Friday. I knew I shouldn't, but I knew it was too
late. I’d woken up with rocks in my head, an ache in my liver and a
sandpit in my throat. It felt like I hadn't slept at all, and I was all out of
ideas. I reached for the drawer under my desk where I keep the emergency
aspirin, and that was when I saw her: a shadow on the frosted glass of my
office door, behind the black letters of my name. I held my breath, and she
knocked.
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It was too late to pretend I wasn't in, too late to
pretend I wasn't a sore loser, in yesterday's clothes and barely awake, in a
seedy office on the wrong side of town: stinking like an ashtray and looking
like hell. I let her in.
She was tall and expensive, with a face that didn’t move.
She breezed in on a cloud of Arpège and looked me up and down like a hawk on high heels. She
said, you look like you need motivation to reach your
health and fitness goals by tracking your activity, exercise, sleep, weight and
more.
I offered her a drink, but her blue eyes stared me down.
The phone hadn't rung for weeks and I had bills to pay. I
knew I shouldn’t. But I bought one. She said, only Fitbit gives you the freedom
to get fit your way. I bought two. She was beautiful when she sneered.
Ten minutes later we were nearly friends but before I could get her
name she was gone, leaving only a breath of jasmine and the memory of her lips
in Velvet Venom on a half-smoked cigarette,
going limp in the dregs of yesterday’s coffee.
I put on my Fitbit.
By lunchtime I had walked ten thousand steps, pacing up and down
beside my desk, while my coffee cooled and the traffic snarled outside.
At two it started to rain, a miserable drizzle that couldn’t make up
its mind. I stopped pacing and picked up the phone. I had bills to pay.
Saturday. A fly was buzzing in the window and I woke up on the
floor. I hadn’t slept so good in twenty years but something was needling me.
I’d been dreaming in Cinemascope, all car chases and smashing glass, and I was tired
like always. But for once I hadn’t woken up at 3am, going over conversations in
my head while the neon sign outside flashed yellow through the blinds.
Things were looking up.
I went downstairs for coffee, and while I waited I checked my
Fitbit. It said I hadn’t slept at all.
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Eight thousand steps last night, and my heart racing like a
greyhound, on and off. I thought about that. I thought about it some more when
I got back up to my office and noticed the bloodstains on my door, and the bottle.
The bottle. It should have been in the drawer, with the aspirin. I was having
trouble with my health and fitness goals. What the hell was going on?
I calculated the cholesterol in my cheeseburger while I stared out
the window, chewing. I was starting to feel like I didn’t know myself at all. There was a knock at the door, but I wasn’t in the mood.
I needed a nap.
I looked out the window at the fire escape, and the fire escape
looked back. Fifty-seven steps down to the sidewalk and a hundred more to my
car. I put on my hat.
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But it was too late to pretend I wasn’t in - a cop with a
face like a damp tomato sandwich busted through the door and I knew I’d reached
the finish line. He said, we’ve downloaded your data. You’re under arrest.
