When?

The light turned his eyelids red and he slowly opened them, letting it in. The sun was shining over his impeccably white sheets. Sighing, he laid for a moment longer, realizing today wasn’t the right day. It was far too nice out now to give up. Well, to be fair, he’d given up a long time ago, hadn’t he? That was beside the point. Today wasn’t a good day, he’d have to try again tomorrow.

Alex rolled out of bed, his neck aching. He knew he slept most nights with his shoulders up to his ears. His doctor told him it was anxiety, maybe he should try medication. Spending money on that sort of thing now felt like a waste. Why make the pharmacist mix together powders to settle a long-lost war with his brain? It was broken already, no amount of pills could fix it; band-aid on a decapitation. He walked to his fridge, pulling out a carton of orange juice, the cap crusted with dark orange orangeness. He drank straight from it, letting some of the crust fall to his feet, where it would stay until Rob scuffed over it with his thin spinning fingers.

What to do today? He could walk in the park, it was beautiful out after all. What if he decided halfway through his walk that this week wasn’t the week? That happened sometimes, some strange, survival-based instinct would tell him it’s a lot of work to die, you know. He knew that. He’d been contemplating it for years, and deciding on it for months. There was quite a bit to consider, where would his worthless stuff go? Who would tell his mother? Was it worse to break her heart by dying or by continuing to live a meaningless life? Alex really had no impact on anyone, all he did all day was pretend to be a successful author. The same old, struggling artist story, telling his family that he was going on a book tour when they knew otherwise. He was acutely aware that entering his name in a search engine only showed his social media accounts.

         No walking in the park today. Maybe he'd sit on his roof, dusting his shoes with the strange gravel that covered its surface. No one really went up there anyways. And maybe he'd decide to jump off and finalize this decision that'd been wracking his brain for nearly a year now. Alex was tired of thinking, he'd been doing it so much for thirty years. When he was a kid, he'd always been thinking. The first time he wondered about the meaning of life he was seven. No seven year olds are supposed to think about that. He should've been worried about which dinosaur was the biggest, what cartoon character he thought was the funniest, not why on Earth he even existed in the first place.

         He never had a lot of friends growing up. Teachers favoured him because he always knew the answer. Knowing the answer wasn't cool though, so he stopped for awhile. He pretended that he didn't know how igneous rock was created, what Hemingway really meant by I can't stand it to think my life is going so fast and I'm not really living it, for what flow Bernoulli’s equation is valid. Fifteenth in his class of 500, he graduated with no honours and went to a state school to pursue English. 

         It wasn't until his freshman year of college that he realized there was a whole separate element of cool. English majors weren't one of them. He didn't wear scarves woven in Italy, and he could recite full Neruda poems but he wasn't attractive enough for anyone to want to listen. So he didn't have a lot of friends in college either. Except one.

        She was weird too, but somehow no one made fun of her for it. Maybe it was because she never cared. She said to him once, while they were sitting on the steps of the university library: "Alex, I don’t think I care much what people in general think of me." It was a simple statement and without knowing her he would've brushed it off as a self-preserving statement; something said to give oneself a semblance of control over one’s own roiling emotions. When he looked into her eyes, he saw a measure of certainty he'd never seen in a fellow twenty year old. It made him wonder if he could come to terms with years of abuse and mockery. He only ever wondered.

       Sylvia Mallory wasn't beautiful, she wasn't even-tempered or mild or even that intelligent. But she somehow always made room for him in her life, without stipulations or judgement. He was allowed to just be there. Not a lot of people liked him even being there. That diminishes her value to him, but for anyone who has ever been lonely before, and for a long time, it's the greatest gift a person can give.

        No, today wasn't the day. He would go for a walk and pretend to himself that she was walking alongside him. You really could be something someday, someone. I know it. He wanted nothing more than to make her proud, but finding the strength to escape his bed in the morning was hard enough. To do that and to really try? To give life a real effort? He closed his eyes, still standing in the kitchen, the orange crust on the floor by his toes, the sun shining into the room, even brighter still than when it woke him. He imagined what she'd think of him now, as he stood shirtless, wearing boxer shorts and the weight of a life wasted. 

         She smiled at him. Something gave within him and he began to cry. She would still be proud of him. Mad at him, angry that he wasn't doing more, but she'd be proud of him for not doing it today. For giving himself another day.

         He set the carton back in the fridge, got dressed and locked the front door. Alex headed down the street, the trees swaying in the light spring breeze, carrying pollen that made him sneeze and his eyes itch but he ignored it. In his hand was a moleskin and a Zebra F-301. Today wasn't a good day, he'd have to try again.