Jim's Story

Hey guys I thought I would post just a taste of a story I'm writing about a guy named Jim.  I'm not 100% on where the story is going just yet and I don't know if it will expand into a novel or will just be a short story or what, but I'm just working on it.  I have another story going too about another character that I may connect with this.  Check it out and let me know what you think.

Jim sat motionless on the couch in his one bedroom apartment.  He was staring into space, really looking at nothing, not even thinking about anything.  It was Los Angeles, 1993.  Jim’s cigarette laid smoking idly in the ashtray beside him, smoke curling up in a thin gray line.  Outside the window, the night-life went on.  Suddenly, lost son deep in his dazed state, Jim suddenly had an unexpected thought.  Am I really here right now?  Jim could really lose himself inside his head.  It could get so intense that he would lose sight of where he was in the world at that moment.  Yes, I’m really here.  He looked around at that shitty place that he now regarded as his home.  He really didn’t mind all that much.  Jim was able to get used to any surroundings after a certain matter of time.  He always heard people complaining about where they lived, but to Jim, that didn’t really make sense.  He was extremely adaptable.  It just took a little time.  At first, he would be homesick for his previous residence because he had developed such a familiarity for it.  But after maybe a few weeks, sometimes a month, his new place would simply become home.  Jim was different from most people.  And he knew that.  He often wondered if there was anyone else in the world that was actually the way he was.  He figured it was probable, with the amount of people that were actually out there.  Jim had never met that person though.  Did he really want to?  Suddenly, he popped himself off the single bed out of his trance and went to the cupboard, grabbed himself a cup, and poured himself some water from the tap.  He analyzed the cup he held in his hand.  It was plastic.  Jim hated plastic cups.  He didn’t know why exactly.  He supposed they reminded him of his childhood, when everything was always decided for you and things were left out of your own hands.  He always felt that water tasted so much better when it was drunk out a very nice glass.  The taste definitely wasn’t any different, he didn’t think.  It was just something about the aesthetic that psychologically made the water taste better.  This was the kind of thing that Jim often thought about.  He liked to analyze things that other people might overlook.  Things that had to with the mind; how the way we look at the world and think about it directly affects the way we behave.  Although, most of the time, we’re not consciously aware of these connections.  And he realized that a lot of it does have to do with childhood experiences.  However, it can be difficult to pinpoint the exact experiences from our childhood that affect our behaviour today.  No, Jim was not a psychiatrist or a psychologist.  Although he often thought that he could have benefited from seeing one.  He had never gone though.  He also often felt that he could have been a great psychiatrist himself.  Often, the best psychiatrists are those who have the most issues of their own.  And Jim did have issues.  He knew this.  He even knew what a lot of his biggest issues were.  But he also knew even though he knew that he had problems, he was powerless to fix them.  Well, yes, he could go to doctor.  But he never did.  There wasn’t really any reason for it.