A turning point in my life happened when my TV set broke
down. I guess things could have turned out differently had
I had the money to fix it. Since I could barely support
myself those days, let alone spend money on anything
,besides the absolute necessity, I left things as they were
though not without a slight yet troubling discomfort.
Being a student those days, my daily routine was quite
mundane. I got up early each morning, drinking my cup of
coffee, the sounds of my sipping and the morning talk shows
are the only ones filling the air in my one bedroom
apartment. Always in a hurry I headed for a busy day at
non-community) college, then to my partial-time job, where)
I had served as a not so much courteous phone sales
representative (or 'sales rep' as we call it there), and
onward for home late at night, for my awaiting TV which
seemed to always be on. Here and there was some studying
for exams and such, obviously, since I did earn up my
diploma, eventually, after 6 years of studies.
When I think about that period in my life, which was not
that long ago, a sense of far longing starts to erupt from
within me. Those days were certainly not the happiest in my
life, since I only felt true joy as a child, but still, that
was a special time, of hope, in the great possibilities life
embodies, it was a time of uncompromising belief, in myself
and in what the future holds.  
That morning everything started out the wrong way.   Waking
up before my alarm clock even went on, I somehow convinced
myself to go back to sleep for the rest of the forty-five
minutes left. It turned out of course that the alarm was
somehow off, I guess I did it when I woke up earlier, so I
kept sleeping until nine that morning, being even in a
bigger hurry than usual, not drinking my coffee, and being
so late for school that I had to stay out for the remaining
of the eight to ten course of that day.
After school was over I had to go buying myself a new alarm
clock, because I just hate those built-in mobile-phone
alarms, where you can choose a sound to wake up to. It
always seemed stupid to me, sometimes things should just
stay what they were originally created for, a cell phone
should be allowed to be just a cell phone. Anyways, what's
,wrong with a good old-fashioned alarm-ring sound? Besides
you always have to keep your cellular on, what if someone
calls you in the middle of the night? Sure, you can put it
silence, but what if you forget? And what if people won't
stop calling so your battery runs out, the alarm clock
would never work. I stick to my clock. I don't mind the
digital ones though, I actually like how they flicker, and
the quietness they operate in, without those annoying
pointer tick-tacks.
So I bought me an alarm clock, but because I couldn't find
,just the one I wanted right away, and because of rush hour
I was late for work.
Work was dull and sisyphean, as always, and I constantly
peeped at my new clock, to see if it's running ok, only to
find that time can sometimes be so slow that Einstein
himself wouldn't have believed it. Come 11p.m my alarm
clock assured me as well as my fellow sales reps that our 6
hour horror shift was now officially over. Exhausted and
nearly defeated I headed home, punching in my employee card
and running for the bus, its doors have just been closed.
It was a drag getting home, cause I only had about 8 hours
to myself,   eating, showering and sleeping included, not in
that order necessarily.   But it was also a relief, knowing
that I'm one day closer to the end of all this nonsense.
Inside there was a suspiciously unfamiliar silence. It took
me a half of a second to instinctively turn my head to the
source of it: the TV set, sickly dark, with a shining spot
in the middle, a silent residue to what had occurred in my
absence.  
Although I knew there's nothing to be done at this stage, I
approached it gently and stroke it, it was cold  


I love it when people ask you how you are doing and expect
to hear that everything's fine. What if it's not? What if I
just tell them the truth, that everything in my life, every
goddamn aspect of it, is shit, what then? Are they going to
stop talking and actually listen? Are they going to hug me
maybe, to reassure me, and themselves, that it's going to
get better? Are they going to just shut up, and stand there
not knowing what to do with their hands?
I think I might try it one of these days, just to see what
happens. I'll try it first on strangers. Well not entirely
strangers, of the kind you meet in the street, or when you
,go to the doctor's, but the kind you know, we all do
'lurking in the background of our lives, those friends
friends, distant to never-heard-of relatives, nosy
neighbors, all sorts of constant serve-givers and long lost
school buddies. I can just see it, the huge line formed
behind me in the supermarket, people struggling with their
dangling groceries at the fast-lane cashier (check), the
fruit of my brutally honest answer to the cashier lady's
'?casual 'how do you do