Exercise: Text

I made up this exercise out of nowhere, the exercise being: a character gets progressively mad to the brink, but something happens (very vague) that simmers them down, maybe to the point of a happy smile. This is simple, but it was fun to write anger! This exercise intentionally continued from the previous morning routine, to later in the day. There's no "night" routine with these characters because 1) I haven't thought of one and 2) they would just eat and have leisure time, then either sleep or have sexual intercourse, then sleep. The exercise was started around mid-October.

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[Text]

Hands clenched into fists, a vein here and there becoming visible. The teeth inside his mouth gritted against the other row. Nostrils flared, and if he were able to, smoke would shoot from them. The laptop in front of him was set to a page of a client’s financial information, but it wasn’t the root of the anger. Abel glared at the screen nonetheless, the screen vicariously suffering unspoken, silent wrath. What Abel wanted to do was to grab the damned piece of technology and transfer his anger into it; he wanted to feel it all drain out and let the area be claimed rightfully by content, as it had earlier. And to prevent the anger from doubling back, he would chuck the laptop at the wall and watch it fall apart, bringing the anger down with it.

But that wasn’t rational.

If only people weren’t so dumb, he wouldn’t have to suffer so. Pointless questions (which could be answered with common sense) spiraled endlessly, drilling into his head like a child’s slide hours a day. Dumb looks that reflected no logical skills faced Abel, who was not fortunate enough to have a client who had a vague idea of what they were going to do. Meetings would be arranged and wasted by either cancellation or the client not following advice, pushing them deeper into their own problems. People would screw themselves over and blame him. “Why,” Abel thought to himself, "must I, who is smart and successful and stressed, have to deal with all these imbeciles?!”

They made his job hell.

Abel took a deep breath and exhaled. It'd do absolutely no good to blow up while at the office. If someone heard, he could get in trouble or fired. Control over emotions was always a struggle. All the emotions wanted to do was to pour out and rebel against the ego's better judgment. Needless to say, the emotions always won, no matter how hard he tried to cage them in. It didn't help that the emotions were always consisted of anger and rage--which is why people believed he had anger issues.

The impulse to destroy circulated throughout his body. How simple would it be to launch the object and watch it shatter? Watch it fall apart? Become broken? Too easy.

"You'd be an idiot to do it," his ego told himself. "You didn't succumb to such savagery any other time, so why now?"

"Everyone's pissing me the fuck off!" the id said, "Why can't I?"

"Because you'd have to pay consequences," spoke the superego.

The ego didn't want one side to be displeased. "Why not take it out on something insignificant?"

Instead, Abel's eyes were drawn to a stapler. It couldn't cause too much damage to the wall, and the noise wouldn't attract roaming people who would jump at the chance to get a co-worker fired. The cost of replacing it wouldn't be high, either. Definitely a step up from the laptop.

He reached to it and grasped it in his hand--

His leg left a vibration, and he released his grip. He withdrew his phone and glanced at the screen. A new text message.

Only one person ever sent texts to him.

Abel slipped the phone under the table--even though he was the only one in his office--and checked his messages. Naturally, as he assumed, it was from Mark:

hope ur having an ok day so far I love u and I’ll be waiting for u when u get home. :)

Somehow, neither the laptop nor the stapler looked appealing to throw at the wall.