Day seven of this one, and his lips are numb with sadness; the tips of his fingers, too. Even breathing is a chore, like emptying out your lungs so you can sit on the bottom of the pool, holding yourself down against the natural bouyancy of a body, but in reverse. He pushes air into his chest, forces his ribcage open, how long has it been since his last breath? He keeps forgetting to breathe.

Food is a nightmare, the fridge a slap in the face. He forces himself to eat, sandwiches upon sandwiches, sometimes rice, sometimes an egg, meaningless, just calories shoveled into the engine, eat, eat, always eat; you can’t sleep if you don’t eat, you can’t think if you don’t eat, you don’t have to enjoy it but you do have to do it, so: he eats. He resents it, but he eats, stomping it down to ferment where it can do some good.

He sits in the sun, eyes screwed up against the light, surly and dour, metabolizing vitamin D, staving off cabin fever. Low energy output; like a cat he can stretch out and trust his body to get on with its business. It’s been a week, what novelty there was in the mood has worn off and he’s too old a hand at this to truly despair; the endless flow carries him towards the inevitable other side.