A Day in the Life of OCD (short story)

By Luke Labern

A Day in the Life of OCD

By Luke Labern

 

One. Two. Three.

No, you didn’t do it right. Do it again—or else your father will die.

No, you didn’t do it right. Try again.

There. Go about your business.

I make my way out of my bedroom, pirouetting on my left foot. I close the door to, having just tapped the handle three times with both hands. Only then can I step on the ball of my right. I head downstairs and make breakfast.

I have fifteen minutes to leave in order to make the train.

I take the collection of pills I need—the one for anxiety, the one for the chronic arthritic pain, the one to restore my serotonin stores, and of course my vitamins—and place the bread in the toaster. Seven minutes left. Where did the time go?

My coat is on; I do up my laces and notice that my big toe has poked a hole in my trainers. They were very expensive; I don’t know if they were worth it. Why they had to have such a soft material on the top, I don’t know. Two minutes left. What? How can I do it all in that time?

Toast is burnt. I rush to get the margarine out of the fridge; I drop it on the floor. One minute left. I get the toast out of the toaster and it burns my fingers. Fucking hell. I like my toast softer than this. It’s on, it’s on. Let’s go. Time’s up.

I stroke all the cats—I want them to purr.

No, you need to make them purr. Or else—

I can’t! I don’t have time—

The first cat purrs. Two more.

Thank God the cats love me—they’re all purring.

Is the lounge door locked? Yes.

Double check it.

It’s locked.

Check it. Tap it. Three times.

One. Two. Three.

Two minutes late.

I step into the porch and make sure the inner door is closed, though somehow as I feel the handle pull to, clearly signifying that the door cannot be opened by any being without opposable thumbs, I feel curiously as though the door is somehow liable to fly open the moment it is out of my sight. A strange emptiness inside; an anxiety.

Now the front door. I step outside and close it behind me. It makes a solid slamming noise, rattling me, and I turn the handle thoroughly, dramatically, to make sure that my photographic memory pictures this moment when the anxiety sets in five seconds from now.

It’s closed.

Is it? Check it.

One. Two. —

Your finger slipped. Do it again.

I’m late!

Or else your—

Oh, shut up.

One. Two. Three.

Three minutes late.

I close the gate and latch it, but it doesn’t quite catch. I need all three layers of security—I can’t let the dogs escape. If I was there, sitting on the train, or in my lecture, and the dogs had escaped, running around town, straight into the main road? I can’t be responsible for that. I love them too much.

Twenty steps down the road, I feel my legs wobble.

Are you sure you closed the door? Isn’t it, in fact, wide open?

I turn around—the gate is closed. But what if the door isn’t? What if my nascent memory of the door being closed is really one of the thousand other times I’ve closed the door? I need to make sure.

I run back: it looks closed. But I must be sure.

I close it.

One. Two. Three.

Five minutes late.

I’ve now got seven minutes to make the train, and it takes me six and a half minutes to reach the station. I also have to buy a ticket.

I won’t make it if I don’t run. I hate to run for the train. Everyone in town is looking at me, and I’m barely awake. Why is it that even though I’m semi-conscious, having woken up in the middle of a dream—oddly, at precisely the moment I was about the receive some good news—I’m still able to process the endless number of rituals I must perform?

Passing the corner—look in the barbershop window. Or else.

The weightlifting belt in my bag is digging into my spine, but I don’t have time to readjust it. I start jogging. My shoelace becomes untied. People are looking at my shoes: there’s a great hole in them—in both of them—and I’m wearing white socks, which looks absurd when juxtaposed against the black material on the top of the trainers.

Oh, fuck ‘em—I’ve got to catch this train. I’ve got enough to worry about. If they don’t like my fashion, that’s one thing I don’t care about.

I look at the clock tower—it reads twenty-five past, which is the time the train leaves, but I know the clock is fast. Why that is, I don’t know. It’s incredibly unhelpful. I pass the kerb on the roadside, as I always do—for only then can I have any hope of having a good day. A car is coming, but I stubbornly hold it up as I follow my path. I’m late, and I need the opportunity. A car can stop and accelerate at will, making up the speed at a later point. I’ve got real speed limits, dictated by what’s permissible in a place like this. I could sprint, but I don’t want to offend my knees.

I make the train with thirty seconds spare and head to my usual seat at the far end of the train. The toast has been in my hands all this time. Already over-cooked, it is now cold. Enjoy your breakfast.

I flip open my book. Finally, a period of relative silence. All except the third stop. There, the train will be flooded with many people. Many people who will sit next to me, disturbing my privacy. I am really no in the mood for that.

The train journey passes—no one sits next to me, although an odd man and his son sit in the chairs adjacent. This is, of course, the “new” trains. The old trains that have been painted, which possess no tables, no toilets and no privacy. Naturally, with this less efficient, less pleasant and less helpful train come increased train fares. But whatever: I’d pay more if I could sit in a little space on my own. I’ve got to get my reading done.

They are speaking in a foreign language. That’s fine. Except the consonants are too hard—far too harsh. Now the son is looking at me. What does he want? I place the book down on my lap and stare back at him. The caffeine is working now; I’m awake. I don’t feel so vulnerable. In fact, I feel like myself.

We hold eye contact for a few seconds longer than is usual, and he turns away, apparently frightened.

They get off at the stop before me. I relax. I get off at my stop and look at the clock overhead. I’ve ten minutes to complete a twelve minute journey into the university—but this time I’m not running.

Why is it that my only options are to be two minutes late or forty minutes early? Either way, I’ll be tired. Either way, I’ll be flustered. Either way, I’ll be pissed off by the time I make it to the seminar.

No problems on the way; no problems in the seminar. The same silent classroom, though. The same stupid answers, when they are proffered. This seminar leader—or teacher, as she would otherwise be known—is particularly sharp. She snaps. Looks as if she doesn’t want to be there. Every time. Is clearly unhappy with the students, and the material. Seems only to care about her “research”, which strikes me as particularly unimportant. I’m beginning to wonder if those who stay on to work in academia do so purely because they don’t know what they want to do with their lives. Why is it, then, that they become so… arrogant?

The seminar finishes. Time to head to the gym.

Yesterday, I was so excited about it. I felt limber. I was very focused, and ready. Incline barbell press—five sets, six to eight reps. Pull ups supersetted with one arm dumbbell shoulder press—five supersets. Shrugs, barbell curls, pressdowns. Not my usual workout—I’ve been trying a new lower-volume, higher-frequency approach.

Why is it, then, that I feel so exhausted? I’ve headed into the toilets to get my knee supports on—and, sitting there, I feel completely unable of anything. I can’t deny that it all feels like a grind, and that, despite my best efforts and the many hours of planning I perform when alone in my free time, when it comes to the day, something has gone wrong. I can’t sleep, or I wake up in the middle of a dream; I rush and almost miss the train. The seminar or lecture goes particularly badly.

No: no more of this nonsense. No excuses. The right music will get me going.

I find the appropriate song and head to the gym, the pre-workout supplement bubbling in my veins.

I approach the gym complex and perform the same ritual: headphones out first. Student card out of the wallet—before I enter the gym. Or else.

‘Thanks,’ I say, laconically, to the woman working the front as she takes my student card. Now this is something to lament—why is it always this woman working? She is a particularly sad being. Sad in multiple senses. She has a particularly prominent jaw that seems to jut out of her face. I don’t care about that: how people look is almost always nothing to do with them. The problem is that she cares. She is clearly obsessed about it. She was clearly bullied. Clearly tormented. And she clearly spends much of her free time thinking on it, and cursing her luck. To exist, but to exist with just one problem. A problem which, whilst it is really very minor in the scheme of things, nonetheless ruins her experience on earth. But I don’t care: I don’t care what she does in her life, particularly. I just hate interfacing with her.

She’s so sad—so miserable. I’m laconic: I get that. I don’t like small-talk with people doing their job. She, however, reacts very badly to this. It is quite obvious that she despises me.

‘Thnkyou,’ she mumbles under her breath, refusing to look me in the eye.

I take the little key; they hold your student card hostage whilst you’re in the gym. Always looking for a chance to blemish your record. It’s the number 57. Not my favourite number, but perhaps my favourite locker will be free.

It isn’t.

Christ—perhaps I’m going to have a bad workout.

You won’t have a good workout: you haven’t got your locker. Don’t you know that your luck depends on that?

I stow away my things and place the padlock through the locker’s handle.

I spin the numbers round.

One. Two. Three.

I pull on the padlock to make sure it’s holding.

One. Two. Three.

Into the gym I go: my sanctuary. At least, that’s what it is on the good days.

 *

I leave at exactly thirty minutes past the hour—I have a train to catch.

Now quite high, my muscles swollen, my body sweaty, my mind cleared of much of the anxiety that had built up like psychological lactic acid, I am rushing again. This is pleasant rushing, however—as pleasant as rushing can get.

She’s still there. Does she ever leave?

I pack up my stuff, sling it over my shoulder and look at the clock above her head. I’ll make it.

‘Cheers,’ I say as she hands me my card back. (I said ‘thanks’ before, so I can’t say it again.) She doesn’t reply.

I leave the gym the same way I do every time I go there: exhaling deeply, leaning, almost falling through the door and casting one glance back. I stumble out of the miniature porch and make sure to avoid the metal grate. If I step on it—well, I simply can’t.

It’s thirty-four minutes past the hour when I reach the bottom of the first hill; I’m on time.

Just before the train station is the overpass, which I am passing under. Once again that man is there. Every time, with his absurd, blank express he is there with his long coat, its tails signifying that he thinks he is worthy of such a piece of clothing. He is handing out leaflets to who-knows-what promotion. Do I look like I give a fuck? Of course I don’t. Whilst I remember him—how could I ignore such a stupid person, continually getting into my way when I’m rushing to get the train—he does not seem to remember me. More specifically, he does not remember that I never take leaflets about nightclubs. I couldn’t care less. If I did frequent them, I’d avoid the one he was advertising precisely because it associated with him.

Whilst I usually raise my hands up, gesticulating with the intention of expressing ‘No thanks’—which I consider polite—this time I leave my hands by my side and walk straight past him as he holds the leaflet out to me.

I see his bag up ahead, a typical, typical bag that one finds at this university of mine. It’s a thin piece of material, shaped like a handbag, with a poorly-drawn doodle of a dog. I have the overwhelming urge to kick it and send it and its contents—namely, another five hundred leaflets—flying, but I resist.

I get to the station and I’m right on time. I sit on the window ledge and look at the many people on the other side. I’m the only person on my platform, and I know they’re looking at me. Good for them.

The train pulls up and I slump down on my seat, quite exhausted.

The day is over now—the working part anyway. The chores have been completed, my body has been posed a question which I hope it will answer by improving, and I can get to work on reading when I get home.

The rest of the day and the evening passes smoothly.

 *

Bedtime.

Make your shake. Take your melatonin pill. Brush your teeth. Shower.

Exhausting chores—why did I think they were over earlier? I wonder how much of my time is spent doing these things. Is it any wonder I’m exhausted when my supposedly free time is marred by exhaustion?

All done. To bed.

Turn out the light on the landing.

Press the switch with your forefinger: don’t let it touch the edge of the light-box. Only the switch.

Click.

No: you failed. Do it again.

I go to—

No—you have to reset it.

How do I do that?

Press the switch on three times.

One. (On. Off.) Two. (On. Off.) Three. (On. Off.)

Try again.

Click.

Now, place your fist to your chest—now place your palm over your chest—now straight both of your triceps with equal tension. You only have one chance to do this; this cannot be reset.

I do it successfully; adequately. Usually I do, but sometimes I don’t. It sets the tone for the following day. How? I don’t know.

I am not superstitious, but these rituals nag at me. If I don’t perform them, I worry about what might happen. Death. Chaos. Failure. If I do succeed in them—if I do perform them—then I at least have a chance. It used to be the case that these rituals were positive: do this and you’ll be the greatest…

Now, however, they are almost universally negative. Do this and this awful thing might not happen.

It is not that I think—rationally—that those things will happen as a result of my not performing the ritual; it is simply that, impulsively, I don’t want those things to happen. So I perform the ritual anyway. To silence my mind. Of course, like all powerful and dangerous things, once a rational being gives in and does it, they are faced with the obvious and inevitable problem: that they will be asked to do it again.

And if one does something once, they are very likely to do it again.

In the case of these rituals, it is incessant. I have been performing some of them for years—literally since I was first conscious. Others occur spontaneously, bubbling up to fit certain circumstances. If I overcome—that is, ignore—some of the rituals, others likely bubble up to take their place.

Regardless, I spend a lot less time thinking about them than performing them.

Touch the door handle three times. With both hands. At the same time. Make sure the door is closed.

One. Two. Three.

Time to try and fall asleep now—time to rest, so that I can do this all over again tomorrow.