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His bed wasn’t comfortable.
It should be, it was made to be comfortable, that’s the point.
He was awake.
He shouldn’t be, he hadn’t slept in… he didn’t know how long.
Pulling out his phone, an Iphone 6s - he didn’t know how old of a model it was, probably at least 7 years at this point, - and checked the time.
2:17
Ah, and what day was it?
He thought for a second.
“Tuesday, right?”
It was Friday.
“Ah.”
Either way, he had 5 hours until his classes started, which wasn’t a lot, he thinks.
Time flew past him anyway, a second easily turned into a minute, a minute into an hour, an hour into a day, a day into a week, a week into a month, a month into a year, and a year…
So who cared.
Not like he’d remember the last month in a day or two, maybe even while going to school today.
He got out of the bed, it was low to the ground meaning he had to push himself up quite a bit before standing on his legs.
Walking out of his room, he pushed aside empty bottles and dirty clothes- he hadn’t cleaned his room in months.
The bathroom was directly next to the bedroom, a small perk of living in a small apartment, so the walk didn’t take too long.
Stepping in, he didn’t take note of anything, it just was as it always had been. A slight stench covered the room, mainly due to the fact that the sewage pipes of the apartment complex all ran through this room - it was just as bearable as ever-. The shower and toilet were both clean enough, it’s not like someone would ever visit to judge. The sink was mostly clean, with some stray beard hairs he forgot to clean up clinging to the inside. The mirror had a slight crack in one of its corners.
As he entered the shower, he pulled the curtain shut and turned on the faucet.
It was cold, but he didn’t care, it’s not that he preferred the cold, he just couldn’t be bothered to care enough about whether it was hot or cold.
Showering took about 5 minutes, he hadn’t washed his hair - he simply forgot.
Drying himself took 2 minutes, his hair was still mostly wet - drying it was annoying.
Afterwards he brushed his hair for a minute - he couldn’t be bothered to do more.
Looking at himself in the mirror, his tired eyes could barely make out his own features, and honestly?
He had forgotten some.
Like his eyes, were they green or brown, his hair, was it always such a dark shade of brown, his nose, was it big or small, his lips, why were they so cracked?
What was his name again?
He didn’t care for the answers.
He left the bath, again he pushed aside dirty clothes and empty bottles, he even stepped on some paper bags he forgot to put in the trash.
The Kitchen was also directly next to his bedroom.
It was clean, a likely shock to anyone who would see it, not that anyone would.
The reason it was clean was simple, he rarely used it.
He looked through the cabinets, to see if he had anything edible within them.
The answer was no, he knew there was nothing inside any of them, not even in the fridge. If there was food, it was likely already rotten.
But, he looked through them anyway, for no real reason, his tired mind simply couldn’t be bothered to do anything else.
He found nothing of note, most of the cabinets were empty.
He opened another one, it had a set of porcelain plates.
“Huh… Porcelain…?”, he wondered if he should just sell the set, “Oh yeah… those were mom’s, right?”.
He continued looking through the cabinets, finding nothing of note.
He stopped looking.
“Ok.”
He just wouldn’t eat until later, that was fine, he’d been hungry before.
Back to the bed is where he went. And he waited.
He just stared at the ceiling while lying in his bed.
He did nothing.
BZZZ
An alarm on his phone went off.
6:40, it said in big bold letters.
His bus would arrive in 8 minutes.
Dressing himself in a simple white T-shirt and black sweatpants, he readied himself to leave his apartment. The apartment’s exit was also connected to his bedroom.
Strolling down the stairs, he’d already forgotten the last few hours.
Leaving the apartment complex, he felt the fresh and cold air.
‘Wasn’t it September?’, he thought.
It had been December for 8 days now.
It didn’t matter, not to him anyway, he could deal with the cold.
Nobody else was at the bus station, as usual.
As he waited, the skin around his hand began to crack - it was dry.
The bus was similarly empty, with only 4 other people.
He sat in the back, staring at nothing in particular.
It took 8 minutes for the bus to reach the main station, from which he took another one to his school.
The process of doing so had become so ingrained in him, that he barely registered it as it happened.
5 minutes later he arrived at the school, there was a supermarket next to it, he didn’t have any money, so he didn’t bother heading there.
Heading towards the school, he noticed something.
Someone was sitting on one of the benches in front of the school, an older man, graying hair paired with an unruly beard, the black rim of a pair of glasses sitting atop a red nose - likely due to the cold- he wore a brown coat and a blue beanie. His breath was visibly uneven, and made apparent by the fog leaving his mouth.
The man turned to him.
“You seem early.”
“I am?”, the man was right, he was usually the first person to be at school.
“No one else is around, yet here you are. You must be quite studious.”, the man gave a warm smile.
“I’m not.”, he was honest.
“Then what are you doing here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ah.”
An awkward silence filled the space between the two of them.
The man squinted his eyes, seemingly trying to get a better look at the person he was talking to.
“You look tired. In more ways than one.”
“Do I?”
“The bags under your eyes are darker than most, that’s for sure. Have you slept well? Furthermore, the look in your eyes, it’s distant.”
“I know.”
The man offered to let him sit on the bench, he took the offer.
“How was your day so far?”
He shrugged.
“Was it unpleasant?”
“No. I don’t think so. It probably just was.”
“Are most days like that.”
“I think so. It seems like it at least.”
The man took a good look at him.
And the only way he could describe him was… sad… yes, sad, that’s the most fitting word.
“Are you happy?”
“I don’t think I am”, he was being honest, he couldn’t bring himself to call himself happy.
“Ah… do you want to be happy?”
“I don’t think so”, he was being honest, he couldn’t bring himself to want to be happy.
“Then why are you here?”
“I am alive.”
“And why is that, you don’t seem to enjoy it in any real capacity.”
He gave no answer at first, he looked up ever so slightly, his eyes landing on the school.
It was decorated for Christmas, a time of year he never managed to appreciate. He simply lacked the eye for wonder that all his fellows had. He didn’t see the value in giving gifts, coming together… hell even the notion of celebrating something which most people obviously didn’t believe in was nothing more than abstraction to him.
But he wished it wasn’t like that, he wanted to care about those benignly absurd traditions the same way others did, he wanted to be able to see the joy in something so blatantly moronic, he really did.
His dry lips cracked, as a slight smile formed.
“I want to enjoy it, maybe not now, maybe not ever, but I want to.”
The man looked at him, clearly confused.
“Go on.”
He turned his head up, shutting his eyes and letting the slowly falling snow fall on his face.
“I don’t get most of anything, honestly, I feel detached from my peers, my superiors and from the few inferiors I have. Every single smile feels so distant and pointless. None of what I achieve has any weight, no matter how good I am at a class, no matter how much better I am than someone else, I don’t feel what I think I should. No joy, no victory, I just have to go on. It’s been like that for what feels like forever.”
He paused.
He could feel the snow on his face, it was cold, it really was, he could feel his fingers getting colder to, his chest was also being filled with a light chill.
He continued.
“I don’t see the joy in the little things, I feel nothing when someone lets me go before them at the cashout, I don’t care when someone offers me something for free, none of the decorations around me elicit any emotional response”, he took a deep breath, ”I don’t care though, I just go on, and I think I know the reason why.”
The man perked up.
“What is it?”
“I want to care.”
The smile on his cracked lips grew. A bit of blood could be seen.
“I want to be able to appreciate the little things. I want to be able to care about the actions of the people around me. I want to be proud of my own achievements. I want to see the fun in the meaningless. I want to be able to wake up in the morning and be excited for the coming day.”
His lip was bleeding fully now.
“I know I don’t right now. I know that won’t happen anytime soon. I know that it’s probably pointless. I know I likely won’t achieve anything I should be proud of. I know I likely won’t meet anyone who I want to spend my life with. I know that I likely won’t ever see the fun in celebrating the birth of a man I will never know. I know that I likely won’t ever wake up and laugh at the thought of it being wednesday.”
The blood dripped down his chin.
“But I want it and I will live until I have it, that’s it.”
The man nodded, a slight shiver followed the action.
They were both cold, they’d been sitting here for far too long.
The man spoke.
“That’s good.”
The man stood up and beckoned the young man to do the same.
“I hope you enjoy your day”, said the man as he continued his morning walk.
“I wish I did”, he said as he went inside his school.
He had an hour left before classes started.
‘Still early’, he smiled