Mike: Glipses of A Man Part III

Link to Parts I and II

Part III

Tranquility can stir a sane man to madness-

Humidity seeped through the floorboards as he slept upright in the single seater wedged between the door and the closet. A pile of books, stacked largest to smallest, rested at his feet. He was clean to a fault, except for the overflowing ashtrays around the apartment. But despite drowning in ash, they retained his methodic, ordered, flow. One on each end table. Two across the intolerably long window sill. One more placed in the corner of the fire escape.

The fish tank rested, half empty, centered on an open shelf near the window. The water had evaporated slowly over the months since last in-habitation. The remaining water rippled, rather, reverberated with the beat of his neighbors' apartment doors.

The fingers on his left hand twitched with the rhythm of the water- from a triumphant thump to a whispered tap of the pinky. His head rested, hanging over the back of the chair. Seven days unshaven. He had conquered his adam's apple two days prior, and was slowly encroaching, ever closer, to the collar of his half-buttoned shirt.

A glass rested in his right hand, ice cubes long melted from the heat. The air around the glass, smelled of gin, masked in chap stick and breath mints. His unconscious fingers instinctively caressed the glass, making their rounds around the brim, polluting the sides with humidity induced fingerprints. Finally he rested the glass, on the edge of the couch, balanced only by his palm, as his left hand began a new beat.

A fly emerged from the crack in the window sill. It bounced itself harmlessly off the window longing for it to shatter into pieces. An invisible barrier separating it from the world. Failure was inevitable, and the fly sought a different path. It found none. Mentally relentless, yet physically worn the fly perched itself on the now motionless figure on the couch.

His right hand reacted, releasing the glass to eradicate the vermin that had made a home of his brow. The glass tumbled slowly toward the floor, the melted ice flowing, striking first, seeping through the floorboards. The glass followed, chipping upon impact. A shard of glass wedged itself into his bare ankle. A drop of blood.

He found consciousness, his eyes spasmed open as the glass injected itself into his still resting body. His mouth fell open, as his hand finally smothered the fly into the wrinkles lining his forehead.