Scene 4: "Tyler Durden"

The countdown clock is ever-present in his mind – perpetually ticking down to the long-awaited moment of exaltation that will arrive when it finally hits all zeroes and allows him to go home. When he plods up the stairs to his apartment after a particularly bland and draining Monday at the office, and the clock is at 2 weeks, 6 days, 1 hour, and 24 minutes. There is constant progress towards his day of liberation, but it still feels infinitely far away, for within those 13 days, he knows that there are still 112 more hours (or 6,720 more minutes) to be spent sitting and waiting in his black office chair. And it’s sure to feel like even longer. He unloads his backpack onto the floor and strips down to his boxers before taking a seat in his bedroom chair. There is a fuzziness lurking around his head that makes its presence felt just as soon as he rests the back of his head on the cushion. He hasn’t been sleeping well, and for a moment, everything feels far away – as if it were a copy of the real thing. Overwhelmed by time, and tortured his inability to control it, his mind races. He knows that being there won’t kill him, but mentally, he wonders how much more he can realistically take, and he flirts with the idea of quitting. He asks himself why he hasn’t quit already, and the best he can come up with is that he’s not supposed to. His commitment is for 10 weeks, and despite his deep resentment of the situation, he’s always felt a personal responsibility to meet it. But this time, “supposed to” doesn’t do it for him. There is no substantial reason to stay, and it seems undeniably imprudent to waste away three more weeks of his life just sitting in his own misery and waiting for the clock to run out.

When his parents answer the phone, there is no charade of contentment or well-being. He unloads his frustration and anger onto them, practically begging for their authorization to quit. Such affirmation would lift any sense of obligation from his shoulders, giving him the freedom to leave the following day without any reservations. He narrates his sad story in excruciating detail, but when he is finished, the sympathy that he feels entitled to is nowhere to be found.

“You can’t complain about being bored if you haven’t asked for work,” his father asserts.

This reaction is not one that he understands, nor is it one that he is willing to engage with, so he hangs up.

“OK fine I’ll talk to you later.” Click.

He flings the phone onto the floor in disgust, and sits between the claustrophobic walls of his bedroom – the entrapment beginning to consume him. There is no escape from San Francisco. There is no escape from his job. There is no escape from himself. The angst courses through his veins like a strong current, eventually building up to a raging boil that is simply too intense to turn away from. He opens up the palms of his hands and watches them shake and tremor as he winds up the first blow. In an impulsively beautiful flash of violence, he unleashes everything that he holds onto against his right cheek, slapping it so hard that his head and neck shift upon impact. And he instantaneously follows it up with a bashing of his left cheek, leaving absolutely no time for the sting to set in. Intoxicated by the feeling, he allows himself to continue, indulging in the sweet release of each slap as he bats his face from one open palm to the other like a tennis ball being smacked between forehand slams. After a couple dozen bashings, he still isn’t satisfied, so he turns to the inside of his arm. There is no holding back now. He tomahawks down on the flesh of his forearm, which is left with a discernibly rose-colored stinger that forms within seconds of the smashing. He takes a breather. There is nothing left. Sitting in awe of himself, he watches the vibrancy of his mark swell to a full and tender red. That’ll show ‘em.

<-- Previous

Next -->