Every day, Norman Miller woke up at 7 am, after blinking 2 or 3 times, he would have a tick on his right eye that would not cease until he sat down on his kitchen chair and had his morning coffee while still being in his underwear and wearing gray socks all the way up to his knees. He had no clue what was about his tick that liked for him to do this every morning in order to leave him alone and be functional, but the tick considered itself as Norman’s morning companion and would not dare leave until he was ready for his long day working from 9 to 6 as a subway driver. After all, he was a lonely man that enjoyed feeding stray cats in memory of his lost childhood pet ‘Terminator’, answering online surveys, smelling people’s hair while waiting in line, zipping cold drinks in public until the straw and the glass would make that annoying noise, and his fridge was full with frozen fish sticks, which he had every night for dinner while watching re runs of Mexican soap operas on the tv. He didn’t understand a word of Spanish but he liked Eric Estrada a little too much.
Norman Miller had sported a thick mustache since he was able to grow facial hair, which was around the time he turned 14. He also started getting bald right after high school so he fancied wearing a toupee and when he was very bored he would just draw a couple of eyes and a mouth on his bald head and take pictures of it, he had quite a portfolio of those.
Like every Tuesday, Norman went to work just after greeting his morning tick and convincing it to stay home. It agreed after a little discussion of the pros and cons of bringing a third party to work and he also refused to engage in breaking corporate policies. Norman liked wearing his uniform perfectly neat, even if by the end of the day it would be soaking wet because of his transpiration problem and the constant drops of coffee that would run away from the cup to his suit to make him look sloppy. ‘Those little bitches have it coming… eventually I’ll teach them…’ he thought every time the sneaky drops of coffee would make a splash on his shirt and laugh at his face. He sure didn’t find them cute like they thought they were.
His usual train car was numbered 667, and he joked with himself that this train was the baby of the beast. Then he would laugh on his own, everybody would stare. He couldn’t help he was such a good silent comedian. The tick would have laughed… he should have brought it to work after all.
