I started this story a while back. It's a work in progress. I'd greatly appreciate any and all feedback.
Working Title
Eventually he woke to an empty apartment. A big black cat sometimes slept next to him. He’d slowly creak out the bed, and often times his muscles felt tight and sore like he had been clinging to something with all his strength. The time after he woke were the hardest for him to cope with. It was when he was most vulnerable to the blur, when he cared the most. He’d go to the kitchen and eat something, only to realize it tasted like shit.
In the last few months and weeks he had lost forty pounds. After meandering through the muck of his loneliness he would sleep until it started again. This had been going on for months now. It was a solitary march into the dark of insanity.
He put on his socks. The socks were at least a week old, and stiff to the touch. It wasn't that he didn't care for the loss, rather, he refused to care anymore. He was starting to slip. Little things, like doing the laundry, became nearly impossible. The days all were like a hazy fog felt moments after waking. He was dreadful, but at least he didn't care.
Five days out of the week were exactly the same. He would wake up at four am, get ready for work, and be on the road by four fifteen. He would be there four thirty. As he’d pull up he would see the others, and toss the butt of his cigarette out from between his fingers. He would walk up to the shop’s doors, and unlock them. In those first moments words were never exchanged. Just silence. They had worked with him for some years now, and they were attuned to his moods in the same way you know it’s winter by how cold it is outside. They knew.
The shop was a menial distraction from the fact that he was drifting in the black desolation of grief. In the five years he worked there they had promoted him to manager. One of a few, but still he was paid more than the shit heads he worked with. He worked the same shift over and over for at least the last two years. It went the same way always.
First he would count into the safe, and count the tills. Next, he would put out the newspapers, and umbrellas. He would squeeze in a cup of iced coffee to spike his senses. Then, the fog would settle in and he would blur the morning into one or two distinguishing moments. A beautiful blur here, or a dumb blur there. That's all that stood out. Finally, it would end and he would leave wondering where the last eight hours of his life had gone. He’d light a smoke and drive away with a dreariness in the atoms of his being. The drive usually lasted no longer than ten minutes but that drive always had an awful drag on time.
When he would get home at first the days would blur into those from the time before. An argument they were having about working in bed rather than in the living room would break through the loneliness that had become his life, and for a second he expected her to walk in. That wasn't the case though. There were no more fights. There was no more love. When he was himself again he’d feed their two cats, smiling down at them as they ate. He would load a huge bowl in a meticulous way, as if he was a pharmacist trying to portion the right amount for medication. He would use the same lighter as always, use the same bong, and take the same amount of hits. After he was adequately medicated, he would remove his pants and underwear. He fucked his hand this way since time immemorial. After he came, he would wipe his cum on the blanket on the side of the bed that was hers. He would fall asleep and dream of nothing.
-Zachacaria