Standing in the steam-filled bathroom, he looks into the fog-covered mirror, but cannot see his face. He runs his fingers through his thinning gray hair, feeling his receding hairline. There was a day when it was thick and full, but that day is so far behind him that now it seems like only a dream.
He walks down the hall to the closed bedroom door. The door creaks opening it, sending a tinge of worry to his shoulders. Light snores tell him she’s undisturbed. He next opens the closet—carefully—stares a moment, contemplating the weight the closet rod can hold, shakes the thought, then grabs his work clothes and heads to the living room to dress.
After getting dressed for work, he eats his morning breakfast: two pieces of toast, Metamucil mixed with apple juice (middle-aged man’s applesauce), some supplements, all washed down with a cup of instant coffee. The tabby cat next to an empty metal dish eyes him suspiciously. He picks up the dish, removes a bag of cat food from the cupboard, and fills it; the dried kibble dancing a little too loudly against the metal. His shoulders raise as he strains his ears, listening for the safe sounds of her snores.
The cat hisses at him when he tries to pet it (as it always does). His hand recoils.
Finishing his breakfast, he places the dishes in the washer and grabs his beat-up leather briefcase. He walks out the front door.
*
Outside, the crisp, cool air sends goosebumps to his arms and raises the hair on the back of his neck. The morning sunlight is too bright for his crow’s feet-etched eyes. He walks past the family sedan onto the street, continuing for several blocks until he reaches the bus stop. He waits, a line of sweat dripping down his back.
The bus approaches. For a moment, he sees himself stepping into its path, smashing his tired body to pieces, but the thought leaves as quickly as it came. The bus stops several feet past him (as it always does). He rushes to the open door, enters and pays his fare.
He makes his way through the tightly packed passengers (all refusing to move further back), excusing himself with every bump, until finding an empty seat at the rear. Strange that a bus so full would have a seat no one wanted. He sits down.
The man sitting beside him—scraggly and dirty, like Pig-Pen all grown up—stares at him uncomfortably. It’s going to be a long bus ride.
After what feels like sitting through Rings, the man finally says to him:
“Hey! Who are you?”
He tries his best to ignore the man.
“Hey! I’m talking to you. I said: Who are you? What, are you deaf?”
He offers a pained smile to the man, then looks to his fellow passengers; all have their eyes elsewhere, mostly on their devices. He wishes he had driven to work that day more than any other. But he and his wife went down to one car for a reason: to save money, money for yearly vacations, vacations to places like The Big Island in Hawaiʻi or the Maldives (all of her choosing, none where he wanted), vacations she spends bickering with him all day and night, vacations he spends daydreaming the vacations are over.
Eventually, although not soon enough, the man stops staring at him and yanks the stop cord hard enough to snap it. The bus slows to a halt, causing all the passengers to sway forward.
He stands and circles out of the way, letting the scraggly man go by as the man pushes his way off the crowded bus. He returns to his seat. No one takes the now-empty one beside him, no telling what still might be crawling on it. But he’s too lost in his thoughts to care. He can’t get what the scraggly man said to him out of his head; the man’s words play like a recording, over and over and over.
So focused on that encounter, he doesn’t even notice when the bus approaches his work. It drives past before he does. He pulls the stop cord. The bus continues, then stops. He exits and has to walk several blocks back.
*
Arriving an hour before everyone else (as he always does), he hurries to his cubicle, starts up his laptop, and opens his email. Waiting for him are several urgent messages from his manager, all with the same demand: FINISH THE REPORT.
He furiously fires at his keyboard, trying ever so hard to stay focused, to lose the man’s words, words that haunt him somewhere deep in the recesses of his weary mind.
About thirty-minutes in, a yawn ceases his typing. He removes a coffee cup from his desk drawer and walks to the break room. He pours a cup of day-old coffee and puts it in the microwave, waits. Thinking. Thinking so hard that the microwave dinging at completion startles him back to reality. He removes the hot cup and returns to his desk, hammering away at the never-ending report, taking a sip of coffee here and there, stifling yawns.
Coworkers file in, all carrying disposable coffee cups, all chatting, gossiping.
A little later in the morning, two twenty-somethings—already in the C-suite—stand near his cubicle. He can’t help but overhear their conversation: “We’re all going to…” one says, but then stops, and both peer at him quickly and look away, in a manner that suggests to him he just doesn’t belong. His worn-down shoe soles, his old man’s slacks, and his too-starched woven shirt give confirmation to their assessment.
“Let’s table this conversation,” the one says. They walk away.
All his thoughts now a hatchet to his skull.
*
The day rolls by. He eats his meager lunch: instant oatmeal, heated in the microwave, jazzed up with a few mini creamers—off-site meal prices are far too steep. Besides, he’s too busy finishing that urgent report to leave, let alone take a break.
*
Quitting time. All his coworkers now gone, off to wherever that after-work drink is. He continues typing away, carpal tunnel burning his wrist. His life of crunching numbers.
An hour later, he finishes, grabs his briefcase and heads for the bus stop.
*
The ride home is uneventful, thankfully. He doesn’t even imagine stepping in front of the bus this ride (like he does every time). Still, he questions how far from his true self he has slid.
*
At home, his wife sits on the sofa watching television. “Already ate,” she says, her eyes never leaving the screen. “There might be something in the fridge.”
“I’m okay.”
He goes for a kiss. She gives him the cheek. The cat watches from her lap. He sits down beside her. The cat hisses. She moves to the far end of the sofa. He stares blankly at the screen. Nothing of interest to him; some awful reality show. There was a time when he liked watching television at night after work. But his wife never wanted to watch what he wanted, so he never watched what he wanted, and he stopped liking television.
He excuses himself, but doesn’t try to kiss her this time. Why even bother? Besides, the cat would only hiss at him anyway, probably scratch him. Maybe the cat can tell he’s a dog person. He had a dog when he was a kid. He loved that dog. Loved himself then, too.
After brushing his teeth, he removes his work clothes, throws them in the hamper, goes to the bedroom and puts on his pajamas. He lies in bed. In the dark. Thinking.
*
4 AM arrives, and he didn’t sleep the whole night. So consumed with his thoughts, he didn’t even hear his wife come in; her light snores are the only thing that alerts him she is even there beside him.
He gets out of bed, takes a shower. When he’s done, he looks in the mirror again.
This time he can see himself.
He returns to the bedroom and watches his sleeping wife; his breathing now labored and tense. He walks to the drawer and opens it slowly, carefully. She still snores. He removes some clothes and leaves to get dressed in the living room.
He doesn’t feed the cat, skips breakfast too, takes the car keys and walks out of the house. The morning sun in his now-open eyes makes everything appear sharp and deeply saturated; the cool air fills his lungs with song, flowing and electric. He may not know who he is, but he’s about to find out. He enters the sedan, starts the engine, looks at the house one last time, and drives off, not knowing where, not caring either.
Maybe Mexico. He always wanted to go to Tulum.