Mr R. Burris will speak to you now.

Editor’s note: The below text was fished out of the charred remnants of a diary lost in the wreckage of a downed Boeing 747 over Skokee, New York. The contents were transcribed into the official record in hopes of returning the diary to its owner. Richard Burris, the named party was never found.

I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror this morning. This if of course absurd in its entirety, the last mirror I owned was lost several months ago, but in the upside-down view of myself in the spoon I saw a suspended man with a gaunt face, what amicably might be described as a five-o-clock shadow but in all honesty has long advanced beyond five o clock. I am Richard Burris and I write my diary entries as though they will someday be published to the greater world with a significance imbued in them that they themselves do not actually have. And so unnamed reader let me inform you that I too can see your peering eyes, your veiled and judging gazes, let me tell you too that my life is not so much different from yours. I say this not out of presumption but out of fact: most people very regularly do not move out much beyond the medical normalities of their lives. You do not break your routine, it owns you, much as it owns mine, but we shall see if this sporadic breaking of routine shall not itself become routine and the upside-down man in my spoon may yet communicate something of worth to you, to me, to us; dearest, most beloved reader, let us see if any significance will be gleaned from my words.

SEVERAL MONTHS BEFORE (scrawled in dark crayon, a title, the journal entry is still consistent with the preceding words)

Rich, the fucktwat bitch is about his regular routine, a shirt and tie, smooth, combed back hair. A dispassive smile, a nonthreatening glance towards (from here on out, the shortened words of girl… love… and despair… are only legible from the tangled mess of scrawling black lines).

I have lost something. Something I cannot describe but two weeks from this day prior, or two weeks ago, I swear I felt it disappear from my life, like the retreating of the tide from the shore I… I have quit my job, my clothes are unchanged, my legs are dry and uncomfortable with the chalked up residue of my own excrement and I am slowly wasting away in my spot without idea as to what it is that is missing.

Piece it together; find it, two weeks prior, two weeks prior, two weeks prior I was at work.

HEADER – AT WORK – INT. – DAY

TEXT – RICHARD

MAN: Could you state your name for the record please?
RICHARD: Richard Burris.
MAN: Mr. Burris I am sure you are aware of the company policy regarding tardiness
RICHARD: Yes sir, I am aware.
MAN: Well then good, I hope then that from this point on you will be more punctual to your assignments. As this was your first demerit in some years, we are prepared to let you off with… Mr. Burris?

RICHARD is no longer looking at the MAN but is instead staring intently at the disappearing figure of a shapely WOMAN IN RED.
MAN: Mr. Burris!
RICHARD shakes out of his reverie.
RICHARD: Oh, hmph! Sorry.
MAN: Now as I was saying, our company is prepared to let you off at this moment, but future tardiness will not be looked upon as kindly. Now are we clear Mr. Burris?
RICHARD peers at the man with a look that seems to say “why did you break me away from her?” but then answers slowly back.
RICHARD: Yes.
MAN: Very good, then let’s have a productive work session today yes?
RICHARD returns sullenly to his cubicle, the retreating form of the WOMAN IN RED in his mind: her hips gyrating, the subtle movement of her thighs against red satin. He sits down at his desk, puts on his headset, and presses a button.
RICHARD: Hi I’m calling to inform you of a momentous opportunity to purchase the Wonder-Vac 3000! Now…

I wait two days before I start searching for her. It’s difficult to truly find someone when all you have to work with are the color of their dress and the exquisite perfection of their ass. Try describing the above sentence to a compatriot and more than likely yours will be the name they’ll be suggesting at the week end “who’s a serial killer now?” office party. I learn small things first, her name is Julie, she works in accounting, she’s engaged to Fred, they met in the company. To the queries of who is asking I always answer “Richard Burris”. I am not Richard Burris. I am Richard Burris’s shadow, the very hollow frame of his existence, his hopes and desires, pent up masturbatory frustrations. I am Richard Burris the shell of Richard Burris fuck Richard Burris the fucker. I am a living cliché of a man entering the 32s of his life with a balding head of hair and no sex life. Too often I see myself on television and movie screens and shout – not honestly, only while drunk – at me to get off. Julie inexplicably agrees to meet with sweaty masturbator Richard Burris for a lunch meeting. I will see how this goes.

The last time I was truly Richard Burris, the true Richard Burris was when I imagined myself playing the guitar. In college, in the early morning hours, the air wet and heavy with dew chafing the raw confines of my caffeine-seared lungs I raised a vibrant and decadent air guitar up to the sky, imaginary pinstripes of purple-red flames streaming down the sides of its glistening V-form body. To the sky I would raise an undying toast, reciting anthems of Queen, Metallica, or an Aerosmith Revolution, though in all honesty it was only Queen, and only ever one song. I say the last only because it sounds nice to the ear, but in fact I played any number of songs, though most of them from Queen. But in a flurry of motion, the Richard Burris I was, the true Richard Burris: champion of the world and ruler of the mid morning dusk with his crown of sweat, fatigue-charred lungs and scepter of pin-striped flaming guitar glory, this Richard Burris would look to the glimmering wink of the horizon and call out the name of the sun, and like magic, the sun would arise from across the eastern lip of the earth to gaze upon the shuddering frame of the king Richard Burris: collapsed upon the front of his school.

I communicate none of this Richard Burris to Julie when I first meet her. She is tall, slender, attractive and sweet. This naturally makes me feel threatened, unsure of myself, and bald so the following transcribed dialogue should primarily be understood to have the intended delivery of Julie: warm and kind, Richard: sweaty, nervous, and bald.

INT – CORPORATE CAFÉ - DAY
JULIE: Hi, you must be…
RICHARD: Richard, you’re Julie, yes?
JULIE: Yes, that’s me. So what can I do for you Richard?
RICHARD: Um *beat*, okay so this is going to sound awkward but you know Ryan, 4th floor office manager? I was in there the other day and I saw you from behind and I lost my attention.
JULIE: Well, um, thank you, but …. I don’t know how to say this but… I’m kind of engaged.
RICHARD: I know
Julie looks alarmed
RICHARD: I mean, I know and I asked around and I … please don’t go, please, it’s crazy, I know I’m not going to kill you please don’t tell everyone I’m a serial killer.
Julie sits down from where she was about to leave.
RICHARD: I am turning 32, in four days
JULIE: (quietly) Congratulations
RICHARD: Thanks
*beat*
RICHARD (cont.): You seem happy.
JULIE: I am happy
RICHARD: I’m glad.
Julie gives him a look.
RICHARD (cont.): Please don’t, look Julie it’s not about you. It’s about this company, it’s about me, it’s all about me I don’t want to be me, I’d rather be you, I’d rather be Fred, your boyfriend – please don’t leave – I’d rather be anyone else other than me: about to turn 32 and going bald, and all I have is just you, as a reminder of what happy used to be.
*beat*
JULIE: I should get back to work.
RICHARD: Sorry for… this… I guess. It’s okay if you tell everyone I’m a serial killer, they probably all think it anyways
Julie walks to the elevator, presses the button, and waits for a moment as it ticks down. As the door opens, she turns to Richard.
JULIE: It was our anniversary
Richard looks up. Julie holds up two fingers.
JULIE (cont.): Two years.
RICHARD: Congratulations
JULIE: Thanks.
Elevator door closes. Richard shuffles quickly out of his seat, the cups still sitting on the table.

At this point it is a somewhat trifling point for me to make that none of this was true. Yes, there is a woman named Julie Siles, somewhere in my company. No, I do not know if she is engaged to Fred Weimar. Ryan Liu does exist, but he has pulled me into his office so many times now that our conversations take on the dull back-and-forth of a couple who has lived together for decades, arguments over tardiness and company policy imbued with the tone of participants who know both the beats and counts of the script by heart, fully knowing that the other participant will never do anything to change the conditions under which such a scenario can be enacted. But this much is true: in four days I will be 32. I am fat, I am balding, I cannot find reason to enjoy my work anymore, and the greatest and saddest fact is that even in my projected fantasies, Julie is already engaged, and I am doomed to failure. But hopefully, come four days from now when the wheels of my existence click past their thirty-second mark, I will remember what it was like as King Richard Burris, the man who might have began a sordid and adulterous affair with shapely Julie Siles, who conquered the morning dawn with his sword of Rock, Caffeine, and Queen. Perhaps in four days, I will be that Richard Burris again, but there are never any guarantees.

My name is Richard Burris and I lead an imaginary existence.