OYSTER
The sound of Ted's phone alarm broke through the fragile wall of sleep brought on by last night's misguided trip to the local boozer. Ted could still taste the shots of Sambuca that ended what was supposed to be a quiet night with a few friends, the football and a couple of pints of Guiness. Ted cursed his bad judgement as he blindly pawed at his phone hoping to make the noise go away. The idea of having '1st Of Tha Month' by Bone Thugs n Harmony set as his alarm tone seemed funny at the time, right now it seemed like his worst idea since those Sambuca shots. Somehow he managed to find the right key for snooze and he lay there attempting to get his brain in order for the forthcoming day. He had to have a shower. This was essential as Ted had a date after work. The first date had gone surprisingly well, Ted hadn't said anything offensive, had actually been witty rather than obnoxious and he hadn't ended the night being sick over his date.
Ted's phone vibrated and broke his reverie, a text had come through: "Rly lukin fwd 2 tonite lv Emz xx". Ted's first reaction was to smile, his second was to think "Should I really be seeing someone who can't even be bothered to spell texts correctly on a Blackberry?" and his third was to think "I'm really going to fuck this up if I'm not careful". Despite the childlike texts she insisted on sending, Emily (he could never bring himself to use the frankly ridiculous Emz she liked people to use) was a sharp, intelligent and beautiful woman, and Ted was still shocked that she seemed to like him.
Ted must have fallen back asleep as the next thing he heard was Bone Thugs n Harmony again. "SHITTING FUCK I'M GOING TO BE LATE" thought Ted as he convinced his phone to shut up. He fell out of bed, obviously still drunk, and stumbled down to the shower. Greeting him as he approached the door was the sound of running water, a bad rendition of the latest big tune by a quirky female singer songwriter and the unmistakable smell of Badedas. Ted, to put it mildly, was nonplussed by this development, he knew Sarah didn't have work today, he didn't even know what she did if he was being honest, something creative that mainly seemed to involved meeting people at cafes for late breakfasts and then going to parties with the same people she met for breakfast. After standing outside the door for five minutes thinking about ways he could kill her and get away with it Ted realised he didn't have the time or the inclination to argue with his least favourite housemate, he was too hungover and, by now, too late. He went to the downstairs toilet and washed himself in the sink as best as possible, he then urinated and was almost simultaneously sick.
Ted decided to skip breakfast, he'd get a McMuffin or something, and made a mental note to buy toothpaste and a toothbrush on his way in to work. He headed back to his room to get dressed. Things were looking good for Ted today. After flinging on some clothes (Ted worked in the creative industries where no one really cared if you looked like a tramp) he ran down the stairs and out into the South London street he'd been living on for the last 3 years. It was meant to be a stop gap before finding somewhere a bit less student-chic to live but the combination of low rent and a lack of motivation had meant the stop gap was now his life. Ted liked the area though, and was the only one out of the four people living there who had actually made the effort to get to know the neighbours. Ted liked to think this was because he wasn't a typical provincial fuckwit scared of everyone else in London but it probably had more to do with the fact that he had been there the longest.
The main road was pretty busy. One of the other side streets had been cordoned off by police tape. it could have been anything but already one of Ted's elderly neighbours was approaching him saying that she heard it was a stabbing and probably to do with the gang war that was supposedly raging in the area at the moment. Ted often turned his brain off at moments like this, letting the words wash over him. Of course stabbings happened, and shootings as well, but usually it turned out to be a road accident or something else tragic but not exactly sinister. He made his excuses and left his neighbour to speculate on the gory details of the supposed gang murder with her crew of pensioners.
Ted had to top up his Oyster card, he could see his bus in the distance and hoped there wouldn't be a queue, but of course there was a big queue. He resigned himself to missing the bus and joined the queue. Everyone looked a bit like him, even the women, some were more smartly dressed but they all shared that ghostly rush hour look of people struggling hard to get somewhere they would rather not be. The queue moved quickly, he grabbed a can of Coke and a Snickers (his appetite returning with a vengeance after his little incident in the toilet) then he put them back and got a Diet Coke and some kind of cereal bar. The health benefits of this change were probably negligible but it's the thought that counts thought Ted as he thought about it. He was almost at the front of the queue now, one more person to go. In a way he didn't want this moment to end. As soon as he topped up that would be it, off to work and another day to play out until he went on his date with Emily and fucked it up by revealing what he thought was the real Ted (this "real" Ted was really just a creation of his own, a combination of low self esteem and general dissatisfaction with life, ask most of his friends and they would tell you that Ted was a stand up guy, one of the good ones, but this was something that Ted would deny vehemently).
The person in front of him got his 20 Mayfair Lights and moved off. Ted greeted the Shopkeeper; they had a bit of rapport, born out of Ted's habit of getting a six pack most nights after work. He was a valued customer. "I've just got to top up my Oyster" said Ted, reaching round in his jacket with one arm as he placed the Diet Coke and cereal bar on the counter, "Going on a diet I see" said the shopkeeper in a gently teasing tone, Ted laughed. He couldn't find his Oyster card, he muttered under his breath, "fucking today of all fucking days, fucking, fuck, bollocks, fuck". Then he realised it was probably in his inside pocket, the pocket he usually put his wrap of shit cocaine in at the weekends, he reached into the pocket, there was something cold and slimy in there, he felt something hard as well, like a shell, with some mucus attached to it. Ted pulled whatever it was out. He looked down into his hand, the shopkeeper staring at him quizzically, sitting there in Ted's hand, instead of the card in a plastic wallet, and there was no mistaking it, was an actual Oyster.
The End
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Posted by rup on 03/29 at 07:50 PM