he felt this strange sensation that he had any idea he had sat for so long, lost to the screen. Subtle, at first, it was almost like a change in the air; his gaze flickered as the realization hit him that his foot was a lot closer to the edge of his chair than it ought to be.
This was more pleasure than he could bear; he jumped up, rushing to the tissue paper
In the twinkling of an eye, it happened.
His foot slipped on something. He had barely any time to react before the floor beneath gave away and he totally lost his balance.
His chair went over backward, and with a horrified gasp, Alex fell, tumbling to the floor in the most awkward and ridiculous way possible.
It happened so fast, his hands flailing for anything to catch, his body jerking while he struggled to right himself, but there was no hope. His feet tangled in something-a damn banana peel.
The sudden slip into ignominy for Alex as that yellow, smooth fruit skin finally betrayed his trust in a shocking way made him go back hard onto his back, where the back of his head resounded with a sickening thud.
The shock of the impact ran right through his head, sharp pains, and the world blurred, starting to tilt around him. He tried to move, tried to push himself up, but found his limbs were too heavy. His mind started to go in and out.
What really hit him most was the impossibility of such a thing-the utter ridiculousness of it: a banana peel? How in the name of God had it ever gotten this far? He wasn't some cartoon character, some idiot in a comedy of circumstance, and yet he was lying face-first onto his crummy carpeting, his consciousness barely holding on to its tenuous grasp, and his life fading fast.
For one passing, brief moment, there was an attempt by Alex to speak. He was trying to shout, scream for help. He wanted somebody-anybody-to know he wasn't ready to go, wasn't ready for such a preposterous ending. His chest heaved with desperate breaths, but no sound came out. He tried again. This can't be how it ends, he thought, the panic filling his mind. But despite his attempts, his body wasn't cooperating.
Then, in the next second, he opened his eyes, and there was just blackness, reaching in length for an eternity. Yet, in nothing, Alex felt-something. A flicker. A pull. Unable to explain, Alex felt that something was drawing him toward it.
Is this it? Alex wondered. Is this what happens when you die?
The sensation of falling began to dissipate-the fall not really free but a meek floating of a leaf on air. Finally, his mind, fussy as it was, began to clear out. A voice pierced the silence.
"Is this. what you wanted?" it asked, deep yet far away, cold yet somehow familiar. The tone was more curious than judgmental. "This is your choice?