The Mondays

I was surprised when I woke up, that I woke up. 

My temples pulsed and my eyelids fluttered as I looked around at the mess I had made; books thrown about the floor, smashed-up wine bottles, and crumpled McDonalds wrappers littered the room. Made the air feel thick, harsh. 

On my desk a note scrawled in drunken cursive, signing off goodbye for now. 

Two bottles of red and three Klonopin will messy the handwriting, a few months alone will scramble the brain— spit on the spirit. 

I hadn’t seen anyone but my mother since I came home from school. We moved upstate at the beginning of the summer into a tiny house on Snow Street. Beige Vinyl siding and baby blue shutters, the house was a pastel cell; all alone, estranged from everyone I grew up with back in the city. 

I spent each day shut in my room, blinds down, lying on the floor reading. Tormented by the constant plucking noises emanating from the tennis courts at the end of the street. Page after page, bottle after bottle—mom worked the night shift so our drinking schedules didn’t align, I got the days, she got the nights. 

We missed each other most of the week, and I had had enough solitude. I felt ready to try my hand at going away— “signing off” like I used to say on video games as a kid. 

The medicine cabinet hid behind a rusty mirror, it always felt ironic that every time I went to steal pills I had to face myself. Take a good look at the mug in decline, watch the arm reach towards the knob and pull forward. After that I could be blind, the mirror pulled out and went away, the deed already done. 

Pills swallowed, mind numbed, I stumbled back to my room, falling into the armchair stuffed awkwardly into the corner, I closed my eyes, and said my goodbyes. Mouthing the names of people I missed, remembering their faces, their smiles, crooked teeth and matted hair. 

I missed the feeling of people. 

Their faces synthesized moments and the moments felt like music. I felt a warmth in my chest, a soft marron in my lungs. My heart beat slowly. 

Then I woke up.

— Pluck 

The first thing I heard this morning, like the sound of a kid sticking his finger in his mouth and flicking the inside of his cheek. Just as curiously loud, just as fucking annoying. 

My hands shook as I put on a pair of jeans, I kicked around the trash on the floor in hopes of finding some socks. I got dressed but my clothes smelled like shit. I took the note from my desk and ripped it up, letting the little shreds snowflake onto the ground, decorating the dirty carpet like dandruff. 

I sat down at my desk to journal, to write something down and prove to myself that I’m still alive, can still think half-decently. Light fell in through the window and reflected off the paper into my eyes, stung like a bee. I put pen to paper anyway, but nothing came out. No writing, no proof of being. Nothing. 

Nothing but a —Pluck— shooting through the walls like a stray bullet. I felt my blood begin to boil, I tried to write anything, I started writing the date, but before I finished the year it happened again… —pluck. 

I snapped the pencil, lead shot across the page, smearing it with one long arc like the colorless trail of a lame graphite commit. I gritted my teeth, pulled my shirt up to my face and screamed into it “FUCK”. Tears welled up and wetted the cotton blend of my t-shirt, they ran cold quickly shocking my face like little lightning. 

I wanted to cry more but the tears stopped at the next Pluck. 

I threw my chair across the room and walked out the door, red, fuming— ready to yell at whoever was thwacking their rackets nonstop. 

Walking outside the sun blinded me and I tripped off the stoop, right onto my chin, tilting my head up at the endless cerulean sky above. 

I got up and marched to the end of the street, two people in white polos darted across the court. Both of them on the older side, a man with monk's hair and a beer belly, and a woman with maple-colored skin and a baseball cap. 

I stomped and screamed, “WON’T YOU PLEASE SHUT THE FUCK UP”. My words echoed, and once they died the court was still, silent.

The woman dropped her racket, came over to me, and sternly said “Excuse me sir can I help you”. The tone with which this woman spoke made it sound like she actually could (help me). 

The man stood there silently with his arms crossed. The sun beat down on my skull, the woman furrowed her brow and squinted at me, reiterating in a harsher tone “can I help you?!” 

I sat down on the concrete and broke. The tears came down hard, constalationing below me, the woman sat beside me and laid a hand on my shoulder and asked if I was okay, I said no. 

She glanced down at the tears beside me and without looking up introduced herself, said “my name’s Alex, or Alexandra— Alexandra Monday”. 

I realized this was the first time I’d spoken to someone in weeks, months even. I introduced myself and stood up. She asked me what was wrong. I said the noise, the plunking noises have been killing me. 

She reiterated and asked me what was really wrong, said “clearly something else is going on”. I decided to tell the truth, I told her I’d been alone for a long time, I told her that I think I tried to take my life last night. 

She hugged me, arms wrapped around my back, then the man came over too, reaching out his hand and introducing himself as Robert Monday. I smiled and shook it, appreciating its grip, clammy and tight. 

In tears I said I didn’t know what to do, I didn’t know where to go. Choking on my words she interrupted me and said “stay here for a while kid, get some sunlight, you look like you need it”. She picked up a tennis racket and handed it to me, asked me if I’d ever played, I shook my head no. 

She took my hand and moved it diagonally to align with the upward spiral of the grip, she spoke firmly, and said “okay, well, this is how you hold it”. 

She walked to the other side of the court, tossed a ball up and hit it towards me. I swung the racket like I was trying to kill a fly, missing the ball completely.

Robert chuckled as he walked over to me, he grabbed my arm and said “Swinging it around like that you'll never hit it, here, this is what you gotta do… straighten your arm back as you move to hit, then drop the racket and swing all the way through, and finish with your shoulder pointing the direction where you want the ball to go”. 

Something in these words felt strong, it felt like this simple advice as to how to hit the ball somehow explained how to fix everything or at least expressed how easily everything can be fixed. 

Alexandra tossed up another ball and served it over, I pulled my arm back, dropped the racket, and swung through, across my body— grazing the ball just enough for it to limply flutter back to Alexandra Monday. 

“Not too bad” she said with a smirk and served the ball up again, this time I missed, this time I smiled big like a child. 

Robert sat and watched, yelping pointers at me as Alex hit each ball with immaculate precision, her night-colored hands tight and graceful around the fraying wrap of her racket. 

The stars dangled above us, slowly dropping like the pearls of sweat from my forehead. One ball after another, I began to hit them back, feel the vibration of contact, connection—racket to ball. Like Robert's grip ‘round my fingers or Alex’s on my back, each moment the ball hit what the Monday’s call “the powerpoint”, I felt a defined rush of blood to my head, a pulsing assurance of human contact, of a new form of communication. 

The sun grew red and began to retreat beneath the treeline, the earlier stars lit the court just fine as can be; Alexandra Monday was still she rallied with me. Left hand stacked atop the right I thwacked the ball back to her, landing right at her feet, she looked up and laughed. 

The sky now dark, Alexandra threw down her racket and said how she was tired. I knew this was coming, in fact I was worried about it, about it all ending. Robert said it was time to go home “time for supper”. I thanked them, told them that this was the best day I’ve had in a really long time. 

Robert Monday said “Oh quiet now this isn’t much of a goodbye” 

“We'll be here tomorrow, 8:00 AM sharp, and you will be too”. 

“That I will” I said smiling.

They got into their car and drove off, I walked up the street and into my house, my mom was just on her way out the door, she looked at me shocked and said “where have you been all day?!” 

I responded with a life in my voice it seemed like neither of us recognized: “I was playing tennis with the Mondays”. 

A soft relief colored her cheeks, she said “I don’t know what that means but it sounds good to me”. She waved to me as she walked down the driveway with some light in her stride. 

I walked into my house and sat on my couch, staring at the dead screen of the TV. Nothing was on, and it didn’t have to be, the images of the day played over my head as I sunk into the couch. What felt like a whole new future played out on the silent screen of the TV, moving pictures of Alexandra Monday serving me right down the line. 

I sank into the cushions and closed my eyes. The night passed like nothing. I woke up slowly to the distant sound of a pluck.