#slacker life fading in the background | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

salmonskinrolltf · 1 year ago

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The Grind

Todd really did enjoy working from home. He loved the perks of getting to roll right out of bed when his alarm went off, and he loved not being stuck in traffic every morning and evening on his commute. But recently, he was starting to feel like he couldn't focus. It was important to him to succeed at this job, so he could keep rising in the ranks at his ad agency, but there were too many distractions that weren't allowing him to prove himself: chores to do, food to eat, noise from his neighbors. Dear God, the noise!

The window of his home office opened right out onto the alley behind his apartment. It was summer, so he needed the windows open in order to snag that cross breeze and keep from boiling to death, but the teenage skaters that seemed to swarm the alley during summer break were out and about in full force.

He tapped his chin with his pen, trying to come up with a good word that a cat might use to describe the delicious new treats Todd's client was going to feed him, but he found himself distracted yet again by the noise from the skaters outside. He wondered how they didn't get bored, with their endlessly repetitive roster of lame-ass tricks that all sounded the same.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

That's all Todd heard all day, over and over, with metronomic regularity. If he could harness one-tenth of the passion that these burnouts used when trying to learn ollies or whatever, he would be CEO within the week.

God, if only. He felt like he was working himself to the bone, with no results. A mighty headache was threatening to rear up and throttle his brain, too. He had been chugging Pedialyte, hoping to at least make it to the end of his shift. If he used even one sick day, he worried he'd seem like a slacker who wasn't committed.

OK, staring at his laptop screen wasn't working. He pulled out a pad of paper and a pen. Sometimes physically writing things down helped his creative juices flow. He tapped his pen on his chin with a maniacal rat-a-tat rhythm. It didn’t help. He sighed and hung his head in his hands. He just wanted to rise in the ranks. To get a better life for himself. Why was this so difficult?

Whirrrrrrr-thud

Todd tapped his pen on his chin more slowly. Was it just him, or were the skaters kind of perfectly timing their tricks? It sounded almost like the percussion on one of his favorite classical compositions. He strained to listen.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

Yeah, there was definitely a meter to the noises, so precise that his brain felt like it could slot perfectly into them. He realized the predictability of the noise would be beneficial in terms of helping him ignore the skaters and focus back on work. As long as he internalized the rhythm, it would just fade into the background.

He pulled the paper toward him and began tapping with fresh vigor, trying to let the noise sink into the back of his brain.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

The sound was still present, but it was already becoming more like a gentle hum he was only vaguely aware of.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

That’s right. He felt the noise begin to flow through him. It was just like living in an apartment by the freeway, he thought. You can ignore any noise if it becomes familiar enough.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

Familiar… Familiar… Family! He scribbled on his notepad. “Your cat is a part of the family…” He sucked on the end of his pen. He couldn’t figure out what to put next, but it was a start. He stared at the paper for what felt like another ten minutes, continuously drawing a blank. He pinched the bridge of his nose. Fuck, that headache was building again. He knew he was only feeling bad because of stress, but how was he supposed to de-stress when he had a deadline? He stared at the paper intensely, willing words to appear on it.

Whirrrrrrr-THUD

A particularly loud thud jolted Todd out of his reverie. Fuck, he was getting jumpy. Maybe he should take a ten minute break. As soon as he figured out the end of this tagline. He sucked on the end of his pen once more, but as he did so, something weird happened. There must have been a hole in the clicker of his pen, because he felt it break open, releasing a hot, gaseous substance into his mouth.

He gasped in surprise, accidentally forcing the gas into his lungs, which began to feel like they were burning. He gave a panicky cough and a plume of smoke trailed weakly from his mouth. What the fuck? He closely inspected his pen, but everything looked totally normal. Perhaps the end was a little damp from him sucking on it. But he saw nothing that explained what had just happened to him.

The burning sensation still tickled his lungs, but it was quickly mellowing into something�� something quite nice, actually. His toes felt a little tingly, and a sense of calm washed over him. He felt his muscles relax somewhat as he slumped back into his chair. His headache was even receding a bit. If he could get it to go away entirely, maybe he could finally finish…

Whirrrrrrr-thud

Yeah, fuck it. He was gonna try again. He put the end of the pen in his mouth and took another deep breath. Once more, the top of the pen opened up and expelled smoke, which he took into his lungs and held there, enjoying the warming sensation before blowing it out in a tight stream.

That’s the ticket. He felt the headache recede entirely. He finally felt well and truly relaxed. He flipped his hoodie up over his head and drew the drawstrings. Wait, he hadn’t been wearing a hoodie, had he? Fuck it, he didn’t care. He was now warm and cozy, inside and out. He felt better than he had in a long time.

But it was still too hot under the hood. It felt right to be wearing it, even in summer somehow, but he could feel sweat glistening on his forehead. He wiped it away with the back of his hand, but he still felt himself grow hotter and hotter, yet strangely lazy and unwilling to actually do something about it because he was SO relaxed.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

He began to sweat so much that his perfectly coiffed hair started to wilt, dangling down in front of his eyes. It then just… kept going. It extended down over his face to the point that he thought the sweaty strands might poke him in the eyes. His normal instinct would have been to sweep it back, but in his addled state, he instead gave a practiced flick of the head, gathering the hair at one side. The color began to change from a strawlike dirty blond, to brunette, to dark brown, to a black so concentrated it must have been dyed. But he never dyed his hair, had he? He liked being a natural blonde.

Fuck, it was SO hot. Why had he chosen to wear this hoodie? A memory blossomed of him putting it on that morning. Well, of course he had worn this hoodie. It was his favorite hoodie. He wore it every day, whatever the weather. Sure, he could do to wash it. It stank of sweat and pot smoke, but it was his and he loved it.

He needed to cool down something fierce, though. He made a move to pull the hoodie off from around his head, but his hands unconsciously ignored his intention, opting to flip up the collar of his open button-down instead. As he adjusted the collar to look perfectly mussed and careless, the material of the shirt turned coarse and thick as it became a battered denim jacket.

He was totally unaware that he hadn’t perfectly executed his plan, still feeling relaxed and a little fuzzy from his vape pen. That’s what it was, of course. A vape pen. He wasn’t sure why he'd thought it was an actual pen, like for writing. He chuckled softly. Suddenly, being confused about things felt like it came more naturally to him, somehow. At first, he was confused about that, but then he wasn’t. Being confused isn’t confusing, is it? Is that confusing? Shaking his head and laughing, he took another hit off his vape pen and blew a perfect smoke ring, letting the warm fuzziness flow through him.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

He decided to return to his brainstorming. Although he was hot and not entirely clear-headed, he felt a burst of creative energy all of a sudden. He began to scribble on the notepad, working furiously as sweat began to pool on his forehead once more. He only noticed when it began to trickle down his face, tickling his cheeks and dripping from his chin onto the page. He scrubbed his face with his hand, not noticing that, as he did so, the hairs of his neatly trimmed beard were wiped entirely away, vanishing into thin air.

As he continued to scribble, his newly clean-shaven face grew pockmarked and yet more youthful and supple at the same time. His mustache, the only thing unaffected, began to recede into his upper lip, slowly shrinking back until it was just a dotting of stubble that suggested he’d been trying to grow one out but this was as far as he ever got. As if to compensate, his eyebrows thickened, darkening to a deep brown that better matched (but not entirely) his new hair color. He didn’t even notice the dark black strands hanging down over his eyes anymore, or the careful flick of his head that he gave periodically when he needed to concentrate.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

The warmth around his head eventually made him feel sleepy and dull, and he couldn’t stop yawning. So, after a couple more minutes, he sat back and looked at the perfect tagline he’d been working on, only to realize that he’d just been doodling little cartoons all around the edge of the page instead of actually focusing on work.

“Dude, get a grip,” he said out loud. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

Dude? Since when did he say dude?

He decided to take a break, cool down, and grab a Perrier sparkling water. Returning from his fridge with the green bottle, he unscrewed the cap and took a deep swig. His tongue was suddenly awash with the taste of sugary battery acid, and he had to fight not to spit it out. What the…?

He looked down and saw that he had accidentally grabbed a bottle of Mountain Dew, not Perrier. He didn’t remember buying Mountain Dew, but maybe his nephew had left one behind when he had come to visit last? He thought about going back to the fridge to swap out the drinks, but it suddenly seemed so far away. And now that he knew what flavor to expect, the taste wasn’t all that bad, actually.

He took another swig of the soda, the sugary concoction lighting up his insides.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

His skin began to feel itchy. Was he having an allergic reaction to the soda? He lifted up the hem of his hoodie and scratched at his stomach. As he did so, he felt the light blonde hairs of his treasure trail wriggling back into their follicles, leaving him perfectly smooth. What the fuck?

Finally, the shock of what he had just felt pierced his newfound love for the hoodie and he ripped it off, along with the denim jacket. He rushed into the bathroom, arriving in front of the mirror just in time to see his sparse blonde chest hair receding back into his skin. He ripped off his chinos as well, panicking as he saw the hairs on his legs vanishing into thin air. He did a quick 360 and checked in his underwear, noting that the only hair that remained on his entire body was his pubic hair and armpit hair, both of which seemed thicker than usual and were quickly darkening to a deep brown as though they were in a time-lapse video.

He watched this happen in horror, but even with his hoodie off, his head still felt warm and sleepy. His senses felt dulled, and he struggled to think of what he could possibly do next. He began to breathe faster in his panic, his belly jiggling slightly as he did so. Breathe. Jiggle. Breathe. Jiggle. Breathe… Nothing.

As he watched, his soft tummy had begun to recede as well, revealing cobblestone abs like the tide pulling out over a rock formation. His doughy chest began to firm up as well, shrinking into a pair of lean pecs, his round nipples shrinking and popping out from their perches on the hardened mounds as soon as they were finished forming.

“Holy shit, dude, I’m ripped!” he said, letting the slang tumble breezily out of his mouth without a second thought while he rubbed his abs with both hands. The ridges of his stomach made his fingers tingle and his arms shrank, lean muscles emerging from the surface while his legs followed suit, the thighs shrinking into the perfect fit for skinny jeans - where had that thought come from? - while his calf muscles rippled and stretched, their new bulging shape accentuated by his hairless, pale skin.

Whirrrrrrr-THUD

Todd felt the noise from the alley reverberate around his head. It sounded like someone out there must have fucked up a crooked grind real bad. ‘Gnarly,’ he thought, imagining how much pain they must be in. His mental image grew more and more clear and vivid. Somebody falling onto the asphalt on their elbows.

He felt a slash of pain across his elbows and held them up, seeing red in the mirror before it faded into a pair of scarred, scabbed patches that he felt like had always been there. He returned to his reverie. Somebody skinning their knee after narrowly avoiding hitting a tree. Another slash of pain and the skin on his knee suddenly looked knobbly, like it was still healing.

As potent mental images flitted one by one through his brain, scars and scrapes began to dot his body. Slash, slash. Two more long scars on the left knee. Slash. A long red scrape along his right pec that looked dope as hell. Slam. His palms became pockmarked and gravel-scraped.

Not even noticing the pain anymore as his skin toughened and ever-so-slightly tanned, he stood up straight to his full height, admiring the effect of his newfound musculature. He was too busy trying (and failing) to pop his skinny pecs to notice that his “full height” was a couple inches shorter than it used to be.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

The sound of the skaters outside brought him back to the present. Wasn't he supposed to be doing something, other than checking himself out in the mirror? He got dressed, throwing his hoodie and jacket back on. He could have sworn he’d been wearing a different pair of pants earlier, but all he found crumpled on the bathroom floor was his favorite pair of joggers. Oh well, he threw them on too.

He was halfway out the door when he remembered he was supposed to be doing something at home. Where the hell did he think he was going? He shook his head, trying to remember. He still felt sleepy and slow, his thoughts inching along as he tried to remember what he was supposed to be doing.

He reached into his pocket for his vape pen and realized he’d left it on his desk. His desk! That’s what he was doing! He was still on the clock! He needed to work!

He wandered over to his desk, took a drag from the vape, and stared in consternation at the notepad in front of him.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

He knew he was supposed to care about this dumb shit about cat food or whatever, but he really wasn’t feeling it. Something in the back of his mind told him that he’d get money if he finished it though, so he decided to give it a shot. He sat back in his chair and found himself falling, the chair’s seat vanishing beneath him. Before he hit the ground, however, he was caught with a soft flump in a squishy, slick mound.

He looked down and saw that he was in a beanbag chair. Something was wrong here. He could feel his brain slowly whirring. Was it the chair? No, it’s the one he’d brought from home when he moved in. He saw his initials carved crudely into the fabric on his right side.

What was wrong, then? Was it his desk? No, he didn’t have a desk, did he? He looked up and saw his entertainment unit in front of him, his XBOX still glowing green because he’d forgotten to turn it off earlier. No, all that looked normal.

So what was wrong? Was it the fact that he was worrying about money?

Whirrrrrrr-thud

His parents paid for whatever shit he wanted as long as he kept his community college grades up, so there was no need to worry.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

No need to worry at all, really. About anything. Or think, even. He barely ever went to class. He just wanted to hang with his friends at the skate park. But as long as he flirted with his professors the right way, he passed with flying colors. He was a studied flirt, even if he wasn’t a studied anything else.

Anyway, his parents would let him drop out once he proved he could make money as an X Games champion. He rubbed his dick through his joggers, not noticing as it plumped up a few extra inches while he fantasized about all the tail he’d get once he was a skateboarding champion with endorsement deals and shit.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

No, he had all the money he needed. He just wished he was 21 already, so he could buy weed for himself at the dispensary. Then everything would be perfect. Just two more years, he reminded himself. He could survive on stealing shit from his older brother's stash at home until then.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

Todd leaned back in the beanbag and reveled in that sound. His favorite sound. He loved it so much. He never wanted to stop hearing it. With his eyes closed, he didn’t notice the rest of the room change around him. The tasteful Pier One art being swapped out for posters of busty babes and retro Tony Hawk video games sloppily scotch taped onto the walls. The cream-colored couch he’d saved up for was now scuffed, stained orange in patches from crushed Cheeto dust, and stank of weed.

The wall that formerly held potted plants was now devoted to a rack of the sickest custom boards anyone had ever seen. Not that he’d made any of them, he didn’t have time for that shit. He just paid other people to bring his dope-ass ideas to life.

Whirrrrrrr-THUD

Todd was rubbing his dick absent-mindedly again and came in his underwear. Fuck. He hadn’t prematurely ejaculated in months, now. As he changed his underwear, leaving the cum-drenched boxers on the floor by the beanbag, he worried about doing that in front of a babe he wanted to score.

He needn’t have worried. Todd didn’t know it, but he would never have worries again. Inside that underwear, which would remain on the floor forgotten for the next two weeks, contained the last vestiges of his previous life, expelled through pure pleasure at the life he got to live now. What he left behind was a person he would never remember and who he would shudder to think had even existed in the first place.

No, he was destined for a dope life. In a clean pair of underwear and his favorite kicks, he wandered his way into the back alley, watching his friends Tate and Landon practicing tricks while offering them tips and taking a hit off his vape. The grind was over for Todd now, though that word already meant something entirely different to him at this point.

Whirrrrrrr-thud

#skater #TF

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