By Rick

You wake up when it’s still dark outside. Your arm reaches out and after several fumbling attempts, your fingers finally find the familiar rectangular shape of your smart phone, bringing it to your face. You activate the cracked screen and it blinds your sleep deprived eyes. You squint and notice the digital readout says it’s 4 in the morning. You curse because you know you must get up in an hour, and you know you’re not getting any more sleep. You drag yourself out of bed and sit quietly in your living room, illuminated only by a lamp. You smoke your first cigarette of an early day out of a crushed pack you bought at the gas station yesterday. You cough and crush the ember of the cigarette into an ashtray populated by the crooked corpses of all the cigarettes you smoked the day before. The surface of the table the ashtray sits on is littered with gray bits of ash. You know it’s a disgusting habit, you know you should quit, you know it’s taking years off your life, but you just don’t care. Maybe I wanna die…maybe I’m just so cool I wanna die. You dress in the dark, all the while your back aches when you twist your torso the wrong way and make your way out into the freezing cold morning air. You climb into your car and yesterday’s empty Styrofoam coffee cup is still sitting in the cup holder. The seat next to yours is covered in food wrappers and crumbs from all the fast-food meals you force yourself to eat because you’re too tired after work to go grocery shopping. You start your car and make your way to some poorly lit, poorly heated building full of people that make you angry and exhausted.

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