Tuesday, 2:27 PM

The cursor blinked. And blinked. And blinked again.

Nothing came out.

It was 2:27 PM.

Josh leaned back slightly. The chair creaked in the same way it always did – that dry, tired groan of something that had supported him for too long. It was one of those office chairs he’d bought from Ikea’s website during a week of aggressive discounts. The product name said satin graphite finish, which sounded serious, grown-up. A chair a successful man might sit in. At least, that’s what he liked to believe.

Barefoot, he wore a pair of grey sweatpants, baggy at the knees, and a faded black T-shirt from an e-sports tournament in 2021. He’d never been to the event. Bought the shirt because it said Limited Edition and, back then, he fancied himself the type who’d go to those things. Now the shirt was just soft, oversized, and asked no difficult questions.

On the desk, beneath an opened protein bar wrapper and a smart ring he never used again, lay the crumpled book titled: “90 Days to Get Rich: The 7 Habits That Changed My Life.” Josh was stuck on chapter two. The last highlight read: “Wake up before the world and you’ll always stay ahead.” He had underlined it. Twice. Read it lying down at 11:17 AM, just before going back to sleep.

Behind him, a poorly closed blind let in a hesitant streak of light. His one-bedroom flat looked like a simulation of adult life based on Pinterest and cashback. A clearance-sale sofa, a coffee table he assembled incorrectly and never fixed, and two framed posters: one read Discipline is Freedom, the other was just a mountain with the word BREATHE underneath. Sometimes he stared at the latter while scrolling Twitter.

Max, his dog, was curled up on the rug. The only living being in the world he truly loved. A mongrel with crooked ears, one of those with a look that suggested it had already figured everything out. Josh adopted him five years ago, from a shelter he’d only entered because the café next door was giving out free cookies. Max looked up at him with that calm, lopsided gaze, and something inside Josh said this one. He trusted that impulse more than he had trusted any other decision in his life.

Max snored now, steady, calm. Honest.

Josh envied that. The honesty of dogs. The clarity. Max didn’t worry about retirement, purpose, or relevance. He marked trees and that was enough.

Meanwhile, Josh had to think.

He thought about dropping everything. About becoming a digital nomad. About opening a vegan burger joint in the countryside of Minas. He thought about Lara, who now lived in Lisbon with a Frenchman who made organic wine. He thought about marriage, children, and his father, whom he hadn’t called in weeks. He thought about supplements, climate apocalypse, other people’s success, fear of ageing, and the new productivity podcast that promised to “transform your mind in 3 episodes.”

He remembered a YouTube video he’d watched the previous week. A tanned, smiling man, half coach and half philosopher talked about hedonism, about living with pleasure, about how “pleasure was a sign of the soul’s authenticity.” That line had stayed in Josh’s head for days.

It reminded him of something else, from long ago. An old film he’d watched as a teenager. It had Robin Williams. He was a teacher, or something like that. There were students, books, beautiful phrases. And one everyone repeated. What was it? “Carpe diem.” That’s it. Seize the day.

Josh whispered it.

“Carpe diem.”

Then he wondered: “Was that really the meaning? Or just a nice way of saying ‘get on with it’?”

He didn’t know.

His stomach growled. Then fell silent.

He thought about getting up. He didn’t.

After a few more seconds, without conviction, he stood up anyway. Dragged himself to the kitchen, feet cold on the tiled floor. On the way, he passed Max, who didn’t stir.

The kitchen was that kind of mess that wasn’t quite dirty, just evidence of a life interrupted in multiple places. The sink had two plates stacked up, stained with industrial tomato sauce, a half-washed knife, and a glass with a ring of old, cold coffee. There was also a spoon sunken into the remains of some natural yoghurt he’d bought in a recent – and failed – attempt to improve his gut flora. Didn’t work!

On the counter, three mugs, all used. One of them had the phrase “Work. Hustle. Repeat.” printed in matte black. He chuckled to himself. How long had it been since he’d done any of the three?

He opened the fridge.

The internal light, a bleached tone of melancholy, lit up the vacuum. There was half a lemon, drying out. A sealed tub of pre-cooked chickpeas. A slice of cheesecake, three days out of date. Four cans of craft beer and three bottles of sparkling water. No proper food. Just insinuations.

He grabbed one of the waters, shut the door slowly, as if not to disturb the ghosts living inside. The bottle was cold, slippery, with little droplets forming random shapes on the glass. He traced them with his finger, absent-minded, until the silence wrapped around him again.

He twisted the cap slowly. The soft psshhhht of the gas escaping was almost a victory. He took small sips. It didn’t quench any thirst, but it gave the illusion of freshness. And sometimes, illusion was all one could have.

He leaned on the sink, stared at the floor. For a moment, he felt as though watching his own life from above, like a security camera filming the afternoon of just another pointless day in just another flat.

He returned to the living room, slowly. Max was still lying down. Josh sat again. The chair creaked.

In the corner of the room, the Kindle rested with its screen frozen on a quote about dopamine fasting. The irony of the moment was almost poetic.

He’d heard of Becker. And Freud. Of the illusion of control. From his therapy days, he remembered something about the ego trying to protect itself, manufacturing meaning where only boredom existed. He’d never quite understood it.

Besides, he’d quit therapy a few months later, convinced the therapist only wanted his money, which wasn’t much to begin with. And anyway, all that thinking about problems only brings new problems. Better to leave things be and live with the ones he already knew, he thought.

He felt a strange kind of fatigue. The sort that didn’t come from the body, but from having thought too much and reached nowhere.

He leaned his head back on the chair. Breathed out slowly. Closed his eyes for a moment. He felt drained, like someone who’d run an emotional marathon. As if he’d stared into the abyss and returned. Sweaty, dishevelled, but standing.

Then, it happened.

A muffled, intestinal sound broke the silence.

Max, shifting in his sleep, let out a fart. Simple, direct, guilt-free. Josh laughed. A short, sad laugh. As if the universe had interrupted his grand inner journey just to remind him that life, in the end, was that: flesh, sound, and honesty.

He blinked. Felt almost feverish. Tired, as if he’d cried, though he hadn’t shed a tear. Just thought too much. Or thought he had.

He ran a hand over his face. Stared into nothing for a while. Then looked at the notebook screen, instinctively, like someone checking the sky to see if it’s about to rain.

He frowned. He could’ve sworn it had been at least an hour. That whole torrent of plans, the memories, the traumas, the philosophers, the hedonism, the dog, the expired cheesecake. All of it.

He felt a strange kind of shame. Of himself. As if he’d staged an entire play, performed a Greek tragedy, sweated beneath the spotlights of thought… and the theatre was empty.

His mind spun pointlessly, like a car stuck in the mud.

He lowered his gaze. Max was still asleep, peaceful, as if everything was in order. And in a way, it was. At least for him.

Josh stayed there, still. A sliver of awareness crossed him. He was a man tired from thinking too little about too many things.

Or maybe not even that.

Leaning on the chair, he muttered:

— Bloody hell...

And said nothing more.

In the bottom right corner of the screen, the digital clock read:

2:31 PM.