Novel Beginning Excerpt #1

For half a year now I have been working on the beginning of a novel for school and thought I would post it in pieces here. You might recognise some autobiographical elements to it!


‘You know what your problem is, Sammy? You’ve got no confidence. How’re you supposed to impress a girl if you can’t even say hello without having a freakout? That, and you hardly ever smile. Real turn-off, that.’
Sam rolled his eyes. Andy was hardly a master in the art of wooing the opposite sex. Especially when he said things like this in between taking large mouthfuls of a sandwich half the size of his head.
‘Ok, why are we talking about this? And why here? Just let me enjoy my lunch break.’
For Sam, lunch breaks were a sacred time of day. Given an all to brief respite from performing robotic duties at the Bargain Barn, he could let his mind wander. Sam was a chronic daydreamer. And like most chronic conditions, his daydreaming was rather debilitating. Sometimes, he would zoom into a fictional universe. A strange, yet oddly inviting world populated by imaginary beings he wishes he knew or wishes he could be. Although Sam was aware that this is slightly unhealthy and may possibly be a sign of mild schizophrenia, most of the time he simply rationalised these holidays from reality as a by-product of too much TV and comic books. These micro-trips were Sam’s favourite type of daydream, the ones that were more often than not cruelly interrupted by a customer requesting directions to muffin tins, or car wax, or anything else they couldn’t be bothered to find themselves. And it is then that Sam slipped into his more common form of daydream, the ones that were much more debilitating because they were real. These daydreams were more like constant jabs of miserable truth that incessantly wore him down. They were the ghost in his head whispering things like ‘Your life is slipping away. You’ve done nothing of value in your twenty three years. You’ll never get a girlfriend. You’ve spent nearly two and a half years working in this soulless department store. All your aspirations are dying.’ All these thoughts swirled in his head, clouding the recesses of his mind like a poisonous gas. The bright lights, gleaming white linoleum and identical rows of shelving only made these ominous realisations more confronting. Like they had suddenly morphed into a giant pair of granny panties storming out of the ladies underwear department. Or a 10-litre bottle of disinfectant growing legs and waltzing out of aisle 5. Or every last plastic soldier in the bucket of 200 for $3.99 coming to life and gunning down his self-worth in cold blood. Oh the horror.
This is why Sam needed his lunch breaks. Needed them like one needs to come up for air when underwater. Left to swim in the pool of such thoughts, he just might drown. While on these breaks Sam would like nothing better than to retreat back into his idyllic universe, where everything is, if not exactly fine, then at least bearable. He will do this by taking comfort in one of his many favourite things- a good album on his iPod, a book or comic. To be alone and undisturbed, Sam thought, was not too much to ask from his work colleagues. Obviously, Andy thought otherwise.
‘You’ve just gotta get out there. You’re a perfectly nice, normal guy. Plenty of girls would go for you,’ he said as mayonnaise started to dribble down his chin and a tiny piece of ham became embedded in his beard. “Come with me to the bar sometime. It’ll be fun. We’ll have a good time.’
Sam resisted the urge to retch over his chips and gravy, the nausea brought on both by Andy’s wearing of his lunch and the thought of spending any time with him socially, let alone in a drinking establishment.
‘No thanks.’
‘Why not?’
‘I’ve got stuff to do.’
‘Ha! I didn’t even tell you a day, how can you know you’re going to have stuff to do? Come on Sam, why the hell won’t you come out?’
‘Jeez Andy, I’m just not bar person, alright?’
Andy went back to taking greedy mouthfuls of his sandwich, a slightly wounded expression on his face. Sam couldn’t help feeling a small pang of guilt. He knew Andy meant well and that his frequent invitations to various social gatherings were just a good-natured attempt to involve him in human interaction that was actually pleasant. Sam suspected that despite being a year younger than him, Andy had some sort of warped older brother feeling for him. One that was not at all appreciated since it was based entirely on sympathy rather than genuine affection.