I wasn’t hungry.
Hell.
What?
No, listen, it’s about work.
What work?
Exactly.
That damn rattling had woken me.
Just breath. The nightmare had passed.
The grey paneling of my ceiling said nothing back as I swore to it. “Bastard. Faggot. Mongoloid… Uh… fuck.” I couldn’t go on, couldn’t think.
The hour I lay in bed before going back to sleep each night was like being dead.
I couldn’t take the alternative. No more lights. I didn’t plug in anymore.
At a certain point, I had to make the choice. My body couldn’t handle the strobes in my skull.
The wires dangled in the air beside my bed. That was my last thought as I started to drift off, watching them sway in the draft of my air vent’s flow.
There was no sinking or sense of time. I never had the memories of what I dreamt, only the impressions they left of meaning.
My alarm clock started screaming at me.
Nevermind.
The floor met my bare toes as I threw back my covers automatically. My phone was across the room, blasting cellos. I stumbled to the dresser. As I lifted it up to swipe away the noise, my thumb brushed over the cracks there. I unlocked it with the code I knew by heart and checked my text messages.
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