He doesn't remember what it was like not to feel tired. Not like he needed to sleep, though he does often feel like that.
But tired. Truly tired. Sewn into his marrow.
Every day is the same.
He wakes up at five (all grey cotton-polyester sweats; the only skin he has are his white hands and face), flips the switch of the kettle, goes for a run. Half a mile up the street, half a mile back. Breathe the blue-black sky.
He pours a mug of instant hot chocolate.
40.
Half a mile up the street, half a mile back.
He showers, cleans the rest of his outsides, admires the cleanliness of his insides.
Pulls over fabric, then more, to soften the edges.
He debates for a long while. Distracts. Then sips the instant hot chocolate.
Dirty. Grimy. Putrid.
But warm, finally, if only for a moment.
One-and-a-half almonds—almost two—the fractioned one had been cut with a very sharp knife. Crush them between the teeth until they become gritty paste that can be pushed against the roof of the mouth with the tongue, beckoned back toward the throat like something hidden. Like he can trick God.
40 + 10 = 50.
He likes numbers that end in zero. He can handle rounding down if he rounds up sometimes, too.
In the rear pocket of his backpack, the one with squishy layers on either side of it to protect what's inside, he places his schoolwork: color-coded, neat handwriting that slants to the right like it's running. In the front pocket, his journal. His pencils. A plastic bag of cucumber slices and lettuce. A honey-cranberry granola bar, the number 200 written on it very aggressively in black Sharpie, and his tattered copy of Quiet Don (in Russian) (obviously).
In the small pocket, his phone charger. Band-aids. Six packs of gum (lemon, cinnamon, birthday cake, mint, mint, and mint) in varying stages of life. Eight small butterscotch candies in crunchy plastic wrap. A pack of fruit snacks, only the strawberry kind.
He locks them all inside with a zip.
He walks up the creaking staircase again.
Piss, and listen to the sound. Strip. Step on. Off. On, off. On. Off.
Sigh. Write it down. Dress, feeling abandoned, and then walk back downstairs.
It's six-twenty, like it is every morning. The ticking off the clock is echoing, and when he gets to the bottom of the staircase, he rocks back and forth on the rubber soles of his shoes, and sees black spots like raindrops.
Not now. Please, please not now.
He pulls his backpack up onto an aching shoulder. Puts in his earbuds. Turns up the music so it drowns out the clock and the swishing of the dishwasher (there are only mugs inside. Mugs and mugs from an eternity of identical mornings).
It takes fifty minutes to walk to school, so it's seven-ten.
The bell rings at seven-twenty. He's early to class.
