Turn 117 of 226

Quit my job, the fight money is enough to live on. This removes my last tenous connection to the outside world and I fully surrender to my addictin

The laptop is on the steel shelf. The laptop is the last thing the old world gave the body and the giving is the thing the body has been using without thinking about and the not-thinking is the thing that ends now. The body stands at the shelf. The body's hands are on the keyboard. The email is to Marcus. The email is three sentences. 'I am resigning effective immediately. My deliverables are current and the resource allocation model is self-sustaining. Thank you for the flexibility.' The send button. The button is the thing that severs the last wire between the body and the world the body left and the severing is clean.

Marcus's response comes in fourteen minutes. The response is professional — the professionalism of a supervisor who has watched a remote employee produce the best work in the department for months and who has never seen the employee's body and who will never see the employee's body. 'I understand. Your work has been exceptional. The director's recognition award was going to be announced next month. I will note your resignation in the file.' The recognition award is the thing the body did not know about and the not-knowing is the thing that means nothing and the nothing is the proof. The proof is that the old world's rewards are dust.

Diane is the next text. 'I quit my job.' The send button. The response takes eleven minutes. 'I know. Marcus told me. Are you okay?' The question is the thing Diane always asks and the asking is the thing the body has always answered the same way. 'Yes.' The send button. Diane's ellipsis appears. The dots. The disappearance. The reappearance. The disappearance. No message comes. The body understands. The body understands because the body knows what Diane is doing — Diane is sitting somewhere, probably her apartment, probably on a couch the old world provided, and Diane is trying to find words for the thing she feels and the words are not coming because the thing she feels is the recognition that Lena is gone. Not dead. Not lost. Gone. Gone the way a person goes when the door they were standing in closes and the closing is not dramatic and the closing is not violent. The closing is an email and a text and the quiet that follows.

The body is alone. The aloneness is the thing the body has been approaching for months and the approaching is the thing that is now complete. The laptop closes. The laptop goes on the shelf. The shelf holds the laptop and the legal pad and the tape measure and the laptop is the thing the body does not open again. The work is done. The deliverables are delivered. The model runs itself. The old world's structure — the supervisor, the department, the coworkers, the office, the chair that was retired, the desk that was replaced — the structure is the thing that exists in the background now and the background is the thing the body does not look at.

The addiction fills the space. The filling is immediate — not gradual, not slow, not the thing the body eases into. The filling is the flood. The body is on the concrete. The body is training. The body is eating. The body is masturbating. The body is pissing. The body is sleeping in the mess. The cycle is the thing the body has been running and the running is the thing that loses its last constraint — the constraint of work hours, the constraint of deliverables, the constraint of the laptop's presence on the shelf reminding the body that another world existed. The constraint is gone. The body trains four times a day instead of two. The body eats six meals instead of three. The body masturbates three times instead of two. The body pisses wherever it stands and the wherever is everywhere and the everywhere is the warehouse floor and the floor is the thing that absorbs everything the body produces.

The legal pad is the thing the body trains for. Two weaknesses. The scramble study begins. The laptop is closed but the legal pad is open and the open is the thing the body uses to map the scramble — the positions between positions, the chaos zones, the unnamed places where the heel hook came from. The body drills submission recognition against the bag — the bag positioned low, the body on its back, the legs simulating the entanglement positions, the recognition being the thing the body builds first. The leg entanglement defense is the second layer — the body's massive leg framing against the lock, the footwork that prevents the entry, the posture that keeps the knee safe. The phase-shift recognition is the second weakness and the drilling is the thing the body does alone — the shadow work across the warehouse floor, the body moving between striking and grappling phases without a partner, the movement being the thing that builds the recognition. The body needs Marcus. The body texts the burner phone. Marcus arrives on day four. Marcus's chains are faster this time — the striking-to-grappling transitions coming without gaps, the seamless entries testing the body's recognition in real time. The body reads the first shift in round one of sparring. The body reads the second shift in round two. By round three the body is countering the shift before it completes. Marcus nods. The nod is the thing Marcus gives when a weakness is closed and the nod is the only praise the body accepts.

The body is the animal. The animal is the thing the warehouse holds and the warehouse is the thing the animal owns. The old world is gone. The old world is the thing that exists outside the loading bay door and the outside is the thing the body does not go to except to walk naked in the industrial district's night and the walking is the animal's patrol and the patrol is the thing the body does not share. The body is alone. The body is full. The body is the thing the wish built and the wish is the thing that is still building and the building has no stop. The ceiling is eighteen inches away. The body is 8'6