Fake Flowers

The City

"Good stranger," I continued, "I am ill and lost. Direct me, I beseech you, to Carcosa."

― Ambrose G. Bierce, An Inhabitant of Carcosa (1886)

Early on a Tuesday morning, Timothy Green woke up acutely aware of how empty his bed was. The occupancy of his bed could be defined mathematically as one multiplied by one, which equals one. Timothy would have much rather preferred if it had been one added to one or two multiplied by one; both equal two. Timothy would also have found a one added to two, or a three multiplied by one, or even a seven minus four, arrangement perfectly acceptable. The depressing act of describing his lonely life in mathematical terms made rising out of his bed difficult.

Timothy lived in a single bedroom apartment. It wasn't particularly comfortable, but it was home. The thought of which, that the apartment was his home, depressed Timothy. The walls were painted a dark blue-gray, which absorbed the sunlight in the early mornings and made the apartment bland like a colorless 1920s cinema picture. As he traipsed the grey landscape, he stubbed his toe more than once against his poorly placed furniture.

He began his morning routine by making an offering to his porcelain god. Timothy then fixed his morning coffee by first pouring the grounded beans into a paper filter, refilling the water in the coffee maker tank, jabbing Dark & Rich setting with his finger and then finally pressing the start button. The coffee maker came to life hissing and spouting out droplets of searing water.

Timothy began to fry an egg and two strips of bacon. The first egg crumbled in his hands when he attempted to crack it against the pan. The eggshell fell with the yolk onto the frying pan where they intermingled in an abominable way. With a grimace, Timothy tossed the frying pan into his sink, reached into his cabinet for another piece of cookware, grabbed another egg and successfully cracked it perfectly down the middle. Timothy then neatly placed the bacon strips next to the egg just as it began to sizzle.

The coffee maker pinged that it was finished and Timothy poured himself a cup. Timothy then attempted to cut a bagel in half but failed miserably in the attempt. Filled with shame, he put the poorly sliced bagel in his toaster. Timothy flipped his egg over, poked at the position of his bacon on the pan with a fork and sipped his coffee. The eggs, bacon, and bagel finished at roughly the same time. Timothy sat down at his small kitchen table and ate his meal.

After his breakfast had been eaten Timothy bathed. The shower head in his bathroom first trickled out water the size of teardrops then, after several strange gurgling noises, it gushed out like a waterfall. It took approximately five minutes for the warm water to arrive from its hellish depths.

Timothy spent that time brushing his teeth. This he began with a fervor, harshly scraping the thin bristles against his most outward teeth. However, as he started to move slowly backward, his patience ran out, and he abandoned the deepest parts of his oral cavity entirely. When the water had heated, he entered into the firing range of the pressurized jet gun, but quickly leaped out upon discovering that the water was hot enough to boil a lobster. Timothy spent the next several minutes fine-tuning the shower knob till he had the perfect combination of pressure and heat. As he waited for the water to cool Timothy shaved off the growing stubs of his facial hair. He gazed at himself in the mirror and saw the same lean jaw accompanied by a long predatory nose that he saw every morning. Timothy ran his fingers through his hair, an unkept raven-black lawn which grew across his cranium. Timothy eyes, grey like fog, stared back at him; his own stare unnerved him. Timothy then bathed himself. At first, like his teeth brushing, he began with gusto, but soon he retired from the shower leaving a quarter of his body unattended.

Timothy arranged his clothes on his unmade bed. He first began by applying his most intimate coverings. Next, Timothy buttoned up his shirt. His first attempt to do so was a failure as he mismatched the buttons and the button-holes and did not organize them in the correct corresponding way. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes, he attempted again; this also failed. The third time for him was not the charm, but Timothy succeeds on his fourth try. Timothy then put on his pants, leaping into the air to pull it up to his waist. He gently tucked his shirt into his pants, persuaded his fly to ascend upwardly, forced the pants button through its hole and wrapped his belt around his waist. Equipping his tie turned out to be easier than it was most mornings. The silken noose easily slipped around his neck and formed a pleasing knot underneath his Adam's apple. His socks became entangled by a hangnail on his left foot's big toe but were eventually persuaded to stop acting so delinquently. Finally, Timothy knelt down and tied the impossibly short strings on his shoes. Timothy donned on a frock coat and was ready to depart for his job.