At 5:00 a.m., he sat back down at the typewriter. He pulled out the half-finished poem and crumpled it. Then he put in a fresh sheet. The paper was yellowed, soft with age, like a dead man’s skin. He rolled it into place. He stared at the blank space.
Just the dark.
At 4:00 a.m., he poured the cooking sherry. It tasted like regret mixed with cough syrup and a hint of rotting plum. It was perfect. He drank it warm, straight from the bottle, standing at the window in his underwear. The city was a grid of yellow lights, each one a cage with a different kind of animal inside. Couples sleeping back-to-back. Insomniacs watching infomercials. Children with fevers. None of them knew he existed. None of them would have cared if they did. At 5:00 a
I am so alone that the walls have started to listen. They don’t answer, but they don’t leave either. That’s more than most people.
“See?” he mumbled to the empty room. “Even the pests give up.” The paper was yellowed, soft with age, like
He looked at the cockroach again. Then he looked at the last line he’d written. He smiled. Not because he was happy. But because the cockroach, at least, had died doing what it loved. Nothing.
Don’t save me. I’m finally home.
The poem read: